I usually spend my weekends travelling or catching up on work but this time I had a full social calendar. On Friday night, Piyawat and I joined two others from my school at a dinner party. In addition to the 4 teachers, there was an orchid farmer from Mae Hong Son, a guy from Si Sisket provence near Cambodia, another one who is starting a heavy metal recording company, and an Austrailian man who is an ex-ambassador. It was a UN-kind of party: 2 Americans, 1 Australian, 1 Burmese, 1 Philipino, 1 Taiwanese, and the rest from Thailand. What an interesting, eclectic crowd it was!
Then, Saturday and Sunday we attended graduation festivities. At my school, each department throws a party for its seniors at a fancy hotel in town, so on Saturday night we went to the end-of-the-school-year party for the Economics department. On Sunday, we donned our big black robes and went to the graduation ceremony.
Luckily, graduation only lasted 3 hours, but it was actually kind of fun. All the other ajarn and I were sitting on the stage facing the students and sitting behind the President of the University, who gave the diploma to each student. To our left, 9 Buddhist monks in their orange robes chanted as the diplomas were given out. It was quite a ceremony!
Then, we gave a ride home to the ajarn who had graciously invited us to the dinner party on Friday. We arrived at his beautiful condo overlooking the Royal Sports horsetrack and golf course. He invited us up for a bit and we ended up staying for hours as his Taiwanese friend cooked us an incredible Chinese dinner. After dinner we went to the Four Seasons hotel next door for after-dinner drinks and desserts. The perfect end to a fun weekend...
Out of curiosity, do the graduation audiences in Thailand scream and do the crazy things that happen at many American ceremonies?
Also, interesting changes you're making to the site.
Charles
Oh! That is a good question, Charles. I meant to talk about it in my initial post, but forgot. The Thai students were quiet the entire 3 hour ceremony. In my 1.5 years here, I have never seen a large group of Thai people be quiet for so long. I was shocked, yet pleased. There was plenty of celebrating before and after, but during the ceremony it was as quiet as a conservative church service (the kind of church that I grew up in, that is. No clapping or shouting. Just sitting there with your hands folded and thinking about God. hehe)
- Stuart
Wow! What a grand weekend. Thank you for sharing these experiences with us. I can visualize the dinner with the eclectic crowd, the party for the graduates, the graduation ceremony and the tasty Chinese dinner.
Were you able to take any pictures?
Mom
Wow, sounds like you had a great weekend! The only graduation I've ever been to was my high school graduation, and thankfully nothing too terrible happened there. I say this, because during our graduation rehearsal, one idiot pretended to throw up fake blood, and as a result he ended up staining this very expensive rug at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Haha, he's lucky they didn't revoke his diploma! ;P