I did it!
After a very stressful farewell in Germany I finally took my plane to Thailand. The flight was divided into two journeys, the first from Frankfurt am Main to Singapore, and the second from Singapore to Chiang-Mai in Northern Thailand, my place to stay for 3 month. The whole travel took about 16 1/2 hours! During the flight I was sitting to a very talkative German lady, who had already travelled South East Asia very often and answered me a lot of still remaining questions.
At 10:35am local Thai time (6 hours ahead of Germany) I arrived in Chiang-Mai International Airport. The climate reminded me a bit of a vacation in Mallorca. It was about 25 degrees and only little more humid than normally. Since I had expected a tropical sauna, I was very pleased about this weather. :-) I was picked up by two nice Thai ladies from IAESTE, the student organization, that made the trip possible for me.
While we were driving through the streets of Chiang-Mai, I already gained some insights to the Thai way of life. Streets were crowded with an incredible number of motor-scooters and still a remarkable number of japanese cars. People prepare food at the side of the street, which is directly exposed to exhausts from vehicles passing by. Life mostly seems to happen outside the houses, since most of the shops are open towards the road. What is the most remarkable difference to Germany is the level of tidiness. Besides the chaotic way of driving (motor-scooters partially pull to the wrong side of the road when they want to turn off, because then they don't have to wait for the vehicles which are going straight) pretty much everything is left as it is and not tuned for beautyness. For example fascades are not being repainted after years, which makes everything look a bit like in east Germany before the fall of the wall. In contrast to that, the people (especially the young ones) pay a lot of attention to their appearance. Young Thai people usually wear long trousers and shirts, the girls mini skirts and blouses. You can bet that the majority of Thai girls really look sexy. :-)
If you happen to see a person with short pants, T-Shirt and jogging shoes, it is very likely to be a European or American.
At work I also have to wear a long trouser (no jeans) and a fine shirt, plus black shoes. But despite that, Thai people immediately identify me as being a European. Why is that?? ;-)
Anyway, although getting European food has been almost impossible for me so far, the new Thai diet has not caused me some major trouble like stomach or gastric pain.
Yesterday I was invited to a Thai dinner with the colleagues of the teaching staff of the department of electronics engineering. I was sitting among maybe 20 Thai people of whose conversation I didn't understand a word. In the beginning I was overstrained, but later I decided to just watch how the people act. This is particularly so different from our western behaviour that it can fascinate one for a long time. Later I was ordered my first Thai beer, which is called Singha beer. It tasted really good and indeed has a very refreshing character. Some of the other people also had alcoholic drinks, so you can imagine the athmosphere became much more relaxed. After a few drinks the people asked me a lot of personal questions and I got to know some of them a bit better. Thereby it was sometimes difficult for both sides to understand what the other side is talking about.
When the evening was about to end there was still some anecdote I don't want to keep back. One of the collegues wanted to drive me home. He had also drunk numerous drinks with whiskey in it. Although he had drunk he sat in the car and pulled it backwards. Thereby he rammed the rear of another car. Only seconds later 3 soldiers in camouflage pants and shirts came out to see what's happening. You can bet these people didn't look like they were in the mood for joking. I already thought they might punch the collegue for what he had done.
But then I realized from their gestures that the damage didn't matter to them. When we sat back in the car, the collegue told me that the soldiers haven't been the owners of the car, which made the whole situation appear more plausible.
At the end of this first blog entry from Thailand I want to let you know what my task will be for my stay here. As you know from my first entry I work here as an assistant teacher. My first task will be to design a loudspeaker cabinet and an amplifier for a lecture room. As I am not an expert on this field I can call upon the experience of the collegues who are electronic engineers.
The second task is to optimize the acoustics in the room, since the echo is massive due to reflecting surfaces in the room. For this task I can apply my theoretical knowledge from the university. One collegue has already asked me if I could hold a brief lecture about the very basics of room acoustics, so that part would mean to fulfil my task as being an assistant teacher.
After all, I still have to get used to a lot of things, that all have to do with cultural differences. Plus, learning to speak Thai at the moment seems to be almost impossible for me, although I've already learned a few words. Be curious for my next entry, which will reveal what the first weekend will bring. As you already know some Thai people like to drink a lot of alcohol. :-)
