Wai Kru Day

June 17th, 2053

June 17th (Happy Birthday Pete!) was a really cool day for us as we got to participate in Wai Kru Day (literally translated: Bow to the Teacher.) This was an all day affair (morning for the younger kids and afternoon for the older kids) in which students showed their respect to the teachers and honored us with a traditional ceremony. There was a line of chairs in front of the stage where the teachers sat and then the students lined up in rows on the floor. Row by row the students came up to the teachers on the floor and knelt before us as traditional Thai music was playing over the PA system. They then wai-ed (bowed) at our feet three times before handing us various types of amazing flowers. When we took the flowers we blessed the students/gave them words of luck and advice before they crawled backward and stood up. It may not seem like much, but I can’t really think of anything like this that goes on in the US. It was such a great experience to see how highly Thai culture looks on teachers and then to be a part of it was even better. I didn’t know some of the students, but when one of my kids got placed in front of me it was pretty awesome to see how shy yet how excited they were to be giving me the flowers they worked so hard to make.