West Newsmagazine 7-5-17

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July 5, 2017
WEST NEWSMAGAZINE
I 51
JOHNSON, from page 26
against top-notch international competition.”
As for her performance, Johnson was
pleased: “I played in 12 of the 20 total sets,
and I’m proud to say I scored the very first
point of our tour with a kill off my hand.”
When they weren’t playing, the women
did quite a bit of sightseeing.
“First, we went to a Buddhist temple in
Wat Pho, where we saw the largest reclining
Buddha in the world,” Johnson said.
“We got a little taste of the nightlife in
Bangkok when we went to the Ratchada
Train Night Market downtown, which was
absolutely packed with people. Bartering
became like a sixth sense to some girls, and
it turned out to be pretty fun. I can’t count
on any number of hands how many native
Thai there were that told us how tall we
were and asked for photos standing next to
us. That one was a first for me.”
The team also visited an island in the
Gulf of Thailand called Koh Larn, which
Johnson described as “breathtaking.”
She was eager to try the cuisine in Thailand,
too.
“I am proud to say I tried just about
everything that was placed in front of me
on the tour. Among my favorites were the
squid, sea bass, and of course, the pad thai,”
Johnson said. “The fresh fruit stands on
every block of the city proved to be amazing
as well.
“The funniest part was eating hamburgers
– instead of grilling the meat, they
just threw a ball of beef in the deep fryer.
It wasn’t bad, but it really made me miss
burgers in America.”
The women also became close to their
tour guide and translator, Aon.
“He was so, so sweet. He traveled with
us everywhere we went during the day and
worked with our tour organizer to make
sure things went smoothly,” Johnson said.
“He loved us so much and just wanted to be
a part of the group. He works for the FIVB,
but he does not get paid very much at all for
the work he does for visiting teams from
America. As a result, we wanted to thank
him for his friendship and his service to us.
“We each gave him a shirt from our
school, and then we compiled our remaining
Baht [Thai currency] – about 4,000, or
$115 – and gave it to him. He was shaking
so badly that he couldn’t even speak. That
meager $115 turned out to be over onethird
of the average annual salary of a Thai
man or woman.”
That left a big impression on everyone,
Johnson said.
“The encounter really just opened everybody’s
eyes to how lucky we are to be born
and raised in the USA, where the standard
of living is so different from that of Thailand’s,”
Johnson said.
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