A Very Merry (and Thai) Christmas!

wildboom

Christmas is sort of an anomaly in Thailand, but despite that fact I still managed to get Jolly and have some Christmas fun! First shout out goes to Maria for giving an unforgettable pre-Christmas celebration in Korea, where I actually got to see snow! Next shout out goes to the church here in Thailand. After reading this post you’ll understand why they deserve it!

Thai School Christmas Outreach

On the 21st, I had the opportunity to go with some members of the church out to a school a little ways out of the city. The school only had 45 kids in it and is right on the borderline of being shutdown by the government. It a lot of ways it reminded me of my own grade school, in which there were only 12 kids in the the school when I graduated from 8th grade.

We started at the school with some ice breaker English games and songs. Then we eventually got into telling the Christmas story. The missionary pastor, Pastor Rob, told the story in Thai while I stood up there on the stage holding his props. It was an awesome opportunity to be able to share the news of Jesus’s birth to kids who may have never heard it before!

Thai Christmas Caroling

On the 22nd the church carried out their tradition of Christmas caroling. We started around 6pm by piling into cars and driving to one of the members houses. At the house we quietly passed out music sheets and lit candles and then walked to the front door singing classic Christmas songs. The family came out and then they chose their Christmas favorites to sing. After we sang a couple songs we had a Bible reading and prayers. Then, as the tradition goes, the house we visited feeds everyone special treats!

It went on this way from house to house. I wish I had known about all the food, because I foolishly ate dinner beforehand. At the first house we had rice, meat, and fried eggs, as well as fruits and desserts. It was practically a full meal. At another house sweets and drinks, then at another rice cakes, and at another donuts and hot drinks. Not sure where all we went, but we sure covered some distance. We started in the city and by the end we were out in the countryside at some member’s house. When I finally made it back to my apartment after the caroling is was midnight!

Even though I was the only native English speaker there and not many of them spoke English and I wasn’t very good at sing in Thai the fellowship was apparent! It was a heart warming night and awesome to be apart of their loving church community!

Sunday Christmas Service

Though it was only Christmas Eve the main celebration of Christmas was on Sunday. It was the most packed I have ever seen the church! Most of the Thais came in traditional clothing and everyone was in such a festive mood! After a nice service (thanks to Pastor Rob for translating) we had a traditional Northern hill tribe meal.

The meal was prepared and set out on trays with everyone sharing from bowls on the table. Each person got a bag of sticky rice and you use chunks of the rice to scrap up the different meats and sauces. Traditionally they eat with only their hand and no utensils. I welcome that to chopsticks even though it might be a little more messy!

Before eating one of the girls performed a traditional dance, in the photo above. Later on, another girl from the congregation played some traditional music. Then all the native English speaking folks, myself included, sang an English Christmas song for everyone. Then after that was a good old fashioned game of bingo to win some Christmas prizes. I was actually the first winner!

 

It was an awesome experience to have the traditional meals, dancing, and music especially for a holiday that isn’t traditional at all to Buddhist Thailand. The fellowship was awesome and giving spirit was incredible! I got sent home with so much left over food , a goodie bag of candy, a goodie bag of soap and laundry detergent, and two bags of mountain rice. The rice came from a hmong village in the mountains. I’m told this rice is big grained and has a different taste and texture due to where it’s grown. I had so much to carry that my “Thai mother” pictured above helped my tie to my bike for the ride home! So much to be thankful for! I have been truly blessed by the people here in Thailand!

Christmas Day

My first Christmas outside of the US was spent in Thailand, at where else but a Japanese steak house. Not really your typical Christmas meal, but Christmas is anything but typical in Thailand.

I’m always super appreciative of the help and support I’ve gotten from the people at church and no people have taken care of me and made me feel at home more than the Meister family. Pastor Rob Meister is the missionary pastor who started the mission years ago (I’ve heard the story several times, but always forget the number of years they have been here. It’s around 20.). They are some of the most genuine, caring people you will ever meet and they have given their whole lives in service of spreading the good news of Jesus.  I’m so blessed to have met them and to have learned from them! In a clear example of them making me feel at home and taking care of me, they took me out with their family for a Christmas day lunch!

The rest of my Christmas day has been spent training at the gym.

I’ve had one heck of a different Christmas experience here in Thailand, and while I miss my family more than anything, this is a Christmas I won’t be forgetting soon! God’s blessings on your Christmas!

A Very Merry (and Thai) Christmas!

Thai Fight!!

wildboom

 

In a surprising development on Saturday afternoon I found out that Thai Fight tickets were free! I skipped out on afternoon training and headed to the show with about 10 people from the gym. Now I know you’re thinking, what’s Thai Fight? The best way I can explain it is that it’s a cross between UFC and the NBA All-Star game.

Obviously, it relates to the UFC because it is fighting, but it relates to the NBA All-Star game because it has the biggest names in the sport of Muay Thai. Often their matches don’t really count for much, just like the All-Star game.

In the photos above you can see Saenchai. He is regarded as one of the best fighters of all time. His record, after the win I witnessed, is 308-23. He has numerous accolades as champion at multiple weights at top stadiums in Thailand as well as several world titles. Now, at age 37, he more or less fights lower class, inexperienced opponents for show.

