Teaching English and a Royal Encounter

 

Marcia in English teacher mode at
Saeng Sawan Church

As has already been noted, much of our first year in Thailand was spent learning Thai at the Union Language School. Four hour per day class sessions though, left quite a bit of time for other things. Paul Dodge was a veteran missionary based in Bangkok at the time and we were grateful to him and Winnie for serving as mentors and generally looking after us. Paul was serving at the Saeng Sawan (Sacred Light) church across the Chao Phraya River in Thonburi but a reasonable drive from our apartment.  He had started some English classes as an outreach of the church and Paul would use his contacts in the English -speaking church and mission community to recruit teachers for these classes. He offered us the chance to teach and though we aren’t really English teachers, we agreed to do the best we could. It seemed a good way to meet genuine Thai speakers to practice our Thai and hopefully, help them with English.

English has long been part of the school curriculum in Thailand but I suppose, it was like our Spanish and French classes we took in high school. We passed the classes well enough, but really had zero ability to use the language. So, outside of the mission office and maybe a church leader here and there, we rarely encountered any Thai that could speak English. In our later years in Thailand, it seemed English was much more widespread but for us, we knew we HAD to learn Thai.

Paul Dodge (Holding Mic) who headed the
English classes. Marcia on right side
 

For the Thai at the Saeng Sawan Church however, learning English was purely optional. Most students took it pretty seriously, but in good Thai fashion, it needed to be fun as well as instructional. So, there were as many games and exercises as there were more traditional lessons. The students were good sports and did the best they could with our amateur teaching efforts.

Some of our students offered to take us on a water taxi tour across the Chao Phraya River to the floating market area. We enjoyed that and were flattered they wanted to take us. Later, some of the students invited us to a beach picnic on the coast of the Gulf of Thailand. Likewise, they were pleasant company and offered a window into Thai culture beachfront style.

Along the way to the beach with our English students, we had our first encounter with the Thai royal family. The king, who has since passed away, was highly revered. Likewise, the whole royal family. In language school, we had already talked about proper manners related to the king. Chief among these, is to never say anything negative about the king. Maybe equal to that is to keep your head lower than the king’s head. At our school, we had seen pictures of people scooting across the floor trying to keep as low as they could, symbolizing that they were nothing compared to the lofty king. As a tall person, this presents a problem. How do I keep my head lower than the King’s without chopping off body parts?

Two of our language students (foreground)
taking us to the floating market via river taxi

With that level of understanding of the Royal Family, as we were driving down the road toward the beach, it was first noted that police were lining both sides of the highway spacing themselves within a couple hundred feet of each other. Something was up and I suspect our Thai friends knew what was coming. The police presence continued to grow until finally, a police officer stood out in front of our car and motioned us to pull over. Everyone else on the road was also pulling off onto the shoulder and standing along the road. Were we in trouble? It didn’t appear so, and it was apparent our Thai friends were excited. In our limited Thai, we soon figured out that a royal family motorcade was coming and to protect the King and his family, all cars going both directions were made to pull over and wait for the motorcade to pass. The royal family has a “palace” (a very nice house in this case) further down the beach from where we were going and they, like us, were heading for a beach outing.

I suspect that in the US, most people would be aggravated if they had to pull off to the side of the road for 15 minutes to let a government motorcade pass. But our Thai friends were excited and seemed to feel that being on the same road as the royal family was a bonus to an already good day.

For me personally though, it was scary. What should I do? I’m going to be taller than the king unless I do something. But I didn’t see anyone else sit down on the ground. Most were lining the road trying to get a glimpse of who was going to be driving by. The King? The Queen? A prince or princess or two? For me, I just continued to ponder whether I had something to worry about or not? I didn’t know so I went down into the road ditch as best I could and figured I’d be safe there. It was as low as I could get.

A day at the beach in Cha Am

Soon, the motorcade came by highlighted by several yellow Cadillacs. The yellow Caddys would be the cars holding the royal family with the other cars holding police, guards, other officials, etc. The whole motorcade zipped by at about 60 mph with the crowd lining the road barely able to generate a cheer or salute. It was a yellow blur. I’m sure no one would have noticed a tallish white guy even if I’d been standing front and center, but I still felt comforted that I’d kept my head low down in the ditch.

Over the years we had several more experiences with royal motorcades but I usually would just stay sitting in the car. I would later also have a marine based encounter with the Thai Navy guarding the king’s house on the beach but I’ll save that for another story.