From Thailand to the United States of America

I come from Thailand. Some people say that Thailand is the land of smiles, I think it’s true. Thai people smile easily, but not friendly as they should. They just only smile, but aren’t friendly like American people. The reasons that I decided to be an exchange student and to come here are I want to develop my English skills with the people who are native English speakers and I want to have experience about real life in the USA, that isn’t like in the movies. I have been here since the end of July, so I have seen lots of things that I haven’t seen before.

Thailand is a hot country. It doesn’t have fall, winter, or spring. It’s hot all the year, but it rains during June through October. We call that rainy season. The hottest can be about 100°F, but the coldest that it has been was about 70°F in the middle part of the country. I’ve never seen snow in Thailand before, but I’ve seen it before when I was on holiday. Most Thai people are Buddhist. They go to the temple on special day of Buddhism. They don’t have to go to the temple every week like Christians go to the church.

I live in Bangkok, the capital city in Thailand. It’s in the middle part of the country. It has lots of tourist attractions. It also has many easy transportation ways that are different from here. Thailand has a subway, and it also has a skytrain and train. We can travel by the train for free, but have to pay for some places that are far away from the main station. For waterways, it has boats that are very crowded before and after the work time. The public bus and Tuk-Tuk (three-wheeled car) are also popular for tourists. Thai students don’t ride school buses like in the USA because we have many easy transportation ways to go anywhere. Like me, I go to school by the skytrain.

It isn’t expensive to live in Thailand. Street food is popular in Thailand. We can find street food anywhere. Some dishes are strange for tourists, but they taste good, such as Isan sausage (sausage that it made with pork and rice), chicken feet soup, grilled egg, or Som Tum Poo Plara (Thai papaya salad with brine black crabs and fermented fish). Temples and markets are very popular tourist attractions. Thailand has lots of markets and many different kinds. Floating markets are very popular for tourist because they are unusual.

English has 26 letters that includes vowels already. Thai has 44 alphabets (in Thailand, we call a letter an alphabet), and another 21 vowel symbols that can combine together for compound vowels. We also use four tones marks (with five tones) that can be added with alphabet and vowel to make a word. According to www.businessinsider.com, Thai isn’t one of 4 hardest languages to learn for English Speakers, but it can be hard to learn.  Thai has lots of details about language. The accent is different in each part of the country. One word can have many meanings, and one meaning can be called by a different word in each part of the country.