Valentine’s Day
In the days leading up to Valentine’s Day in Thailand, we
were wondering how widely the “holiday” was celebrated. It turns out that
Valentine’s Day is a pretty big event in Thailand, with students and couples
alike. A few days before the 14th, I started using Valentine’s Day
vocabulary in games with my students. They were quite excited... more than you
would expect.
There was supposed to be a special Valentine’s Day assembly
in the morning, and a couple friends of ours were supposed to sing the song “Lucky”
by Jason M’Raz. The Thai teachers had asked both Laura and I if we wanted to
sing with Deaw (Thai English teacher), but we both declined because we are
terrible singers. Those of you who have taken sight-singing with me can attest
to that fact. But one of the other foreign teachers said they would sing, so we
were off the hook.
SO on the 14th, I got to school around my usual
time. I was sitting at my desk in the office, when Deaw comes up to me,
slightly panicked, and asks if I will ask the students a question about Valentine’s
Day. I said “suuuuure...” and we decided
I would ask what the sings of Valentine’s Day were. Then, Deaw said, “Ok, we go
to the assembly NOW”, and left. So I chased after him downstairs to the
assembly. Asked our question, a few students answered – it was fine. Then they
started setting up for the song – I didn’t see the other teacher around. I
asked our friend Bank where she was, but he didn’t know (as it turns out, I
think she wasn’t feeling well). So two of the Thai English teachers, Phi Oi and
Phi Jenny, were going to sing with Deaw. They beckoned me onstage too... I
thought “to hell with it” and ran up with them. I will also take this time to
mention we hadn’t rehearsed the song at all, and KIND OF knew how it went. We
were reading print outs of the lyrics. So yes, I sang in front of all the
Mattayom students. Embarassing. We definitely fell apart a little bit a few
times... But it was fun. I guess.
Anyway, the first class I had was 4.2 – this was when the
stickering started. So, how students (or prathom students at least) celebrate
Valentine’s Day is by plastering the teachers and each other with stickers. They
were a little shy so, I didn’t get too many stickers in class. However, the
next class I had was 4.1... As soon as I walked into class, the students
started cheering and basically all ran up to my desk. And there were a lot of
stickers. Students would bring an entire sheet up with them, and stand beside
me, putting on one sticker after another. There was definitely a lot of boob
poking hahaha.
It was the same story the rest of the day. In the cafeteria,
random students would come up and put stickers on me. In grade 3, the students
were nuts. I was even more sticker swarmed, and so was my co-teacher, Phi May.
Then we started taking pictures. I basically didn’t care about “teaching” – had
all my students make Valentine’s Day cards anyway. But it was SO MUCH FUN. I
took a lot of pictures, so I think I will dedicate the rest of my post to that.
Enjoy!
Mid-Day Sticker Count
Final Count: 2 gazillion
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