School in Thailand is...

A few more interesting tidbits about going to school in Thailand. First, students do wear uniforms. They have 3 different uniforms that they were throughout the year (each uniform is worn every three days). Each level (grade 7-9) wears a different uniform. So, each uniform is worn each day, just by a different grade each day. I hope that makes sense. Each morning the students arrive between 7:15 and 8:00 and at 8:00 gather outside of the different buildings in rows. I'm not sure how they are grouped, but each group has about 150 students. At 8:00 exactly, the Thai national anthem is played over the loud speakers at school and all the students sing along. Following that, the Bunyawat Wittahayalai school song is played and again, everyone sings along. The students are then addressed by a person I believe to be a faculty member (the person changes everyday) and then addressed by a student. All in all the morning activities take about 25 minutes and the students are always late to the first class of the day (which starts at 8:20).

Another cultural note, the year marks the 60th anniversary of the current Kings rule. There were huge celebrations all across Thailand in early June celebrating his ascendancy to the throne. Each king has a certain color that corresponds with their rule (this is determined by a monk prior to their ordination). The current king's is yellow. So, every Monday everyone is supposed to wear a yellow shirt (specifically a polo shirt with the royal crest on the chest). Many people want to show their support of the king more than once a week and so people have purchased 4-5 different yellow shirts to wear everyday of the week (or at least more than once). When I visited my host family in Chiang Mai, sure enough they gave me a gift of a yellow shirt to wear which I proudly wore on Monday.