Muay Thai Night in Kanja..cha..gaja...kri...rit...tit....

I still don't exactly know where we were. It was only supposed to be a 10km, 20min drive down the road; instead it became a huge hour plus journey into what seemed like a carnival/festival in the middle of absolute nowhere. At times Karim's English friend and I felt we were being duped by our friend and were being brought to an Al-Qaeda-esque execution in a jungle cave as we followed the other pickup filled with little Thai fighters around dark, country/jungle backroads with so many U-turns you'd think we were being tailed or something.

This meant that in typical Thai style we stroll into the "stadium" (a roof with a ring under it surrounded by a wall of corrugated tin) late to one of the boys' first fights (the reason we're there). No one seems to care, least of all Karim, the other trainer and the boy, and fight prep begins.

Now let me just say that this if my first live muay thai fight, and first live professional fight. I've seen some amateur kickboxing in NY but this is nothing like that. The ring (after it started raining, it became the only dry structure in the area) is surrounded by people standing in the mud or on chairs for a better view. Everyone is shouting at everything and cash starts to fly after the first round (when the real betting begins).

The fighters prep on mats they bring with them and must push through the crowd to get to their corner. It's all chaos and noise... that and all but one fight was between 8-14 year olds. And not just the pansy little kids fights you get so many PTA moms up in arms about in the States where they have big foam shinpads and headgear on and the gloves are the same size as their torso. No, these are professionals fighting for blood and money; they enter with their mongkan (ceremonial headband that is removed before the fight) 10-14 oz gloves and shorts. That's it.

The fights begin with a Wai Kru or dance to show respect to their trainer and to apologize to the audience for the violence they're about to see (yeah, that second one's kinda funny) and the entire fight is set to traditional Thai music that varies from the kru-dance, and each round (speeds up each round or something, I couldn't really tell). When they're good and they have a long wai kru it's an wonderful show in itself and adds tradition and elegance to a real ass-beating.

They go full force, kicks, punches, elbows and knees. No mercy, no stopping till the bell rings or the ref pulls you away. A 10ish year old kid was knocked out with a beautiful kick to the face and the crowd goes wild. Not a single one cried. Actually, it was their stony expressions left me a little shaken. Win or loose, like Karim, their faces never changed. You can't tell if the kick that just knocked them back across the ring hurt them at all, and when our fighter knocked the other flat with an amazing punch-kick combo (he fell like a board, straight back) I thought he was even a little depressed his face moved so little (didn't even crack a smile).

Still, even with all the kiddie-gore (almost no blood) at the end of each fight, no matter what the outcome the two kids hug (and if their faces have that expression, smile) and then meet and talk to the other's trainers who give them water and a pat on the head for a job well done. No animosity, these are true professionals.

The entire night (aside from getting lost twice, we got turned around on the way back too) was grand and a real eye opener into not only the world of professional fighters, but the Thai version of that world where you begin young, fight often and win or loose keep your composure and sincerely congratulate the other side (not that stupid "Who do we appreciate" shit from Little League Baseball).

Oh, and the final outcome of the night was one win one loss (we had two fighters there) and the loss was totally a result of the gambling and not the actual fight results (our kid smoked the other dude) and I ended up loosing 100 baht (I was lucky I couldn't find an ATM on the way or it would've ended up being more). Either way it's an experience I hope to repeat many times during my time here.

Wai Kru Day

Today was fun. I woke up early, skipped my run and went to work a full hour and a half before I really needed to. Now, this must be sarcasm, you're thinking, but it's not. It was amazing. Tremendous. Totally hilarious.

Why?

Wai Kru Day.

What is that? It when all the students from all the classes line up and give highly arranged and decorated flower arrangement pieces to all their teachers. This, of course, is after they crawl on their knees to you (we had chairs) and bow face-to-ground-total-kowtow style. And even before that, they sang to us, chanted about being better students and how they appreciate us and all the kids did a kowtow to apologize for being bad students in the past (I want to stand up and cheer).

I was given so many flowers, incense and candles that I had to keep them on my lap, and then give them to someone with a bucket (this repeated itself three times). Sometimes we "blessed" our students on the head as the kowtowed telling them to "lead good lives" and "be a doctor" (I said "Have fun").

Totally made this entire month of Teaching Hell worth it.

Some quick notes

I've been pretty busy lately, a lot's been going down at work. We lost our Academic Manager so two of us (teachers) were made "Head Teachers" or something like that which meant many minor shifts in how things were done. I had my observation from my boss last week and while it was stressful it went well and I am now officially (non-probationary) a teacher at my schools, which is nice (and the pay gets a nice little raise from here on out).

I had to do some visa work, which meant photocopying my passport and getting a checkup... I don't have syphilis, which happens to be the only disease my work checkup checks. Aside from that I lost 10 kilos (22ish pounds) since coming to Thailand and gone down a belt size which is sweet (I had to buy a belt for my work pants tho'). I've felt great about that and added to my muay thai (which is now on the weekend) a morning run which I've done for the past couple weeks.

Finally, I got a new update for my Linux. If this interests you then read on, if not then you can stop here.

Natty Narwhal

The new Unity interface is excellent and I think the best one I've used on my netbook before. It's less clumsy and faster than the older Unity (I'd been using the regular Ubuntu Desktop) and was a real surprise. The full-screened windows are the best way to take up the space and the toolbar is less annoying than Snow Leopard's (I haven't seen Lion yet); the "Hidden" feature seems easier to manager, especially as a sidebar. I did have to allow 3rd party updates (not naturally on) or it was a bit glitchy, but Natty has so far been the smoothest upgrade I've had from Ubuntu. Nice job, guys ^_^