Learning to Speak Thai in Thailand

During 1993-1994 I spent a year in Bangkok, Thailand. While I was there, I took Thai language classes at a school called AUA (American University Alumni). This turned out to be one of the most engaging school experiences of my life.

Heading to AUA, I'd aim to take the
blue air conditioned bus.

At the time the school offered two methods for learning Thai: a 'traditional' method that was like most other language learning programs (i.e. memorizing vocabulary, learning rote phrases, using worksheets and workbooks) and the 'natural' method, which mimicked the way children learned language and was context and experience based.

The 'natural' method was controversial at the time. It seemed every so often some English speaking Westerner was writing into the opinion section of The Bangkok Post to contest the concept.

I recall the originator of the AUA program, an elder American man with a soft spoken manner, shaking his head at the controversy. He said some people needed the security of a phrase book and a worksheet or they didn't believe they were 'learning'--which was why he continued to offer the traditional method even though, in his opinion, the natural method was a far more effective means of learning a language. His background was in languages (linguistics, if I recall), he was married to a Thai woman, had lived in Thailand for ages, and was fluent in both English and Thai. I spoke to him when I first enrolled and off and on throughout the program.

But sometimes I'd take the red non-air conditioned bus.

He did admit that it took longer before you could start speaking Thai. In fact, with the 'natural' method, you weren't supposed to try saying Thai at all, you were just supposed to listen to the Thai being spoken to you. You first understood what was being said in Thai and you could respond to what was being said using English but you weren't supposed to try speaking in Thai until much later--until you felt like you could do so. This, he told me, mimics what kids do--they soak in the language before they speak in it.

So the 'natural' way took longer-- but not that much longer--it could be accomplished in months rather than years. And it took more time per day --because the more time spent hearing Thai, the more exposure it gave you and the more you would get out of it--but the end results created an organic and fluid understanding of a language. It would be embedded in your brain in a more durable way than rote learning could ever manage. And you could do more with it.

And sometimes I'd walk to AUA to avoid the traffic--
the inside of my nose would become full of
black from the pollution.

In the traditional way, you could start speaking Thai much sooner, though you would be saying very scripted things like 'I want to buy a papaya please'--which was fine if that's what you wanted and that fit your situation. But it wasn't very organic. What if you wanted directions to Lumpini Park instead? Could you ask for that on the spot? Or would you have to dig out your Thai-English dictionary?

I chose the 'natural' method, of course, because I was intrigued by the concept. Plus, I sat in on a class and it looked like enormous fun.

And it was. I was the most fun I've ever had in a 'school' setting...and that's including my favourite literature classes at University, which I loved--but these Thai 'lessons' were way outside the box of what seemed typical to school, any kind of school. The emphasis everyday was on engagement, connection, drama and fun.

One of my favourite places in Bangkok:
Lumpini Park

The teachers were Thai, a mix of male and female, and mostly in their twenties and thirties. They worked in pairs, and would sit or stand at the front of the classroom. Then--they would begin. The interactive storytelling would begin.

In the very first class one teacher role played walking into the class, greeting the other teacher, and then asking their name--all of this was in Thai. They'd act out the scenario for a bit then turn to their 'audience', including us in the action by asking each member of the audience for their name--in Thai--and each person would answer in English. I, of course, said: "My name is Julie".

If anyone was confused by what they were doing, the Thai teachers would switch to English to clarify, but most of the time they kept to Thai--and the Thai was perfectly understandable: straightforward sentences, often repeated and in a context we all shared.

There were no notes. No worksheets. We didn't write anything down. We just listened, watched and participated.

We picked up the phrases and vocab. We picked up the tonal differences. It started simple.

Then it moved on. It grew more sophisticated.

These teachers were gifted orators. Some were real comedians. I recall a funny story about one of them visiting family out in the country, eating too much spicy food, and having gastrointestinal upset. ('Mem'--smelly. I still know that word.) This story was delivered with perfect comedic timing and dramatic emphasis.

A city full of stories...

