rroy mag mag:
A Taste of Thailand
by Mam Bourret
■
Adam at the Grand Palace in Bangkok.
Mom,
The food here is exceptional and can be
found everywhere! The restaurants are not
the only place that one can get great food; of
ten it is the street vendors that have the best stuff.
One morning, 1 got up at 6:00 am. I’ve found that
it’s a great time to be up because I could almost catch
Bangkok asleep. It is also the time that the Buddhist
monks come out to collect food from the food ven
dors and locals. It was an amazing site to see—
streets littered gold from the monks’ robes. People
came up to them, bowed and gave them free food
to put into their baskets and purses. This particu
lar morning I went up to a food vendor, a friendly
old Thai woman, sat next to a bunch of Thais and
ordered my breakfast: stir-fried spicy chicken with
rice and a fried egg. It was like the huevos rancheros
of Thailand. It rocked!”
This is from one of the first emails I sent after ar
riving in Thailand. I remember well the feeling of
wonder and excitement. I knew that I would study
for the next nine months in a country that offered
experiences that would challenge all that I was ac
customed to in the States.
What can I say about my nine months in Thai
land? For me, the experience is embedded in the
pictures I have in my mind. When I first arrived,
nothing prepared me for the spectacle that is
Bangkok. I remember the taxi ride from the airport
to Kho San Road, which is a very popular street for
travelers and has many cheap places to stay. On the
way, most of my initial attention was focused on
how hot and humid it was. I have lived most of my
life on the West Coast and, as a result, had never ex
perienced real humidity like that of Thailand. I
could practically cut the air with a knife. It took
some acclimating, to say the least.
Kho San Road was like no street I had ever seen.
It was packed with foot traffic with taxis and tuk
tuks (motorcycles with carriages built on top of
them that function like taxis) weaving in and out of
the pedestrians. On either side of the street, there
were street vendors selling anything and everything
to eager travelers ready to try their hand at haggling.
I learned quite quickly that haggling is practically an
art form among Thais.
After five days in Bangkok, I took the night train
up to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, which was
to be my home for the following nine months. I
studied at Payap University, on the outskirts of the
city, and lived in a nice apartment just blocks away
from the university, which cost me a meager $80 a
month. At Payap, I learned about Thai culture,
Buddhism, history, politics, music, the hill tribes of
Thailand and, most important, how to read, write,
speak and understand the language. It was an edu
cational experience full of new information.
Though I am indebted to Payap University, it was
off campus where my education really emerged. My
interactions with locals and my exploration of the
city and other areas of Thailand were crucial to my
education.
What was unique to Thailand was how patient
and encouraging Thais were with regard to foreign
ers learning the language. I never felt intimidated
when practicing with the locals of Chiang Mai.
When I spoke the language, or at least attempted to,
a common response from the smiling local was
Khun poot pa sa Thai gang mag, which means, “You
speak Thai very well!” For most Thais, it wasn’t so
much what I said as the fact I tried. Before I knew it,
statements like “spicy chicken with rice and a fried
egg” became gai pad prik gap cow plow siy kai dao
and “it rocked” became arroy mag mag.
Along with my acquired language skills came a
greater opportunity for learning. I could talk with
locals and learn about their culture. In addition, I
was also able to reap many benefits not available to
foreign travelers, such as getting a taxi ride for a
“Thai price.” Toward the end of my stay in Thai
land, I got quite good at haggling with the locals and
obtaining things at better prices. In addition to all
those perks, it was a lot of fun speaking with Thais.
This is just a small glimpse into the quality of my
study-abroad experience in Thailand. On the
whole, my nine-month stay abroad was a life-en
riching experience. I also learned more about my
own culture by gaining a different perspective while
living abroad. In short, I had something else with
which to compare my culture and was able to see
the differences and similarities.
On my return to the States, many aspects of my
own culture seemed as foreign to me as Thailand
was when I first arrived there. Perhaps I had a
glimpse of what it feels like for someone not from
my country who is experiencing it for the first time.
My experience abroad continues to inform and edu
cate me even after my return, and I suspect that it
always will. I feel so fortunate that I was able to have
such a vastly rewarding experience.
Adam Bourret participated in the OUS program in Thailand
during the 2001-02academic year, and he received the pres
tigious Freeman Scholarship for Study in Asia and the Gilman
Scholarship. Adam graduated in summer2002 with an an
thropology major.
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Tanzanian friends share a moment in the
kitchen of the clinic where Jeremy interned.
Photo by Katrina Brown, 2002 intern
by Jeremy Arnold
Mondayjune 24,2002
I am staying in the African American
Community Center. It is an extremely nice
place situated in a small village inhabited by native
Maasai and other ethnic groups. In order to com
municate with the people in the village and others in
the market I have to learn how to speak Swahili. I
have been spending a couple hours each day just
learning the basics so I can hold a reasonable conver
sation with the locals.
I went to the hospital and clinic today to meet the
doctors that I will be working with. I am working at
the old Arusha Clinic with Dr.Urasa. Here I will get
the opportunity to observe surgeries and other clini
cal procedures. Overall I am enjoying my stay and
am eager to get started.
