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RETIREMENT- it's a big deal.


Our school director, the Big Man, is retiring this year.  He is a large man, by status and by physical standards.  Our school is making a very big deal about his retirement.  First, they had the school shut down for three days in August so the Thai teachers could take a trip up to Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai.  Then, on Monday, they had a giant retirement party for the director and three other teachers who were retiring this year.  They rented out a hall at Kosa Hotel, one of the fanciest hotels in Khon Kaen.  In this hall they had 66 tables.  At each table they spent 2000 baht on food and drinks making a total of 132,000 baht.  That is close to $4,500.00 spent on food and drinks alone  Seems like a lot of money to spend on one man, however big he may be.  However, in Thailand if you have money, you can buy status, and with that status you can obtain even more money.

The retirement party was gorgeous.  Everyone showed up wearing his or her most expensive silk attire.  Teacher Sao delighted us with her singing during dinner.  After dinner each school in Khon Kaen, as well as some from surrounding provinces, performed a dance from a certain country or tradition.  The girls from our school performed a traditional Indonesian dance.  There were also performances of traditional Issan dances and traditional Laos dances.  Some of the costumes were very extreme consisting of tutus as wide as they were tall decorated with feathers covering every inch of the costume.  Others were beautiful, made up of fabric tastefully draped with subtle accents.  
Cait, Me, Nook, Eve, Preow, and Oo.  Eve was one of the dancers from our school.
The Big Man.  It's blurry but this is him.
 
The last part of the celebration for the Big Man's retirement was a school ceremony.  In this ceremony each student in each class stood in line for three hours and handed each of the retiring pupils a rose.   The students missed two hours of class for this ceremony.  After their ceremony all of the teachers left the students in the classrooms and gathered in the Thai staffroom for another ceremony.  They played a video honoring the Big Man and the other retiring teachers.  Then, each teacher crawled on their knees and in an assembly line fashion, poured water over the hands of each of the retirees.  I have never had to kneel before anyone of status before and hopefully I will never do it again.  It was quite a degrading feeling.  

After an excessive retirement celebration the Big Man is gone.  I am interested to see what the welcome celebration for the next director is like.  All I know for now is that the Big Man is going to live large in his retirement. 

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