Kanchanaburi Diary

Monday, February 23, 2009
Kanchanaburi, Thailand
Day 1 Week Without Walls

The morning was hot and still; summer had come early. It was the start of our Week Without Walls trip with the Middle School students. Six teachers were their chaperones. We packed them into two buses and headed off down the highway towards Kanchanaburi in western Thailand. It being the dry season it hasn’t rained since last October. All around us the fields and the hills are yellow and brown and thirsty.

Meandering through the province is the River Kwae [kway], mispronounced “kwai” in the movie The Bridge On the River Kwai. Kanchanaburi is best known to World War II history buffs as the site of the memorial for the Burma-Siam Railway, also known as the Death Railway. At the Hellfire Pass Museum we learned about the human cost. About 60,000 Prisoners of War, mostly from Britain and Australia were involved in building the Railway. Of that number 16,000 died, mostly of malnutrition and disease. Trying to grasp the inhumanity of war was difficult for my seventh grade ESL students. Here are excerpts from their Kanchanaburi Journals.

Tom:
They died because they did more work and they eat two times a day. They worked everyday [so] they finish in 20 months. Before they finish, many, many people died.

Pop:
Today at Hellfire Pass Museum I see many pictures of many thin men. They died because of sickness, not enough food, and they got tortured to death. They have to work 18 hours a day.

What is less well-known, probably because their stories haven’t yet been told, is that there were 200,000 Asian laborers here that the Japanese army conscripted to work on the railroad. Called Romusha, they were supposed to be paid for their work but few were paid at all. Some 90,000 Romusha died building the Railway. Robert's dad once told me his brother had come to work on the Railway. Afterwards, he never saw or heard from him again. In stark terms, a quarter of the Romusha and the soldiers died.

Nicky:
Many Asian [workers] and Allied [soldiers] died. I learn how the war started and what damage the Japanese did.

Boss:
That tells me to be better because if I don’t try to work hard I will be a person who have a lot of problems.

Blaming the Japanese is understandable. But many Buddhists here believe that when bad things happen to you it is because of your past actions, either in this life or another. So the victim is never entirely blameless. It is a concept alien to Westerners used to the idea of laying blame and accepting responsibility.

As we walked down to the rail bed in the hot afternoon sun, we stumbled over the uneven white stones and the stubborn remnants of railroad ties. Hellfire Pass is surrounded by parched hills, the trees as brittle as sun-bleached bones. Through the silence of the hills and the still air clinging to the cut rock, we can almost hear the faint chink of metal on rock, and the thin distant cries of the men that worked here in 1942-43. In the hazy daylight the place is hallowed, a sacred place of memory. Always sensitive to atmospheres, the students automatically lowered their voices. The keepers of memory had beaten back the jungle from the track, but in the middle of the rail bed grew a tall saprok tree, an Indian olive, its thin canopy in the dazzling sky, its roots high enough to form an arch. Nicha climbs in and poses for her picture. Did one of the Romusha or a POW ever find shelter beneath the roots of a saprok? Past and present seem to come together in this place.

That evening we watched The Bridge on the River Kwai in the Sai Yoke conference room. The kids, who are used to the fast pace and movement of music videos, think Kung Fu Panda is a cool movie. To them, this was a boring war movie with no action. They were restless, like a head of steam building with nowhere to go. Some fell asleep, others talked in low voices. Being language learners, much of the dialogue was incomprehensible, even with subtitles. As young as they are, the concept that war overturns principles and corrupts a person's moral judgment was beyond their understanding. At 9:30, we switched off the DVD and said it was bedtime. They cheered for their release, as any prisoner would.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Kanchanaburi, Thailand
Day 2 Week Without Walls

Middle School students have a lot of energy. They do not waste it, nor do they hoard it. Living in the moment, they embrace activity. The Ninja Camp, an obstacle course, is perfect for these tween-agers. There was a truly surreal moment when 12 kids in a tub paddled around the corner of the water course warbling Christmas Carols, the only English songs they knew. The most amazing thing was watching them being forced by each obstacle to work together--they had to, in order to succeed. If only I could build that into my lessons...

Boss:
It made me know that we have our team but [if] we don’t help each other, [then] somebody will fall down into the water. And if we don’t think what we gonna do [then] we will fall too.

In the afternoon, we took a ride on the track that had originally been laid by the prisoners and the laborers for the Burma-Siam Railway. It no longer goes from Bangkok to Rangoon but at Namtok we picked it up. The train rattled out of the steep green River Kwae valley and up into the hot dry Central Plains. The farmers grow tapioca there. They are funny looking skinny bowlegged stalks with a green hat of leaves on top. The drought had seared the landscape. Everyone felt thirsty just looking at it.

