devona

I can't remember the words of this Thai song I used to sing with my students and wondered if anyone can help me. I've got a presentation at a school about Thailand coming up in a few weeks and would like to teach the kids the song. It goes something like this:

Sawadee, Sawadee (students wai each other)

Pop gan something something (swing arms)

Ter gap chan pop gan (point to each other)

Sawadee (wai)

It's the something something bit I need some help with obviously.

Thanks in advance

Devona

There's certainly a lot of kindergarten work around and as far as I know there are some schools that are just kindergarten. My present school has nursery, kindergarten and pratom(Grade 1-6). I teach KG1 which is 3 yr olds and then 2 hours a week I teach the 2 yr olds in nursery.

As for private classes I have taught 3 and 5 yr olds before and there is a school in Khon Kaen that just does extra class lessons for kindies.

Check out some job websites for Thailand and you can see what's available.

Yeah the cake wasn't allowed to be brown but I hate the white icing so much we compromised and they swirled white icing over the chocolate.

Here's the pink dress and weird hair attachments as requested...

Amazingly everything went really smoothly on the day. We went and did the legal bit the day before so I felt more relaxed as it was already official in my eyes. Def the days leading up to it were ten times worse than the actual wedding.

In the morning we went to his mum's house and even had time to relax and eat breakfast before everything got started. I was surprised that so few people were involved in the ceremony - only my family, a few of my close friends, Nung's mother and a couple of old Thai ladies. The rest of Nung's family and other guests didn't even seem to be watching, although they joined in with the shouting parts of the chanting from their various places around the house. My sister made the mistake of sitting behind the guy doing the ceremony, so got very wet when he started flinging the water around as he'd flick it backwards before each throw. I had to try not to laugh at the look on my mum's face when the guy started swigging back whisky too - not sure if that is an official part of the ceremony or not?!

The evening party was great. We had an outside reception at a resort in the garden with lots of trees and fairy lights. I finally got to wear the dress I really liked. Everyone came that I wanted to be there and I got my chocolate cake too. (There was a whole cake issue a few days before the wedding but it got sorted out) We even organised an elephant as a surprise for my niece. The look on her face was one of the best parts of the day for me.

Well it's all over now and I survived! It's probably the most stressful thing I've ever done in my life but also one of my best days too. I smiled for so many pictures I got face ache and that was with my 6 yr old niece taking some of the piccie taking pressure off me as well. Good advice for anyone else getting married here, bring along a young farang child and it halves the amount of pics they want of you!

I couldn't get my hairdresser so I let a ladyboy do a Thai makeover on me, which surprisingly didn't turn out quite as bad as I expected. Even the pink dress didn't seem quite as bad on the day, although I will def never wear it again. Actually Boo if you're looking for a Thai style dress for next year I've got one going cheap??

From my experience I shower loads more than any Thai people I've met. Usually at least 3 times a day but my Thai boyfriend and his family only shower before bed and sometimes in the morning. They find it amusing I like to shower before we got out to eat in the evening.

I also went on a bus trip with 20 Thai female kindergarten teachers. We left at 4am, spent the day stopping off at various places to sightsee and shop and got to our destination at 6pm. We then changed for dinner and I'm the only one who wanted a shower after sweating all day. Some of them didn't even change their clothes.

Aaaaaaaaaaaah! I thought the invitations were stressful but it's all gone downhill from there. I've just had 3 days of wedding planning hel_l which resulted in several arguments, tears and the wedding even got cancelled at one point.

MIL said our invitations were not right as my name is in the wrong place so she wanted us to print all new ones and send them out again. Not happening as far as I'm concerned, plus she's the one who wrote them in the first place so if they're wrong it's her fault.

Worse than that Nung has been allowed to change his morning colour from dark blue to white as he prefered it. What happened to the lucky colour thing or that only applies to me in my horrible pink dress! I'm now tempted to go and dye it a different colour just to annoy her.

I have also turned into an atm machine as the only dicussion of any details with me is when they want cash. I finally lost it completely and have told them the budget and if they spend more it's their money. At least now we've escaped to Bangkok for a few days rest from it all.

I've chosen my own hairdresser to do my make up too as I know she won't be offended if I wrestle the white powder out of her hands!

The latest craziness from my mil is that we shouldn't be travelling anywhere in the next month as it's bad luck for our marriage if we don't stay at home the month before the wedding. I'm starting to wonder about her sanity now.

Think I've finally invited all the people I was meant to and I'm going to leave it up to them to sort out who does or doesn't come, how many buses etc.

Boo - as for the pink dress it's now finished and I'm trying to practice smiling whilst wearing it, as it's a struggle!

Thanks for the advice. I think it's best to let it go too. When I discussed it with my boyfriend he didn't understand why I was upset at all. I think I've managed to show who I value the most by giving them invitations first, so even if they don't make it to the final cut at least they know I did want them there. It just seems a shame when status becomes more important than having your friends at your wedding.

