A Very Beary Christmas

December 29, 2011

A Thai Christmas. It’s strange that Thailand celebrates Christmas. With a mainly Buddhist population, I would think that Christmas wouldn’t really be on their radar. This display of festivities for the Christian based holiday may be a big city thing actually. Maybe it’s maintained for the tourists or preserved since the string of expensive embellished events can help boost the economy. It does not necessarily display Christmas being a Christian holiday, which maybe most Buddhists can appreciate. Maybe, Thai people are so easy going that it doesn’t matter whether or not another religion is displayed all throughout their cities.

Berry Christmas. Every year, Thailand creates a theme for Christmas. This year the theme is bears. Bears were everywhere in the city. Stuffed bears along the streets, bear ornaments in the trees, bear shaped flags, and bear themed attractions. I didn’t get it but everyone seemed to love it. Lines and lines of people were waiting to fit their head into the giant bear head ornaments or to sit on a strange green animal’s lap (opposed to Santa’s lap). I still don’t know what that thing was. Also, this timing of the Christmas celebration seemed altered from the American way of celebrating. Though, Christmas has already passed, the festivities of Christmas still continued in the city and even in my school. But I’m not even sure if they are celebrating Christmas, the upcoming New Year, or if they’re celebrating to just to celebrate.

 

Jingle Bells. We have to sing? Really? Oh no. The English program at our school was participating in a school performance. Though the students are the stars of the show, the foreign teachers had to open up the show with the Christmas number: Jingle Bells. I wasn’t looking forward to this. Was it going to be acapella? How many teachers were going to perform or even show up? Some of the teachers tend to conveniently not show up when these types of events occur so I kept imagining that the show was just going to be Sarah and me attempting to sing the song alone. But they all showed, surprisingly. Our singing was the least eventful part of the performance though. At one point, someone set one of the stage’s Christmas trees on fire right as we all were about to start singing. One of the teachers kicked over the tree and started frantically stomping on it in front of the 800 person audience. It was pretty funny. But it could have been a disaster as there were a multitude of trees in a row that could have caught on fire pretty rapidly. That actually would have been fun to write about—granted no one got hurt.

The rest of the school performance consisted of a rendition of the birth of Jesus Christ, a singing contest, a bizarre sexual performance by a faux K-pop group, and a semi-slutty fashion show. Our students were definitely the best part of the show. I might be biased though. The Thai program didn’t seem as enthused as Sarah and me. Our students acted out the events that took place during Jesus’ birth, all in very broken English. Yet, it probably didn’t matter. The only part of the audience that could understand what they were saying was probably the foreign teachers. None of the Thai students, teachers, or administration understands English too well. But they were fantastic. I guess it makes it better when you actually know your students and their personalities. To see them doing something completely different than what you are used to in the classroom was pretty great. Some of our students are very talented as well. Many of them were able to sing quite proficiently and comfortably in front of the entire school. Maybe it’s because of all that karaoke they do here.

The rest of the performance progressively became more bizarre. Young girls in tight and exposed, leather outfits stepped on to stage and started to rhythmically wiggle their goodies in front of the young crowd. The girls in the audience held up colorful signs in Thai and screamed at the top of their lungs as if they were at a Britney Spears concert. The boys all had their mouths dropped and probably their dirty young minds wandering to places I don’t even want to think about.

What was this? Who was this girl group? Turns out, anyone can perform anything they want at a school performance. So without any type of monitoring or pre-evaluation, these high school girls created a dance based on a popular K-pop (Korean pop) girl group. They copied their look, moves, and songs entirely and then danced promiscuously in front of their young counterparts. Hmm? I just don’t remember my high school ever letting this type of student entertainment pass. Well, maybe it did. Maybe I’m just a more conservative thinking person now. The fashion show wasn’t much better. Girls still dressed in low-cut tops and short skirts, bringing to life the whole school girl outfit concept with an Asian twist. It looked like they were about to go out clubbing. Again, the boys had their mouths gaping open and minds racing. What were these girls thinking? And leather outfits, in this heat? Sounds terrible. But it’s the price of sex appeal. 

The Clash. Thailand seems to have such inconsistent cultural values. On one side, the Thai people are exceptionally conservative and spiritual with traditional customs more intact than most other cultures. On the contrary, the Thai people have a wild side to their culture. Their day and night life has a Vegas-ness to it. Ping-Pong shows, sex smeared across the streets, prostitution blatantly flaunted by older white men and their teenaged arm candy, Katoey popularization, and shorter than short shorts are some of the promiscuous part of Thai culture. Before coming to Thailand, I was told to not wear sleeveless shirts or shorts or skirts hemmed above the knee. This could have been a requirement for teaching but after some rigorous research, this was a definitely an unspoken customary rule of the Thai culture. So all my clothes seem Amish-like in comparison to what I’ve seen on the streets. It’s not like I crave the feeling of showing off some leg or shoulder but I’m a bit confused when I see almost every young and older woman walking around with clothes exposing their upper thighs. I also see vendors selling clothes that aren’t even close to qualifying as conservative. Even boys dress show more skin than I do. 

What happened to this social custom that I appreciated and anticipated before arriving in Thailand? I used to respect this culture for withstanding many Western influences and maintain their customs even with trivial aspects like clothing. Though there are certainly more extreme cases out in the world (The USA!), I didn’t expect this conversion in Thai society. Maybe that was my problem in the first place, expecting anything. 

I really don’t have a right to criticize.  I’ve never been to Thailand before this trip, I don’t actually know that much about Thai culture, and I relied on resources like Wikipedia to gain my cultural knowledge. Maybe my perspective is the one that’s skewed. Nevertheless, this change probably has to do with Western influence, a more rebellious, younger generation, the city life, or simply the extreme heat. I still don’t feel comfortable walking around in a tank top so I seem to wear more heavily sleeved shirts. Thus, I sweat incredibly because of it. Maybe I should give up and start exposing my shoulders at least? At least then, my shirts would finally be relieved of armpit sweat stains.