Every year in Thai schools they have what’s known as Wai Khruu Day. This is a day for students to pay respect to and thank their teachers for working to educate them. A lovely concept, isn’t it?
The “wai” is the traditional gesture of respect that the Thai people make to each other. Basically, to make a wai, you press your palms together with the thumbs pointing towards and at about the level of your heart. There are, of course, different levels of how high or low you put your palms and whether you sort of bow or not and who wais first. These are determined by the status of the two people. For example, children make very deep wais to adults, etc.
I copied the excerpt below from a website:
At the start of every academic year, students all over Thailand take part in an elaborate ceremony called Wai Kru. They do this partly to thank their teachers for teaching them well in the past, but also in order to gain merit and good fortune for the future. The ceremony often starts with the principal lighting candles and incense sticks and paying homage to the Buddha image. Prayers are then read by senior students. Then everyone takes a vow to be loyal to the nation, religion and king, to be good pupils, to behave themselves, and to obey the school rules. Students from every class then come forward with gifts of decorative flowers for their teachers.
At our school, it was very much like this except, since Khon Kaen Wittayayon is so big (the whole school is around 4500 students), there were only representatives from each class at the main ceremony. We then went to our particular homerooms and had another small ceremony with our own students.
I have attached a few pictures of Ira and me and/or our students. The M4 and M5 students are some of my students and the M2 students are some of Ira’s. Chai is the director of our program.
Tags: Thailand