#fulbrighteta

This past weekend the German Fulbright Alumni Association held their opening event in Munich. The conference was an opportunity for fellow German AND American Fulbrighters to come together over a weekend and network in a fun and sociable way. No brainer - I signed up as soon as I could.

Getting there was quite the adventure. I traveled from Bonn with another Fulbrighter to Munich via train, which was risky enough (see my previous posts re Germany’s public transport system), but this time also meant we were traveling on a Friday the 13th. Since I’ve always considered 13 to be a lucky number to me, however, I tried to refrain from delving into superstition...until the first train was delayed by several minutes. We checked our route and noticed we had to transfer to several other trains to get to Munich, meaning if we missed our first connection the whole itinerary would be doomed. As luck would have it, however, all of our connections were delayed that day, so we made it to Munich without missing a single train (though 35 minutes later than we’d hoped - you can’t win em all I guess).

The welcome meeting/wine reception was held that night. It was great opportunity to relax and meet new people, as well as to hear interesting stories from the leaders of the Fulbright program. The president of the German Fulbright Commission, as well as a member of the U.S. Consulate in Munich were there to welcome us and remind us of our roles in helping to maintain the strong German-American relationship. Pizza was also served towards the end of the night, which was a massive hit.

The next day featured the main events of the weekend: a keynote speech by the same officer from the U.S. Consulate (who had some really amazing stories to share regarding his travels), several short talks from former Fulbrighters (including two Germans who interned at Google), workshops and, crucially, a party in downtown Munich. I’m normally not one to enjoy conferences with hundreds attendees, but it quickly became clear that this was no ordinary conference. Rather, it was more of a gathering of people across nations who shared something very special and relatable. Between the ice breaker games, entertaining workshops and amazing people present at the conference, I hardly noticed the time flying by. It was a fantastic experience, and I made connections and friends that day with whom I hope to stay in contact with for the duration of my time in Germany.

Because of a combination of early trains and hardcore partying, many of the attendees were absent during the Sunday portion of the conference. They missed out, however, as the day was devoted to holding an incredibly fun and informative “Un-Conference.” A normal conference entails a crowd of people listening to a select number of speakers for hours at a time - frankly, a horrible way to intake new information (as scientific research has historically indicated). An Un-Conference, however, does the opposite: anyone in the audience can come up with a topic, propose it to the audience, and, if accepted, will be discussed in a group by those interested in the topic. In total, nine Fulbrighters proposed and moderated discussions about everything from language-learning to politics to national identity. Though it was the first Un-Conference in the history of the German Fulbright Alumni Association, it was ultimately a major success, and in my opinion was the single most fun event of the entire weekend.

And with that, the conference was over! I took a tour of the city of Munich with some other Fulbrighters afterwards, hopped on a train headed back to Bonn and am now resuming my life as an ETA. I had an amazing time getting to know so many new people, reuniting with old friends and just having a fun and memorable weekend in Munich in general, and I can’t wait to go to the next GFAA conference next year.

I embarrassingly haven’t touched this space in a while, but was reminded today that this blog actually exists AND is searchable on Google, meaning many of you have stumbled upon it while doing Fulbright research. 

Weeks here can either fly by, or feel like a year. When your entire life is engulfed by one community, it gets interesting. Everything I do, everywhere I go, I’m Teacher Carrie. Its like a persona I put on for 5 days, and then strip off when I go to the city on the weekend. With only one full week of teaching left, I’ve been trying to write down what happens each week. This is my log from two weeks ago.

-My gecko eggs hatched! Now I have twin babies living in my bathroom. I’m worried that I should be eating insects and regurgitating them for my babies, but they seem to be getting along just fine without it.

-Got a job as a children’s ski instructor in Crested Butte!

-had an interesting chat with Kru Jang about sexuality in the US and Thailand. I learned that the older generation in Thailand is perplexed by the new spherical realm of sexuality the younger generation has created. Same same USA. I also told her Maria and Caitlyn were dating, something I was a bit worried to tell the school when they visited. She was surprised, but then she thought it was really sweet. She said I could have told her, there would have been no issues.

-got really into this old documentary called Grey Gardens. Its about the aunt and cousin of Jackie O who live in this decaying mansion on the Hamptons. And they are insane. Extremely fascinating, and a really cool documentary where they let the subjects tell the story themselves. Below is a photo of Jackie O’s aunt (big Edie) sitting in her dilapidated mansion with her old portrait. There are a couple scenes in the documentary where her cats are using the portrait as a litter box and she doesn’t even mind.

-Jacob cooked some delicious penang curry for me. He’s becoming quite the curry master!

-A student I’m close to, Than, told me a confidential story. It was when we were having a wedding, and I was telling him how I’d pick the students who were to be married out of a hat. He told me I musn’t randomly pick his girlfriend and another boy in the class, and then told me the story why. Apparently, Koko (the other boy), Film (his girlfriend), Than, and their whole class were at a party last year. A bunch of people were sleeping over, but Than wanted to go home. Another student told Than to stay because Koko was “planning to take Film in the night”. I’m not sure how to interpret this, because I like to think Film would resist and the other people at the party wouldn’t be cool with rape. But anyways, Than feels Koko betrayed him. I always thought Koko was really sweet, and I don’t want to ignore him because of Than’s story, but I also feel like I need to be aware of this since Than trusts me with it. For the wedding, I just took Koko’s name out of the hat beforehand. We ended up having a lesbian wedding anyways.

-It was during this chat with Than that Jacob was bothering me about something. Without thinking, I put my hand in his face and said “can you wait a minute? I’m talking to my friends.” Jacob has since made fun of me for calling my students my friends.

