• Heading out to the unknown direction
  
  
• Who can tell what is right or what is wrong?
  
  
• Tricky words are worth to consider

            Chiang Mai is drastically changing. Nothing here will be the same. The town we were born and raised will never be the town we have seen in our childhood memory. It is a repetition, as our parents were once said, “Chiang Mai I was living in is difference from the Chiang Mai you are living in, my child. It was once a lot of rice fields and forest on the side way. Motor vehicles were rarely seen. That building over there was not as tall as it is. And this place was once a Thai style living compound who’s the owner is well known to our family, but now he moved on the somewhere else. I wish you could have seen it, it was so classic that it reminds me of your grandparents’ old house”. That may be what we’ve heard from our parents, and it might be told to our children again and again, if this cycle is perpetual.   

            Wide spreading globalization leads to irresistible modernization, and the cultural city Chiang Mai is not an exception. In the past ten decades, Chiang Mai has been changed in many ways, or the so-called developing city. Chiang Mai, just like the capital city of Thailand, has embraced modernization that was originated from the western world, the world which once dreamed and strived with force of massive armies to dominate this planet.

The incoming modernization might suggest the next wave of not yet revealed

Kind of domination – and who would realize it. Thai traditional buildings have bee faded away and been replaced with Many-tall-newly-constructed-European-style-buildings. Our old traditional are dying while the western culture is growing bigger and attaining immortality. Old traditional buildings were replaced with new European style buildings, and what happened when the European buildings were old? They will be replaced with a bigger, taller, more modern and more gorgeous one.       

            The altering scenery of Chiang Mai is nothing but one good discrete example of what going on in Chiang Mai people’s mind. The western ideology that we adopt for believing that it will lead us and the nation to unite in harmony with others and live with equally prosperity in the near future, is, from the different points of view, the way to annihilate the culturally treasure that our ancestors had crated, protected and descended to us. Isn’t it our duty to preserve it and pass it to the younger generation? Not just tell our children that it was once and no longer existed.                            

            We accept the western civilization as the way we should heading for the future. Is that way the most appropriate way for us? Is the way will definitely leads us to what we have long been desired for? With the cost of forsaking our root and identity of our precious Thainess. And from what I have seen in these days, I’m afraid to tell that there might be no turning back for us. Western culture has planted its very deep root in to our country, our body and our mind that makes it look like an infestation. The proof can be seen every where. But the promise of leading us to what we desire for is hardly to be seen. But we keep repeating the same thing. Are we trapped in this cycle of change? Can we see which way it really leads us to? Or we just let it go and pretend that we are blinded in chain?    

Let me tell you one of the most interesting reading staff I’d learned from my lovely literature course. The title of the reading is “A letter to my sister”. It’s about a tragedy of an Asian family living in America suffered from their differences in term of physical and mental. Their looks are different, also their concept of living, but what wrong with them? The sister had suffered from these differences since she was young. She though that American people blamed of her being “difference” from them. She tried to cope with it, but only physically. Plastic surgery might help with her appearance but her serious wounded mental could never be cure. In the end, dead seemed to be the only solution for her, to take away her own life without realizing what was really wrong with her own life and the society. A seriously tragic story which might let us see the world more precisely.       

            When I finished reading "A letter to my sister", I felt very sorry for many things that had happened to this family especially the sister who committed suicide for the reason that she can't stand living her life any more. The story has introduced me many interesting points about what we have learned so far in this literature course. The story concerned with many issues like identity, alienation, oppression, racism and (in my opinion) cultural reconstruction and self-refashioning. Beside, all of them were displayed by the sister. As she was a Korean or an Oriental woman living in America, she also had problems concerning the issues mentioned above just like any Oriental person living in an Occident world. She felt inferior to those white people and was discriminated by them because of her different look. Moreover, for bad thing that had occurred to her, it wasn’t caused by her own mistake but by her being an Oriental. So, she felt guilty for being an Oriental woman and tried to refashioning herself in hope for solving her problems. But she had failed and ended up killing herself.                                                                        

           One of the most interesting thing that I'd found in this story was the suicide of the sister. It is something new, something difference from other stories that I've never read in literature courses and it gave me a new idea of committing suicide. Before I read this story, I always think that the reason for committing suicide is a personal reason and has nothing to do with the society he or she was lived in. So, when someone committed suicide I would blame the person, not the society. But this story gave me an idea that the society might be the main factor of committing suicide. As for the sister, her problems didn't occur by her own act but by the American society. She was just an ordinary person, who never had any problem with American society, but it was the society that had problems with her. It is the American people that made her felt guilty of being Oriental and made her thought that all the problems were her false. But when she died the society just never realize for what they had done to her and forget her as time goes by. The tragedy like this will sure be repeated as long as the true problem isn't discovered.       

            I have participated a seminar held at the CMU hall on Sunday that we suppose to learn in the morning. But this seminar was important as the class was postponing to the afternoon. The seminar consisted with two speakers. One of them was known to me. Though I paid all attention to him but I couldn't fully understand what he meant. But one thing I found interesting in his seminar was when he mentioned the words "equality" and "equity" in English. These two words, By English - Thai dictionary, mean the same thing - "ความเสมอภาค". But the speaker said that in Thai we need to focus in not just "equality" but also "equity". Aren't they the same thing?- I confused at first I'd heard these words. Later, By Cambridge international dictionary, I found the different meaning of these "ความเสมอภาค". According to the Cambridge dictionary, equality often "refers to the right of different groups of people to have a similar social position and receive the same treatment, regardless of their apparent difference.", and equity is "one of the equal parts into which the value of a company is divided; (a set of) share.

            The seminar about these "equity" and "equality" had me confused since the key words (but I know now why he mentioned these words in English) and prevent me from participation. It was bad for me, but not too bad as at least this seminar gave me these two words to consider about. What the difference between these two words, which have the same literal meaning in Thai. If I can answer this question, may be I can look back at that day and know what the speaker meant us to understand.           

            After that seminar, I think that an academically seminar always benefits the listeners one way or another. And I think my case is a good example. I walked out from the seminar hall not knowing what I'd listened. And what I could get from the day was these two words. But by scrutinizing these words gives me an insight of what we were talking about and how important these words mean to us.

            By participation in any seminar, we need not to fully understand everything the speaker has spoken in order to gain benefit. But in any seminar, especially when the speaker is a sophisticated scholar, can all be benefit to us no matter how much we have to understand. All we need is a will to learn which let us learn from anything.