Article: Conference Day

Attending a conference conducted entirely in a language in which you understand every sixth word is less than enlightening. However, such conferences might not be devoid of entertainment value, as I discovered last week.

I walked in with my boss and instantly I was a spectacle. I was the only foreigner and people referred to me when speaking as ‘farang’ or literally ‘foreigner’. The normal deluge of questions ensued: “Foreigner, do you speak Thai?” “Foreigner, where are you from?” “Foreigner, how long will you stay in Thailand?” Because I encounter these questions on a daily basis I have worked out eloquent responses in Thai which belie my actual language skills. The trick to these situations is to extricate myself immediately after I have exhausted the canned responses, before the questions start entering the realm of “Thai-vocabulary-not-yet-learned”. I am generally pretty good at leaving a conversation while a person still vastly overestimates my comprehension but occasionally I get stuck and have to admit that I am a fraud and don’t actually understand Thai all that well.

Sometimes, feigning comprehension gets me in trouble. For example, at this conference after I had answered the standard questions, they asked me to sign in. Initially I was excited to show off my newly acquired name-writing skill. Unfortunately, there were two lines for names… and I haven’t learned how to write ‘Frye’ yet. All I could think to do was to write ‘Laura’ in Thai and ‘Frye’ in English. So it looked dumb, but only the two people behind the desk would know.

I found a seat next to my boss and started guzzling the water offered and there was a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and the registration woman had printed me out a name tag- with my name exactly as it was written in the book. Half humorous, half embarrassing, I tried to focus on the former part of this situation.

The PowerPoint presentations were peppered with words in English like “Tacit Knowledge” “Process Evaluation” “Group Brainstorming” because I guess certain buzz words just don’t translate right. I didn’t understand enough to be terribly interested so I spent the next three hours practicing how to write my last name in Thai so that the next time the situation arises, I’d be prepared.

Suddenly I looked up from my notebook, covered in awkwardly drawn Thai letters, and saw two women in red tee-shirts walking to the front of the stage. Everyone stood up and loud mellow music was blasted from the sound system. I’m used to standing and pausing when the national anthem is played at 8am and 6pm every day but this certainly was not the national anthem. In fact, it was the ‘exercise break’ which also retained its English name.

Every single person in the room went through a series of stretches and bends for five minutes led by the two women in front and then sat back down and seamlessly the conference continued. Apparently this is just standard procedure, which makes sense since this was a conference sponsored by the Ministry of Health. In fact, I think it is a brilliant idea. I’m sure I was not the only one in the room who was lethargic after sitting still and listening for so long. A five minute pep-up session was much in order but I was just surprised at the buy in! Elderly, young, men, women alike all took their stretching to loud music very seriously. If only it were an appropriate time to take a picture.

I left the conference carrying a cool free tote bag, wearing an embarrassing nametag, proud of a new ability to write my last name in Thai, and slightly more limber than when I came.