Christmas at Anubanchonburi was insane. I hadn’t expected anything of the sort because afterall Thailand is a Buddhist country. I sometimes forget that Christmas is a religious holiday because it is often celebrated with no mind to the Virgin Mary. That’s how it went down at Anuban. All the kids were dressed in red and green and the school was decked out in tinsel and garland. There was even an enormous Christmas tree with lights, ornaments and presents. There was also a big blowup snowman for about two hours, but that was quickly popped by one of the kids, so it transformed into a pile of melted snow.
After morning assembly all the kids headed across the street to the Regular Program campus. Everyone gathered in the outdoor gymnasium in front of the stage. The morning started with a few songs by the foreign teachers (me and all the other American and Pilipino teachers), a Christmas tree lighting by the director of our school and a really, really loud bang. The bang was the sound of streamers and confetti shooting out of golden horns, which none of us were expecting. This happened right after we sang on stage, so the entire school saw me jump and shriek with shock when the streamers exploded out of the horns.
After we sang we all received gifts from the director and then the real show began. First the Kindergarten kids competed for best Santa, Sante (Mrs. Claus), Angel and Reindeer. There were four students from each class dressed up as Santa, Sante, Rudolph and an Angel; each of them was interviewed and then they had to parade across the stage acting like their character. The kids had to answer four questions: What is your name? How old are you? What class are you in? Who are you today? I was told about all of this on Wednesday, which means I had two days to prepare my students. I’m not sure how the kids were picked for the competition, but their knowledge of the English language was not taken into account. My four students, Phem, Jelly, Fa and Earn were not at the top of the class. Earn was my angel. She’s adorable and tiny and definitely looks like an angel, but she is quiet as a mouse, maybe even more so. She never, ever, ever speaks English and when she does her voice is barely audible. She was my major challenge. When I asked the other kids, “What is your name?” They would answer with, “My name is Phem,” while Earn would answer with, “What is your name?” She basically repeated everything I said and that made it really difficult because I had to ask the question and then say her answer in a different voice so she would only repeat the answer. I could not for the life of me teach her how to answer the questions on her own. The other kids caught on a little quicker, but I think it was all still pretty confusing for them. I started to stress about it, but then I realized the interview wasn’t as important as parading across the stage in character was, so I decided to focus on that with them.
This is where Earn excelled. She skipped, floated and glided across the stage while flapping her little arms like a pair of wings. Phem held his belly and let out a “Ho, Ho, Ho” and Sante did the same. I doubt Mrs. Claus says, “Ho, Ho, Ho,” but I had no idea what else to make her say. My reindeer, Fa, was really into it, so her and I had the most fun practicing. We put our hands up on our heads like makeshift antlers and hopped around like we figured reindeer do. I quizzed the kids so many times over the two days. I bothered them at lunch, recess and while they were doing their workbooks. I tried to drill the answers to the questions into their little heads and it seemed like it was working.
Now, back to the present, I’m standing on stage with my four Kindergarteners and they’re about to compete with students from other classes for best Santa, Sante, angel and reindeer. First up was Phem a.k.a. Santa. He did well on his name and age, totally blanked on what class he was in, but when asked, “Who are you?” he answered, “I am SANTA! HO HO HO!” I was so proud. All he had to do was walk across the stage like we practiced and I wouldn’t have completely failed with my Santa training. All the Santas started parading around and Phem just stood there looking at the confetti that was hanging from the ceiling. I’ve diagnosed him with ADHD, not just because of this instance, but because of the many times during the day that he gets completely distracted from his work or the conversation he is in. As all the other Santas marched back and forth Ho, Ho, Ho-ing, Phem just stood there staring at the streamers and the students in the crowd. It was actually pretty humorous. Needless to say, Phem did not win the Santa competition. Sante didn’t do too well either. She was competing against another Sante that was a beauty pageant star so even if she would have blew everyone out of the water with her interview and Sante walk, her outfit just didn’t cut it. I thought she was awesome though. She had a cute little red dress, black boots and a little bag full of candies that she kept giving to me. In my eyes Jelly was the best Sante, even if she did say her age was K 1/10 (the number of her classroom). Next up was my angel Earn. I was dreading this moment because I knew she was either going to repeat the question, mumble something inaudible or not say anything at all. She did all three of those things, but she was still a little cutie in her outfit. She hopped across the stage waving her light up wand, smiling and constantly throwing up the peace sign. She peaces whenever someone is taking her photo, which was basically the whole time she was on stage, so she constantly had her head tilted and her two little fingers up near her cheek. Earn placed third in the angel contest because of her botched interview, but I still had one little rascal to go. It was Fa, my little Rudolph. She was dressed in a brown jumpsuit and she had a pair of antlers with a little red nose attached. She was adorable. I loved how the nose was a little croaked and how she had to move it over whenever she used the microphone. She answered all her questions pretty well and I was hopeful that she had a chance to win the contest. Next up was the stage walk and she blew my socks off, not to mention the judges’. She hopped across the stage with fervor, bouncing a half foot off the ground with her little arms up like paws. It was amazing. I think I may have been crying with joy and excitement at how good she was doing. She went across the stage once and then again and then no one stopped her so she did another two rounds. I knew she had it in the bag. When it came time to award the prizes I had no idea what was being said because it was all in Thai, but she was handed the biggest present, which meant she won. I was so proud of her. My little Rudolph kicked ass in front of all of the entire English Program. The whole rest of the day every time Fa and I saw each other we hopped around and said, “I am reindeer!” We are actually still saying it a week later. Fa is now my second favorite Kindergartener. I can pretend I don’t have favorites, but I’m an honest person.
