Erasmus+ Journal (Issue 2) 2013/14
The first two weeks
Picture 2: Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat
Here are the highlights of this amazing journey:
14.01.2014 Welcome lunch
In the morning there was the welcome lunch and the introduction of the teachers and ourselves. They made us feel very important and welcomed. The first impression that I got about the Thai people is, that they love ceremonials. Everything seemed very formal and official, but as soon as we got to know the teachers a little bit more I realized that they are very open and polite people.The highlight of this morning was the traditional Thai dance that was performed just for us.
In the afternoon we got a tour around the campus. The university has 5 different departments. One thing that stuck out to me was, that in Thailand, when you want to become a flight attendant you have to study at the university whereas in Europe or at least in Austria you only attend a three months course.
In the evening we visited the Kao San Road which is also known as the backpacker road and is famous for the many little shops where you can buy cheap clothes, jewelry, food and technical advices.
15.01.2014 Thai History / Siam Museum
On our second day we visited „Dusit Palace“ from King Rama V, with our teacher Pinky. We were impressed by the area around the palace and the Thai style. The palace itself was very big, and the interior design was original and has never been touched sing the king lived there. In the afternoon we visited the Siam Museum, near the “Grand Palace”. The museum shows the history of Thailand in a special and creative way. After the museum we walked to “Wat Pho”, which was very close. There you can find the biggest lying Buddha, which let us feel very small. At the end of this long an exhausting day, we treated ourselves with foot massage in a relaxing, very well-known medical center.
Picture 3: Thai Dancing class
16.01.2014 Temple / Thai Dancing
We started our fourth day with a trip to a small temple near the river “Mae nam chao phraya”. There we met a Buddhist monk, who told us about his fascinating life in the temple. There are 200 rules he has to follow, for example: not to eat anything after 12. At lunchtime we visited the fresh market in the center of Bangkok. There you can by nearly everything you need for traditional Thai cooking, including frogs, snakes turtles and fish.
In the afternoon we joined a Thai dancing class at University. We learned a traditional Thai Dance and a song. Actually it was really hard to learn, because every single movement has to be carried out in a specific way, which requires a lot of body control. We tried our best and had a lot of fun, exploring a different kind of dancing.
17.01.2014 Grand Palace/Thai language course
This was one of my favourite trips, the visit of the Grand Palace. When you see the palace for the first time you are just in awe of its beauty. Everything is golden and sparkles and the deep blue sky and the sun make the building even more attractive. We got a great tour through the palace area. We even got to go into the Grand Palace itself, which is a restricted area. The Grand Palace looks like the Buckingham Palace, the roof is made in Thai style and inside it is built in French style. We only got the opportunity to see the inside because the Suan Dusit University arranged that for us.
In the afternoon we had a lecture about Thai language. It was a very interesting language class because our teacher was mainly speaking in Thai, which doesn't make a lot of sense when you don't understand a word. The difficult thing about learning Thai is the pronunciation and the way they write the words with our letters. There is not really a rule how to pronounce the letters. For example the word “keen” is pronounced as “kian”. But so far we learned the basic phrases like “my name is..”, “I am a student” and “not spicy” - which is a really important phrase!
Picture 4: Buddha at Grand Palace
18.01.2014 Chatuchak Market
On Saturday we went to Chatuchak weekend market, a big market area on the brink of Bangkok. On the market you can buy everything you need, clothes, books, shoes, food, pets, furniture, dishes, and decoration. You could spend a week there, to explore the whole market, but for us one day was totally enough.
19.01.2014 Palace of King Rama VI.
On this day we visited the palace of King Rama VI. He only got 45 years old when he died of cancer. He studied in England and was called the “philosopher king”. He was a very good king because he really cared about the education of his people and built a lot of streets and buildings.
Later on we got to see a floating market, which is a special experience. There are tons of people and of course tons of food as well. It's called floating market because they partly sell the food on the boats where they also cook it.
