4 Year Mark in Thailand
Three and a half years ago, I had just quit my second teaching job in Thailand. I walked home on my last day of school with a big smile on my face. The smile came into bloom the moment I left the office. I left knowing I wouldn't be back. It felt good knowing I left a lot behind, a lot I didn't want. That cleared up a lot of room for what I did want. I had options as to what to do next. It was at this time that I had decided to give my time and energy to music for the next one or two months. What I didn't know was that my one or two months would end up being six months. And what's more is that I had no idea that it would be such a defining decision in my life.
I had enough money saved up to just forget everything else and move to Tübingen, my cozy town in Germany. I could have also gone back home to Canada. Go to Turkey and complete my military service? All the money I had saved up wasn't enough to take me to Japan though. I had done an interview with a school there who were happy with my interview but said I didn't have enough funds saved up to live there for the first two months. Japan must be expensive. All I knew were a few things. One was that I wouldn't go back to a third government school. And secondly, I knew I had ignored that which was of most importance while wrestling with the schools. The music.
The 9th of May marks the day I entered Thailand four years ago. It was night time just as it is now as I write this. I landed at the Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok and it didn't hit me until the heat did after leaving the terminal. This was a new country, a new culture, and I was the odd one out, the foreigner. I got picked up by my agent, the same one who had said that she was no longer interested after our first contact. At that time there was a mix-up with the emails. An email didn't get sent. My agency had asked if I replied to both contacts in Thailand. I went blank and told them there was only one contact from Thailand. That jostled them to life and they resent emails from a couple of days ago. And when I finally got in touch with the second contact, she let me know that she had already found someone else. It was only a matter of days and she had already found another teacher.
That wasn't a problem. I had done interviews with schools in China and Colombia. I knew there would be other schools and agencies to help me find them. Then there was that other Thai agency waiting for me to send over some documents. They had accepted me after asking three questions in the interview. "Why do you want to come to Thailand? What do you know about Thailand? What do you like about Thailand?" Among the documents they had asked for was a police report, which was going to cost 100$ with the express service. I didn't have $100. I didn't have a lot of patience either. All I had told my placement agency was to find me a position fast. I wanted to fly. I didn't care where I went as long as I could just start this journey. But the thought of that $100 was weighing me down. I sat down at my dining table with a pencil and paper.
"Why don't I just go to Spain in September?" I thought to myself. Spain would be easier because the culture would be more similar to what I am familiar with. I've even been to Spain. Also I could save up money before September which would help me pay for things like airplane tickets and first month's rent. And it would be much easier to make a transition to Germany from Spain. That thought of leaving it all until later and getting prepared seemed to help me feel better. I felt some relief thinking that. Why did I want to leave right away anyway? Surely, my dream of moving back to Tübingen could wait another five or six months. Why not just take it easy?
So with thoughts of Spain in mind, I relaxed and sat back in front of my laptop, with a view of the Detroit river as the setting. There was an email. I opened it. It was the second agent from Thailand - the one who had said she found someone else already. I was pulled in by the message she sent. In her brief email, she expressed that she needed someone quickly and asked how fast I could get there. There was no mention of a police report. I was soon on the phone with baba and we were checking out flights to Bangkok. It wasn't too much longer before we found one and bought the ticket. I began preparing my bags immediately. Any thought of Spain vanished with the prospect of leaving right this moment. And that's exactly how it unfolded.
I packed my bags that night and then the following night, baba and my younger sibling were taking me to a pick-up point where a shuttle bus to Pearson Airport would stop. As we waited for the bus, baba asked me to give him my old phone - it was actually a new iPhone. I did so reluctantly thinking about that cool new music app I had downloaded. I got on the shuttle bus which took me four hours north to Toronto. It was a late night journey and we must have arrived in the very early hours of the morning. It was right before dusk. I caught my early morning flight to Los Angeles International from where I bounced to Incheon Airport in Korea.
In the last couple hours on my flight to Korea, I was feeling nervous about my 40 minute window of time to get from one terminal to another. The people around me tried to tell me it would work out but I remember airports where we it took an hour to get from one side to another. The two guys sitting next to me even traded seats with me so that I could sit in the aisle seat and get to my next flight. What I didn't realize was that, it took only about 10 minutes to get off one airplane and to the gate where the other one would be. That was a lesson learned in taking it easy. And I didn't know beforehand that my experience in Thailand would be a schoolroom full of similar lessons.
From Korea, it wasn't a long flight to Bangkok. After a single night in the Thai capital, my agent drove me to Wang Nam Yen, a little town near the Cambodian border. On the way, she didn't bring up teaching until we were reaching the town. At that point, her tone changed and she asked me what I knew about controlling kids in a classroom. That should have been my first hint as to what was to come next. I didn't really know anything about controlling kids and controlling anyone wasn't something I wanted to do. I soon found out that this whole theme of controlling kids would be a very popular conversation piece among all the foreign teachers.
