How was it?

I graduated high school in 2006, and then I lived in Israel for 9 months as a gap-year program. During my final month in Israel, I was troubled with the idea that, when asked about my trip, my innumerable experiences would be condensed into a few sentences (if not solely, “It was good.”). As the Thailand program was reaching its end, I assumed the same question/answer dilemma would arise upon my return. However, in my couple of weeks of digesting the experience, I have realized some very important principles that I got out of the experience; both from actual lessons provided by our instructor, as well as those from other external/internal foundations. From my review of my own experience, I have been more competent in my response to the aforementioned question.

Perspective: It is difficult for one to see everything from the inside, and Thailand offered me a great opportunity to adjudicate many aspects of my life. I was removed from my usual social connections, time obligations, and familiar sources of comfort as well as sources of anxiety. From this removal, I was able to understand parts of myself in their raw forms; how I deal with situations, levels of impulsivity, how I form and maintain friendships, my path of professionalism, among others. To divulge into this information would be lengthy, but there are a few specific concepts I would like to mention:

Judgment: On the first morning we were all provided a page of reading involving the concept of judging others. This sparked an idea inside of myself that I had not considered in some time, the idea that I need to mentally evolve as a human being and push aside unfair generalizations based on previous experiences and/or the opinions of others. This is much easier said than done, and it will continue to be a struggle. However, I know that I am on the right path of introspection on my immediate impressions of others.

Flavor: I loved the food in Thailand. I am now a much stronger eater when it comes to spicy food. More importantly, I realized how fun it is to be adventurous when in a new location. Trying new things, whether eating things that looked questionable (which was common) to climbing trees, to being beat up by an elephant (which totally happened) is a BLAST!

Don’t take anything personally: This concept was introduced to me directly before the program by one of my best friends from home, Hannah. She read a book called the four agreements and told me about one tenant within the book, “don’t take anything personally.” I figured that was nice and everything, but impossible. As we continued to discuss the concept, I realized how beneficial it would be to be able to listen to others’ opinions, even when presented unprofessionally or hurtfully, and understand that their message is not solely their opinion, but their opinion through the filters of their experience. These experiences could be known or unknown subjects, anything from being in a bad mood that day to having four professional degrees in the area being discussed.

I had a few situations during my time in Thailand in which I was presented with information, whether constructive or non-constructive, that I would have previously recognized as some level of hurtful. Through the course of the program (including a Skype conversation with Hannah in which I discussed the concept directly related to a situation) I was able to become progressively more successful in this concept; I also want to buy the book and learn more of the “agreements.”

“Stop making barriers”: An aspect upon which I would like to improve would be that I create barriers. What this means is that I find problems with a situation, a music therapy application, an experience, etc… that need not be considered as a problem. I am generally not a fan of “making excuses,” and perhaps that is why I make barriers; it’s an internal excuse disguised as an external problem. By not allowing barriers to get in the way of the big picture, I will be able to be a more successful professional, student, and friend.

Now, following my experience in Thailand, how do I answer the question, “How was it?”

“I learned a lot.”

Think about a time in your life that you returned from an experience to an audience of friends, family, etc. that had not been present for the experience itself. How did you answer their questions? If you were to answer the question “How was it” in the most concise yet true-to-experience way possible, what would it have been?

Ring, Ring

Ask yourself: “Can I survive 12 hours without my cell phone?” Think about it… What about a day? A week? Five weeks?

Simply put, cell phones have, for many Americans, become integral to our daily functioning. According to CTIA – The Wireless Association, as of December of 2010 American’s have 302,859,674 wireless connections. Given that the population, as of the 2010 census, is 308,745,538, there is about 99/100 of a connection for every person in the USA. A source of security in travel, it has come to the point that many people feel uncomfortable to simply leave home without their cell phone. Not only a telephone, mobiles are multi-purpose computers; they act as game consoles, still/video cameras, e-mail systems, carriers of business and entertainment data, nodes of commerce, and, due to “apps,” seemingly unlimited other uses. This is not even including one of the largest uses of modern cell phones: text messaging. There is an estimated 187.7 billion text messages sent monthly in USA alone.

Let’s go back: “Can I survive 5 weeks without my cell phone?” For this blogger, the answer is yes!

