Rewriting and Reconsidering My Purpose in Thailand
First Draft
It was the June before my senior year of college when the world was shut down. It was during this time of shielding our faces, of no contact and quarantines, of closed storefronts and restricted borders, that I decided that I absolutely needed to move to Thailand.
I began my Fulbright application that month. I worked with my school’s Fulbright advisor, Roy Jo Sartin, to perfect my essays. Both Sartin and the application itself challenged me to vigorously question and understand my intentions for applying to Fulbright. In only one page I was required to concisely elaborate on why I needed to live and teach in Thailand. In order to truthfully answer this prompt, I had to think and dream deeply, to write and rewrite, and to constantly claw at and shed tears over my keyboard.
After months of soul searching and revising, I finally found my truth. I wrote the following paragraphs in my ninth draft of my personal statement:
My Thai name, “Aum”, rests on my mother’s tongue like a delicate flower, which she protects behind a mouthful of English words. I know that there is a garden - vibrant and blooming with the Thai language - in the back of Mom’s throat, but she guards this garden from zenophobic USA and the confusion of her American-born daughter…
… for most of my life, I rejected my mom’s language and the love that came with it…
…I want my Thai name “Aum” to sprout from the soil of my mother’s land, so that it can finally fully blossom on my mother’s tongue.
When I sent this version of my application to Sartin, she was satisfied with my final product. She appreciated the meaning behind my motivations to live in Thailand and was moved by the story of my mother and I. My essay was nearly complete, she said, but she had one tweak to suggest. This single edit, as short as it was, ended up shifting my entire perception of my grant and its possibilities. Sartin’s six word suggestion forced me to consider an aspect of my desire to do Fulbright that I had not considered before. When making this edit to my essay, I experienced how swiftly and significantly my direction and purpose could change. I added the final addendum to my concluding sentence, accepting it as truth:
“I want my Thai name “Aum” to finally blossom on my mother’s tongue,
and on my own tongue too.”
Recommended Edits
Since writing and submitting the aforementioned Fulbright application, most things in my life have changed. I have graduated from college, attended my older brother’s wedding, and watched my parents sell my childhood home. I have said goodbye to both my college town and hometown, moved away from all of my loved ones, learned a new language, and settled in another country. In fact, (spoiler alert!) I have already completed nine and a half months out of the ten months of my Fulbright grant in Thailand.
It has been more than two years since the summer when I decided that I absolutely needed to move to Thailand. When I think back to those lockdown days of writing and rewriting essay drafts and crying over my keyboard, I feel infinitely far from the version of myself that applied to Fulbright in 2020. It feels like an entire era of my life has passed since then, and whatever clarity or certainty or jubilation I felt about my purpose for living in Thailand then is now much more nuanced and less idealized.
As my year of living in my mother’s country dwindles to mere weeks, I reflect on my original mission to have my Thai name blossom on my mother’s tongue, and on my own tongue too, and I realize how far and how frequently I have strayed from that mission while living here. I replay memories and recount lessons from the year and it strikes me how little of my life I could have predicted in June of 2020.
Living in Thailand for nearly a year has shown to me how plans change and possibilities extend beyond my limited perspective. This essay provides a brief recap on the ways that my purpose in Thailand has fluctuated in focus and intent because of the challenges, opportunities, and people that I could have never planned for.
PANDEMIC DELAYS: SECOND WAVE, WAKE UP CALL
The very first time I was required to reimagine my purpose and plan for Fulbright was when I noticed Thailand’s COVID-19 cases rising exponentially during the months leading up to my departure date. Every day that summer, I anxiously monitored Thailand’s State of Emergency. With its horrifying rise of COVID infections and death, and its limited access to vaccines, Thailand rapidly rose to the top of the list of countries that the US Department of State advised against visiting. Only one month before I was supposed to leave for my grant, the CDC lifted Thailand to Level 4 travel advisory, the glaringly red and most dangerous level. I nervously anticipated the cancellation of my grant.
Soon after, the Thailand Fulbright Commission announced that the start date of my grant would be delayed by at least two months. The news of this delay induced uncertainty and disappointment and required me and my fellow Fulbrighters to immediately improvise on work and housing. However, as stressful and as scary as it was to be redirected, this delay also critically changed my perspective on moving to Thailand for the better.
