Partying with the Thais, Part 2: Mot!

In addition to the all-staff party we attended last Friday, the Foreign Language Department also had a its own farewell celebration.  All of the Thai teachers presented this celebration to us as a "dinner", but Katie has been here long enough to warn us what that really meant- an all-night extravaganza to bid farewell to our departing teachers.

As we have mentioned, three of the teachers in our foreign language department will be leaving next term.  Daniel, who is Thai, is moving to the province where his wife and son live.  Katie, the Fulbright teacher, will be returning to the United States.  Lastly, Nung, a Chinese student teacher, will be moving onto a new school.  Given that our department only consists of 12 people, this is a pretty huge proportion of the department that is leaving!

At 5 P.M. on Tuesday, Peter picked us up in his truck to travel north towards Mae Sai.  We met up with the rest of the English department at a gorgeous restaurant, where we sat on a terrace overlooking a mountain.  The mountain is called "Beautiful Lady", as it looks like the profile of a woman laying down.  The restaurant served delicious food, although once again the meal was very seafood-heavy.  Luckily, Peter was nice enough to order us a special chicken dish for us to enjoy.  Our coworkers definitely think it is very strange that we do not eat seafood, and still have not really accepted that we do won't eat fish, no matter how it is prepared.

View of the mountain from the restaurant

It's a shame we don't like fish!

After dinner, we exchanged gifts and gave speeches.  We were pleasantly surprised to receive some welcoming gifts - Jon received a Chiang Rai United scarf, and I received a handmade bag Peter had picked out himself.  We also received a beautiful flower arrangement, with a sweet card inside welcoming us to the department.

Posing with our presents

Since we've arrived in Thailand, our coworkers, particularly Peter, have frequently referred to our school as a "family".  Over the last couple weeks, we have realized that this sentiment is evident not just in the words that are spoken, but in the way we are treated and received by others.  Particularly with our department, we feel that we can rely on our coworkers in a way that I didn't always feel in the United States.  There's a sense of solidarity and community that really makes living here so much more pleasant, especially as we are thousands of miles away from our actual families!  Although it can be hard overcoming the language barrier, we do think that if we need anything, or asked anything of anyone in our department, they would do it in a heartbeat.  They really want us to feel at-home and comfortable, and as a result we are a million times happier than we would be if they just left us to sort things out on our own, or acted as if we were a burden.

Buds

All that aside, we also learned at the dinner that our department family can be dangerous!  Peter brought a bottle of whiskey with him to dinner, and after we finished eating the drinks started to get poured more quickly.  Rainbow, one of the smallest and sweetest teachers, who always brings us different Thai snacks and giggles when we say thanks, soon showed a whole new side of herself.  This began with a game that we have named "mot".  Mot means empty in Thai, and Rainbow would chug a bunch of her drink, then slam her glass in front of someone else's and yell MOT!  This meant that they now needed to empty their glass.  Rainbow looooved this game, and it was made even more dangerous by the fact that the waitresses kept refilling our drinks.  Even if they were only halfway gone, the waitress would refill the drink with a mix of whiskey and Coke, and your drink would be a sitting duck for Rainbow to see and yell MOT at you until you drank it!

Rainbow and Katie playing MOT!

This game continued even after dinner, as we headed to a bar to listen to some music.  At this point, the first bottle was basically gone, but Rainbow soon convinced another teacher, Kristy, to buy a whole new bottle.  Mot was played, the music from the band was pretty good (they even played some English songs for us farangs), and we even danced for a little bit.

Eventually, after the second bottle was gone, we all headed home.  The next morning, the Thais continued to impress us, as every single one of them was extremely chipper and energetic, even at 8 in the morning.