That afternoon, the train was filled with 48 middle school students and their teachers, plus a group of depressed red-faced farang tourists looking hot and disappointed. The train was a very basic affair, with no amenities. That is, no air conditioning. The heat poured in the windows. Walking up and down the aisles, vendors sold snacks and refreshments. The kids scooped up the water and the soda as soon as the bucket appeared filled with cold drinks.

The buses were waiting at Thakilen station for us. The kids streamed off the train and headed for the air-conditioned buses the way water runs downhill. Mars, our Supremissima (logistics is her specialty), made everyone—regardless of how hot, tired, and sweaty—get off the bus for a head count. She announced, We are NOT coming back for anyone! Satisfied that we had not misplaced a single precious person, she allowed the students to re-board the buses. There was a good deal of grumbling as we headed back to the hotel.

We had dinner on the patio that the sun had baked all day. The tiles radiated heat in the still evening air. The electric fans stirred the heavy stillness. Incredibly, we had scheduled a campfire on a boiling night to sing songs and play games for one hour. We slapped on insect repellent but no self-respecting mosquito would go near that blazing fire. It amazes me how cheerfully the Thai go on with life and fun when all around them, life is cranky because of the heat.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Kanchanaburi, Thailand
Day 3 Week Without Walls

Traditionally, the Week Without Walls includes a stint of community service. Today, the students planted trees. The hotel provided a truck that took us up the hill to a field. We were given trowels, watering cans, and treelings to plant. It was too simple. The kids had to do more than just dig, insert plant in hole, cover hole with dirt, then water. We teachers decided that they had to do more than that. To do community service, one must break a sweat. We decided the kids would pick up trash at the Erawan Falls today.

Boss:
If we don't have enough trees in our world everybody will be so hot.

The Erawan Falls are the source of the Kwae Yai [Big Kwae] which joins the Kwae Noi [Small Kwae] at the town of Kanchanaburi. The entire hike is about 1.7 km from the base of the falls to the top. The Falls have seven levels, each one more difficult to get to than the last, allowing for a crude track and stairs in various stages of disrepair. As it has been everyday since we got here, the air was breathless and heavy with the heat. We looked forward to refreshing dips in the cool blue water.

Nicky:
It was very fun to run with my friend. We race each other to climb to the next level.

To preserve the environment, we weren’t allowed to take any food with us past level two. We were allowed to take bottles of water, though, provided we left a Baht 10 deposit at the ranger’s station for each bottle we took up to the Falls. We quickly ate a picnic lunch at stage two, which we decided was our base camp, then hurried off to begin our hike. Our students, used to having maids and mothers pick up after them, left the remnants of their picnic where they ate, much to the annoyance of the teachers.

Tom:
Me and Boss went to [level] seven. It is the top one.

On the way back down, we had the kids pick up trash along the pathways. Despite the ban on food, there was still a good amount of trash to be collected; for example: drinking straws, candy wrappers, the cellophane seals of water bottles, and water bottle caps. Unfortunately, since the students hadn’t done a good job of cleaning up their picnic site; it was raided by a monkey troop. The monkeys brazenly ripped open the potato chips, ate the fried chicken with gusto, and treated themselves to fruit for dessert. They ignored the humans who tried to shoo them away and generally behaved like ill-mannered guests at a dinner party. It was absurdly human-like behavior and quite unnerving.

Boss:
When we go up [the Falls] if we don't help each other [then] somebody will get very hurt. And it made me know about how to help one another. Like when somebody can't go up on the high rock I help them.

After dinner that evening, the students entertained themselves and us with Thai karaoke songs. Most of the teachers didn’t understand a word but the students sang and waved and swayed with the music, all happy to be in the moment among friends. They were free to speak Thai, with no admonitions for once to "Speak English!" That left most teachers and the few Japanese and Korean students looking on quizzically. It was a glimpse into teen culture, exclusive and exclusionary, even for a teen.

Thursday, February 26, 2008
Kanchanaburi, Thailand
Day 4, Week Without Walls

Instead of boarding a bus today, we walked down to the edge of the Kwae Noi, the small green river that flows through the trees outside my window. There we boarded two pontoon rafts that were tied up to the pier. Two long-tailed boats towed us out into the channel where we chugged upriver to the Lawa Cave. The trip up-river was cool and refreshing. Even this close to the river, I noticed some bamboo were dead. Pinky, our hotel guide, said that it was the end of their life cycle. Every 60 years they flower and die. I saw a beautiful tree with pink flowers that leaned far over, as if drinking deeply from the river. It is called pak goom and it is a local delicacy. The leaves are first steeped in water to release their sour flavor. The sour water is mixed with pounded chilies to make a paste that is eaten with rice.

