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Thai student takes US in stride
By jeanne starmack
liberty
His name is Chayuth Jiraphannich, but his friends call the slight 16-year-old with the easy smile Nine.
His home is in Thailand on the opposite side of the world, but he came to the United States in September to attend school and perfect his English — a prized accomplishment, he explained, because English is spoken all over the world.
“In Asia, most people speak English,” said Nine, whose nickname translates to Kao, the Thai word for nine, when he’s at home.
His trip was arranged quickly — Sandy and Harold Hrabowy of 2600 Tibbetts Wick Road had decided to host an exchange student because they’d heard that doing so would help them with financial aid for their daughter Hope’s college education. They applied, and the agency that placed Nine with them moved fast — school was starting.
Within two weeks, said Sandy, Nine was on his way to the U.S. to become a sophomore at Liberty High School.
When he arrived, the Hrabowys picked him up at the Cleveland Airport at 3 a.m.
He was tired after a 26-hour, boring plane trip that took him to Japan, then Chicago then Cleveland.
“He was worn out,” said Sandy.
“He thought he’d be on the plane for three hours,” said Harold.
He could barely speak English, Sandy said.
He had taken English lessons in school in Thailand since first grade, but they hadn’t prepared him for communicating in the U.S.
“When I was a kid, I didn’t like [English],” he explained. “It wasn’t important to me.”
So he bravely faced learning English on the fly in a place where not many people speak Thai, though there was one other Thai exchange student at Liberty this year.
The Hrabowys set Nine up in an in-law apartment in the basement of their four-bedroom home. Hope, 18, was away at boarding school, but Nine had the three other Hrabowy children for company — Dakota, 9, Johnah, 11, and Amani, 13. The relatively large family wasn’t so different from his own in Lopburi, in central Thailand, about two hours northeast of Bangkok. There, he lives with his parents, two younger brothers, a set of grandparents, an aunt and a cousin. It’s a Thai custom for extended families to live together, he said.
He added that he lives in Lopburi only during school vacations. He attends high school in Bangkok, living in an apartment there with his cousin.
Nine went along with everything the Hrabowys wanted him to do in the beginning, said Sandy, even though it must have been hard to not know for sure what was going on.
He was easygoing, she said, and didn’t appear to suffer from culture shock.
“We’d say ‘get in the car’ — he’d have no idea where we’d be going or how long he’d be gone,” she said. “We’d go visit family, or to the mall. We’d tell him, ‘don’t worry, we’ll feed you.’”
They fed him vegetarian food, though he did eat meat at school. He likes Mexican food best, he said — Sandy prepared vegetarian dishes at home, and they went to a Mexican restaurant.
For fun, Nine liked to watch ball games at the high school and was on Liberty’s tennis team.
He enjoyed camping and skiing with the Hrabowys, but he didn’t have much love for the cold. It doesn’t snow in Thailand, and he isn’t going to miss the white stuff — though he threw a snowball or two while he was here.
He did well in school, he said, adding that classes are much harder in Thailand, and the homework load is heavier.
He had plenty to do here in the states, and he didn’t get homesick — he contacted his family two to three times a week. But when he gets home, he’s looking forward to hanging out with his friends.
He checked on friends in Bangkok during recent political unrest there. They’re all fine, he said — they never saw fighting except for on TV.
He said he has no political views about the protesters who rioted in their support for a former prime minister. He only wanted the fighting to end. “I don’t want to see Thai people kill each other,” he said.
The protests have settled down now in time for Nine’s return flight June 18. He’s mentally prepared for the boredom this time. Ahead for him is another year of study in a foreign country — he’ll spend his junior year in China. He wants to attend a university in Thailand, and he eventually would like to run a business. He’s not sure what kind yet.
He liked it in the U.S., and he’d like to return. He’s taking home with him a fluency in English that can be gained only by speaking it so much that you actually begin to think in it, he said.
He no longer dismisses English as unimportant. “Now, I think it’s really important,” he said.