Mental Vacation to Thailand

To celebrate this week's "World Day for Cultural Diversity," I decided to take a mental vacation to a place I didn't know much about - Thailand. I read all about the Thai culture, ate Thai food for lunch, and listened to a stream of traditional music from Thailand.

Also, I decided to write my Compassion kids to share with them the things I learned and made some suggestions of possible activities they could do to celebrate the cultural diversity around them any time of year. I mentioned that they could use me as an example too! :) Some of the things I learned about Thailand were:

*Thailand is roughly the equivalent in size to Texas. 

*They greet each other with their hands pressed together, fingertips pointing upwards, then they bow their head to touch their face to their hands and say hello.

*It's not polite to point with your feet.

*Thai food often blends five tastes: sweet, spicy, sour, bitter and salty.

*Thailand is referred to as the "Land of Smiles." 

 

*They have an instrument there called a "wot" that is a circular pan flute. They blow into it and spin on their chin to play - they've played it for over 1000 years. It's sometimes played to pray for rain before the harvest.

A big thanks to my coworkers, Debbie & Heather, who joined me for our Thai lunch experience. What a great "mental" Thailand vacation!

 Do you need a mental vacation? If so, then I highly recommend this activity! :)