It is truly an amazing atmosphere here. If the sky
is clear you can see Mt. Kilimanjaro towering over
everything. You would have to see it to appreciate its
beauty
Saturday, June 29,2002
Things here are going great and I am learning
things that I never thought I would have the chance
to learn. Some of the things that I got to do the first
week besides observing included checking patients'
vital signs and using different tests to determine a
newbom’s age if bom prematurely I also got to cal
culate each newborn^ feeding schedule and amount
(breast milk) given their weight and age.
Dr. Lymio taught me to check the child’s reflexes
and to check for any congenital defects like a curved
spine, extra digit (which is very common), and cleft
palate (another common defect). I check all the
newborns and report to him any abnormalities.
Other than that I just listen and absorb as much as
1 can, anticipating the time when the doctors get
more comfortable with me. I have a really good feel
ing about the hospital.
Sunday, July 14,2002
This week I am spending time at the other clinic
and will hopefully be able to see a couple of surgeries.
I have gotten better acquainted with the doctors and,
as they assess the patients, I make notes in the charts.
After reviewing patients, I get the opportunity to try
and diagnose them and tell the doctor the care I
would recommend for the patient. It is getting easier
and I am becoming more familiar with the treat
ments and common diseases.
I help with admissions by taking the vitals and
also with discharging the patients. Not much, but it
makes me more than happy. I have been reading
journal articles that the doctor gives me and they
help in me learning about the dilemmas that Third
World doctors face. There are definitely many and I
hope to learn from all of the ones that I see.
There is still a strong communication barrier be
tween the patients and myself, even though I can ask
what is wrong. It is the reply that they give me that is
hard to grasp! Everything here continues to amaze
me and my learning never ends.
Tuesday, August 6,2002
Hamjambo [Swahili greeting],
Well, only three weeks left in my internship, and I
will be taking a break and heading off to the coast of
Zanzibar near the beginning of September. If only I
could stay here for a couple of years. I keep telling
myself that I will always be able to come back if I can
afford it.
This place continues to amaze me with all the op
portunities it offers. It is going to be hard to leave.
Next week I will again be in the theatre and also in
the labor ward. They both have pretty much become
my home. I am going to go to the orphanage again
this weekend and am going to try and get some more
info about what happens to the kids once they reach
the age of five, and about how it is funded. There is
so much to learn in such little time...
Kwaheri [Swahili for “Farewell”]
These entries were gleaned from email messages sent
by Jeremy Arnold during his internship in Tanzania. Je
remy begins his senior year as a biology/pre-medicine
major in fall term 2002. He spent the summer months
of2002 in Arusha, Tanzania, as an IE3 Global Intern with
the Old Arusha Clinic and Mt. Meru Hospital.
Seeing the U.S. from a Whole New
.£.
dy Morgan Gates ’02
Leaving for Denmark from the U. S. was both
the scariest and most exciting experience of
my life. 1 was heading into the unknown,
which was exciting because I was tired of my or
dinary life here in the U.S. I didn’t want high ex
pectations of my experience because 1 wanted
every experience to be special and rewarding.
That is exactly what every day felt like for me
in Copenhagen. 1 arrived full of energy and left
with more knowledge of myself and the world
around me. The real learning didn’t come from
the classroom, but from daily activities and expe
riences.
I chose Denmark as a study-abroad destina
tion partly because I knew next-to-nothing about
the country and its culture before I started doing
research. Unlike France and the UK, Denmark
was somewhere that no one 1 knew had ever
been.
Many who travel to popular “American" desti
nations in Europe have stereotypes of what their
experiences will be like (the idea that the French
are rude, etc.). I didn’t want these stereotypes or
expectations to get in the way of my own experi
ence abroad.
After returning from Denmark, 1 realized how
much more self-assured and confident Iwas. I
also realized that thing? I once thought were im
portant no longer seemed that important. Living
abroad made me realize how big the world is and
how much more significant the worlds problems
are than mine. Livingm Denmark and traveling
throughout Europe intensified my desire for trav
eling and living abroad.
Coming back to the U.S. was very sad forme. I
had made so many wonderful friends, and I
came to feel that I fit in more in Denmark than I
didintheU.S. The Danes’ways of thinking and
the political climate seemed so ideal and com
fortable to me that I believed coming back to the
U.S. would be like entering a new and different
world.
The first few days home certainly did feel this
way Flying into the ever-present smog-bank of
the Los Angeles International Airport was only
mildly depressing asa first view ofhome. Hear
ing only English being spoken was also strange,
believe it or not. What was most surprising to me
was how uneven the distribution of wealth in the
U.S. is. In a relatively socialist country, such as
Denmark, poverty is rarely seen; on the street
comers near LAX, it is bitterly apparent.
It also seemed strange that most people were
fairly disinterested in hearing about the best six
months of my entire life. The strangeness of
home and the accompanying depression soon
diminished, though, as I realized that I am still an
American and that many of my moral and cultur
al values are derived from this identity. I realized
that, if 1 let this sadness affect me, I would con
stantly be living in the past.
Instead, I decided to develop a new outlook on
life in the U.S. I would try to make every day here
seem like a new experience. There were things
and places in my own country I hadn’t seen. Al
though I know that I will always want to go back
to Denmark, but there are many new experiences
to be had here as well.
Morgan Gates received her BA in political science in
June2002. She studied in Denmark’s International
Study (DIS) program, a regular UO program in Copen
hagen, in the spring semester of2001.