I’ve had lots of wins this week! I was finally able to understand math here, and answered all of the math questions correctly!!! It felt great to finally understand what’s going on during class. I’m also able to speak more Thai with my host family, which is amazing after only a month. My friends and private Thai classes at school are teaching me a lot everyday. I’ve been starting to learn how to read and write Thai, but it’s very difficult because it has 72 characters.

I’ve made a better image of my schedule for everyone to understand my classes.

My favorite classes are Thai weaving and crafts, Math, and music. In my music class, my teacher had me perform a guitar song in front of the whole class. I sang “Our Song” by Taylor Swift because there are lots of Swifties in Thailand! Everyone loved it! It definitely helped me gain a lot more friends. In my craft class I made a flower imprinted tote bag. In all of my private classes, I get to take them with Miu, another foreign exchange student from Japan. She is with a different program than me, and she’s been in Thailand since May! We’ve become really great friends.

In my sightseeing class, Miu and I got to visit our town’s Chinese Buddhist temple. It looked completely different from the Thai traditional temples. It was gorgeous, and had dragons everywhere.

In our cooking class, we made Khai Palo, which is a pork and egg stew. It’s both salty and sweet, as it has cinnamon in it. It was delicious. Here’s a recipe if you’d like to recreate yourself: https://hot-thai-kitchen.com/kai-palo/

This weekend, I got to spend the night at Marie’s house. We made mookata( Thai BBQ) at the house and played a traditional Thai game with her host brothers called Phong Phang ( Dead or Alive Fish), which was similar to Marco Polo. On Sunday, we went to a cute cafe that is decorated with Mo Hum, which is the indigo dying that my town is famous for.

This week has allowed me to explore the unique culture of my town more thoroughly. It’s been so cool to see the authenticity of Phrae through their architecture, crafts, and food. I’m looking forward to another week of learning and living!

Love,

Emma Kate