Thai Fight, like the UFC, also has legitimate match-ups and potential for some good fights like a couple I saw Saturday night. However, every single fight, at least at this specific event, was a Thai versus a foreigner.  The foreigner was almost always supposed to lose. Only in one fight, the last of the night, did a 19 year old Ukrainian kid upset one of the popular Thai fighters.

This was actually the first time Thai Fight has happened in Chiang Mai. Normally Thai Fight takes place in Bangkok when it is in Thailand. Like the UFC, Thai Fight takes place often in different cities and venues. Recently there has been Thai Fight Barcelona, London, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Cambodia.

After the fight, I took the opportunity to get up close and see the ring. We had decent seats, only about 6 or 7 rows back, but it was cool to see it up close and personal. It’s hard to tell from my pictures, but this was a major production. There were cameras mounted everywhere on robotic arms and the stage was massive. When the fighter is first announced they pop out of the floor of the stage and then make their way to the left side where they bow to a picture of the King of Thailand. They also knee and bow before a Buddhist shrine, though I did notice fighters didn’t  always bow to the shrine.

After that the fighter walks down the main bridge high-fiving fans as he goes. Then into the ring. I am posting a video below that shows the whole event in it’s entirety. You can just skip around to different parts in the video, if you’re interested, to get a sense of the event.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13W_nhoq1F8

Overall, it was awesome to get to see one of Thailand’s legendary fighters even if it was mostly for show. There were some real solid matches throughout the night, and for free you can’t beat it! It’s only got me more excited to keep training!

Tomorrow is Christmas and I already have a blog post planned to fill you in all the festivities I’ve already had and will have tomorrow! God bless your holidays!

Thai Fight!!

Quick Update

wildboom

I’ve settled back into training once again after my trip to Korea. Nothing really to exciting coming up. A little depressed at the lack of Christmas festivities and cheer here, but I find it hard to get in the mood myself when it’s 90 degrees.

Massage

Since returning to training, I have been having some issues with my back so I finally decided to get my first Thai massage. For 200 baht ($6.11) you can get yourself an hour massage! So after suffering through the back tightness without much relief I wandered into the closest massage parlor to my apartment on Sunday after church. Never had a massage before, much less in a foreign country. The lady there didn’t speak any English so I was completely lost. To the best of our hand charades I gathered she wanted me to change into these weird cotton pants. Did that and the massage got under way.

She started at my feet and worked her way up my legs. We hit quite the bottle neck at my calves though. She probably spent a good half of the time on my calves alone. I actually ended up getting an hour and a half massage as she rushed to get the rest of my body after the job she did on my calves. At one point she, this small Thai lady, was standing with one foot on each of my calves walking up and down them. It was actually pretty terrible. I had no idea my calves were so bad and I barely got my back worked on which was the main objective. Massages aren’t all they are cracked up to me. I was actually sore from the massage the next day. I am happy to report, though, that after some more consistent stretching I am starting to loosen up some.

Job Interview

My life always seems to be filled with random opportunities and I’m not much for turning them down. This random opportunity came up when  I ended up getting forwarded an email from my friend Liz who works at Thai Village. If you are just now reading, Thai Village is where I had the opportunity (see another one!) to volunteer for a week while recovering from my concussion. Essentially Liz is a friend of a guy, and that guy’s friend is looking to hire someone to be filmed for English videos.

I guess the company is actually a pretty big deal. It is a pretty high tech Thai online learning platform that has received investor money from Microsoft. For the interview I had to prepare an English lesson around 10 minutes in length. I’ve never taught before and I hate languages so I was pretty nervous about this. I rode my bike 40 minutes to the interview, and thank goodness is was an overcast day otherwise I would have been drenched in sweat.

At the office, I met the guy I was interviewing with. We started talking and actually hit it off right away. He was a really nice guy. He studied his MBA in Chicago so we had some close connections and things to talk about which I normally don’t have with Thai people. Then I gave my English lesson and he gave me a little feedback. He said he could tell I was prepared and that I sounded engaging, but I needed to put a little more energy into it and smile more. I smiled all the time while we were talking and he said that would have added a lot to the lesson. I agreed with him and attributed it to nerves. Hopefully, if I get the job I won’t be as nervous and I can show a little more personality in the videos.

Everything else went really well up to the lesson and he said he gave me the pass on the lesson. He sent the lesson recording to his partner back in Bangkok and now I wait to see if they like it as well. If I get the pass from her I am their guy and we start filming. The gig is roughly 60 hours of work over a 2 month project period. The pay should be around $1,000ish which would be huge for me as I am running really low right now and might not be able to fund my travel plans for getting home after Thailand (Mom, if you’re reading, you know what I want for Christmas). I am generally overly optimistic so I think I’ll get it, but realistically I would say there is a 70% I get it. Whatever happens happens and I don’t get it I’ll figure something else out. I always do.

 

And that’s my life right now. I have another really awesome thing coming up soon that I don’t really want to talk about yet, but it’s got me really excited. In the next coming day I’ll be doing some Christmas things with church so a post about Thai Christmas caroling might be coming up. Until next time!

Quick Update