crash

Thai driving is mad. As I've discussed before, Thai drivers, especially those on motorbikes (who seem to the the large majority) weave in and out of traffic, drive on the wrong side of the road, blow red lights, and generally behave as though there were no one else on the street. Generally, it works out. In my experience, it often seems to be a more efficient driving style. If every one of the katrillion motorbikers in Surat followed the rules of the road and behaved the way cars are expected to (stay in your lane, don't weave to the front of the line at a traffic light, don't drive on the sidewalk...) traffic would be nightmarish and no one would get anywhere. The roads just aren't big enough for it. So to some extent, I get it.

But there's no avoiding the obvious fact: motorbiking here is really dangerous. It's liberating and relaxing and fantastically fun, but it's really dangerous. You're probably going to crash at some point. You need a helmet.

But Thai people, apparently fifty-three percent of those who regularly drive motorbikes, don't wear helmets. Anecdotally, it seems to be at least that high. Considering that many people only put one on when they see a cop, or ride around with the chinstrap unbuckled (rendering the helmet entirely useless in preventing anything but a fine), the number of people who are effectively without a helmet must be much higher. This is why Thailand has the world's worst motorbike fatality rate, with eleven thousand people dying annually because they didn't want to mess up their hair (or whatever-no excuse is a good one).

The worst is the kids. Fine, you're an adult, do you thing, but your seven-year-old needs a helmet. End of story. But it's actually pretty rare to see kids wearing them. Pretty much daily, I see passengers holding entirely unprotected infants on the back of the bike, or a parent in a helmet (presumably only to avoid a ticket) ferrying two or three kids on the back without a helmet between them. It makes me shudder to think of what could happen if they hit a bump.

It's not only helmets, either. Thailand seems to have a general lack of concern for safety. You'll see ten people in the back of a speeding pickup truck, one seated on the rusted and precariously attached tailgate. Boats shuttling tourists around and between the islands will brave absurd waves, and occasionally you hear a story with a tragic, rocky ending. Children crawl around the front seat of the car or ride on the driver's lap.

People more intimately acquainted with Thai culture have told me that this cavalier attitude towards danger in rooted in some fundamental elements of the national character. Thai people are generally, about all things, very relaxed. They just don't worry about possible negative outcomes the way most Westerners do. One expat, here for a decade and married to a Thai woman, told me that they tend not to think in terms of cause and effect; if you crash your bike while not wearing a helmet and get a concussion, they will tend not to blame the concussion on the lack of a helmet. Since you couldn't have forseen the accident, they assume you couldn't have prepared for it, so there was nothing you could have done to avoid the injury. It was out of your hands.

That's another piece of the Thai psyche: superstition. You don't need a helmet, or a seatbelt, or to not get on that old wooden boat in a storm, because you won't die until it's your time to die. When it's your time, there's nothing you can do anyway, so why worry. They hop on the bike and trust the universe to do the job of a helmet. 

While I admire the Thai stress-free attitude towards life and embrace it in matters of work and play, I can't get on board with this one. Seeing my five-year-old students roll up to the school on the back of a motorbike, their tiny heads unprotected, makes it hard to smile at their parents. The universe won't help you out here. Put on a helmet.

Stats source

bass

We moved to this quiet jungle village for the "quiet jungle" part of it, and usually that's exactly what we get. But we've got this neighbor. And he's got this sound system.

I'm not usually bothered by loud music, even when it's really, really shitty music. In Zafra, we lived right next to the plaza, where week-long festivals pumped out the same Shakira songs hundreds of time. In college, I shared a wall with a bar that regularly featured drum-heavy hipster bands. No big deal.

This is something entirely different. This is madness.

The guy has a pickup that looks like a half-finished Pimp My Ride project, and instead of putting the truck bed to any socially acceptable purpose, he's decked it out with speakers, with the volume eternally cranked up to 11. His small but diverse collection of scratched cds ranges from the Black Eyed Peas to Spanish house to sappy Thai pop ballads. When he gets going, my house shakes. The paintings on the wall rattle and the floor vibrates beneath my feet. I can't listen to my own music or watch TV. Ear plugs are futile. I once tried just putting my head under a pillow, but I could hear Fergie through the mattress.

The other neighbors, all much older than us, are even more distraught at the situation that Levi and I are. But Thais are not confrontational people. They shy away from any negative interaction, and when forced to have one, they'll smile the whole way through. Our landlords, a Thai woman and her Kiwi husband, are the only ones who have had the courage to go tell this guy to shut the hell up.