-Three other seniors, Pootsa, Apple, and Kwang, asked to interview me for a project! They are doing a project all about my “alternative” teaching style and what inspires it. I am honored to be chosen by them, and so excited to have a video all about me and my class at the end of this year! I’m also excited I could express to them the thought behind my teaching so they can understand it more.

-I had an awesome, 2 hour long chat with Than, Film, Clarence, and Cow (all seniors). We said around in the library, talked about everything from gangs, to snapchat, to spiders, to parties, to people I find attractive on Facebook. Than told me about how he used to be in a gang in Bankok in middle school, and he was stabbed in the stomach. After that, his parents decided to move to Mae Moh to get him away from the gang. Than also asked me “teacher, why are farang afraid of spiders?” to which I had trouble coming up with an answer that made sense for them. I explained that in Thailand, houses are more open and spiders and ants and geckos live with people. I said in the US, our houses are more sealed because of the cold, so there are less bugs. He still seemed confused about us weird foreigners. They asked me all about partying in the US and how its different. I may have told them about the parties I had in high school, hahahahahah. I want them to have a realistic impression of me! I don’t want them to think I’m some perfect goodie-two shoes. I want them to understand you can do “bad” things and still be a good person and teacher. And lastly, they asked me to show them Americans on Facebook. This was really fun. I found out that they don’t like beards, and they found out that I don’t find braces attractive. I found out they don’t find the whole “paint your face to look like Kim Kardashian” make up trend attractive, which made me happy. I showed them a lot of unique looking people that I find beautiful, but it seems they prefer more basic- Britney Spears- cookie cutter- beautiful  sort of people. But I was really happy because I showed them a bunch of sexy black men and now they think black people are sexy (they didn’t before).

Something that initially drew me to Asia was how completely opposite it is of the US. When I was really young, I hate to admit it, I had almost no interest in Asia. It seemed like another planet I would never understand.To a young superficial Carrie, it seemed “lame”. K-Pop was weird to me and people from China I met always seemed awkward. I wasn’t old enough to understand that Asia is just a completely different culture. You could also blame it on how American-centric we tend to be in the US.

If you read about the differences between the eastern and western world, the first big difference you’ll pick up is collectivism vs individualism. In the US, we are raised to believe we are special. You can be anything you want. You are unique. You. You. You. You. You. And in our heads, a chorus of “me, me, me, me, me”.

Thats individualism for you. The mentality that “I would fuck over someone else if it meant me getting what I wanted.” This individualism isn’t all bad. Like the ancient Greeks, I also believe that competition fosters excellence. I believe this individualistic culture is part of the reason why the United States is at the forefront of innovation in almost all walks of life.

Collectivism is the idea of giving up those personal desires to do whats best for the group. That is Thailand for you. Always, always, always being a part of a group. What I’ve been reflecting on a lot recently is how this collectivism pops up in unexpected ways.

It first hit me in the beginning. Always looking for conversation topics, I was constantly asking my students “whats your favorite color? what about animal? what about subject?”. Usually, I get a long “mmmmmmm I don’t know teacher. I like them all.” Other students just say whatever the first animal or color that comes to their mind, probably hoping I’ll leave them alone. Recently, I was asking a group of kids - ‘Whats your favorite Thai food?” I was so surprised when they all agreed - they just like everything. All Thai food. And then one piped up “Teacher, I know your favorite is pizza.”

This got me thinking. Why am I so obsessed with favorites? Why do I need to have a favorite of everything? When I worked at my old summer camp Holiday Hill in high school, I once had a camper who refused to identify any of his favorites. He had severe autism, was incredibly hard to control, and was in my group the entire summer. The first day of camp, we went around and said our favorite sport. He went into a long speech about how favorites are a sham. I remember looking at my co-counselor confused, and then asking the camper to just tell us a sport he liked. Now, I kinda understand where this camper was coming from.

It seems as if favorites are a way to make ourselves special. When I received my diploma about a year ago, my family yelled out “PIZZAAAA” in the crowd. On top of my graduation cap, I cut up and super glued an old greasy pizza box to read “Thank you pizza.” This favorite of mine has become a part of my identity. It differentiates me from other people (not really though- who doesn’t love pizza?). In Thailand, their favorite food is just all Thai food, because they are Thai. That is their special identity.

Other things are less obvious. Throughout my year here, I’ve acquired a stupid amount of group t-shirts. Any time there is a field trip or event at school, everyone gets matching t-shirts. In my head, I’m thinking “I don’t wanna wear the same thing as everyone else!” I wanna be different! I wear the shirt on the day of, but don’t really ever wear it again. Meanwhile, Thai people cherish these t-shirts. They wear them with pride. “Look at me and this group I belong too” is what their wardrobe screams. Even in Chiang Mai, hipster capital of Thailand, all of the young students rock jackets that say what major they are studying at university, or what high school they attended. They are a part of something, and they are so happy to be.

Other things are tiny. They way that no student ever sits alone at lunch. Everyone has someone. The fact that I never have to hassle students to be partners or form group, they are happy to work with any of their classmates. I’ve thought a lot about school culture in the US and Thailand. I remember those kids in elementary school who picked their nose and NO ONE, I mean seriously not one person, would be their friend. We were all too concerned with our own reputations. If I, 3rd grade Carrie Wallace, was friends with the nose picker, everyone might think I picked my nose too (which I totally did and still do). In Thailand, its not like that. A grade is a community. If one student is a nose picker, whatever, they are OUR nose picker. I love that about Thailand. It takes the stress of all of them, and I’m able to see them flourish in a supportive environment.

Student: Teacher! Today *stands up and lays across a row of desks in a provocative manner* I am SEXY~!

Me:...No.