They shared lots of stories--personal stories of adolescent crushes,  school experiences, family events, shopping, ghosts, first apartments, going to the movies, being sick, home life. And they didn't shy away from challenging topics, either: they addressed aspects of Thai society, the good and the bad, like sexism, the sex trade, and tensions between north and south. Yes, they even addressed the occasional Thai slang and swear word.  They talked about a lot of things: spirit houses, taxis, traffic jams, (stinky) durian. They shared their world, as story tellers do. They shared hopes, dreams, aggravations, opinions.

All of this was communicated in Thai, peppered with questions for us to answer in English. We weren't just 'watching a show', we were part of it. They made it look effortless. It seemed like a skilled improv. Their stories didn't ramble; they had coherence. They were delivered with enthusiasm and we were encouraged to enthusiastically participate. It was a very personal and intimate mode of learning--this sharing of stories--and never, ever dull.

I loved browsing and buying from the street side
markets and food stalls. YUM!

I eventually (after a few months?) started speaking in Thai. I could go shopping at the market and ask and answer questions. I could carry on a conversation! Then I found myself having a very involved, intellectual discussion with a Thai woman about the status of women and women in politics. We were comparing progress between Thailand and Canada. All in Thai, I realized. Suddenly, I was having deep, philosophical conversations...in Thai!

Of course, languages are meant to be used and once I left Thailand, it gradually left me. Now, twenty years on, I remember a few words and phrases and can count from one to twenty...but that's basically it.

The originator of the AUA program once assured me that learning a language 'the natural way' meant that even if I left and 'lost' the ability, if I went back, I'd pick it right up again quickly. The language would seem 'lost' but really it was just in hiding somewhere in my brain. A trip to Bangkok would coax it all out.

Maybe one day I'll return to Thailand and test that theory.

U2

I discovered U2 sometime after the albums War and The Unforgettable Fire. They hadn't hit it big yet with The Joshua Tree and they had an 'underground' and 'rebellious' feel to them--they were so not mainstream. Their music was rough but dreamy; the lyrics poetic. Bono had a mystical, sensual air tinged with scrappy derring-do. My fourteen year old self swooned.  It was the closest I ever came to punk-rock-like defiance. All very soft core--but not without it's power.

My rule: "You can't buy this album unless you
have signed an Amnesty International petition!"

When the Joshua Tree came out in 1987, a popular, prissy girl at high-school told me in passing that it was her favourite album--and I was horrified. How could that be? Only quirky, left-of- centre types like myself were allowed to like U2! You had to be a poet/dreamer/writer and/or Amnesty International supporter or you didn't count as a real fan! At the very least, you had to have Bono's picture in your locker.

"Assert yourself".

I had Bono's picture in my locker and I remember encouraging him to speak to me in times of trouble. He usually said something like: look at me. I do my own thing. I stand up for what I believe in. I don't give a **** what the critics say. I answer to a higher power. I answer to my art. Assert yourself, in spite of criticism. Don't be afraid to make your mark upon the world.

He still speaks to me, decades later. Isn't that something? After all this time, I still need to pin his (imagined) voice of self-assertion up in my head. The fight is in my mind: appeasement vs. saying what you really think, understanding what you really feel. 'Authenticity' is an adolescent preoccupation I'd like to have mastered by the age of 42. But no, not yet.

Bono has aged, too. He is in his fifties now. His fifties!

I went to their 360 tour in Toronto a few years ago and couldn't help but compare it to the Zoo TV tour of September, 1992. Back then, the crowd was young. We were all 'hip', twenty-somethings with the future ahead of us.

Then, suddenly, it's 2011. The crowd ages. The man in front of me has a bald spot. Hair is grey. We all look like my parents! Yelp! How did this happen?

Nonetheless, we all rock out.

The Rogers Center (which I will forever think of as Skydome, I don't care what the name on the front now says) becomes a frenzy of dancing and singing, hooting and hollering. That's not something I do much of these days, as I'm now far into the realm of 'serious adult'--but I don't care. I let it all hang out, trying to pretend that I still have the moves, baby.

