Mercy02’s Blog

I believe some of my expectations have been realized to certain extent. I’ve gotten acquainted with the culture, the food and religion and I’ve been able to compare it to my own culture and the one of the United States. In the same way my expectations, my goals have been met to a certain point. One of my goals was to be able to write a letter in Thai by the end of the program. Although I haven’t necessarily achieved that, am able to write an essay about my family in Thai, therefore I believe that is the first step toward my goal. Another goal I had was to be able to have conversations in Thai as well. Is well known that no one gets fluent in a another language in four months but what I have achieved so far is that am able to introduce myself by using words such as my name is, where I come from, my age and also asking a person the same questions. Once again it’s not the best, but it’s a step toward something. 

There are many things I’ve learn about Thai society and understanding people in general. I have been able to recognize the dos and don’ts of Thailand. However, I feel as though the people born into the culture do not abide by the principles that follow. For instance, girls wearing their school uniform extremely short to school. I have also come to understand Thai culture and how they find means and ways to prevent things. For example, whenever something happen within a certain family, the members refuse to talk about it to others. Another interesting thing is their way of saying no to people; I think it’s a good strategy to adopt if you do not want to be direct or rude.

Going back, I know I am going to experience two different phases of culture shock in terms of sharing my experiences with my friends back in the Bronx and my friends back in Siena. However what I intend to do is I will share my experience with those in the Bronx who have the ears to listen; I know it will be few but I will do my best. Going back to Siena, I am planning on talking to my HEOP counselor to see if I can write something in the HEOP news letter, information such as the economic and political situation in Lao and Burma. Through that, I hope Kathy and I can organize mini forums where we can find lectures to talk about these countries and their problems. In addition, if I have anytime, I would want to work in the international affairs office and hope to raise awareness through them.

            Of all the experiences in Thailand, am really glad that I got to do service learning and talking the IPSL class because I got to serve Thai community as well as reflecting on it in class. I have learned so many things about NGOs in general, the way they work and their benefits in the community. For instance working in The Garden of Hope (GOH) for the semester gave me an eye opener on the issues of human trafficking and prostitution in Thailand. Since the GOH is on the Loi Kroh Rd which is one of the main red-light district Chaing Mai, I got see the real deal with prostitution in relation to poverty. The organization deals with women and children who are in prostitution and human trafficking industry due to poverty. Interacting with the children, I got to form relationship with them that I wish not to forget and I hope to come to back to Chiang Mai someday and work with this organization.

I had two trips to two different Wats for my Arts of southeast Asia class. We first went to Wat phratat Haripunchai in Lampung province. I really enjoyed this trip because I got to reflect and compare what I’ve learned in class. For instance I was able to tell what type of buildings was on the compound, I was able to tell which the ubosot which is an ordination hall was. I was able to tell what the Wihan was because it had the main Buddha image in it and also most of the laity people got to go in and worship. What I really enjoyed about this Wat was the jatakas (the previous life story of Buddha before he was born to become a Buddha) inside the Wihan and they had the last ten jatakas outside the Wihan.

Another Wat we visited was Wat Phra Singh in Chaing Mai. Even though the Wihan in this Wat didn’t have jatakas inside it, it had am image of the monk abbot sitting on the right side of the Buddha, the image looked so real as if the real person was sitting there. Also there was another Wihan behind the main one and it had murals of fables inside which is interesting because Wihan mostly have jatakas in them. This trip was really helpful especially for my final project where I was assigned a specific Wat and I was suppose to research and give a final presentation as well as a final paper on it. These trips made it easier for me to identify things at my Wat as well as boosting my confidence because I knew what to look for.