Anyone considering teaching English in Thailand should be warned, there are times when it feels like you are more of a reality show contestant than a teacher. Like when you are forced up onto a stage in front of 4, 000 students and told to say something in Thai, your first week in the country. Or when you are forced to eat bizarre things like rice field frog legs, grasshoppers and cockroaches, or ant egg soup (a Kalasin specialty don’t cha know). Or when you are offhandedly asked to participate in a small fashion show and it turns out to be the biggest, fanciest social event of the year, and you’re the only white supermodel on the catwalk!
It all started, like most of these ridiculous notions, in an office conversation after lunch. I was a sitting duck: sitting in the icy a/c room, with a belly full of kow man gai (chicken and rice), lazily munching on sour unrippened mango dipped in chili and sugar. And then the attack. “Dena, do you want to be a supermodel?” Umm, what? Like when I grow up? Yea…. No I stopped growing in 4th grade, there’s no hope now. Sorry!
I thought I had managed to escape. However, our poor friend Neil in the Math and Science Office was not so lucky. He has trouble saying no and was about to be partnered up with Lucky, a younger Thai teacher with her heart set on Neil. Neil feared this would give everyone the wrong idea, so I swooped to his rescue. Little did I know what I was in for.
We heard nothing about this fashion show for several weeks. I thought it had been forgotten. But then out of no where, after a long weekend adventuring in northern Thailand, I was sitting in the office doing nothing in particular when the lovely Palmy informed me that I had rehearsal for the fashion show and an appointment with “Team Catwalk” all afternoon. Yikes!
I wasn’t until I arrived at the rehearsal hall that I realized how much trouble I was in. The show was to be held in the largest room in the events building of City Hall. I was one of two hundred models that would be walking down the seemingly endless catwalk in front of over 800 guests including the governor of Kalasin. Double yikes!
The next day after teaching only 1 class I was wisked away to the beauty shop to begin my transformation. The talented lady boy quickly converted his hair dressers chair into an operating table, and turned my blank face into a canvas. He covered my face in Mayer, a foundation type product with a consistency somewhere between mousse and acrylic paint. He painted it on with brushes, smoothed it out with foam pads, and then painted on additional layers.
Kinda looks like im dead and being beautified by a mortician... creepy
He rouged my cheeks with bright magentas and hot pinks. I had heard they shave off your eyebrows and draw the on very thinly, I , on the other hand, got the Isaan treatment. He colored them in with what felt like crayons until I thought they were going to take over my entire forehead. He glued the biggest fake eyelashes onto my eyelids, they felt heavy and huge. He shadowed, mascara-ed, shaded, colored, powdered, and finally asked me to sit up and take a look. So this is what I would look like as a man in drag…
And this is what i would look like as a lion!
Next came the hair, a process so astounding I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Since the school girls all have short hair they use wigs, this lady boy was so thrilled to have the opportunity to work with so much hair. His enthusiasm shower It started simply enough, he began at the base of my neck and worked his way up, back combing until my hair looked like a lion’s mane. He then proceeded to burn a hole in the ozone layer, emptying an entire can of hairspray into the massive fluff, formerly known as my hair. This mass was then sculpted, literally sculpted, into a curvaceous beehive. It was big enough to be a second head.
My beehive!
The artist hard at work on sculpting Charlotte's hair
He then took the strands he had left out above my forehead and emptied a second can of hairspray onto them. The resulting swathe of hair was unrecognizable as hair. It felt hard like plastic, like Batman’s breast-plate on his fighting suit. It was unreal. Of course no Thai hairstyle is complete without some jewels, so he expertly draped a string of amethyst crystals around the bulbous tuft of hair. Et voila!
B-e-a-u-tiful!
Next we headed off to Palmy’s house to complete the rest of the ensemble. By the time we left the house 2 hours later we were covered in baby powder, dripping in authentic silver, and finally wrapped in Thai silk.
Charlotte, Genie, and I: the finished products
The entire reason for the fashion show is the Queen’s Birthday. Silk is to be worn all month to honor her, and people from each region wear their own particular pattern. In Isaan this is called Pairwa silk and it’s beautiful. All of the guests of this classy affair have expensive new dresses made just for this occasion. They are stunning.
We arrived at the venue at 4pm, we were the first to arrive. Immediately the photoshoots began with a force I had never known before. I smiled for so long my cheeks were quivering and my eyes were watering, but everyone was so thrilled to see so many of us beautiful white teachers dressed up in their very own silk.
Neil, Charlotte, and I being Kalasin superstars!
By the time dinner was served at 8pm, my legs and cheeks were so relieved to sit in a corner and take a break. However, my nerves got the best of me and I was barely able to eat. I did manage a little Hong Thong to steady the nerves ;) And finally at 10pm we were summoned to the back stage area to begin the fashion show.
Neil and I practicing our poses
When we arrived backstage, one of the more flamboyant lady boy teachers form out school, Emi, proudly informed us that we would be the last couple to strut the catwalk, the finale couple, what an honor! I was shaking in my boots, or rather on my stupidly tall high heels. Despite the blazing heat I had goosebumps rippling under my sweaty skin, and my hands were getting clammy. I was terrified!
So this is Emi, she's terrifying!
But when we reached the front of line and I looked across the stage at Neil who was making sexy nibbling faces at me I just laughed and walked out onto that red carpet and could not stop myself from smiling like a damn fool. It was spectacular!
Here we go!
"I'm too sexy for this silk..."
Wee! a perfectly executed six point turn and i didn't fall off the stage!!
We did it!
After the show, I had all kinds of people coming up to me, telling me how beautiful I looked, and asking to take pictures. Even the governor! It was so wonderful, and silly, and I felt so ridiculous for being nervous in the first place. The entire experience was so special. How many people get to be a supermodel in a Thai silk fashion show? And though I don’t think I will be making my American debut any time soon, it was certainly a night I will never forget!
Laura A, Neil, Me, Charlotte, Palmy, Emi, and Reuven
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