I was forced to step outside what felt like a post-pandemic society in the US and confront my privileged position in the world. I was required to consider the pressing realities that people in other parts of the world were experiencing with COVID-19 and the lack of vaccines because of my nation. I was reminded that my personal odyssey of moving to another country was never a solely personal and isolated event but rather, a rare freedom that affects others and comes with many responsibilities. I had a lot of time to think about being an accountable, respectful, and safe long-term visitor in Thailand. Essentially, I had to decenter myself in the story of my Fulbright grant and recenter the humans of Thailand, my family and soon-to-be-friends. I patiently waited through the sudden surge in COVID cases.
In December of 2021, I found myself on flights from Seattle to Tokyo, Tokyo to Bangkok. I was finally embarking on my journey, equipped with a renewed sense of purpose and more awareness and appreciation than I would have had if everything had gone as planned.
TEACHING AT "TECHNIQUE"
Once arriving at my placement school and meeting my teenage students, I was challenged to reconsider and drastically revise my preconceived purpose as an English Teaching Assistant. After learning more about my students and observing the teaching styles and objectives of my Thai co-workers, I quickly recognized that I would be teaching very differently than what I had proposed in my original “statement of grant purpose” Fulbright application essay. I would not be dedicating my classes to discussing social issues, identity politics, or systems of oppression. Instead, I would be heavily focused on improving foundational English vocabulary and conversational skills. I would be leading lessons on the weather, on giving directions to taxi drivers, and on ordering food at restaurants. Sometimes I would teach workplace vocabulary about job applications and power drills because my students were technical college students with plans to join the auto mechanical, electrical, and construction workforces.
Accepting the redirection in my teaching trajectory was absolutely beneficial to my students because I had to adapt and react to their very literal educational needs and priorities. I had to let go of my ego and completely rethink my role as an educator. These were important shifts for me to make, as I recognized that although my students had interests and directions I had not planned for, I could still be a valuable asset to them in the ways that they did need me. Once I stepped into my role as native-English speaking resource who could assist in pronunciation and casual conversation skills, I found peace in my teaching - and at the very least, I think my students found me to be a pleasant person to learn with every week.
THE PRESSURE OF LEGACY
My original purpose of living in Thailand was most significantly threatened when I moved to the exact province where my mother was born and I dared to prioritize myself, rather than her, when making the town my home. When choosing my placement, Fulbright had decided to locate me in the city of Mueang Chachoengsao, which directly neighbors the town Bang Khla, where my mother was raised. Though this decision was completely coincidental, it felt like destiny to live so close to my mom’s birthplace. I placed a pressure on myself to dramatize the entire experience. I needed to do all of the poetic, storybook things: to retrace my mother’s footsteps, to reclaim the streets she left behind when she immigrated to the US, and to uphold her legacy through all of my actions.
I placed an expectation on myself to experience Thailand, and specifically Chachoengsao, in the same way that my mom had. After all, my purpose was to have my Thai name blossom on her tongue, and a natural step to achieve this was to create a connection to Chachoengsao that directly mirrored my her’s. It was fate.
However, it took a lot of living and growing for me to give myself permission to experience Thailand and Chachoengsao in ways that did not directly reflect nor relate to my mom. I had to learn that though living in Thailand was always going to be connected to my identity and tied to my family and heritage, I was allowed to forge my own perceptions and experiences. As surprising and as painful as it was sometimes, it was essential for me to shed these expectations so that I could build my own relationships with Thai friends and family, to find my own favorite places to eat and play and learn, and to create my own meaning and purpose for living in Thailand.
In the end, I did not retrace my mother’s footsteps completely. I walked the streets of Chachoengsao and saw its beauty through my own eyes. I traveled to provinces in Thailand that were historical to my parents’ stories, and while I kept my parents in my mind, I also created my own unattached connections and memories to those places. I developed attachments and love for family members that were separate from my mother’s personal relationships to them. And though I visited her hometown of Bang Khla a few times and felt surges of nostalgia and connection to it, I always enjoyed returning to the neighboring city of Mueang Chachoengsao, which had become my own home. By releasing the expectation to center my mother, I was able to take ownership of my own narrative and purpose in Thailand. And by doing this, I learned things about myself that will now help me to love both my mom and myself better.
Final Draft
As my grant comes to a close, I reflect on how much I have learned to adapt, to assess my needs and desires, and to alter my purpose and direction. I realize that the realities of embarking on a journey like this often falls far from the romanticized, idealized versions that I originally dream of. I have met people, created memories, and learned lessons that I could have never predicted when I wrote my original application – and thank goodness for that.
My Thai name, “Aum”, actually blossomed on my own tongue a long time ago, and I didn’t notice when it happened because I was too enthralled with the life I hadn't planned for.
...if only the heart Like button can go a hundred times....read it like a podcast. it soothes.