Its friday afternoon. Its all chilled and groovy. All the P4-6 kids are in the sports hall having a cute sing song thing - i dunno. I was busy lesson planning. I popped out to speak to one of the Thai English teachers, where i was beckoned over. i popped across thinking it would be 'look at this!', immediately im pulled me up on stage to learn some dance move. Its pretty much crying followed by air humping. I didnt do it. Sorry thailand. I know its probably some traditional joke song or maybe some comedy programme, but im not air humping in front of my students. Youre gonna need about another 10 beers in me before thats happening.

So just curious what it is? I was, im afraid to say, a little shocked by it all. So best in future that i know what it is lest im hijacked by it again and i can throw myself into something utterly harmless to Thai culture and keep my sense of shock and slight amazement under wraps. I feel like ive sorta epic failed on getting into the spirit of things, but it was all a bit sudden, and having to make a decision on the spot of which one would make me look worse, i went for the serious professional teacher over the 'funny and friendly teacher. My shame was cute (and genuine) though so no harm done with the students. Plus id rather theyd all look at me as just culturally confused than give anyone ammunition for inappropriate behaviour in front of students. Bit of a quirky one for me. No idea how i should have reacted in truth, but its a fun moment of actual culture shock.

I think it's a dance from this new Thai song. I'm on my mobile and dont have the url but if you search for kamikaze feat. baitoey (it's a song where they are on a bus)

They do a lot of grating of their hips while they dance and some hand movements which if they were a bit higher might be seen as crying. Also the song/video is really popular at the moment.

You could have 10 PHDs in Education, and they will still treat you like a monkey. Their concept of sanook is starting to wear on me. I also teach P4-6.

another 10 beers in me before ???? seems like all the staff had a or tipple or 2

I hate this attitude where it is Ok to make teachers perform like drunks. I do camps for the extra money and enjoy the laughs I have doing them, The one thing I hate is having to do some stupid dance or routine in front of the students. In class I love, that but being forced to do it is degrading. If I didn't need the cash I wouldn't do the camps full stop, but it's only because i do not get the make a fool of the farang thing. If you want to look like a prat, that's fine with me...don't expect me to do it and like it though.

Now I know what my 3 year old has been dancing for the last few weeks!

Its a long time ago but I remember we used to love it when the teachers got a bit informal and 'made fools of themselves'. You guys don't need to be so precious? :-)

Troll post removed. Please stay on topic.

More off topic posts have been removed.

This is a potentially interesting and relevant thread, with the potential for enlightening debate, if it stays on topic. Therefore, I'm going to keep this thread open for now, but will close it if it continues to diverge off topic.

As a reminder, the song which he was asked to dance to has been ascertained, therefore discussion of the song/music video and any monkey business they get upto in it, are "off topic" (This is the teaching forum afterall). If you'd like to discuss the song/music video more, you are welcome to start a new thread in the farang pub section, as this would be a more appropriate avenue.

However, as this thread is in the teaching section, it needs to be primarily focused on teaching. Thus I would ask you to please keep, roughly, to the topic of how Thai schools sometimes have western teachers come up on stage to do something a little silly/degrading, and the pros/cons therein.

I can't see any pros to being made to do something degrading, silly maybe...but through choice and with notice. Please let me decide when and how I want to be silly

actually it wasnt the whole being made to do something silly i was worried about, it was the blatant sexual suggestiveness of the move and whether as a teaching fraternity (including thai teachers) that we should even be doing that. Doing silly things to make the kids laugh is fine (if only i had an actual sense of humour!) but it just seemed wildly inappropriate.

Its all good though. I remember in Korea watching the middle school music festival and feeling equally uncomfortable watching my kids dressed up and dancing like strippers. What could they do? They were doing the dance moves form their favorite songs. Its just out of context you look at it thinking "am i the only person here deeply uncomfortable with this?"

Oooh and in Japan kids come to school wearing playboy brand clothes and carrying bags with marijuana leaves on them, Theres just a kind of obliviousness or maybe oversensitivity on my part for these things is all

Sounds like the harlem shake; all the kids are doing it now; humping the air.

Guess what wonderful country this dance comes from?

Well, Harlem is not a country, but, err, is it "merkin"?