Travel Stories

Aug 02 Chicken-N-Chips:
Lantaratpracha-utit School
Koh Lanta, THAILAND
By Karen Okeeffe - Manchester, England

In just four days at school, Susanna had gone from being a very apprehensive wanna-be teacher to the present up-for-anything , throw me your worst, person I by now knew and loved.

Now, standing at the front of a class of thirty small Thai children, the teacher turned to me, Karen (also an English teacher, but a real one from England!), and Susanna, and asked oh-so-politely, "Sing a song now please?"

Susanna, with the enthusiasm of a small girl's choir, jumped up to the front of the classroom, eager to display her vocal abilities to this class of twelve-year-old karaoke experts. Upon getting to the front, however, we struck a problem: what to sing? After a little discussion I burst into good old "God save the Queen" and as I triumphantly came to the end of my national anthem, Susanna, to my smug delight, announced that not only did she not know her own national anthem, but neither could she think of one traditional American song she could sing! (and here's me thinking Yanks were patriotic!)

However, not one to give up, Susanna apologised and vowed to sing to the class in 24 hours. That night, at a muslim funeral, in a wooden hut on stilts in a gypsy village near our house, we stumble upon four other Americans (It sounds random, I know - it was!) To my greatest delight, after an hour of struggling with lyrics, they too could not compose the words to their own national anthem, nor the alternative option, "New York, New York" for that matter! So, being my helpful British self, I volunteered the lyrics 'Chicken and Chips' for the last line of the chorus. Susanna accepted these lyrics knowing that the Thai children wouldn't understand the words of the song anyway!

So, I found myself the next day crying with laughter, holding my bladder whilst Susanna shreiked out "New York, New York" to a class of stunned 12 year olds. The poor kids, scared to death by the sheer size of this woman, weren't quite sure what reaction is expected of them. Not only is that Yank out of tune and basically a god-damned awful singer, but she's also gifted with zero rhythm ability! As Susanna hit the last crescendo of the chorus, out came the words - "To find I'm king of the hill, a number one, 'Chicken and chiiiiiiiips!!!!'"

...and Susanna too broke down with laughter unable to hold the straight face any longer. Upon finishing there was an uncomfortable "We don't quite know what to do now" attitude from the children followed by clapping which unsteadily gathered momentum. I don't think they ever did "get" the joke but never mind! They sure gave me something to laugh about!!!