As some background, I have been a Blackberry user for approx. the last three years, and use my phone to keep my life in order. My calendars are packed, my emails are almost primarily handled by smart phone, and my social life is always a text message away. I had every intention of renting a cell phone upon arrival in Bangkok, but I quickly realized that it would not be necessary. One by one, I learned the pros and cons of living in a cell-phone-free community of nine, in a totally different country:

Electronic communication (E-mail, Facebook, etc.): I often find that when I do electronic communication on my cell phone it can be rushed, shorthand, and not as well edited. The solution? Actually using my computer as my only source for text-based communication. As much as I use text-messaging, I find that it is (with exceptions) an inefficient form of communication, and I was happy to not deal with it for the duration of the trip.

Social Life: This was the most obvious difference between having and not having a cell phone. How does one make plans with others? How does one tell others when one is leaving, or arriving, or if something comes up? With only a handful of exceptions, not having a cell phone made everyone much more accountable; we made plans, and everyone made sure to stick to them. There was a situation in which a partner of mine and myself were about to do a presentation, realized (in the first minute of presenting) that we did not have the password for a computer, and the only way to get that password was to walk five minutes in each direction to ask for the password from the owner of the computer. This would have been a wonderful time to have mobile communication, however, another team member offered to make the trek, and everything worked out fine.

Schedule: I failed at this one. I learned very clearly that I need to have a calendar with me at all times if I am to know anything that is going on, any day of the week. Luckily, our schedules were very team-oriented, so I seldom (if ever) had to figure out where and when I was supposed to do something without the company of others.

I am assuming that most of our readers remember a time when cell phones were not in every pocket, or capable of what they are in 2011. What have we lost through the abundance of cell-phones? Is it worth the gains? Why is it that we remember surviving back then, but now it seems like if one lost their cell phone it would seem like the world was ending?

A Run-In With the King

Hey, my name is Daniel Goldschmidt. I am entering my final year of my music therapy undergraduate degree at the University of Kansas. I am originally from Minneapolis, MN, and I am interested in studying the growing connections between music therapy and music theory.

It is 7:30 AM. You just woke up to go for a run before your 9 AM class. You sleepily throw on a pair of black shorts and a yellowed v-neck, the groaning ceiling fan periodically reaching you in its circular oscillation (quite different than the stationary fans of America), persuading your hair sideways for a moment as you tie your Nikes.

You stash a 100-Baht bill, bearing the face of the king, in your waistband to buy some post-run breakfast across the highway from your hostel; you secure your room key inside your right pocket. You step out the door, a damp heat overcoming your body, and start running.

You bank westward at the main road, overtaking a crowd of undergraduate students in their black skirts and white button-up shirt uniform, and you accidentally drop your 100-Baht note. Be careful with your next few strides, as you do not want to commit lèse majesté; due to it bearing the face of the king, you can be arrested for stepping on the bill. Note in hand, you continue to run past a sports field as speakers begin to play Sansoen Phra Barami- The Royal Anthem. People solemnly stand for the duration of the anthem, and you awkwardly half-run half-walk deciding whether or not to join in (you observe some folks continuing to walk, so you keep running).

Twenty minutes into the humid workout, already drenched with perspiration, you curve onto the main road: home of breakfast. Breathlessly jogging up the flight of stairs to the bridge, you admire the decorations depicting the king and queen on a balcony, regally acknowledging the cars passing below. You see another overpass in the distance, solely a vignette of the king’s countenance illustrating its face. Reaching the next staircase, you descend, dodging two students sharing a brief meal, and spot your stop for breakfast: a petite local restaurant.

Lightly panting at the counter, you muster up a little Thai, along with your mastered form of international sign language, pointing, and order fruit with sticky rice. You glance above the teenager behind the register, again seeing the façades of the royal family on trading-card sized photos. Clutching breakfast with your right, the left meets it in front of your chest for a quick waai (bow), you diffidently say khop khun khrap (thank-you) and begin walking home. Between sweet bites, you consider the relationship this country has with the royal family, and how it compares to that of the US.

Here, one can be arrested for even speaking badly of anyone in the royal family; in the US we pride ourselves on “freedom of speech,” millions of dollars spent on t-shirts, websites, and bumper stickers bearing messages of disappointment regarding our political leaders. Preceding any film the screen indicates everyone should stand to honor the king, and a majestic arrangement of The Royal Anthem plays over a montage depicting the king’s various contributions to the country: cleaner energy, jobs for families, and many more. One can only joke about this being done in America; a screen depicting “Please stand and honor the president” followed by a video montage, to put it lightly, would displease many people (regardless of who is currently in office).

