Varinthron Otarnwanna, junior

Home: Thailand 

Q: Have you been to America before? Why come back?

A: Yes, I’ve been to America before. I was actually born here,  and I lived here until I was like 11 or 12 before our family moved back to Thailand. And, I decided that I wanted to come back here because it’s a great place, obviously, and it has seasons. You know, seasons exist. In Thailand it’s just heat and humidity. So it’s really nice here.

Q: Is there anything that you really want to do while you’re here?

A: I would like to try out an escape room because I haven’t done that before. Oh, I’m not really too sure. I never made a bucket list, but yeah, just explorer Kingwood.

Q: What’s the biggest difference coming back after all this time?

A: I think the biggest difference for me is that when I was a kid, every Sunday I’d go to like this Thai temple because we are Thai, and now that I’m back, I go there every Sunday and it’s like the little kids I knew, they’re all like, grown up now, and I’m just like, Whoa, that’s, completely different.

Q: So how do the schools compare? Your school in Thailand and the school here?

A: Well, first off, the bell schedules are completely different. Like they do it here by Monday through Friday. Each day has its own schedule. But in Thailand,  my school, it was like day one through day five. So it was like if you were on day four and then you had the next day off as like a holiday, you’d come back and take day five instead of completely missing a Thursday or something.

Our school has definitely less kids, like way less kids. So you, you knew everybody in your grade, here I barely know anyone, which is completely different. Also, I think another major difference is the schools here has two stories of two different buildings, spread out. Our school is like the middle school and high school building. It was U-shape of four floors. 

Q: What do you like to do back home compared to here?

A: I’m not sure what you do here, but for us, it was at least the area where my school and my friends were. There was this really big shopping mall called Mega Bangna. And so it had everything. So a lot of times if you wanted to hang out or do a group project, you’d meet there because it was really easy to get there and it was a really big shopping mall or I’d go to a friend’s house and hang out there.

Interviewed by Bailey Hall