The past couple of weeks have been busy in a way that has snuck up on me.

I had the best intentions of posting about this event 6,  nope, 7 days ago, but that just didn’t happen.  So here we go now.

Last week a whole day was devoted to a Teacher Appreciation ceremony called Wan Wai Kru.  Since the school is so large it had to be broken up into three ceremonies to accommodate the entire student body.  I was invited to be a part of the first ceremony of the day.

The students had spent days (literally days) creating these elaborate floral structures to offer as gifts to the teachers.  The level of complexity varied from class to class, but some of the upper level ones were breath-taking.  They incorporated jasmine, banana leaves, rose petals, and a whole host of other flowers.  Some of them even incorporated intricately carved watermelons or pumpkins.  One had a pumpkin carved like a dragon and another like a swan!

The ceremony began with the school song, then a Buddhist chant.  Next the students carried up their flowers to the stage where the teachers were sitting, and bowed then made their offerings.

It was amazing to see the care and attention the kids put into the offerings, but respect of the social hierarchy is so important here that it makes me somewhat uncomfortable.  While I like the idea of a day set aside for teacher appreciation, I don’t like the idea of any person having to bow to another, though perhaps I’m very American for thinking this.

Anyway, enough chatter.  On to the pictures!

P.S. Apologies for the poor quality of the pictures.  They were all taken on my supervisors smart phone so they’re somewhat blurry.