Kate Vickery

Chiang Mai, Thailand

Why I chose to go to Thailand: As we sat underneath a pristine blue sky amidst the mountains of Killarney, my LandSea co-leader Noah said to me, “I think you would really love Thailand, Kate.” The more I thought about Thailand as an option, the more exciting and exotic it became. The one-page description not only met my desire for an intense experience, but also my interest in environmental studies and love of outdoor wilderness adventures. My mind was made up. Presently, I think of Thailand as I think of LandSea: as an experience that will allow me to test and expand my limits. I want my study abroad to be an opportunity to separate myself from everything I know and am familiar with. I am a homebody by nature and it always takes me a while to get past my physical and mental resistance to change. However, based on my past experiences with adventures away from home, I believe I am prepared to take this on. I am starving to be out of the classroom and learning about the world, about people, and about the relationship between the two. I want to shed the grungy feeling I always get when I’ve been in a city for too long; I am looking forward to being in the “field” for three weeks at a time so I have no obligation to call home. I want this to be my experience entirely. I have a friend who virtually ruined her study abroad experience by talking to her boyfriend at home three or four times a day. I know it’s much easier said than done, but I want to be in Thailand entirely, not split with my head in one place and my heart in another.

Another intercultural experience I had: My only international travel to date has been a two-week trip to Costa Rica with 24 other high school students. The trip began with a week of the “touristy” stuff; but at the start of the second week, we met our respective host families and the 25 of us were spread out all over San Jose and the surrounding towns. I went to school with my host sister, ate at my host father’s restaurant, and visited the family’s small cabin in the hills. When I think back on my experience in Costa Rica, I am struck by how much I loved every minute of my time there, but also by how many opportunities I missed through my own ignorance.
When I look back at that amazing trip, I am infinitely sorry for the time ill-spent with my host family. For example, I was not comfortable with my language skills and the first time someone laughed at a botched sentence of mine, I simply stopped trying; my host family let me, of course. Though I was only with them for a little over a week, my language skills could have improved greatly had I stuck out my neck and tried. Also, I wasn’t sure how to interact with my family, and ended up spending more time than I should have in my room watching TV or reading a book. I helped around the house, but was wary about intruding into their lives too much, and therefore missed out on a lot of important insights into Costa Rican culture. I never let myself just relax and be myself, never allowed my family to break through the walls I had built to protect me from humiliation. I do not mean to make my experience with my familia de Costa Rica seem completely wasted, because there were some sweet moments that I will never forget. One night in particular, my host sister, Catalina, and her boyfriend, Frank, were dancing salsa and meringue on the back patio. I sat and watched for some time before Frank finally grabbed my hand and said “your turn.” It turned out to be the most fun night I had during my stay with the family. Perhaps the shot of tequila my host father had given me earlier loosened my inhibitions, but whatever it was, I finally felt present and not like a guest.

Given my experiences in Costa Rica, I am ready to try again with my family in Thailand. Once again, I will have a very short time to make my initial bonds with my family and the language barrier is going to be even more severe. I’ve been warming up those “sticking out my neck” muscles every day. I also feel more prepared for the culture shock that will hit me as soon as I step through the door into my family’s house. Through this class, independent research, and question-asking, I am preparing not to make the same mistakes I made in Costa Rica again. I want there to be dancing in Thailand.

How this class helped me prepare for study abroad: I have to admit it; I had my period of uncertainty about the value of this class. I couldn’t understand how many of the culture-general trends we were discussing were going to help me in my study abroad experience. I wanted to know about Thailand specifically, not the about difference between task and relational role behaviors. Finally I realized that the most valuable part of this class for me is the heightened awareness of my own culture that I will be able to bring to Thailand. I can’t know everything there is to know about Thai culture before I get there, and if I could, then what would I have to discover? The most important thing I can do is be introspective and anticipate some of the barriers I am going to face during my intercultural experiences. The questions we have generated from our discussions of Raymonde Carroll’s book leave me a little terrified about “making a mistake” in Thailand. Still, they have drawn my attention toward issues about which I might not otherwise have thought. For example, I probably would not have thought twice about walking into my host-family’s kitchen. Having discussed this and other aspects of the home, I am now conscious of actions like this and will be more attuned to the actions of my family, looking for signals about how I should behave. This class has helped me be more aware of my potential for ethnocentrism, and more aware or the subtler aspects of cultural interactions over which my clumsy American feet might otherwise have trampled.

What I identified as the greatest challenges facing me as I began my study abroad program: The fact that the United States and Southeast Asia are on the opposite ends of every continuum we have discussed so far — from the concept of time to each culture's degree of individualism — both terrifies and excites me. Naturally, I am nervous about clashing culturally with the people I meet, but at the same time, this is part of what drew me to Thailand in the first place: the differences. One of the greatest challenges I am anticipating is the difference in physical interactions among people. I love hugs, I tend to touch people when I’m talking to them, and, yes, I have been known to pat people on the head. I don’t think twice about grabbing someone’s arm or jumping on a friend’s back for a ride; people have told me before that I have little respect for personal space. I come by it honestly – this is how my family interacts as well — but I foresee this as being a challenge for me in Thailand. There, despite the Thais’ famous friendliness, respecting a person’s “space” is very important. This will be especially difficult because my comfort with casual physical interactions also extends to my male American friends. Hearing the story of Mark Ritchie having to admonish two K students (a male and a female) because they were tickling each other, made me cringe. I adore human contact; internalizing a new type of interpersonal physical communication will be like learning an entirely new language.

How life might be easier on study abroad than here at K: I thrive on challenges. I feel most rewarded by accomplishing the things that I just take a risk and go for—take LandSea, for example—despite the fact that these experiences probably kick me around a little bit. I think that this part of studying abroad is going to be “easier” for me than spending another winter in Kalamazoo.

Of course, I understand that being in Thailand is not going to be easy; I anticipate nearly every aspect of my adventure to “kick me around”, but this is what I’m looking forward to and what is for me one of the most vital aspects of a fulfilling life. My mind tends to get restless when it sits in my head for too long, staring at a computer screen; being in Thailand is going force that brain of mine to be active twenty four hours a day (with nary a computer in sight). Exhausting as that will be, my adventure is going to be “easier” for me because it won’t allow me to wallow in the feeling I get sometimes that the work I do at school is petty. Lacking the extravagancies of American “convenience,” living a simpler lifestyle climbing mountains, and letting myself get “kicked around” in Thailand may actually be easier on my restless mind than being at home.

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Read excerpts from my letters home.