Once upon a time....

 My fairy tale project is slowly coming towards its end, so let me sum up to you fellow teachers - and even to you who are not a teacher because it was just sooo interesting for me to listen to Thai fairy tales and legends for the first two weeks in my school! You know, I don't really get to travel now (virus, plus dorm-stay, plus no licence so I can't even leave the territory of the dorm.... etc.), but I got to travel with these fairy tales! 

Look at the project works: aren't they beautiful?

When I started to teach them, they were just finishing up the short story so I thought why not jump to the fairy tales, as these things have so much in common! First, I asked them to bring a fairy tale and retell it, then in the rest of the week we were making scrapbooks from their favourite tales. It went really well! (See the results above.) During the process, we also discussed the concept and definition of the fairy tales (I used loop input for that, yay!), and then today they had to rewrite it in a 21st century context! It went really well and really funny - more infos later. This week we will only analyze the stories a little bit, and learn some more theory and we are done with the fairy tales for a while. However, here is one of my favourites to you: 

Chalawan! Once upon a time, there was a crocodile. 

Well, actually, there are two versions of the story: in the simpler one, a couple finds a crocodile egg abandoned and as they don't have children, they decide to adopt it and raise it. However, when the crocodile grows up, and the couple runs out of food to give to him, he eats them - and also eats nearly the whole village on the same day! Anyway, there is this crocodile, named Chalawan, who also kidnaps the king's daughter (Thaokaeow). The king has another daughter (Thaothong) about whom he's now really worried! He doesn't want her to be kidnapped and eaten by the crocodile as well! So he announces it in his kingdom, the person who kills the crocodile... you guess the rest. There is a brave young man, called Krai Thong who also obtains a magical spear, manages to stab the crocodile, the daughters reunite (but in other versions of the story there is only one who remained) and she gets married with the brave soldier. 

This fairy tale has so many versions and so many variations, you won't believe!

This is not my picture yet, I found it on the Internet and catches the moment when Krai Thong (in other stories Chalawan was his name, and not the crocodile's) stabs the croc.

What's more, there is even a temple for this story, and look at this fearful Chalawan Crocodile King (to be found in Phichit province!)

What's more, there is even a beer brand called... yes, by this time, you get it: Chalawan! Here is the brand's logo: 

As I mentioned, the topic for today was re-writing the story in a 21st century context. Now check out this: one of my students re-wrote the story, the Taew-girls were some underworld girls who went out partying in the crazy part of Bangkok and they were kidnapped by a group of people belonging to a maffia - connected by.... a crocodile tattoo! It was really incredible to read this story, and also in the continuation of it, Chalawan / Krai Thong was represented by a law student who led a sober life and who is also a great guy - and saved the girls at the end! 

In another setting, social media played a big role, like the parents of the girls put it on Facebook and Instagram (and even on Line) that their daughters are missing! Another student wrote: Chalawan was a K-Pop band (!!!), who were recruiting new singers for themselves but the girls found out before that they were a bit sketchy! 

Okay, more fairy tales are to come :-) so stay tuned - but now I have to go back to my classes (writing this in my gap hour), but I hoped you enjoyed this story (too). :-)