This is all a bit awkward and embarrassing but I imagine I'm twenty again, wiggling my hips on the dancefloor--well, as much as one can wiggle in a crowd of 60,000. I shout and wiggle until my feet and throat hurt. I throw myself into physical expression, answering the call as U2 sends it back.

"I still haven't found what I'm looking for."

Backpacking

Back in the early 90's when I was in my early twenties I bought an 'around the world' ticket and went travelling.

"About to take flight. Seat belts buckled!'

I didn't actually make it all the way 'around'...I flew from North America to Europe to Asia to Australia-- back to Africa to Europe and to North America, so I only really bounced across the globe like a boomerang, out and back.

My early twenties was an antsy time. I wanted adventure; I couldn't handle school. I dropped out of university and moved back in with my parents, who were surprisingly very supportive of their twenty-year old returning to the fold, though I realize now I was cramping their style, as they'd just got used to me being gone. They kindly offered me room and board for free, which I also realize now I took for granted as par for the course--I have since apologized for my rather obnoxious sense of entitlement.

With room and board covered, I could work and put all the money away in my 'travel fund'. I got a job in a clothing store at the local mall and I managed to put away enough for a year's worth of round the world travel.

"These will all fit in my backpack, I'm sure of it."

This was pre-internet and I had to do my research the old fashioned way, by looking it up in guidebooks--books with heft that you had to carry around in your backpack. They were well worth the weight.

Backpacking is great for living the simple life. You constantly need to evaluate: do I need this? Is it worth lugging around?

You are constantly sloughing off.

"Singapore, 1992: maybe someone,
somewhere is reading those letters and
sighing at the vagaries of young love"

I once tossed a stack of love letters in a garbage bin in a stairwell in a hostel in Singapore. I'd broken up with their writer over long distance telephone a few weeks ago in Australia. Why keep the letters around? They were taking up space.

I still recall the satisfying thunk as they landed in the can--and the moment of hesitation as I started down the stairwell afterwards, ready to leave the country.  Should I go back for them? I wondered. Maybe I'd want to read them over again one day, in my old age. Should I be so cavalier about the affairs of the heart? What if someone else found them and read them over?

It was a toss up between the stack of letters and gaining more space--which meant maybe I could get some new books to read.

I gave up the letters and chose the books.

"Definition of Happy Place"

One of my favourite things to do in a new city was find a (preferably used) book store and load up on cheap, good reads. Or maybe I might pick something up in a youth hostel, as people were always leaving books behind. Or trading. I can remember the whole bartering gig: do you want this? Books were always passing hands and going on their own little adventures about the world.

I still have a collection of Jane Austen's three stories (Emma, Persuasion and Northanger Abbey) that I picked up somewhere. It's the size of a shoe box, a complete space-hoarder--but it stuck with my backpack and I for quite awhile, and when I finally had to get rid of it in the interest of space, I paid to ship it home. I was that attached to it.

One look into a backpacker's kit and you will realize what is closest to their heart, what they value and what they need. Everything else is non essential.

Not a bad way to live, really.

Makes me wonder what's in my back pack right now: I mean, metaphorically. What do I really need?

Doctor Who

Recently I started watching the 'new' Doctor Who, created by the BBC in 2005.  It's on Netflix and it starts at 'season one', which made me laugh because we all know that's not the true starting point, Doctor Who has been around FOR-EVERRRRR *echo, echo, echo*.

Doctor Who used to fascinate me as a kid back in the 80's--though I would never have called myself a 'fan'.

I grew up (and still live) in Ontario, Canada and like a lot of kids, I enjoyed watching cartoons after school and on Saturdays on TV.  I'd watch the usual mainstream fare: Scooby/Scrappy Doo, Bugs Bunny, The Smurfs, etc. But sometimes I'd switch to this local station called TVONTARIO to catch The Polka Dot Door or Paddington Bear or Simon In The Land of Chalk Drawings or something...but then I'd find, to my dismay...oh no...