No coin has a single side and most good stories have plenty of different sides and perspectives. The one thing that needs to be said is that it is indeed difficult to get young students to pay attention. It doesn't help that they don't understand most of what you're saying. It fuels their restlessness and it's not long before they're talking to their friend. On one hand, kindness alone wasn't going to work. On the other hand, I didn't want to be in this environment of routinely and systematically controlling the behaviours of kids. All the experienced teachers wanted to show me how but I just wanted to be free from having to control anyone else. It didn't connect with me at all.
One day Jojo invited me to his place for dinner. This was after my first month struggling with all of this. He talked about an agent down south who had plenty of teaching opportunities for me. He talked it up and convinced me it was time to go. He said to go in advance and that a month or two down the line him and his wife would join me there as well. I listened and the following day I was on a bus down south.
Fast forward to the end of the semester. Jojo, his wife, and two other friends reunited with me after a few months as they promised. It was a joyful time but it didn't last long. The second government school job I had started differently but continued the same as the first one. It was as if it seemed different enough the first month that kept me there long enough. But after that I realized that I was struggling to control the kids again. In fact, in an effort to stop my struggling, I had become this extremely easy teacher who let the kids do very easy work. I would give them free time after they finished up, most of whom were done in the first half of class. Two months in, I told the head teacher I was quitting. She was the person who was also in charge of hiring new teachers so she asked me to stay until the end of the semester. I agreed to stay until then so it wouldn't be as big of a burden on them. I thought that by knowing that I had quit already, it would lessen the mental load and I could just continue being that teacher of extreme ease.
For the last two months or so before the semester ended, I began thinking more about music. Up until now I had been able to make music on weekends. That also meant I wasn't able to travel but my dream wasn't to travel. It was to produce dance music. And what I didn't know was that the dream I had all those years of making dance music was going to stop being as dreamy and become more real with just a few more steps ahead. I decided that instead of looking for other work right away, it would be best to spend one to two months making music full time. That's what happened in Papayom.
First we moved out there and then I got busy making music. My days became consumed by production. Before that time period I was making four to six tracks per month, sometimes more and other times less. But from Papayom onwards, the numbers started hitting the twenties each month. I had so much free time but there was one more resource I had that was an even greater source of power. I had a lot of pent up energy and yearning. All that time in the schools when I was too tired to make music boiled down to this. Now I had the time and the driving force to fuel my dreams. And this is the defining moment where my dreams became less dreamlike and more rooted in reality.
That initial one to two months I had designated as being time to work on music expanded into six months and changed my life. After this, I would move to Hatyai to work at Inlingua part-time. That part-time strategy meant I wasn't making as much money as before but that I was making music. And the latter is a fantastic currency that words can hardly express in one go. Check out this post for a deeper look at my time in Papayom and moving to Hatyai.
I appreciate how the story connects in retrospect. If I hadn't done those jobs that distanced me from my true and authentic self, I may not have stepped on the gas towards my dreams as I did. The rhythm of life took me farther away from my dreams than ever before so that it would swing back like a pendulum and take me closer than ever. It showed me the importance of a dream. Blessed are the people who follow their dreams.
I chose to come to Thailand on arbitrary terms. I didn't know much about the country or the people before coming. I just wanted to go anywhere that would take me and be that much closer to going to Germany. This is the true reason I came out here. My dad had suggested I use teaching English as my ticket to get back to Germany. But the teacher's certification school said that Germany didn't need many English teachers and that I should go elsewhere to get a year or two of experience first. I thought I would be in Thailand for a year when I first came. It has been a journey that's more important than the number of years I have been here.
Most importantly, I am learning to take steps toward my goals. In Hatyai, I can't say there is a big dance music community and if there is I haven't met them yet. As far as I have been from a community of that sort, I've also been quite close to the creation aspect. I've had a lot of time to make music - and experiences to propel me to do so. Just like the pendulum swing that first took me far from my dreams only to bring me closer than ever, I believe that this distance is just symbolic of how close I will get with a dance music community one day. I believe that my people are out there and that it is a matter of time before the giant clock of the universe ticks and the Great Spirit moves us closer. And that also teaches patience.
I've been learning since I have come here. I started first by learning Thai. I have even refused to move to Vietnam or Malaysia so that I can continue learning Thai. I have been learning about Thai culture as well. For example, I am still learning not to take things seriously. This is a lesson that needs a post of its own. I am learning about humility and grace; kindness and joy. These are qualities everyone possesses to some degree no matter where they live on the planet. But here, these qualities are to a higher degree than I am used to which means there is much to learn. These qualities aren't seen as things spiritual people practice. They're seen as pieces of the culture everybody should practice.
