Love is in the Air

In Thailand, the question, "mi fan mai," or "do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend," is a standard get-to-know you question. I've been asked that by teachers, neighbors, friends, and students upon our first time meeting. It used to throw me off; I would be sitting at a large dining table with someone who had just invited me over for dinner with their entire family, and one of the family members would lean over with a smile a say, "mi fan mai?" as everyone waited expectantly for my response. Now, like so many other things I've gotten used to, that no longer fazes me, and I've added it to the list of questions that I will be asked over and over again during my time here.

This past Wednesday was Valentine's Day, and I figured I could give my students some practical, everyday phrases they could use, the first one of course being, "do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend?" I spent the week teaching them "boyfriend," "girlfriend," "crush," and various pickup lines, taking a class period to create Valentine's cards. Talking about love definitely gets more personal than discussing what to order at a restaurant, and it was entertaining watching my M1s (11-12 year olds) and M4s (15-16 year olds) talk about romance. Thai words are a lot less gendered, with "he" and "she" being interchangeable and "boy/girlfriend" represented by one word, fan. For that reason, it's difficult to tell who is just mixing up their "he's" and "she's", but there were definitely several boys proudly announcing that they had boyfriends and a few girls proudly announcing that they had girlfriends. Hearing all the declarations of partners and crushes through all my classes was definitely heartwarming, and I fully enjoyed the wide range of them, from the shy reveals to the bold announcements that would be followed by laughter and applause. My students were quick to begin pelting me with questions too, which I should have expected since I was the one who gave them the ammo.

One of my M1 girls rarely shows up to class, and when she does, she sits quietly in the back, not participating in our lesson. She showed up this week, and I went to sit in the back with her while everyone was crafting their cards to ask the question we had just gone over: "do you have a crush?" Before long, this 11-year-old girl who had never spoken more than a few words to me this entire semester was giving me the run-down of her past relationship, how she still missed her ex, and why she felt like she wasn't ready to be in another relationship. Although she was only talking to me in Thai, it was nonetheless one of those little moments worth celebrating as a teacher struggling to build rapport with 317 students. Now when she sees me around campus, she always smiles and waves.

While most of my M1s usually cry out, "noooo!" when I ask if anyone has a boyfriend or girlfriend, I get a much more varied range of responses with my M4s. Some students proudly share their relationship status (or that of their friends') and others dramatically denounce love. One of my M4 boys diligently spent the class period translating Thai sentence after sentence to English and called me over to check if one of them was correct, which read, "I love you like the first day we fell in love." Next to him, his friends were writing Valentine's cards about heartbreak and never finding love.

A few of the less optimistic Valentine's cards

Regardless of age, when I would introduce the first pickup line to each class, "Are you a map? Because I got lost in your eyes," I never failed to receive a collective squeal from all the students (although it was always a fairly delayed response with a few minutes spent on translation.) One of the girls in 4/5 handed me her Valentine's card, complete with her newly acquired pickup line, and asked if I could give it to a boy in the class I would be teaching next. When I gave it to him, he blushed, took it to the back of the classroom, and spent the rest of class with his head down, crafting his return card. When I went over to see if he needed help, he instantly covered his card and looked up with a sheepish smile while his friends teased him. I taught him how to write "Valentine's" in cursive, and before I moved on to check in with the other students, he was practicing over and over on a piece of scratch paper.

At the end of they day, I don't think Valentine's Day is a huge deal for the students. During morning assembly on Valentine's Day, a teacher asked all the students, "What is the date today?" The students replied in unison, "February 14!" The teacher followed with, "so, what day is it today?" And the students all yelled out, "Wednesday!" We all laughed. Like Christmas, Valentine's Day doesn't have too much of a presence in Thailand, but it's still a great excuse to cook up a fun lesson in the classroom and give students a chance to share their love. I’m feeling pretty popular with my desk overflowing with Valentine’s cards from all my students (overlooking the fact that I'm the one assigning points), and I’ve been enjoying reading the messages such as “when you smile, I melt,” and my personal favorite, “in my heart, I want both you and him.”