Doctor Who was on instead!



Back in the old days, sonny, they didn't show children's programming 24/7. Cartoons were on Saturday mornings until noon and for a few hours after school. During that time, I had the choice of a few channels. There was none of this 'TV On Demand'. So I had to watch whatever was offered, or turn the TV off.

That's how I came to watch Doctor Who. Grudgingly. But with a growing respect...

Recall: this was the (fabulous) Tom Baker period. He of the wild eye, big hair, big teeth, floppy hat and techno-colour Super Long Scarf.

'I'm on my tenth cup of coffee!'

Oh yes, that scarf! It had all the colours of the 70's (red, gold, brown, avocado green). The entire decade knitted up nicely.

The sets, as you'll recall, looked like they'd been stolen from a high-school theatre department. The special effects were often psychedelic, the actors spoke in exotic (to me) British...and all the while The Doctor strode around grinning manically, acting decisively but with a jittery effervesce--like a professor who's had too much caffeine.

'What the heck???'

My reaction to a Doctor Who episode was usually...What The Heck???? There was nothing like it on my television, except perhaps the Ontario-born The Hilarious House of Frightenstein (to which I had similar reactions).

It didn't help that TVONTARIO did not show Doctor Who episodes in order (as I recall). When an episode came on, it could be the beginning, middle or end of a larger story arc. I would watch the slotted 25 minutes-- and then, nine times out of ten, a new, totally different show would come on and I would be left hanging, wondering what happened next to the Doctor and Co. This being decades ago, and before the internet, I had no way of finding out the ending! Thus, no conclusion for me. No resolution! How maddening!

Curse you Doctor Who! And Curse You TVONTARIO!

Thus, Doctor Who in my past is a lot about frustration. I would get hooked on story--and then be denied. How cruel! And it happened almost every time I watched it. So--why oh why did I continue to watch it? Why bother to commit?

I wonder about that now. It wasn't just boredom or a lack of alternatives. I could've changed the channel. I couldn't gotten up and left. But, after that initial belly drop of 'oh no, it's Doctor Who',  I'd stick it out. I'd watch it. And be strangely fascinated in spite of myself.

Maybe I was in awe at its brazen imagination. They were gamely tossing down strange and wild plot lines and barreling through them with glee--I mean, time travel on its own is a pretty heady concept for a 10-12 year old. Add to that odd alien names and tin cans with big pimples screeching EXTERMINATE...It was amazing. They were just doing it and throwing caution to the wind.

'Come here often?'

Then there were the creepy bits...the eerie music and spooky special effects, and moments of growing dread....There was an adult-like level of communication. These weren't really kid shows, after all. But kids watched them, and the stories treated us like we had a brain and could use it. They assumed my emotions could handle it.  It respected me...and I (grudgingly) respected it.

And lets not forget The Doctor's almost uncontrollable joy at the magnitude of the universe. That was an addictive, infectious point of view--and one that seemed utterly unique to television.

So...reflecting on these (possible) childhood reactions, I approached the 'new' Doctor Who on Netflix with some trepidation. How would these 'new' doctors compare with the irreplaceable Tom Baker? Would the show express the same glee? The same imagination?

Thus far, I think, overall, they've captured the spirit and the essence...I just finished Ep. 9/10 (The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances) and those are plenty creepy and strange (*Mummy, are you my mummy?*). But something's missing. The cliffhangers are gone, obviously, because these are now mostly 'single episode'... even double episodes can be resolved with a click of the Netflix 'play' button. So I'm no longer frustrated by a non-ending.

But. No. It's more than that. It must be something embedded in my younger self. Since then, I've seen and read a lot of science fiction. My mind has been expanded.  And while I might be impressed these days by a phrase, an idea, a characterization, a plot point, I just do not feel the awe--the startling, ambivalent awe at turning to channel 2 to find The Doctor grinning in his minimalist TARDIS interior.

That feeling just isn't there this go around.