Recently, my thirst to learn has grown and I see myself seeking other resources and materials to learn from. I've been picking up books I wouldn't normally read. Now I remember that when I was much younger, I would read a lot. I loved learning but I forgot that at some point on my journey. Now that I am no longer a student in a school, I have become a student of life. My true learning has just begun.
I had enough money saved up to just forget everything else and move to Tübingen, my cozy town in Germany. I could have also gone back home to Canada. Go to Turkey and complete my military service? All the money I had saved up wasn't enough to take me to Japan though. I had done an interview with a school there who were happy with my interview but said I didn't have enough funds saved up to live there for the first two months. Japan must be expensive. All I knew were a few things. One was that I wouldn't go back to a third government school. And secondly, I knew I had ignored that which was of most importance while wrestling with the schools. The music.
The 9th of May marks the day I entered Thailand four years ago. It was night time just as it is now as I write this. I landed at the Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok and it didn't hit me until the heat did after leaving the terminal. This was a new country, a new culture, and I was the odd one out, the foreigner. I got picked up by my agent, the same one who had said that she was no longer interested after our first contact. At that time there was a mix-up with the emails. An email didn't get sent. My agency had asked if I replied to both contacts in Thailand. I went blank and told them there was only one contact from Thailand. That jostled them to life and they resent emails from a couple of days ago. And when I finally got in touch with the second contact, she let me know that she had already found someone else. It was only a matter of days and she had already found another teacher.
That wasn't a problem. I had done interviews with schools in China and Colombia. I knew there would be other schools and agencies to help me find them. Then there was that other Thai agency waiting for me to send over some documents. They had accepted me after asking three questions in the interview. "Why do you want to come to Thailand? What do you know about Thailand? What do you like about Thailand?" Among the documents they had asked for was a police report, which was going to cost 100$ with the express service. I didn't have $100. I didn't have a lot of patience either. All I had told my placement agency was to find me a position fast. I wanted to fly. I didn't care where I went as long as I could just start this journey. But the thought of that $100 was weighing me down. I sat down at my dining table with a pencil and paper.
"Why don't I just go to Spain in September?" I thought to myself. Spain would be easier because the culture would be more similar to what I am familiar with. I've even been to Spain. Also I could save up money before September which would help me pay for things like airplane tickets and first month's rent. And it would be much easier to make a transition to Germany from Spain. That thought of leaving it all until later and getting prepared seemed to help me feel better. I felt some relief thinking that. Why did I want to leave right away anyway? Surely, my dream of moving back to Tübingen could wait another five or six months. Why not just take it easy?
So with thoughts of Spain in mind, I relaxed and sat back in front of my laptop, with a view of the Detroit river as the setting. There was an email. I opened it. It was the second agent from Thailand - the one who had said she found someone else already. I was pulled in by the message she sent. In her brief email, she expressed that she needed someone quickly and asked how fast I could get there. There was no mention of a police report. I was soon on the phone with baba and we were checking out flights to Bangkok. It wasn't too much longer before we found one and bought the ticket. I began preparing my bags immediately. Any thought of Spain vanished with the prospect of leaving right this moment. And that's exactly how it unfolded.
I packed my bags that night and then the following night, baba and my younger sibling were taking me to a pick-up point where a shuttle bus to Pearson Airport would stop. As we waited for the bus, baba asked me to give him my old phone - it was actually a new iPhone. I did so reluctantly thinking about that cool new music app I had downloaded. I got on the shuttle bus which took me four hours north to Toronto. It was a late night journey and we must have arrived in the very early hours of the morning. It was right before dusk. I caught my early morning flight to Los Angeles International from where I bounced to Incheon Airport in Korea.
In the last couple hours on my flight to Korea, I was feeling nervous about my 40 minute window of time to get from one terminal to another. The people around me tried to tell me it would work out but I remember airports where we it took an hour to get from one side to another. The two guys sitting next to me even traded seats with me so that I could sit in the aisle seat and get to my next flight. What I didn't realize was that, it took only about 10 minutes to get off one airplane and to the gate where the other one would be. That was a lesson learned in taking it easy. And I didn't know beforehand that my experience in Thailand would be a schoolroom full of similar lessons.
 |
| This is my first photo in Thailand. I'm standing with Jojo, a teacher and friend from the Philippines. You will notice I am wearing black sweatpants with a green shirt. I realize it makes no sense but at the time I was experiencing other forms of confusion. We were told we could wear sweatpants on Fridays but I wasn't sure if we could wear it with a tshirt. So just to be safe I put on a formal shirt. Nobody said anything. |
No coin has a single side and most good stories have plenty of different sides and perspectives. The one thing that needs to be said is that it is indeed difficult to get young students to pay attention. It doesn't help that they don't understand most of what you're saying. It fuels their restlessness and it's not long before they're talking to their friend. On one hand, kindness alone wasn't going to work. On the other hand, I didn't want to be in this environment of routinely and systematically controlling the behaviours of kids. All the experienced teachers wanted to show me how but I just wanted to be free from having to control anyone else. It didn't connect with me at all.
