The American Dream Without Pizza

I was feeling a little blah this morning and not really in the mood for life in the village, but today was my day to teach at the pre-school so I made myself go. The second I got there, I was so happy I went. The kids gave me the usual hugs and high fives and today I taught them thumbs up and "good job!" They all say "Good morning" to me in English, which is also incredibly adorable. Those kids just make me so happy.

On the days that I teach, I usually eat lunch with the teachers while the kids nap. Today's topic of conversation was working in America. Thai adults often jokingly, or not so jokingly, tell me that they want to go to America and work and make lots of money because they think all Americans are rich. They totally have the "American Dream" image of the United States, which is interesting to me. I always tell them they can visit my house in America and I will show them around and they can see snow. Today, PiPong asked me how much she could make washing dishes in America. I said about $6 an hour, which when you concert to Thai Baht, is a lot of money. I then told them that if they wanted to teach at a pre-school, they would make between $15-20 an hour. Their eyes got huge and they started talking really fast and I couldn't understand all of it. But then I had to break it to them that while you make a lot of money in America, it's really expensive to live, cars, houses, food, health insurance are all really expensive. Once I converted that all to Thai Baht they started to understand, but they didn't really care. The American Dream images lives on in their minds.

Then I asked them if they like foreign food, like pizza or spaghetti. Immediately they responded "No! Absolutely not! I don't like any of it. I don't want to eat bread everyday. Doesn't America have sticky rice and fermented fish paste?!?" I laughed and said "Nope! If you work in America you will have to eat American food everyday." The thought of eating pizza to them is like eating a plate of fried bugs to me. Their faces looked absolutely disgusted and then PiPong responded, "Well, maybe we'll just visit America and not work there. I can't eat American food everyday." I just laughed as I took another hesitant bite of fermented fish paste with sticky rice...