The Structure

Two months now and I've finally figured out how the program works enough to explain it.
Sorry I've been so MIA.

The program's certainly very different from any other study abroad program I've heard of. In my opinion, its focus is on contemplative/alternative education and activism. The first - contemplative education sounds kinda hinky, I know. Now that I think about it, it's hard to describe what exactly it might be. It's education combined with a constant sense of awareness, contemplation and perspective (says Wikipedia). For example, our group once had a reflection on education and what our definition of education was, whether we had ownership over our education, etc. It means constant reflection, discussion, evaluation and meditation - A LOT OF IT.
The second part is about active learning - taking action drawing from the things you learn or research. But it's not necessarily doing as you see fit but being interactive with those you get information from and making sure it's always in accordance with what they've said or suggested. Hence a class on Social Research Methods - I have yet to figure out what that exactly means.
The program themes that we always try to tie into are - human rights, anti-oppression, development, globalization, grassroots and community.

So with that in mind, there are 5 different units/subjects they're having us learn about. Units include a reading packet, discussions on readings, a briefing to prepare for exchanges with different people, homestays, a workshop to discuss what we've learned and Next Steps to decide what we want to do with the experiences we had. We've already completed the first two - Agriculture and Land. The next is a Collaborative Community Consultation - which basically means it's open to whatever we collaborate with the communities on. The next two are Water and Mining. For the Agriculture Unit, we learned about organic sustainable agriculture on a global and Thai context - basically the Thai government was pushing for a lot of herbicide and pesticide use but some villages are going organic and integrated. Which means their food was delicious.
For the Land Unit, we learned about national parks and land preservation in conflict with forest villages who had land taken away from the government. Long story short, the Thai government was unaware of villagers living in the forests they were attempting to preserve and the process of getting community land titles has been a struggle for the villagers. So in a lot of ways, we were seeing a lot of program theme connections - violations of human rights, communities involved in grassroots movements, etc.

Now for the roles: program facilitators, teachers (ajaans), process facilitators, and unit facilitators.
yay for facilitation. IT'S EVERYWHERE.
Program facilitators are the interns - past CIEE students who come back as part of the program and take part in how the student group participates. They're not necessarily in charge once the student group knows how the program structures work. We've got 4 female P'Facs this year - they've all already graduated from undergrad. They're awesome because they recognize much of our experiences and they get to live in their own house and drive motorcycles with an international license.
Teachers (ajaans) - We've got 3 Thai Ajaans - they're all awesome and adorable. Then we've got Ajaan Dave - the director of the program - he gives us lectures and cultural exercises on Thailand. He's awesome because he has a PhD from University of Wisconsin-Madison (right where my family used to live) and because he's lived in Thailand long enough to be rather fluent and be a monk for some time. We've also got a translator, Aj. John, who's half Thai and half Filipino. He graduated from KKU, likes wearing green shirts and plays the electric guitar LIKE A BEAST. Along with that, we have a lot of other professors come in for guest lectures from other universities or NGOs.
Process Facilitators: These are fellow students - my peers. Because group process is such a huge thing (that's gonna be explained soon), five of the students in our group have this role to basically make sure we don't kill each other in discussions or create drama like its our own Glee show. They improve on facilitation and communication skills within the group. It was quite the process to decide who these people would be. So far they've held workshops on constructive feedback and accountability. They're awesome because they're fun, honest, patient and creative - so far,they've done great jobs being process facilitators and peers.
Unit Facilitators: Again, fellow students. Everyone who isn't a ProFac has to be a UFac for one unit at some point. UFacs have the academic responsibility during units - their job is to organize all the unit-relevant activities like the reading discussions, exchanges and workshops so the student group gets the most out of each unit and has a complete understanding of the issues and themes.
I was UFac for Unit 1 - advantage: getting it over with quickly before the assignments pile up. disadvantage: going in blind - no models or examples to draw from. That experience will be left for another blog post.

Hope this made a little more sense - it's quite the unique program. :)

Mock Unit. Real Life.

I always have trouble trying to decide what to blog. I realize that I still need to clarify how the whole program actually works but at the same time, we're exposed to so many different experiences that I feel I have to record those before the initial emotions fade away...
So I'll have to write about the program structure later - that's less meaningful and interesting than this. 


It's interesting that I go to school in one of the most HIV/AIDS prevalent cities in the US and yet, I am most consciously aware of the issue when I'm an ocean away in a country that suffers from the same disease. We started a "mock unit" on HIV/AIDS and this involved visiting a hospital to meet with volunteers of TNP+ - Thai Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS. I don't think I've ever consciously been in a room with so many HIV/AIDS victims who regularly talk about their personal struggles, their roles in a greater organization and their efforts in communities and governments.

Their struggle is a unique one, considering the national culture and traditions that surround and challenge them. Since it's such taboo to talk about sex and drug use, it's just as difficult for people to talk about preventing HIV/AIDS or dealing with it. The TNP+ volunteers all went through some sort of discrimination, isolation, depression, judgment or loneliness because their community or hospitals were uneducated about the disease. It's terrible to hear how often these victims have considered suicide before finding support in TNP+.
But it isn't the exchange with TNP+ workers I want to blog about...

