Elephants, hills tribes and fish sauce, oh my!

Although a Watson scholarship covers twelve months of travel, I decided to start two months early, in the name of pure unhindered fun with my friends before the real batik project starts. With this initial goal in mind, I stepped onto the plane headed for Thailand and thus began my 14-month adventure around the world.

After two whirlwind days of crammed flights, airport fast food, dazed wandering and long layovers, I arrived at the Chiang Rai airport and realized that I was definitely not in Kansas anymore. This tornado has carried me away and dropped me into the land of fish/chili pepper sauce, thick jungles, green mountains and sing-song Thai language (my valiant efforts to learn have proven quite disastrous however. How was I supposed to know that the word for "beautiful" sounds just like a swear word if not spoken well?)

In any case, I followed the yellow-tiled path out the door of the airport and into the welcoming arms of four friends from the U.S. who will join me for the first month of my journey. Before they even had time to respond to my fervent burst of hello, I promptly whisked them away to meet my seatmate (on the flight from Bankok) and new friend Yee—a 21 year-old Chinese-Thai girl studying in Oklahoma U.S.A! She led us to a teashop inside the airport for an impromptu party and some delicious refreshments. Little did we know that the shop belonged to her family who actually grew the tea we were drinking and own one of the largest tea farms in Doi Mae Salong—a town on the northernmost tip of Thailand famous for their tea and populated with Chinese immigrants.

Of course we took advantage of Yee’s generous invitation to her home and were treated like royalty during our two day stay there. Upon arrival, she immediately charted us off to a museum that detailed the history the Chinese in Thailand. It was eye-opening to realize that Taiwan was not the only place the Nationals fled to after the Cultural Revolution and that Thailand was actually an option closer to home. With over 8.5 million Chinese immigrants, Thailand has more overseas Chinese than any other country in the world! Just when I thought that I leapt completely into the unknown, I find that I am actually closer to home than I could have imagined. It is amazing how similar my fate is to Yee’s and I wonder what sort of person I would have become if my grandparents had ended up here in Thailand instead of Taiwan? As I drank in the amazing scenery and the even more aromatic tea, I daydreamed about what my life could have been like in this beautiful land of plenty.

More pertinent to my batik research however, was the meeting with Paul Hancock and Patricia Solar—a remarkable husband and wife team who run a non-profit organization in Thailand called Khom Loy. (http://www.khomloy.org/). Patricia is in charge of a handicrafts project here that has become known as Izara Arts (http://www.izaraarts.com/) and has generously offered to help me in my quest to learn about the art of batik in Thailand.

The kindness of strangers will never cease to amaze me.

I can hardly believe that it has only been one week since I landed in this extraordinary country. In such a short amount of time, I have already crossed a river by elephant (I even got to drive!), biked through villagers gawking at the two shirtless white boys running beside me, driven though the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen in my entire life, climbed up coconut trees and scaled to the top of a majestic waterfall.

The last two slightly life-threatening events are the basis behind my new name – "Lui-Shian". In Thai, "Lui" is used to describe someone who just "goes for it and dives right in" while "Shian" is a Chinese, god-like and valiant warrior. I can only hope that such a character remains inside me during the coming year.

One week down, FIFTY-FIVE more to go…