Why we smile in Thailand

Two small bits from school today that show why, in Thailand, you just have to smile and go along with it:

Every day we have a morning assembly outside with every single student and teacher staning in attention during the National Anthem and the morning's Buddhist prayers. Today a constipated stray dog thought the best place for squeezing out his morning's crap was right in front of it all, at the base of the flag pole. He squatted there for several minutes, through the anthem, then through the holy prayer, and we had to just stand there and watch it (go ahead and pretend like you wouldn't look.)

Less funny, but still as strange, there were two large trees along one of the paths on campus. All day these poor grounds keepers were chopping away at these two thick trees with a single, small hatchet. It took them all day long just to chip away at trees that a chainsaw could have taken down in a matter of seconds.

These sorts of small things just don't happen at home.