Typically Thai, Mother's Day has a colour theme: turquoise. It’s also marked by the Queen’s birthday so the regal celebratory fanfare is dotted not only throughout market stalls selling turquoise t-shirts, but on flags on the road, and at flowers at the foot of the Queen’s portraits here there and everywhere.
The children spent Monday drawing their mother’s day cards, carefully scripting elegant Thai letters of Souksanwanmae (Happy Mother’s Day). Today they present them in a traditional ceremony to their mothers along with a small offering of jasmine.
The group of mothers sit patiently in their semi-circle of chairs, cradling the gaggle of children at their feet. The air-conditioning whirs on over-drive against the growing heat of the day until, midway through the second national anthem rendition of the day, it cuts out along with the power for the sound system. The children carry on singing regardless; warbling to the end of the song before turning to their mother's and giving their gifts.
Perched in the corner, a million miles away from my own mother, I sit like an awkward observer of such innocent intimacy. A small group of children file in and sat at my feet. P'Jim comes and sits with us, singing a song and hugging each of the children in turn, they laugh with each other half-embarrassed, half-delighted by the soft kindness of their teacher. The mother next to me, children perched precariously on her lap, begins crying silently, and it's only then that I realise that these are the children without mothers to give gifts to. Some are tearful, others blissfully content with laughing and joking with each other. One blesses me with her jasmine offering and her mother's day card she'd made in class. And P'Jim at the centre of it all beams with jaidee (kindness); she is jaidee personified, and as such, perhaps one of the happiest people I have ever met.