Nicky:
I have an accident in the cave. Somebody told me to walk fast so I fell down.

We docked at a rickety pontoon pier that reminded me of the "fatal rafts" at the Ninja Camp. I half-expected to be dumped into the river at any moment. We climbed a steep flight of steps to the landing stage where there was a shop to buy water, snacks, and souvenirs. The students milled around the counter getting their water. After a few minutes, we herded them up another steep flight of steps to the cave. It was dimly lighted inside, and the gravel floor was uneven and slippery. It smelled strongly of ammonia from bat excrement. Pinky bumped her head on a low-hanging stalactite. Nicky slipped and bruised his right arm, which he played for all the sympathy he could get. Curiously, it never bothered him during mealtimes but he groaned gustily when writing his daily reflection.

After lunch, we set off for Phu Tha Khien School on the grounds of a temple about 5 minutes from the hotel. Their head teacher told us that the children are also international students because they are not Thai. Phu Tha Khien is a pre-school for the local community of Mon and Burmese. Ironically, our kids call themselves international but most of them do speak Thai. We brought games to play with the children and afterwards, donated them to the school. The children sang for us.

Boss:
I like this week the most. I learn how to be a team. But when we play football we are not a team.


Then it was on to another school, Phu Toei, where most of the hotel staff children attend. We brought books and school supplies for them. The children here ranged in age from kindergarten to age 12. We broke up into small groups to play games with the children. Our middle school boys said their boys were really good at soccer. They received quite a drubbing; 4-0.


Talent show night. The kids entertained us with a northeastern folk dance, reader’s theater, an anti-fashion show, and dances from their favorite pop music videos. Even my boys were persuaded to dance. The best part was the eighth grade Thai class's performance of Romeo and Juliet using a script they wrote themselves. Of course, it was a chance for the eighth graders to play dress up. The girls wore heels and party frocks. The boys wore suits. The nice thing is that everyone knows the story of Romeo and Juliet. The star- crossed lovers have been at cross-purposes for centuries but I believe none have been at cross-cultural purposes until tonight. The eighth graders brought the Bard to Kanchanaburi.

In the introduction, the narrator modestly protested the play would not be exciting. It was not to be. When Juliet found out she was going to be married off to “Count Paris” she bawled and sniveled loudly. Her tears couldn’t move a crocodile much less her parents. So Juliet tried a new strategy. She told her mother she was in love with someone else. After expressing some concern about her daughter’s poor choice in men, Mom assured Juliet that she would speak to Dad. Whereupon Juliet said gratefully, “Thanks, Mom!” as if she had just received a big raise in her allowance. But, failing to get out of the arranged marriage, Juliet turned to another adult, a priest, for help. Feeling sorry for her, he gave her a vial of medicine that would mimic death. She said, “Do I eat it?” (In Thai the expression khin ya literally means “eat medicine.”). “No, drink it,” said the priest. It was a deft piece of code-switching. Juliet obediently took her medicine.

Thinking Juliet was dead, poor Romeo killed himself. Then Juliet of course, woke up. After expressing a little dismay at finding her lover dead, she looked around quickly, produced a knife out of thin air, and stabbed herself (pook!). For the finale, the polite narrator entered stage left to read her speech. She scanned the stage for an available remote microphone. Unfortunately, Romeo and Juliet’s corpses were lying on top of both microphones. Suddenly, they rose from the dead and gave up their mikes. To rebuke us for laughing so much, their teacher plaintively observed afterward that the play was meant to be serious. She thought it was a tragedy. I confess I thought it was comedy. It turned out the satire was entirely accidental.

For our contribution to the talent or lack thereof, we teachers did a dance to the Thai pop tune “Playgirl” that includes the silly chorus, “yay, yay, yay, YAY!” We’d only rehearsed for 15 minutes before the show. We were awful. But that was whole idea.

Friday, February 27, 2009
Between Kanchanaburi and Bangkok, Thailand
Day 5 Week Without Walls

Pop: It is so fun.

We were hoping to squeeze in a visit to the Prommit Film Studios for a tour of the set of the epic movie The Legend of King Naresuan. It was not possible. We had so much to do after breakfast--room inspection, check out, picture taking, packing up the buses, and the inevitable head count--that we got to the studio too late for the tour. We had to be back in Bangkok at 2:30 so that students could catch the school buses. It was a pity but time is not negotiable, as Mars likes to remind us. We ate a pack lunch on board so we wouldn’t have to stop. We arrived at RIST at exactly 2:30 p.m. The kids greeted their friends who were left behind at school, then wandered off to be claimed by their parents or to board the Also Inevitable Bus. Relieved and feeling anti-climactic as well, the teachers wandered away too. The Week Without Walls was over.