Foreign Camp with Donut and the B-Boys of Isaan

It started out as Foreign Camp 2006. I argued logically for it to be called English Camp 2007, but in the end I was only able to get the year changed to 2007. English was the only language being taught so “foreign” wasn’t an appropriate title, but by the end of the weekend I realized that aside from language, there was plenty foreign or alien or strange about our camp.

My advice with the title was all I could do to help with and the rest of the camp was left out of my (or the other falang teacher’s) reach. As such the booklets handed out at the beginning of the camp lead with this introduction:

Do you always speak English with you teacher in class? Smne say yes someone say no. Actually you want to speak English in class but you learn English in Thai . It is quite hero for you to b able to speak god English. The Foreign Camp 2006 is organized for students to brush up listening speaking skill and to be confident in using English when in class with your teacher fluently. All the activities provide opportunities to speak English as mush as possible. English is not a monster, Don’t be afraid.

I will say that I post this with some apprehensiveness. These mistakes in themselves are the reason why we were never asked to help edit the writing. No Thai teachers want to ‘lose face’ by finding out that their English is incorrect. So this incorrect English was then printed, passed out to every other teacher, student, and guest and thus the ‘losing face’ was somehow averted even though the readership of this paragraph jumped from 1 to 500. It would be very embarrassing and uncomfortable for me to confront anyone about these mistakes. It would be handled with a fake smile and quick white lie to exit from the conversation. So, now, in my bringing these errors to light, I have caused the writer of these words to lose face, and for that I am sorry. However, it is we the English teachers who also ‘lose face’ by having allowed this English to be printed. It would have taken no more than a couple minutes for us to fix the simple grammatical mistakes in the above passage. Instead this paragraph and a heap of other bits of English, small and large, were left with less-than-perfect grammar.

So in that sense, Foreign Camp was just that: Foreign. I rarely knew exactly what was going on, where I was expected to be and when. Several times students would bring English to me asking what it meant, and I would look at the jumbled mess of a bad translation and have to say, “I don’t know.” A girl ran up to me asking what the direction that read, “put high the arm left shirt” meant. You can imagine my confusion.

But the lack of correct English aside, we did learn that English is not a monster and we did have a great time. On Saturday our groups of campers rotated between 10 different stations playing English games. I was designated the “melodies and gestures” station (Brenda taught “wonderful poem” and Hale and Taraneh taught “enjoying quiz.”)

I understood “melodies and gestures” to mean: do whatever you want. (In these English camps all the teachers and students want to do is have fun. Often times they will stick the falang with something no one else wants to do and keep all fun games for themselves. If you stick with the lame game you’re given, all the kids will have fun at the other station and roll their eyes yours. If, however, you do whatever activity you want and try to have as much fun as possible, you will later be congratulated for you fun station.)

So, melodies and gestures aside, we played “I love you but I cannot smile.” It’s relatively simple and really has very little to do with English despite saying that one sentence. All the students stood in a circle. I explained to them that laughing and smiling was then forbidden. One student stood in the middle of the circle and went around to the now straight-faced students, one at a time, trying to get them to crack a smile or laugh. When a straight-faced student is being taunted, he or she can demand to be left alone by saying, “I love you but I cannot smile.” The taunter must then move on to another student. Students that did crack a smile sat down and were out of the game. It is extremely fun and the challenge of not smiling is especially hard for Thai students.

Katooeys had a particularly unfair advantage in this game. They needed to do very little to get anyone to laugh. Often when the katooeys were in the middle all they did was stand in front of each student individually and before the others could even mutter the words, “I love you...” they would burst into laughter. Pictured here is my favorite katooey, Donut, trying to get a smile from a fellow student. What to look for here are his fake eyelashes, springing out from his profile.

The evenings at camp were always full of songs and dance. These are a few choice pics from the “dance free” in the middle of the evening’s program. As if there really were something valuable being given away for free, the students exploded into the middle of the gym and started a dance party I thought was only possible through large amounts of alcohol.


The girl in these pictures with the red lipstick, blue eye shadow, dangly earrings and necklace isn’t actually a girl, but Donut. That’s right, that’s a boy. Or a ladyboy, which ever you prefer. And he/she loves the spotlight. Donut was dressed up for a skit later in the night that I (un)fortunately missed but I’m glad I at least got to see the katoeeys all decked out.



Donut wasn’t the only ladyboy shaking it during the dance free, there were a handful other cross-dressing students that would have been expelled from any American high school. The dance party was great, but the aftermath was the most entertaining, when the katooeys were stumbling off the dance floor. Ended up that they can dress up well, but after 3 songs of dancing they look like the morning after drinking two bottles of Thai whiskey. Wigs were horribly out of place, clothing was un-tucked, bra pads were hanging out and make-up was running off their faces. They hobbled in their high heels like a drunk hooker after a rough night. That’s bad, but it’s true.
Donut wasn’t the only one dressed up for skits. Every group of students had to do a skit of some sort and they were encouraged to dress up in some way. Though I never understood any of the skits, I knew the katooeys always acted the roles of sexy girls and that these boys were playing ghosts.

Then, just when we were bored with all of the skits, out came some of my best male students. They had told me before that they were into “B-boy”but I never really understood. When they told me this they usually did something “ghetto” like shifting their hat to the side and flashing some unknown gang symbol before folding their arms across their chest and leaning back with a tough grin on their face. Their acting did very little to help me understand what the hell they were talking about. Then, at Foreign Camp 2007, it all became crystal clear.


All the “B-boy”guys are into break dancing. And they’re good. Really good. They were doing back flips and spinning on their heads and swinging their feet around the floor like they were part of MC Hammer’s posse.

Watching these guys perform their skit a wave of questions hit me. Are these guys really that good or do I just think they’re good because I’ve never actually seen break dancing live before? I think they really are that good. Where did they learn this? They must have a couple videos, like Napoleon Dynamite or something. Where do they practice? Who knows, maybe outside of 7-11? Is this popular in Thailand? Not that I know of but it is in Buakhao because the girls were screaming their heads off. Can they teach me to break dance? I think I’m getting too old for this kind of shit. And finally and perhaps most puzzling, where did this guy get his American Flag hat?