Keeping a positive teacher mindset
Coping with the demands and frustrations of teaching
Stay positive and view issues pertaining to Thai education with a broad mind. Balancing your concerns, with a deeper understanding of how Buddhist values reverberate in the local community is the way to go!
A day in Ayutthaya
Temple-spotting is a fine way to spend a Buddhist holiday
Apparently, Monday was (loosely translated) Buddha Day. It is therefore fitting that I should visit temples for the day, and thanks to an invitation from a lovely fellow teacher at school, that's exactly what I did! Ayutthaya is a mere hour and some change train ride from Bangkok.
The Venice of the East
How Bangkok's waterways could improve your life no end
Any reader who has lived in Bangkok near a canal for any length of time, will know not only how efficient and inexpensive the system is, but also how unappreciated and unused the system is by expats in general and how they could easily benefit from cheap, reliable and extremely quick transport around Bangkok.
Old things from the village
Keeping the memories of those olden, golden days alive
My foreign friends and students who know my life habits ask me why I love old things; old houses, old wood furniture, and even pieces of an old rice mill that I keep underneath my old wooden house in Bangkok. It seems strange, doesn't it?
The battle of Nong Sarai
Following the life stories of a revered Thai king
King Naresuan is one of the most revered monarchs of Thai history. His victories over the Burmese during the years around the end of the 16th Century prevented Burma from consolidating their earlier military victories and hence extending further their empire to encompass large swathes of Siam.
The communists helped me learn English
Childhood memories of Thai village life
I must have been eight when the Communists came to our village, because that was the first year my grandmother told my father that I must stay in school. I had six older brothers, I was the first girl in the family, and there was a lot of cooking and dish-washing to be done in the morning. My father thought that girls who stayed too long in school would just get pregnant.
Fear of change?
Why the reluctance to adopt English as an official language in Thailand?
In Thailand the government has set 2012 as English Speaking Year with a goal of encouraging students to converse in English every Monday. Such policies are useful but the major leap of enacting legislation to make English an official language for Thailand is also needed
Thai nationalism
Postbox letter from Andrew Woodward
My intention here is to propose some ideas that may help to account for the feelings of peculiarity and marked shock that many farang as well as non-Thai Asians experience during prolonged stays in the Kingdom of Thailand.
Bangkok getaways - Lopburi
This month it's Thailand's monkey capital
A town located just a few hours from Bangkok that's worth definitely worth a visit. Lopburi, famous for its ruins and monkeys, lies some 150 kilometres north of the capital and can easily be reached by either bus or train.
Amateur archaeology in isaarn
Playing 'Indiana Jones' in deepest Isaan
For anyone that has ever thought it would be a thrill to stumble across a hidden treasure, and moreover the most valued possessions of an ancient civilisation, it pays to keep your eyes on the ground; you never know exactly when you’re going to stumble across something genuinely interesting.
