Culture Shock

Story continued from my previous blog...

I arrived in Mea Kachan at eight-o-clock in the morning. I hadn't really slept in over 65 hours, and I had just shifted time zones by twelve hours. I was feeling carsick after the twisty bus ride through the mountains to this small village. When we got off at the bus stop, Pastor Lawan informed me that the children in the orphanage had already left for school. Then, she took me to the morning market to show me around and buy some breakfast.

At the market, unfamiliar sights and smells filled my senses. I walked past pig heads and intestines hanging up on hooks. Eels twisted and thrashed in barrels. There were grilled whole frogs on sticks, pickled brains, and huge cow hearts laying out on the tables. The mixed odors of fish, animal blood, and trash surrounded me. I felt sick to my stomach, and I thought, "How am I supposed to eat breakfast from this place?"

Pastor Lawan excitedly brought me to the back of the market, where an old woman was sitting behind two large bowls. When I looked in the bowls, I was horrified by what I saw! They were filled with large white grubs crawling all over each other! Pastor Lawan smiled at me and said, "Thai people like so much! You want some?" I almost fell over; I felt so weak from shock, exhaustion, and nausea. All I could think was, "Do they cook the grubs first, or eat them alive?" I tried to smile as I shook my head, but I don't think it was a very convincing smile.















a plate full of fried grubs!


Vocabulary:

Here are some vocabulary words from the blog. They are NOUNS that are PLACES.
(Remember, a noun can be a person, place, animal, thing, or idea.)

mountain- a large hill, a very high section of land
bus stop- a place where people can get on or off a bus
village- a small town with houses where people live. It is much smaller than a city.
orphanage- a house or building where children who have no father or mother (called orphans) are taken care of
school- a place where children go to learn. There are teachers and students at a school.
market- an area where people buy and sell food and other things.

Now fill in the blanks with the vocabulary words.

Hi! My name is Joan. I used to live in an ________________ in Thailand. Many children who had no parents lived there. The orphanage was in a small _____________. I used to help take care of the children and get them ready in the morning. Sometimes in the morning I went to the __________ to buy food for breakfast. Every day, the children went to __________ to learn. They rode the bus to school each morning. After school, I always met them at the ______________. After the children got off the bus, I liked to play games with the smaller children while the older children did chores. After dinner, I helped the children with their homework. I loved the evenings in the village. When the sun went down behind the _____________, it looked so beautiful. At night, I used to sing songs with the children before they went to sleep.

Grammar Point:


When you have more than one of something, you usually add s to that word. This is called plural. So for one dog, we say, "a dog." For two dogs, we say "two dogs." Do you see how I added an s onto the word dog?

Look at the words in italics in my blog. Each of them is a plural noun. I added an s onto those words because there is more than one of them. There were many mountains, there were a lot of tables, and there were several pig heads. I would say, "one mountain," and "many mountains." We say, "There is one table," and, "There are many tables." You can look at all the words in italics in my blog, and see that they are all plural (there was more than one of them).

Grammar exercise:

Directions- change the singular noun to a plural noun by filling in the blank.

1. one dog- three _________

2. a cookie- many __________

3. a book- five ___________

4. one hand- two ____________

5. one cup- four ____________