But this started four years ago, they say, and nothing will stop him.

The Kiwi has gone to the police various times. He's talked to the village leader, and to the leader of the next village over.

But apparently there's no such thing as a noise violation here, at least not outside of the city. The police can't fine him or confiscate his system or penalize him in any way.

And the village leaders are his family. Most of the village is, actually, except us and our landlords and their family, the unfortunate few who live near enough to suffer bass-induced headaches. His family won't do anything, apparently as convinced as he is of his fundamental right to deafen us all, and in fact ceased to be friendly with our landlords' family a couple years ago, when the cops were called in to give the asshole a stern (and fruitless) talking to.

Our Thai landlord, a very sweet woman, told us all this with apologies in her eyes; there's nothing to be done, she said.

So we just have to deal.

These are the moments when I find myself clashing against the culture. This would not be an issue in America. This guy would have been fined too many times for his behavior to be economically feasible. Even in Spain, the cops would have shut him down years ago. But here, the channels have been exhausted. The cops are useless, and two families couldn't talk it out, so it's over. I'll just have to spend the next seven months listening to stuttering drum machines and fantasizing about taking a baseball bat to that truck.

anuban

Once a week I teach Anuban 1, which would be, in the American education system, pre-pre-kindergarten. They're three years old. But here (and in Spain, and as I understand, in much of the world) at three years old you're off to school. At Thida, they even put you in a tiny uniform. Since you can't yet handle the whole tucked-in thing, your shirt is actually attached by a series of buttons to your skirt/shorts, but apart from that and your extremely small stature, you look just like the big kids.

They're not at the point where you can do a full, 55-minute lesson, complete with bookwork and writing, so it's just a half hour of "conversation." Sarcasm quotes because, let's be honest, these little guys don't even really speak Thai yet. So on my first day with them, I wanted to keep it simple. I walk in and their teacher has them, all 45 of them, seated on the floor in neat little columns. They all scream "HELLO" and wave frantically as I walk in and take a seat on the miniature chair at the front of the room.

We practice "My name is," which they can sort of do. "My name is Teacher Savannah," I say. A couple brave ones shout "SAWANNAH," but the rest are silent, their big black eyes rolling in their heads as they take in this strange new pale addition to their surroundings. I call up the first one. She slowly stands and, prompted by her friends, timidly approaches me. They've given her the smallest possible uniform, but the short-sleeved shirt still covers her elbows and her skirt brushes her toes. She's tugged her pigtails into lopsided tangles and one of her feet is bare. "What's your name?" I ask. She's nervous, looking around at her enthralled peers for assistance. It's too much pressure to say it aloud, so she leans in and whispers, "My name is Aung-ing." I offer her a congratulatory high five, which she accepts with enthusiasm before scurrying back to her seat, where her friend returns her missing sock.

Next up is Tang Mo, who is also in my after-school class every day and thus suffers no shyness in my presence, although she's not the reserved type anyway. Her name, directly translated, means 'watermelon.' This is a food-focused culture, and fruity names are fairly common, but sometimes a likeness can turn a cute name into adorable comedy. Tang Mo is a fat little watermelon, with round cheeks and a chubby belly and limbs of rather melon-like proportions. Before I can even get the question out, she shouts "Teechah! My ay it Tang Mo," and demands her well-earned high five. I tickle her instead, and she collapses to the floor in giggling spasms. When I stop, she's suddenly very serious, holding her hand resolutely a few inches from my face until I consent to high-five it.

I go through the entire class, one by one, coaxing their names out of them, cheating occasionally with a whispered word in Thai, hoping it will ease their nerves. One kid has his finger buried up to the knuckle in his nostril for the duration of our interation. One girl grabs my hand and examines my nail polish closely for several moments before declaring it pink. One boy bursts into tears.

Twenty-five minutes in, we stand up for a song. Thai kids are universally familiar with "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes," for some reason, so I just roll with it. But the coordination required to touch different body parts in rapid succession proves too much for most of these little ones, and a good number simply collapse in the effort. Their friends pull them to their feet, rumpling their uniforms and mussing their carefully-braided hair. One tiny one goes to touch his head and applies a bit too much force, landing on his forehead with a SMACK. It's a bloodbath. I ask them to sit down to end the carnage, but they've lost their columns and don't know where to go, so they do the next logical thing they can think: start tackling one another to the floor in extremely slow-motion wrestling matches.

Half an hour's up, sorry teacher, your problem now. I wave goodbye and go to the class next door to do it all over again.