world cup whoo ha!

The King of Thailand is the longest reigning monarch alive today and in honour of him we Bangkokians have been given not one, not two, but three holidays. Yes indeed, I am sitting at home lounging around doing laundry today (Friday) and can continue to laze about in the same manner on Monday and Tuesday. Even the UN has been forced to let their employees take two 'work at home days' because HA HA their building is on the King's parade route. Now, holidays are super, but even better yet: at 11 pm Bangkok time today the one-month-long party known as the World Cup begins. Very handily scheduled to coincide with His Majesty the King of Thailand's SIXTIETH coronational anniversary, the World Cup openers will allow Thai folks to revel in not only rabid football fanatacism but loyal royal support as well. If the Thai team can't make it into the top 32, well, at least we can all wear our "We Love the King" shirts while we cheer for our favourites, right?

Yesterday I opened up the paper and had a funny sense of deja vu. There was this man on the cover of the paper, photographed beside Thaksin Shinawatra, and the man looked so familiar. I definitely knew he was Canadian, but couldn't place his face. For some reason although he didn't look at all like Wayne Gretsky, I thought of Wayne Gretsky. He was also wearing a very shiny grey suit, kind of like the sort of slightly tacky suit that white male athletes seem to be drawn to, especially hockey players. I thought maybe he was a Canadian businessman. But then why the picture with the PM? I flipped open the paper to reveal the caption on the photo. Ahh, of course, Prince Andrew. Duh. Apparently something like nine monarchs (and of course Andrew doesn't count, I know, he's just a prince) are attending the King's celebrations. Cool.

While they've all been attending to protocol and such, I've been busy setting up a World Cup project for my grade 5s. I've got five boys and two girls in the class, and a couple of the boys are really keen on football. They have had to suffer through all kinds of literary torture from me (e.g. The Chrysalids, The Wizard of Oz, A Wrinkle in Time, yadda yadda) so I figured I'd end off the year with a treat for them. Each kid in the class has to follow one group in the World Cup and keep track of all their games. For those of youse who don't know, there are 32 teams divided into 8 groups (A through H) and the teams first play every other team in their group before points are totalled and it is decided who will move on to subsequent rounds. My students also had to do some semi-geographic work and find maps of all their countries, draw flags for each team, hunt down the names of all the team members, and find a profile article on the captain of their team. Now we've got a huge display in our corridor with information about all the teams and players. And although I hate to encourage betting, we have set up a World Cup pool (heh heh) where the kids could vote for which team will be the final champions. Any kids who've guessed right will win a prize at the end of the Cup finals.

I asked Ji what team he'd cheer for and his first question was, "Who will be playing here?" as he guestured to our school's football pitch. "Uh, no Ji, they won't be playing any games here. It's the World Cup. In Germany. They have 12 stadiums with capacities for 44 000 up to 76 000 people that they'll be playing in." Ji was nonplussed. He thought for a minute and said, "Ok, I'll cheer for Canada." "Well, sorry, Ji," I had to tell him, "Canada didn't make it into the top 32." "Ok then, I'll cheer for England cause I speak English!" So Ji is cheering for jolly olde Englande. In a side note, the other night we were watching The Patriot and I was trying to explain to Ji who was battling and why. After I told him the fight was between the English and the Americans he decided he'd cheer for the English because he speaks English. So, there was Mel Gibson's son getting shot by the evil British commander, and there was Mel Gibson's house burning down while Mel Gibson got madder and madder, and Ji's shouting "Yay, English!"

Me, I think I'll be following Dad's World Cup strategy which is to say I'll be cheering for all the underdogs. Cote D'Ivoire! Ghana! Togo! Japan! Iran! Trinidad & Tobago! Tunisia! And of course, UKRAINE! (But not Angola or Saudi Arabia...I'm a little scared of those countries). I'll have to see if I can make up some kind of mass cheer for those 8 top favourites of mine. I also love Mexico, but I don't know if they're true underdogs. I'll have to watch and see how they do. In the meantime, y'all don't miss the first match today as Germany takes on Costa Rica in Munich. And if you want to add your choice to the pool, get me an email within 24 hours and you too could be a winner!

PS: the dumb camera is finally working again, thanks to the very kind Canon fix-it man (free service! right away!) so some new photos will be up soon. Tune back in to see my ever-growing girth. [Bangkok-9-June-2006]