20.01.2014 Thai Food Nutrition and Floral Arrangement
We started our second week with a course about Thai Food and nutrition. Our teacher Tong presents a few typical Thai meals to us. Also we talked about Thai traditions compared to Austrian traditions in general. Afterwards we went out on the street and tried some typical Thai food like “Dom yum goong” (hot Thai spicy soup with prawn or shrimp), “Dom kha gai (soup with chicken and coconutmilk), “Pat Thai” (Thai noodles mixed with different ingredients like meat, vegetables), “Som-dam” (Thai cole salad with papaya), “Massamant Curry (specific Indian yellow Curry), “Green Curry” and sticky rice (which you eat with your fingers).
In the afternoon we joined a special course called “Floral Arrangement”. There we learned how to arrange flowers. We used red and white roses in a traditional Thai way. Detailed decoration is very common in Thailand. People here us it for festive occasions, like a wedding or a birthday party. We also tried our own arrangement, with the help of a very experienced lady. We were proud of our accomplishment and it was a lot of fun.
Picture 5: Lunch in a typical Thai restaurant
Picture 6: Floral arrangement course
21.01.2014 Education in Thailand
Education in Thailand is provided mainly by the Thai government through the Ministry of Education from pre-school to senior highschool. A free basic education of twelve years is guaranteed by the constitution, and a minimum of nine years' school attendance is mandatory.
Formal education consists of at least twelve years of basic education, and higher education. Basic education is divided into six years of primary education and six years of secondary education, the latter being further divided into three years of lower- and upper-secondary levels. Kindergarten levels of primary education, also part of the basic education level, span 2-3 years depending on the locale, and are variably provided. Non-formal education is also supported by the state. Independent schools contribute significantly to the general education infrastructure.
Uniforms are compulsory for all students with very few variations from the standard model throughout the public and private school systems, including colleges and universities.
Formal education has its early origins in the temple schools, when it was available to boys only. From the mid-sixteenth century Thailand opened up to significant French Catholic influence until the mid-seventeenth century when it was heavily curtailed, and the country returned to a strengthening of its own cultural ideology.
22.01.2014 Elementary School and cooking class
On Wednesday morning we found our way to the “Suan Dusit Culinary School for cooking”. There we met “Chief Am”, highly awarded in Thailand. He showed us how to cook two typical Thai meals. Pad Thai and Green Curry. It was very interesting for me, because of the special ingredients – a lot of them I haven’t known before. Afterwards we were allowed to try ourselves in a professional kitchen. Cooking was a lot of fun and now we are all able to cook typical Thai food four our lovelies at home.
After lunchtime we visited the “Demonstration School” from Suan Dusit Rajabhat University. In Thailand primary schools lasts for six years. We visited different classes only for a short time. One sixth class had English and I was really impressed by by the students, how well they spoke English. Afterwards we had a “get to know” with a Dutch English teacher and some primary school students from Suan Dusit University. This afternoon was very special, because we finally met other students and got to share our experience about Thailand and the knowledge about our universities and our culture.
Picture 7: Cooking Class with Chief "Am"
24.01.2014 - 26.01.2014 Hua Hin
Friday morning we started our trip to Hua Hin. We stopped at a nice restaurant and had lunch together. Also our nice professors Miss Pronegg and Miss Linhofer joined our group for this special weekend at the beach.
Finally there we just took our clothes off and jumped into our beach wear and stormed into the sea. The beach was calm, not too many people and beautiful. We couldn’t get enough of it!
We enjoyed the sun, ate a lot of food and got a tanned. In the evening we visited a nice market near the sea. There you can buy a lot of special handmade arts and crafts. The food corner looks great and we enjoyed our dinner there.
The next day there was an activity like banana boat ride, horse riding and massage on the beach. In the evening we visited another market. There you could find a lot of traditional Thai food, souvenirs and fun stuff. On the last day we left quite early around 10 o’clock. We stopped for a short visit in an outlet center and afterwards we drove back to Bangkok. Great weekend Trip to Hua Hin!
Picture 8: Beach at Hua Hin