Komfaek Highs balance the Traffic Blues
I decided to spice up my lesson plans and challenge my students to expand their English horizons by introducing a daily mantra, quote of the day, and rarely used English word of the day. The curriculum I use through BFITS consists of a teaching book, power point presentation along with a student workbook that reinforces the concepts. But there is plenty of room to explore new ideas and I have decided to take full advantage of the freedom afforded to me. The classrooms I teach in have no internet access but they do have connection ports to an overhead projector that I can display multi-media presentations on a white board.
On Monday morning (07-01-19), I arrived fresh and ready to integrate the new frame of reference to my evolving lesson plan format. Per my morning routine, I sat at my work area in the Foreign Language Department and noticed Mike was staring at me over the partition that separates our desk. I watched him stand up and he handed me a wooden stick that had two edges (similar to diamond shape) running the length of it. He described it as a diamond pattern that is used to make a Thai fighting stick/baton (KomFaek).
My new Komfaek 
The stick was hard as a rock almost like maple wood. He went on to say that he was giving it to me as a gift so that when I’m with him in his hometown this upcoming weekend; I would have protection from “feral dogs and leopards”. I was slightly stunned as I considered the animal problem I may encounter, yet that was counterbalanced with the wave of gratitude that flowed through me. Plus, I kind of felt like a bad ass knowing that I would be carrying around this truncheon in public.
When I Googled KomFaek, I found this cool Thai movie made in 2018. Watch the trailer and you will witness the KomFaek taking down Thai bad guys.
This is what I look like holding a KomFaek. I’m all business-fully prepared for the feral dogs and leopards that may cross my path.
I woke up on Wednesday (07-03-19) to a downpour of rain outside (it is the rainy season in Thailand right now). Me and two other teachers hopped in our Grab car for the morning ride to school and in typical Thailand fashion we were greeted with an unexpected twist to our morning commute. We immediately noticed massive traffic jams on the freeway and once we turned off the freeway onto the street leading to school; the normal four lane road (two lanes either way) was now one lane for us and three lanes for the opposite flow of traffic.
Think about this…It meant that one of the lanes of traffic had been commandeered somehow for the opposite flow of traffic so it was magically transformed into three lanes and we were left with just one lane to travel in. I asked the Grab driver if this was legal and he just smiled.
We continued at a snail pace towards our next right-hand turn which leads to a two-lane road. Cars in either direction on the two-lane road were at a standstill, people were waving their hands out the window and simultaneously yelling in Thai to each other. I had never encountered this amount of chaos on the roadway and I tried to sit back and relax but it was growing difficult to keep the thoughts out of my head of an exit plan.
Soon traffic started moving again and we approached the problem. It wasn’t an accident, there were no dogs running in the roadway, a tree had not fallen, there were no police directing traffic or in the area and mud had not spilled onto the asphalt. In fact, the opposite lane of traffic had become a literal parking lot for at least fifty cars (I’m under exaggerating-I think it was more)! We had to wait to safely move ahead while oncoming traffic moved in and out of our lane to get around the parked cars. Shortly thereafter, I observed several hundred people walking away from a house and it appeared to me that there had been a massive party there. But wait it gets better. We finally passed the impromptu street parking lot and reached the stop sign where we turn left towards the school. Blocking the opposite lane of traffic was a homemade sign held together by some type of stick structure saying in Thai that the lane had been closed. Standing behind the sign there was a man waving a large leaf filled tree branch to signal drivers that they could not pass. I couldn’t help but stare. The policeman in me blurted out to our driver, “Is that legal?” and he shrugged with a smile. It was a perfect Thai response.