From the Land of Smiles...

mothers day...and temples

Hey everybody, (this is from the 15th)

I hope you liked the pictures...I have more to come when I go home (i'm at school right now)... I wanted to tell you about the mother's day ceremonies...Mother's day is the Queen's birthday and it is on August 12. It is a national holiday and there is no school...In the morning my host father took us to a little fair type thing at a government building where schools had set up booths. That’s where Nook and I made the candles (in the pictures)...We walked around and painted some little figurine things and ate some sweets (thai doughnuts)... T

hat night we went to some big mother's day celebrations. They were at a really big park in Rayong that usually has alot of fitness stuff going on there (there's a track, and basketball and tennis courts, etc...) They had a big stage set up with a huge picture of the queen (in the pictures). There were dances on the stage (traditional thai dance is very beautiful)...the thing that I have to get used to is the music. There's alot of percussion, which is good, but one of the instruments tended to do this really high pitched squeal thing that kind of hurt my ears, lol...Then there were a bunch of speeches, and many people presented things on the stage (symbolizing their respect for the queen). Then there was alot of singing (by everyone)..there seem to be alot of national songs here...Then there were fireworks and stuff....In thailand there is a celebration like this every year. The thai people take their monarchy very seriously.

Yesterday, Sunday, I thought we were going to have a lazy day, not really doing much, until my host mother knocked on my door and told me that we were going to the temple in 30 minutes....ahhh, it was hard to get ready that fast, but i did it...then the entire family (including uncles and aunts and grandparents...and me) went to the temple to give alms. The temple was not the big beautiful thing that I thought that it would be. It was just a wooden building, and except for the Buddha images and displays around them, there wasn’t really anything special about it. The people gave food and baskets of things to the monks. Before and after this there was “praying”. We all sat facing the monks with our palms pressed together up to our chests and one of the monks (the oldest) chanted. Every so often we bowed our heads. I just followed everyone else, since I didn’t really know what was going on. The chanting was very beautiful sounding. Once all of this was done, the monks had eaten, and there was more chanting and praying, the monks left and we all ate. After that, the head monk gave gifts to everyone. A very very tiny silver Buddha image in a plastic box.

Ohhh, and outside I saw my first Thai monkey. It was outside the temple tied to a tree…I felt bad for it…I also took a picture…

After that we all got into cars and drove for a very long time. We drove to a very historic temple called Tammarod. It was very beautiful there. There were statues everywhere and we walked around for at least an hour looking at them all, they were beautiful. We also went to a little temple there. There was a monk there (he was wearing brown robes instead of orange, which I thought was weird). He spoke to us all, and he kept laughing and would occasionally point at me and say something and laugh. He gave out books. I didn’t get one, but Nook gave me hers after. At the end, Nook’s grandmother got up in front of him on her knees and wai-ed (bowed) down to the floor. He took his umbrella, said something and tapped her on the head 3 times. She then wai-ed to the ground 3 times. This happened with all of us. I’m not sure what it means…maybe he blessed us or something….wow, I got blessed by a monk, well, maybe…

Today I went to school again. It was pretty bad this time. I still didn’t have my timetable, so I just went along with one class all day. I went to social, thai language, computers, math, and thai dance. I didn’t like the teachers in thai language or thai dance, and I really hope that I don’t have to keep taking thai dance because I suck at dance (catie, amy, marcella and sarah know this). I also saw the music room…it’s really disappointing. The entire rest of the school is state of the art. Computers in every room, and whiteboards instead of chalkboards, many of the teachers talk with microphones hooked up to sound systems. They even have a multimedia computer lab just for languages where every computer has a microphone and you can learn English, Chinese, or Japanese…..but the music room is just a big, almost empty room, with very few instruments that all look very old…I’m quite disappointed…

Oh, and I got a cellphone…well, my host dad bought me one. I wasn’t going to buy one, but he bought it for me…I just had to buy the SIM card to make it work…so if any of you need, or want to call me you dial 011 66 145 42761…I think that 011 is the country code for calling long distance…I could be wrong though…Oh, and if anyone is going to call me, keep in mind that Thailand Is 11 hours ahead of Canada….and on Monday to Friday I’m at school between 7:30 and 4:00….

-lauren

posted by Lauren @ 8:42 PM