No Class

Last Monday I was riding my motorbike through town; I was on a street called Huay Kaew, which is a fast road that goes up into the mountains. I was just past the Central shopping mall in town when I glanced over to my right and saw something that sent a quick gasp of surprise and realization through me. In the reflection of the Import Clothing store wall-sized windows was a guy on a motorbike, with suit pants pulled up at the ankles by the acute angle of the legs in the driving position, a striped patterned shirt rolled up to the elbows, and a red silk tie flapping over the left shoulder -- holy shit, I'm a teacher.

At Will's request I've taken up a couple of classes at a small English school near his apartment. My professional get-up is the uniform of the Chiang Mai teacher-class, a collective of liberal arts students, maladjusted adolescent-minded adults, and French-Canadians. It is a unique group in that they have adjusted to a style of living in Chiang Mai that does not include frequenting the sin-traps, sticking instead to Thai-nightclubs, and having carved out a niche of assumed sophistication. I appreciate the group for the opportunity for some kind of intellectual stimulation, but scorn it for its inability to provide for me a strip-club buddy -- for that I'm better off asking my mother.

*Just a thought on strip-clubs -- I love strip-clubs and although I like seeing women squirming around in their nothing-at-alls, there is something more to the atmosphere that I can really get into. Mostly it's the perfect place for people watching, and strip-clubs are basically a who's who of the sexually and socially frustrated -- the "wrong crowd" that I have a knack for falling in with. I hope to one day own my own club and conduct my business in an upstairs office; when my Chinese business partners come to town they can meet me down at the club and we could do our arms trading while drinking Chivas and watching 'Lexus' do the crabwalk to "Hungry Eyes." Of course, I'll have to use one of the girls as a numbers runner, which inevitably gets her kidnapped -- little do I know that she is Steven Seagal's estranged niece. When he shows up he's probably going to Akido all over my hired goons and then I'll be ruined.

So my first class is a trio of 15 year olds. I was pretty nervous my first day so I brought a bandana/handkerchief with me. I was sweating like the Guidance Counselor at my old elementary school -- Mr. Bundy. He used to stand in front of an auditorium full of students and alternate between furiously mopping his forehead with his handkerchief and drinking a Diet Coke while repeating : "you kids got to learn... some self control!" Despite my manic sweating I managed to control myself and speak very very slowly, which is not easy for me to do. I also try to enforce the American way, rather than the British system which the book proffers.

We go through the lesson book which has little stories about people doing whacky things: a woman who lives on an airplane, a guy with 13 jobs, etc. I've been trying to make things a little bit more interesting than just sticking to the book allows. In a picture of a guy offering a woman some champagne I tried to encourage the students' imagination a bit:

"Do you think there's something going on between Bob and Helen? -- maybe they're a little bit more than friends?"

"Maybe Bob is trying to help Helen relax -- get in the mood?"

"Is Bob a bad man or just lonely?"

"Is this illegal?"

But they don't seem to get it and just stare at me blankly, which I remember doing to my own language teachers quite a bit. Now I get it. It doesn't get me down, I keep going through my routine and imagine that I'm Rodney Dangerfield with a tough crowd.



I'm working on a version of Hollywood Squares to play with my second class -- made up of 6 university girls -- but I don't think the game will have the same appeal without Gilbert Godfrey or Bruce Vilanch.


**Oh boy, do I have problems: My parents sent me to a child psychiatrist -- the kid couldn't help me at all!** --Rodney