January 2012: New Year's and being a tourist at Home

Well, January was the most fun and exhausting month yet! My friend Jenny flew up from Phuket to Chiang Mai with me and stayed for 10 days! It was a blast to have someone from home to do tourist stuff with. I had jumped right into full-fledged work schedule so fast that I hadn’t really had time to explore the city much. Jenny had a whole list of things she wanted to see and do, so we did as much as we could before she left for Bangkok.

We visited Wat Chiang Man, the oldest temple in the city, Wat Phra Singh, where the walking street ends, and another one I can’t remember. All of them were decorated for New Year’s celebrations and were packed with people. It was cool to see how they were all decorated differently and see the amazing detail that went into the architecture of the elephants, the gold filigree and the buildings themselves. Jenny was excited to try all different kinds of street food, so we ate a lot of small restaurants in the areas we were exploring.

I finally got the chance to see the Lanna Museum, about the history of Chiang Mai, and the joining of Northern Thailand, or Lanna Kingdom, with Thailand. It has lots of interesting things about the king and the Thai language too. You can even listen to all the different tribal dialects spoken around the area on headphones. Thai is one of the only languages that has more single syllable words than multi-syllable words.

Other highlights of Jenny’s visit were another trip to Doi Suthep, and a hike around the Huay Kaew waterfall on the way up the mountain; another fun-filled trip to Bua Tong waterfall (the limestone one where you stick to the rocks); a trip to Mae Sai waterfall, which has 10 levels, including one where you can swim at the bottom of the waterfall, or go behind it to jump through and into a deep pool; and a Khamtoke show, where you get to see traditional dances of many of the areas’ tribal groups as well as traditional Thai dances. It also comes with a huge meal of all kinds of delicious Thai foods, so that was a fun night!

Jenny was also with us for New Year’s Eve, when we went with Ning, Sophie and Sophie’s school friend to eat moogataw and then to Thapae Gate which was packed with people celebrating the new year, letting of Kom Loi (the paper lanterns), drinking and listening to the free concert put on by the top 7 of the Thai version of American Idol. We met up with some of Sophie’s other school friends and they had a blast listening to the concert. 

This was actually one of the scariest evenings though, because it was the first time I had felt the real danger of human trafficking up close. The whole group of us was gathered close to the stage, when Jenny and I both noticed a creepy white guy with glasses staring fixedly at the teenage girls in our group, specifically Sophie. We discussed what we should do, but seeing as it was a public place and public venue, other than just taking the girls home, there wasn’t much we could do to get away from this guy. As the night progressed, we kept a close eye on him, as he moved to get closer to the girls, we would counter him, keeping a human shield between this creep and our kids. At one point, I lost sight of him and when I turned to look over my shoulder, he was literally RIGHT BEHIND ME, like in a horror movie. I kind of bumped him to get him to move away, and eventually, he shifted around away from me. Another time, Sophie had her camera and wanted to get closer to the stage to get some shots of the singers. I had warned her several times about the guy by this point, so when he was to my right with his back to the stage and staring right at her, and she tried to run thru the crowd, I physically pulled her back to me and told her if she tried to take off like that again, we’d go home, no matter whether it was midnight or not. Finally, after about 3 hours of watching this guy like a hawk and trying to have a good tie in spite of him, he disappeared into the crowd.

Another scary thing that happened was a little girl about 18 months wandered past us with no mother in sight and we lost her in the crowd of people. About 5 minutes later, her frantic mom came running, looking for her. Jenny went off with the mom and found the little girl, but geez, what parent takes her 18-month child to an outdoor event with thousands of people and then puts her down so she can wander away?

Anyway, after all this drama, we finally got to see the big finale with the governor of Chiang Mai province speak to the crowd in English and Thai and saw the huge Christmas tree made of used cds shoot off fireworks! It was SO much cooler than Times Square: The tree was 10 levels tall, so at the 10 second countdown,  each level shot off fireworks and then at midnight, the top exploded with about 10 minutes of fireworks. It was so much fun, especially since I had watched them building this thing for weeks with no idea what it was going to be used for. 

After the show was over, we followed the crowd like sheep and made it back to the car, parked near Taw Saeng. We had gotten a couple Kom Loi on our way, so we set them off from our rooftop into the sky and nearly caught the trees on fire when the wind caught hold of them! Luckily, disaster was averted, and Sophie and her friend decided to put up the tent and sleep on the roof that night. The next morning they were awoken by pigeons, curious as to whom had taken up residence on their stoop.

The reason January was so exhausting is that, in addition to hosting a guest and getting Sophie back in the school swing of things, we were on deadline to finish all the copy for our new promotional materials, and I was taking point on it all. So, every day after work, and every weekend for about 6 hours a day, I was working on getting everything worded just right, writing up information cards about every kid for the sponsorship program, and doing the design so all the words fit correctly on the booklet and brochures. I really enjoy doing this stuff and miss doing it since it was my life in high school yearbook, but still, coming home from an 8 hour day to work another 4 hours is not the most healthy practice.

In addition, we had not one, but TWO teams come in January! It was lots of fun, but lots of work too, as we had to teach them about our schedule and help translate when they taught our classes. The kids loved having them though, and still talk about missing them. The first team was a group of students from Biola University in LA who did their Jan term with us, and helped us throw a girls night slumber party! The kids had so much fun, and we all slept squished together on every mat I could get my hands on in Chiang Mai. We watched a movie and then Ning talked to them about what it means to live in the area we live in, near the red light district and asked what the kids thought when they saw girls working in the bars. She told them that we (the staff) love them and do not want that future for them, and that even though those girls have nice motorbikes and iPhones, they are worth so much more than that. She told them that their worth is priceless in the eyes of God, so even if you work as a dishwasher and have a bad phone, or no phone or motorbike at all, it is still better to work at that and know your value than to sell your body to get nice things. It was a powerful night, and I think a lot of what she said stuck with the girls. It’s an important talk to have with them occasionally, to remind them of their worth and that they cannot find their worth in money or earthly things.

The second team came from Taiwan and filmed a lot of our activities and interviews to make an article and video for us. They also did an interview with just Sophie and me so I could use it in the US when I was coming back for fundraising. It’s such a great video of us and I love it, because it will be a great thing to have when we are older, a snapshot of our lives when she first came to live with me. 

The team was great, and paid for dinner and transport so we could take all the kids to Night Safari! When I was there in December with my parents and Sophie, I asked if they ever let groups like us come for free, and they said to just send them a fax with our info on it. So, we did, and first they said we could come for free, and the adults for half price. Then, they called back and said, nevermind, you have to pay half price, because it’s high season, so everyone has to pay half price. THEN, we decided it was too expensive, and they called BACK and said that after their staff meeting when they talked about the good work we were doing, they decided we should get to go for free after all. So! After a week of back and forth, we went to the Night Safari, and had a lot of fun. We fed the birds, did both trams and my group went around the lake to see the rest of the zoo, while the other groups discussed among themselves whether they should go see the zoo until they ran out of time to go and just went on the tram.