TRANG, Thailand - Disarmingly casual. That's the best phrase I can think of to describe the Thai teachers at the schools where my friends and I currently are working. They have no problem-and I mean no problem whatsoever-asking us personal questions and divulging intimate details about their lives or, more shockingly, the lives of their students.
Over a meal of green curry and rice Monday, the principal of my school asked me how much my trip to the coast over the weekend had cost.
He pronounced me "very wealthy" when I named the price. (In fact, it was quite cheap by American standards.) I blushed at the comment, unsure whether it was uttered with praise or disdain.
Later that day, a young female teacher began grilling me across a table in the computer room: how much is it costing me to live in Thailand, what does my boyfriend do, am I getting married soon, are my parents rich.
The questions came rapid-fire and never ceased to increase in their level of casualness. I tried to answer them as best I could, cringing with each response-hoping she wouldn't pass a judgmental gaze (she never did) or make an embarrassing pronouncement about my life (she did).
But the most casual, the most intimate, the most troubling of these exchanges with the teachers comes in the classroom.
The first day I was teaching Primary Two (a class of seven-year-olds), the teacher pointed to a small, gangly boy in the front row and loudly announced, "He eleven. Special. Not smart."
The woman's finger was just inches from the boy's face; even if he didn't understand her English, the tone of her voice let on to the public, insulting nature of her words.
His sullen face showed that he understood. Uncomfortable, I just nodded and moved toward the chalkboard, hoping she would not offer similar descriptions of other students.
Several teachers in the other classes I teach have pointed at students and described them as "bad," "slow" or "autistic."
In fact, the latter term seems to be the default categorization for students who are learning disabled, handicapped--or merely upset or quiet.
A boy in one of my older classes is embarrassed to read English passages to me, even if it matters for his daily grades. I assume it is because he is afraid to mispronounce words in front of me because that would mean losing face in front of his friends.
But the teacher told me that embarrassment has nothing to do with it; the instructors think he refuses to cooperate because he is autistic.
Similarly, my friend Mercy, who teaches at a school close to mine, told me there is a small boy who sits in the school director's office all day, every day and never goes to class.
Earlier this week, he was crying uncontrollably--and as Mercy walked past the child with one of her colleagues, the teacher, with a wave of her hand and a laugh, exclaimed, "Autistic!"
But that's not the half of it.
Hopping into our transport van Tuesday afternoon, a breathless Mercy began telling us about her favorite student, a pretty little girl who listens to Mercy's iPod and draws tattoos on her arm. We've been hearing about the child for nearly three weeks, but this afternoon, Mercy had new, and upsetting, information.
One of the teachers had pointed at the little girl that day and explained, "She come from broken home." The teacher then lifted up the child's shirt and showed Mercy a nasty scar on her stomach, saying, "She move away from her father. Not safe."
In the United States, teachers could never get away with such comments and show-and-tell of a student's body.
No way in hell.
But here in Thailand, it is acceptable--indeed, the teachers seem to feel obligated to tell us about their students, no matter how intimate the subject matter.
Moreover, they are casual in their physical treatment of the students. I was stunned the first week of school when I saw a teacher hit a child--albeit very lightly--with a stick to get him into line during an assembly.
Since then, many of the volunteers I am living with have been offered a stick or pole to whack their children with if they get rowdy. (All have declined).
A teacher jokingly offered me an umbrella when she left me in a classroom the other day, making a slice-across-the-throat gesture and pointing at a group of boys. Apparently, I could punish them if I wanted to.
I definitely did not.
I don't want to give the impression that teachers in Thailand are terrible people. On the contrary, I find them to be warm, generous and, overall, good at their jobs. They care deeply about their students, would never hurt them and, I believe, mean no harm when they ask me questions about my life.
Rather, the bottom line is that Thai people have very different concepts of education and day-to-day intimacy in comparison to adults in the United States (and in Canada, according to some of the other volunteers in my house).
How people rear and teach children, what sorts of details they share about their lives, how comfortable they feel casually asking personal questions--all of these aspects of life are starkly different in Thailand than they have been in my, and the other volunteers, own experiences.
I wasn't anticipating such casualness when I decided to come here, and I do find it upsetting much of the time. It's hard to hear about a child's home-life problems as though they are small potatoes or watch a teacher threaten a student with a stick.
How can such actions be deemed OK? How should I respond to them? Should I ask that the teachers not use sticks in front of me, that they stop talking about the children, even if they believe they are doing good by letting me in on the details of their personal lives?
As with other pieces in the puzzle of Thai life--the food, the language, the religion-I realize the surprising intimacy is a reality of cultural division, no matter how difficult it is for me to grasp.
In the column I wrote about departing for Thailand a few weeks ago, I noted the importance of sharing cultural experiences.
Attempting to adhere to my own standard, I am trying to live with the casualness of life in the Thai schools and, more broadly, in Thai culture.
But, to be candid, the next time a teacher calls a child autistic or picks up a stick, I could find my American-ness rearing its head and ask the action stop.
Casual treatment of children may be a cultural component for which I am not cut out-for better or worse, whatever that fact says about my character or world view.
Seyward Darby is a Trinity senior and editorial page managing editor for The Chronicle. Her column runs weekly during the summer.
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