Integrated Skills

Royal Flush

Tal R, Spiral Bar, 2002

Integrated Skills: Royal Flush
31


PROGRESSIVE SOLUTIONS

READING

Read the text. Then, complete the tasks.

BANGKOK, Thailand For teen boys who
prefer to dress as girls at one rural high school in
Thailand, taking a bathroom break no longer means
choosing between "male" and "female" restrooms.
There's now a "transvestite toilet."
The Kampang School in northeastern Thailand
conducted a survey last term that showed more than
200 of the school's 2,600 students considered
themselves transgender, said school director Sitisak
Sumontha.
So, when classes resumed in May, the school unveiled a unisex restroom
designated by a human figure split in half part man in blue and part woman in red.
Below it are the words "Transvestite Toilet."
Three transgender students praised the new restroom as they plucked their
eyebrows and applied face powder in front of the mirror outside the stalls.
"I'm so happy about this," Vichai Sangsakul, a teenager with a pixie hairdo
pulled back with a pink barrette, told Thailand's PBS news channel on Tuesday. "It
looks bad going to female restrooms. What would other people think?"
Most rural Thais are conservative in many ways, but the innovative toilet
initiative at the school in northeastern Sisaket province reflects another aspect of
Thai society: its tolerance of the country's very visible transgender community. The
term describes a wide range of identities including cross-dressers, transvestites,
transsexuals and those born with the physical characteristics of both sexes.
"These students want to be able to go to the restroom in peace without fear of
being watched, laughed at or groped," said school director Sitisak Sumontha.
He said the concept reflected a growing need at Thai schools and universities.
Kampang is not Thailand's first educational institution to set up unisex
washrooms, though Sitisak said he believed it was a first for a secondary school . A
1,500-student technical college in the northern province of Chiang Mai set up a "Pink
Lotus Bathroom" for its 15 transvestite students in 2003.
Deputy Education Minister Boonlue Prasertsopar recently said the ministry
plans to count the number of transgender university students.
He said he was not promoting transgender interests, "but if there are a lot of
them in a university and it's a problem, we may have to consider building toilets and
dormitories for them."
Transgenders are regularly seen on TV
soap operas and throughout Bangkok,
working at department store cosmetics
counters, popular restaurants, in office jobs
and in the capital's red-light districts. Thailand
also has transgender beauty pageants.
(www.foxnews.com, 18 June 2008)

Integrated Skills: Royal Flush
32

VOCABULARY INFERENCE


The following phrases appear in the article. Using the context of the article to help
you, infer the possible logical meanings of the phrases. You will find clues to some of
the meanings in the images!


a dormitory: a pageant:
an initiative: to conduct sth:
to designate sth: to grope sb:
to pluck sth: to promote sth:
to resume sth: to unveil sth:
























Integrated Skills: Royal Flush
33

APPLICATION OF KNOWLEDGE 1

Now, see if you can complete the following sentences with the phrases you have
inferred.

(1) Before cutting up the chicken for cooking, it is necessary to __________ its
feathers.

(2) Green Peace has launched a new __________ to save the whales.

(3) The experiments were __________ by scientists in New York.

(4) The girl was very offended as the ugly boy __________ her on her way to
the bar.

(5) The government __________ the site as a place of particular scientific
interest.

(6) The memorial to those who had died in the war was __________ in 1948 by
the Queen.

(7) The speaker stopped to take a sip of water and then __________ speaking.

(8) We need to work hard to __________ awareness of the dangers of abortion.


APPLICATION OF KNOWLEDGE 2

Now, choose ANY THREE new phrases you have learnt and make your own original
sentences with them.

(1)
___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

(2)
___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

(3)
___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________