After the competition it was time for all the grades to perform their song and dance. I’ve been working with 16 Kindergarten kids for the past three weeks on a dance to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. The elves were dressed in red and the reindeer in brown with little antlers. The antlers were not very secure so I think it inhibited their dancing a bit, but other than that they did great. They remembered the steps and stopped messing around long enough to complete the whole dance. I couldn’t believe three weeks of agony and repetition had to happen all for a in a minute and thirty seconds. It was kind of like an ‘all that, for that?’ moment. I would have felt better if they performed it again or maybe two more times so they could have had at least five minutes of fame. Nonetheless it went great and at this point in the morning I was starting to crash. I had stayed up until 3 a.m. the night before because I had to get Dave at the airport and when we finally got back to Chonburi we gabbed, unpacked his suitcases, and just enjoyed each others’ company until finally going to bed.
I found Dave in the audience and he looked like he was asleep standing up. We walked to the canteen and found some fruit juice to give us a little more energy. We headed back to the gym and watched my P1 class dance; they were awesome. The girls were in red tutus and the boys were in little black suits with gold buttons and white gloves. They danced to a mix of about a dozen Christmas songs, it seemed to go on forever and by the end of it my lips were shaking and my face hurt from smiling so much. They all really impressed me. After I congratulated them as they walked off the stage, Dave and I headed back across the street to the English Program campus. We sat with my Kindergarten kids and ate a variety of really random Thai food. All of it had some type of meat in it so I had to literally be a picky eater and navigate my fork around all of it. I didn’t want to look rude so I tried to eat as much as possible. I had just finished eating all of the rice in the rice and hotdog mix when my teacher handed Dave and me a sandwich. We took a bite, looked at each other, turned and secretly spit it out. It was so disgusting. It was 99% mayonnaise and %1 mystery meat. I was horrified. My Pop Pop used to eat mayo sandwiches; I don’t know how he did it. After striking out with just about every dish in my classroom we visited the other Kindergarten rooms like scavengers. We made out with a bunch of fresh fruit, snacks and desserts. We were starting to crash so we decided to visit my P1 class and then find a way to sneak out of school.
The P1 kids were all over the place either eating, performing or just running around the halls. A couple of them were there so I was able to hand out their Christmas stockings to them. I had the kids make construction paper stockings complete with fluffy cotton balls for the fur. I took them home and filled them with a ton of candy, thanks to Debbie Shaw. They immediately ripped open their stockings and started eating the candy and trading with other kids for their favorite kinds. The students who were there helped me put the rest of the stockings on the kids’ desks. I didn’t even have to ask them, they just started picking up the stockings and zipping around the room. A week later and the students are still talking about the stockings, chocolate and most of all the candy canes. They see me in the hall and yell, “candy cane!” After the stockings were (hung) handed out, Dave and I grabbed our stuff and made our way to the teachers’ room to rest. Prem, my coordinator shuffled us out into the canteen and told us to eat. There was a dish of thin noodles and two different kinds sauces, a sweet peanut and a spicy coconut. I recognized the peanut one right away, it was the sauce I had one night when I ate out at a seafood restaurant. I absolutely love this peanut sauce. I’d really like to learn how to make it before I leave. Dave and I loaded our bowls with noodles and sauce and devoured it all. Afterwards we tried a mysterious dessert that was wrapped in a banana leaf. All the older female Thai teachers were handing them to Dave and telling him to eat it, so we pulled apart the leaf and took a spoonful. It was a really yummy coconut dessert that had a jelly consistency. It was sweet, but not too sweet. After seeing our smiles the Thai teachers pushed more our way and told us to take them. We gladly accepted and ate a few more on the spot. After lunch we decided we should probably head out. All my Kindergarten kids were napping and the rest of the day was a party anyway, so we weren’t missing much. We put on our backpacks, walked back to my apartment, grabbed our gear and headed out the door destined for Chiang Mai.
