#20 Thai Competitions

One thing about Thai schools is that they love competitions. This can range anything from the week long sport competition we had in December to an academic spelling bee or writing competition. Today though, I experienced my first school cooking competition between local elementary schools. Of course it starts off as any normal event would for me having no idea what it is for, where we are going, and what we will be doing. I've learned that sooner or later in the event I'll figure it out or at least get the gist of it. My scheduled pick up time was 8:30am so naturally they arrive somewhere around 9 am with a truck load of students piled in the back of someones pick-up truck. I jump in and see what the day has in store for me.

My 6th grade students are some days in charge of preparing all the student and teacher lunches, so I was pretty confident in their cooking skills and would fare well in the competition. They got started right away chopping up vegetables and preparing the fire that the meal would be cooked by.

Of course there has to be some entertainment while the students are cooking so all the pre-school students were invited to have some sort of dance competition. Many of these little ones are my student's younger brothers and sisters. They basically stood up on stage swaying back and forth or even one group hula-hooped their way through a song while the adults stood and laughed at their cuteness.

The end product was a lemon-grass streamed fish topped with garlic and a side of laab (minced meat salad). I am amazed at their skills knowing that when I was in 6th grade the only thing I would make was boxed brownies or chocolate cookies. That brings me to my next point. Although I have many issues with how the thai school system works I think they do a wonderful job in teaching the students life skills and things that they will be using in everyday. For example PlaPak Noi school has a student run garden and rice field, fishing pond, and cooking lessons. 2 hours later the food was ready to be sampled by the judged and the verdict read. PlaPak Noi came in second place getting to take home a trophy and 1,500 baht! yahh. The students piled back in the truck and we are on our way back to school.