It was the home of a villager with HIV/AIDS that really opened my eyes.
Different groups visited different individuals and my group visited an older woman - her name was Meh (mother) Tong Sai. She was probably a little older than my own mother - she looked fragile, tired and her cheekbones were sunk in as a side effect of the medication she was taking.
She told us she had just gotten back from a religious ceremony and she was a bit worn out.
That's quite a shock considering that 15 years ago, her community didn't allow her to attend religious ceremonies because she had HIV.
Her community also wouldn't let her make food. She had to wash dishes with gloves because she had HIV.
Her community condemned her because she had HIV but her husband and children didn't.
Her community never stopped by her home to visit her when she was too sick to work and laid in her dark room alone because she had HIV.
Her community wouldn't buy food from her because she had HIV so she had to travel to other markets where they would't recognize her and she could tell observant strangers she just had diabetes.

She had no idea until her fourth and last child was born with a cleft lip and the doctors had her tested. Once her village found out, the discrimination was instantaneous. She quietly cried as she told us her children were bullied, abused and harassed in school. She didn't care that her alcoholic husband gave her nothing from the money he made, she didn't care that the house was still spinning while she told us her story, she didn't care that she could die tomorrow - all she cared was that she would live for her children. She is staying in her marriage and she is still struggling to travel and sell her goods at different markets for her kids - so that they'd grow up and find happiness. Without TNP+, she wouldn't have had the strong medical and moral support she needed to get her though this. Her older children still pay the tuition for their younger siblings and they often send money back to her - they have been her strongest lifeline these 15 years.

There's nothing we could really say for a story like this and at some point, I didn't know if I wanted to cry out of pure sadness, empathy or outrage. Ignorance couldn't possibly be bliss - not if it meant an entire community would ostracize an innocent woman and her children. I think a lot of us just felt helpless in that situation - how could we show empathy or support? We couldn't do anything but tell her how much we admired her for her strength and wished her and her children the best.
In response, she told us that she wanted to be an example for the younger HIV/AIDS victims - to show them how to survive.
how your heart will survive.

I took away from that experience a humbling lesson.
Even as privileged Americans, there was nothing we could ever offer her, but we had everything to learn from such a life - you could really see such solid strength and calm hope in her fragile body and her silent tears. An incurable disease, an entire community of ignorance and discrimination and a neglectful husband couldn't break her down - not when she had her children to love.
I don't think I would've been so lucky to have such an experience had I learned about HIV/AIDS in DC. To be surrounded by what we would classify as poverty and yet, be blind to all of that in comparison to this woman of unshakable faith and strength...
this must be how you really live and learn.

There's much more about HIV/AIDS I learned that day that I could write shamefully long blog entries about but I'll save that for a rainy day...For now, this was what mattered.

Cauc[Asian] Comparisons: A Korean-American's Take on Thai Culture

This was a short submission I wrote for the newsletter we put together. A compilation of our perspectives and observations will be put together into a pdf and sent to family and CIEE members. 
This was my chosen topic.

I’ll always remember our first exposures to American culture in Thailand. The group would excitedly point out the first McDonald’s and KFC or marvel at the stores that screamed Abercrombie & Fitch or Express in every way but the name. But no one will remember as well as I do when we see traditional Korean clothing (hanboks) sold at the night markets or hear Korean music playing in coffee shops and electronic stores. The prevalence of Korean entertainment and culture is much more extensive than I realized. Almost everyone I meet has asked me where I’m from though I plainly speak English and I have yet to meet a Thai unfamiliar with at least one Korean word or a popular Korean music group.

It isn’t something I can explain but it is something I can feel and describe everyday.  I never expected my Korean-American upbringing to present itself as an advantage in so many ways. I’m not gawked at as often as my friend with blond hair and blue eyes. I order spicy food without fear and eat strange cuts of meat at homestays without questioning. Being a smaller, shorter Korean-American, I shop much more comfortably in Thai boutiques and for the first time in a long time, I don’t struggle to find shoes to fit my 5 ½ size feet. I’ve assimilated to the new culture relatively easily compared to my white American friends as well. Whereas the Caucasian-Americans in my class see a cultural contradiction, I see its similarities to the Korean culture I’ve grown up around. The polite greeting wai comes more naturally to me when I greet elders because my Korean heritage intrinsically has me bowing in respect.  Additionally, learning Thai isn’t as difficult when my Korean speaking, reading, and writing abilities helps me accurately pronounce Thai phonetics and numbers.

All the same, being Asian in a Southeast Asian country will still have its limitations because I am also an American, a farang. It’s as if the cultural connection is crystal clear one moment and fuzzy the next. I’m not used to eating rice with my hands and the family structure within villages still confuses me. My roommate watches more Korean dramas than I do and I’ve yet to find a Protestant church to attend on Sundays. I’ve noticed that the Thai’s traditional perception of an American has yet to include an Asian-American who found most of her heritage growing up in small Korean communities in small American towns and not the mother country itself. Thais I meet find it a little difficult to understand that I’m not completely integrated with the Asian culture I was born into. At the same time, I find myself wondering whether I’d understand more or less if I had been raised in Korea my whole life. But I realize that the differences between Korean and Thai culture can be just as gaping as that between American and Thai culture. It’s simply that the little things I understand come to me naturally and I’m grateful that I have a small cultural foundation to build my new experiences upon.

Hence, I count myself as lucky. Thailand, I hear you loud and clear.