Hi,

I'm marrying my Thai man in 4 weeks time and had a nightmare at work today about who is coming to the wedding. I live in Khon Kaen but the wedding is in Ubon, about 5 hours away. I wanted some of my co-workers to come so asked if we could organise a school van, which was all agreed. Today things have gone a bit pearshaped, though.

There are about 7 people that I really wanted at the wedding as we work together every day and they're my closest friends at work. I gave them invitations, plus 3 managers who I felt I should invite to be polite. I then found out today there is a list of the people coming in the van, which doesn't include some of the people I invited and has people on it that I barely talk to. I know a couple of people I invited can't come so I'm fine with others filling their spaces, but surely it should still be my decision not the school secretary.

I had a long conversation with my Thai assistant teacher and she said I should have given invitations to all the kindergarten teachers. I was actually already thinking of doing this but as there's a limit on who can come in the van I wanted to ask the people I really wanted first. 2 of the people I've invited are student teachers that have worked with me every day for the last 4 months. I feel that with the Thai status thing they are going to feel like they can't say they want to come because they know other teachers want to.

Basically I need some advice on whether to just let this go and forget about getting the people I want there or fighting for them. I know the Thai way would probably be to let them organise it but it's still my wedding.

I used to be the English teacher in kindergarten at Assumption. The children have two 40 minute lessons with the English teacher each day so not really bilingual.

I have naturally curly hair and the same problem. After 3 years of trying all sorts here my only answer was to get my family to send me John Freida Frizz Ease from England. I've looked for it here but had no luck and it's the only product that has any hope of holding back my frizz.

My boyfriend is a restaurant manager so similar to yours. He didn't have any pay slips so we just gave them the letter from his employer confirming his pay, job and return date. I actually think it might be easier if it's a Thai guy with an English woman as it's not as common.

I took my Thai boyfriend back to England on holiday last April. He doesn't own property but we got a letter from his employer confirming his wage and what day he would return to work. I also got letters from my parents and sister in England to confirm we were visiting and would be staying with them. We didn't have any proof of the length of relationship so I added some photos taken at different times throughout the previous year. As I was paying for his trip I put in my bank statements too.

We got the visa really easily and the only hassle was at Heathrow immigration as he doesn't speak English and couldn't understand the questions. The immigration guy asked me some really inappropriate questions implying he was a prostitute - not what I expected as we already had the visa. I'd suggest keeping all the supporting documents on you just in case you have the same problem.

I lived in Ubon Ratchathani for 2 years and never got charged more than 100-200baht for any Amazon parcels by the post office. Now I'm in Khon Kaen and just got charged 1500baht for an Amazon parcel which was a birthday present for me. The post office told me it was because customs thought I would sell what was inside, which was only 2 books and 2 dvds.

Not sure if the rules have changed recently or it depends on where you live.

KG2 where I teach is age 4 to 5yrs. 2 to 3 yrs is nursery and I agree they would just be leanring to hold a pencil or crayon.

I've been teaching KG1 - KG3 for the last 3 yrs in Thailand. It depends what age you're teaching. The KG1 students will probably be able to trace letters, some may be able to write letters themselves but then there'll be some who can't trace yet. KG2 students can usually form most of their letters and KG3 can write words, but usually need to copy them as only the very best students will be able to spell.

The only discrimination I've had since I've been with my Issan boyfriend was in England. We've never had problems anywhere in Thailand.

I learnt Thai with an ex teacher from Union Language school and she used their materials, which were really good for the first few modules. They don't teach you the alphabet and reading until module 4 once you can speak some Thai. That's when I got a bit fed up, though, because it was all reading and writing when I wanted to continue improving my conversation skills.

The best thing that happened for me was finding a Thai boyfriend who couldn't speak English. Before that I'd learn words and forget them because I wasn't using them, but now I speak Thai every day I've improved so much. I'm also learning new vocabulary all the time.

I live in Khon Kaen, which isn't that far from you. Let me know if you're ever over in this direction and maybe we can meet up.

I'm in Khon Kaen, which isn't so far. There seem to be quite a few farangs here but not sure if they're just passing through or here to stay.

Thanks everyone - I hadn't considered any legal problems so I'll certainly look into that and adding a disclaimer. My friend's husband is a Thai solicitor so I can check with him.

Thanks for the advice.

As I'm just putting links to the sites of the organisations I thought it would be the organisation's responsibility to work directly with the volunteer on work permits and the legalities. I'm just trying to cut down on the internet search time for voluntary work and I'm definately not saying don't get the right documents. Would I really be responsible if the organisation and volunteer don't work this out between themselves?

I've just started to set up a website to give people information about voluntary work they can do in Thailand. I'm trying to find organisations that don't charge crazy money or rip people off, and also small, local organisations which could benefit from some help finding volunteers.

The website is www.volunthai.blogspot.com and I'd appreciate any help if you know of organisations I can add or have past experience or knowledge of organisations in Thailand - the good, the bad and the ugly -so I can pass on that information to potential volunteers. Any advice on the website would be good too as I'm quite technically crap

Thanks