Cellar Door

Chiang Mai to Hong Kong culture shock in the 5 hours I’ve been here is as follows:

• Pedestrians do not have the right of way. This means I can no longer run 20 feet in front of a full-speed automobile and expect it to come to a screeching halt.
• Toilet paper goes in the bowl.
• It’s xie-xie, not khop-khun-kaa.
• The hot pot place we went to for dinner was serving testicles of the ox, goose, and chicken variety.
• FRIGIDFREEZINGARCTICCOLD. I have goosebumps for the first time in 10 weeks.

Ah, home sweet home.

It seems impossible that I’ve been here for a week and already have so many stories to tell.  In short, though, I’ve eaten my weight in curry, learned that teaching is probably one of the most gratifying things in the world, and spent every single night blissfully lost in the city streets.  Everything’s become rather hard to put into words, so I’ll just leave it at that.

And now, off to Pai for the weekend!

thedailywhat:

Doomed To Repeat It of the Day: A mock-Nazi parade, complete with swastika armbands and “Sieg Heil” salutes, which took place at the Sacred Heart School in Chiang Mai, Thailand, was roundly condemned by several embassies and international Jewish human rights groups.

“It is difficult to calculate the hurt such a display inflicted on survivors of the Nazi Holocaust and the families of all victims of Nazism,” said Simon Wiesenthal Center associate dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper. “There can be no justification for such an outrage to emanate from place of learning.”

The school today posted a letter on its website apologizing for the Sports Day event, claiming that teachers had no prior knowledge of the students’ plans. An editorial piece published by the Bangkok Post blamed the incident in part on “[t]he political indoctrination by the education system to foster ultra-nationalism based on the supremacy of the Thai race.”

A similar Nazi-themed parade took place at a Bangkok school in 2007.

Meanwhile, in Taiwan, where the Nazi party has become a symbol of courage due to a poor understanding of history, 7-Eleven announced that they would be removing several items featuring a cute caricature of vampire Hitler.

[cnn: 1,2 / post.]

SHIT SON.  Going to be here in 4 weeks, what?