Meetings, Meetings

Something that I hadn't expected from rural Thailand is the level of formality and politeness involved with both office and personal interactions. For this reason, we have spent the first week having briefings from the NGO staff and having formal meetings with many important people in the district. To quote professor Shafer, "working in a different language triples the amount of time" things take to do. Between introductions, wai-ing (the Thai formal greeting with the hands together palm-to-palm, placed in front of the face), translations and speeches, it takes quite a while to get into the swing of things. On the positive side, we are learning to exist in Thai society in a respectful manner and we are beginning to get to know some key officials for our project.

We met the Chief District Officer, the public health officer, the chief of police, several village headmen, the council of elders, the president of Warm Heart and important officers at the Aubautau (the Thai word for the district) government office. Many of these people made speeches at the conference room of the Aubautau and these were followed by ceremonial presentations of tissue boxes with ornate coverings. I'm not certain of the significance, but it is the NGO's way of showing appreciation for their time and input. Again, this is one of the many measures of politeness that we have learned to be so integral to Thai culture. Since we volunteers are supposed to be model citizens, we must always be polite through modest dress, appropriate greetings, avoiding touching other people's heads, keeping our feet away from others, avoiding stepping over people and of course, using the words "khrup" or "kha" at the end of sentences to show good intentions.

As representatives of the USA, EWB and Warm Heart, we must always be on our best behavior here. We have made it a policy to wear yellow collared shirts with the king's name and seal on them every Monday. On Fridays we wear blue Lanna (northern Thai) shirts, but the other days are open to anything appropriate. Living here takes adjusting in many ways, but it is very educational and very enjoyable to become learned in a different culture that is so rich.