Random Variables: February 2015

Here's a post I've been figuratively sitting on since New Year.

I've met so many people here that are just happy to talk to you because you are an English speaker. There is weird comfort in being around a language you think in, are comfortable with; in speaking to someone who doesn't have to put in effort just to understand what you're saying. Where your interactions do not require extra thinking. Being a teacher for English as a foreign language automatically puts you in a position where this comfort is a little hard to find. (If it wasn't, you would be redundant, right?)

When you think of the comforts I might miss when I started living here in Thailand, the list seems like it will be Indian food, a cup of good, South Indian filter coffee, proper Indian tea... I never could think of anything definite I would miss - until the day I went on vacation with my two American friends to nice, touristy Kanchanaburi for New Year and there was so much more English! Suddenly everything was easier. Little things made us happy.

Not even in my dreams did I think I might ever miss being in an English environment. It's not that I don't hear English at all here, in Ubon: I work with a group of English speakers, hang out in a room with them all day (almost) when I work; my roomies and I talk to each other exclusively in English; I watch English TV shows on YouTube (or wherever else) and talk to my Thai friends and colleagues in English (that's a bit of a tug-o-war, to be honest). The familiarity is still so welcome, though.

While I now live in a big city (trust me, I've had to redefine so many things for myself when I got here - "big city" is one, "pretty good English" is another), the friends I met with live in a small, small town. They are the ONLY actual English speakers in their school (the schools here also have Thai teachers who teach English, but many don't really speak any English). I can only imagine how much more they value every English word they come across. Even being in a big city, things like an English menu are not terribly common and books in half decent English can only be found, secondhand, in falang cafes - usually, not for sale. Our excitement on being able to buy English books in Kanchanaburi drove us crazy. We saw everything from Chelsea Handler to Bothom to DH Lawrence.