One day Jojo invited me to his place for dinner. This was after my first month struggling with all of this. He talked about an agent down south who had plenty of teaching opportunities for me. He talked it up and convinced me it was time to go. He said to go in advance and that a month or two down the line him and his wife would join me there as well. I listened and the following day I was on a bus down south.
Fast forward to the end of the semester. Jojo, his wife, and two other friends reunited with me after a few months as they promised. It was a joyful time but it didn't last long. The second government school job I had started differently but continued the same as the first one. It was as if it seemed different enough the first month that kept me there long enough. But after that I realized that I was struggling to control the kids again. In fact, in an effort to stop my struggling, I had become this extremely easy teacher who let the kids do very easy work. I would give them free time after they finished up, most of whom were done in the first half of class. Two months in, I told the head teacher I was quitting. She was the person who was also in charge of hiring new teachers so she asked me to stay until the end of the semester. I agreed to stay until then so it wouldn't be as big of a burden on them. I thought that by knowing that I had quit already, it would lessen the mental load and I could just continue being that teacher of extreme ease.
For the last two months or so before the semester ended, I began thinking more about music. Up until now I had been able to make music on weekends. That also meant I wasn't able to travel but my dream wasn't to travel. It was to produce dance music. And what I didn't know was that the dream I had all those years of making dance music was going to stop being as dreamy and become more real with just a few more steps ahead. I decided that instead of looking for other work right away, it would be best to spend one to two months making music full time. That's what happened in Papayom.
First we moved out there and then I got busy making music. My days became consumed by production. Before that time period I was making four to six tracks per month, sometimes more and other times less. But from Papayom onwards, the numbers started hitting the twenties each month. I had so much free time but there was one more resource I had that was an even greater source of power. I had a lot of pent up energy and yearning. All that time in the schools when I was too tired to make music boiled down to this. Now I had the time and the driving force to fuel my dreams. And this is the defining moment where my dreams became less dreamlike and more rooted in reality.
That initial one to two months I had designated as being time to work on music expanded into six months and changed my life. After this, I would move to Hatyai to work at Inlingua part-time. That part-time strategy meant I wasn't making as much money as before but that I was making music. And the latter is a fantastic currency that words can hardly express in one go. Check out this post for a deeper look at my time in Papayom and moving to Hatyai.
I appreciate how the story connects in retrospect. If I hadn't done those jobs that distanced me from my true and authentic self, I may not have stepped on the gas towards my dreams as I did. The rhythm of life took me farther away from my dreams than ever before so that it would swing back like a pendulum and take me closer than ever. It showed me the importance of a dream. Blessed are the people who follow their dreams.
I chose to come to Thailand on arbitrary terms. I didn't know much about the country or the people before coming. I just wanted to go anywhere that would take me and be that much closer to going to Germany. This is the true reason I came out here. My dad had suggested I use teaching English as my ticket to get back to Germany. But the teacher's certification school said that Germany didn't need many English teachers and that I should go elsewhere to get a year or two of experience first. I thought I would be in Thailand for a year when I first came. It has been a journey that's more important than the number of years I have been here.
Most importantly, I am learning to take steps toward my goals. In Hatyai, I can't say there is a big dance music community and if there is I haven't met them yet. As far as I have been from a community of that sort, I've also been quite close to the creation aspect. I've had a lot of time to make music - and experiences to propel me to do so. Just like the pendulum swing that first took me far from my dreams only to bring me closer than ever, I believe that this distance is just symbolic of how close I will get with a dance music community one day. I believe that my people are out there and that it is a matter of time before the giant clock of the universe ticks and the Great Spirit moves us closer. And that also teaches patience.
I've been learning since I have come here. I started first by learning Thai. I have even refused to move to Vietnam or Malaysia so that I can continue learning Thai. I have been learning about Thai culture as well. For example, I am still learning not to take things seriously. This is a lesson that needs a post of its own. I am learning about humility and grace; kindness and joy. These are qualities everyone possesses to some degree no matter where they live on the planet. But here, these qualities are to a higher degree than I am used to which means there is much to learn. These qualities aren't seen as things spiritual people practice. They're seen as pieces of the culture everybody should practice.
Recently, my thirst to learn has grown and I see myself seeking other resources and materials to learn from. I've been picking up books I wouldn't normally read. Now I remember that when I was much younger, I would read a lot. I loved learning but I forgot that at some point on my journey. Now that I am no longer a student in a school, I have become a student of life. My true learning has just begun.
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