In my opinion, it is very nice having a people united by love for a politician and their country, regardless of the family’s involvement in various government positions or community cultures. However, of course, the beauty of one’s love for anything is the choice to love in the first place. Luckily, in my brief experience, the king of Thailand has made wonderful contributions to the country over his reign (since the 1940’s!) and deserves the respect he is given. What are your feelings on the power of patriotism? How would you feel about having a political leader that is the face of your nation, even though he rules mostly as a figure head?

Say what?!?!?

I am a spoiled American.

There. I have said it. Now that we haveve gotten past that, I can say with no hesitation that going someplace without being able to communicate exactly what I want to can be frustrating. In some instances it is something simple, like asking the waitress for a bottle of soy sauce to go with the white rice. Other times it is mildly terrifying, like when you are trying to figure out where you need to be from where you are (which is incredibly lost).

The lucky part for us is that almost everyone speaks at least a tiny bit of English, and many speak it fairly well. In a jam, we could probably flag someone down who speaks well enough to help us get out of whatever chaos we may find ourselves in.

An interesting part of being somewhere with only a few words of the local language is that you find new ways to communicate. Almost everyone, for example, understands a smile. On many occasions I am sure I have butchered the language while attempting a greeting and then screwed up the rules of wai-ing, and yet my smile makes my intentions to please clear and so I receive back a smile in return and what I am sure is a much more polite greeting than my sloppy attempts. (Note: A “wai” is a sort of bow that is done as a respectful greeting. There are many rules to the wai and, needless to say, we students understand very few of them thus far.) In many cases body language is also highly intuitive. Nearly everyone understands pointing and nodding. Simply ordering tea at a Mahidol University café, for example, is an adventure. It involved the waitress using her very few words of English, me adding my very few words of Thai, and both of us pointing at menus and pitchers. Yes, I would like the tea, and yes, I would like ice, and yes, I would be happy to pay 30 baht for it. So much work from both parties goes into such a simple communication.

The real difference, though, is that between how the Thai treat the limited language abilities of tourists and how we treat the same situation in America. Here, people are exceptionally patient as we try even the simplest of words and phrases and often laugh (happily, not mockingly) at our attempts with genuine pleasure that we are trying to learn their language. They seldom appear frustrated at our lack of lingual skills. On the other hand, I have heard many Americans – myself included – state displeasure at foreigners (especially Spanish-speaking immigrants) who do not speak English. It even goes so far as to say that some Americans become highly impatient while an individual is learning the English language. I will admit that this is not the norm, but I’ve seen it exist. Rather than being encouraging and patient, it is sometimes the case that we become annoyed and frustrated because someone is not speaking clearly enough or quickly enough to suit our needs. I think it likely that this is more of a broad cultural value related to the general pacing of time; the Western world moves very quickly while time in Thailand is more flexible and fluid. Being unable to speak easily here has made me much more sympathetic to foreign visitors or immigrants who are learning to speak English. I have a much greater desire to help them.

How do you feel we can make our thoughts and intentions known when our words cannot be understood – either because of a language barrier or because of misunderstanding?

Also, here is a Thai language mini-lesson from yours truly, for your edutainment. :)

This is not your average summer class...

Welcome to the "class project" of mostly music therapy students studying abroad in Thailand this summer. I have been traveling between the US and Thailand for the last three years to help establish clinical programs and a Master's degree in Music Therapy at Mahidol University, College of Music in Bangkok. During my first trip here in June 2008, I realized that this would be an incredible journey and that establishing regular opportunities for students to observe and engage in the growth and development of music therapy here would be a unique and rich experience. Our first group of four students studying music therapy in the US came to Thailand in January 2009, followed by a group of five students in July 2009. This summer I will be joined by nine students from four different universities AND our first non-music therapy major.

As part of their course assignments students will be blogging on the various experiences of their five-week trip. We spend most of the week doing clinical work in the Bangkok area and then spend long weekends traveling the country. The purpose of this blog is to give you a student's eye view of the whole experience as it unfolds. Please comment and ask questions often as it is part of each student's assignment to read and respond to feedback. We look forward to having you on our journey.