• Nationalism of Thais
  
  
• The pitifulness of being minority
  
  
• The concept of woman and the man who is van driver

 After I finished this story, I had the answer for my long time question why Korean and Japanese people are really nationalism. It might because of their cruel memories, which Korea got from being under Japanese rule for a long time and Japan got from being loser in World War 2, forced them to have the adoration of their countries and the great unity among their own people. I found that nationalism is the main factor for being successful of these two countries of which I will mention here only about Korea.

This story explained the suffering of Korean people at the time of being under Japan, how painful they got which still was the scar in Korean people’ s minds when they talked about the past and Japanese until now. Being colonized brought about many bad things. The old Korean traditions were banned. Speaking mother tongue was forbidden. They had to speak Japanese and learn Japanese things instead. They didn’t have their own rule, just to follow Japanese. Some Korean people had to be parted from their homeland and were the refugees in other countries such as China.

But one thing the Korean people had, the nationalism, they fought back and waited patiently for their own day to get the independence, and finally they got it.

            From this event, I found they, Korean people, love each other so much. Even though the western countries have big influence to most countries around the world nowadays, Korea and Japan are two of many countries that remain their own identities and proudly show them to the world. They don’t get overwhelmed by those western countries like many other developing countries, including Thailand.           

  I felt depressed after reading this story. Again, I realized the oppression of the colonized people through it. I used to mention about the situation of Japan and Korea in my paper which the atmosphere in Korea and the feeling Korean people at that period of time were quite the same. I found after having experiences of being colonized through many stories from many countries, one thing which all colonized countries, no matter in south Africa or Asia, seek for is freedom. I exactly sure that we, Thai, have never ever felt much about the word “Freedom” and don’t hold it as important as they, the colonized people felt until I begin confusing whether I should thank god for being free of our Thailand. I think that we don’t rather love each other. We don’t rather love our own country. We still fight ourselves. I think it’s because we have never felt the real suffering together of being under other countries’ rule and fight together for our own independence.    

            After I finished the story “A letter to my sister”, I really felt uncomfortable, because it made me so depressed with the storyline. Meanwhile, this story impresses me so much with its expression and its reveal about the important social issue.

            The racial discrimination is that issue. It has happened and become very serious problem in many countries, especially in USA, for many years. It almost happens with the diasporas that many people move to the big cities in order to have better lives. Certainly, they might get better things from those countries than their homelands, but they still have to stand with the insulting and discriminating of native people who always call them “The Others”. The immigrants have to stay with the feeling of alienage. Some, who are self-confident and strong enough, can survive, but some, who are weak or too weak, might choose the way like the writer’s sister did in the story to relieve their pains. 

            This story reminds me about the tragedy which happened recently in USA that one Korean student committed very serious crime by shooting other students in Virginia Tech. In his video clip, he said he was so oppressed by American people and blamed them as the cause of his brutal decision. He said they forced him to do that thing. Finally, he suicided after killed almost 50 people with the same gun.             

            Both the story and the situation in Virginia Tech can show how cruel of the discrimination toward the mental condition of all immigrants, especially the children. The children, who grow up in racialized countries, are so confuse and no way to go. They don’t know which side they should take such as the writer’s sister in the story, she couldn’t be Korean girl in American society and couldn’t be real American, because she was Korean, even though she tried to do plastic surgery to solve the problem of alienage. Beyond that, we can’t blame only the American society or people, we have to blame the immigrated parents also about the way they grow their children up in other country. They grow them to be strong or weak when confront the problems.

            Finally, the problem of racial discrimination still exists in many countries, especially USA, even though the leaders of those countries assert to get rid of it. In my point of view, if we think in a good way, many brutal and aggressive situations, which happened in USA and other countries, from the cause of racial discrimination, especially the last one might urge people to concern seriously about this issue and turn to compromise with each other instead of distinction “We” and “The others”, because however we are all the people in the same world.      

       The Concept of Woman and the Man Who is Van Driver

In my opinion, the concept of  Thai girls and women in the past  is that they always have to serve their parents and grow up only to be good housewives and good mothers, and again they have to serve their husbands. If they don’t behave like that, they will be called stubborn and be worried that they might grow up too indelicate for marriage. They don’t get much educated because people believe that education doesn’t mean anything with houseworks. Woman seems like the symbol of weakness, hopeless and depending and this concept still remains nowadays that I have just had an experience related to it.

About last two weeks, I went to Doi Su Thep with two friends from MA program. We were very active and happy until we met him, the one who was van driver. After we parked the car, one of my friend opened the car’s door and accidentally hit his van. He got so angry and blamed her, even though there wasn’t any damage or scratch on his van. My friend apologized him politely many times but he was still mad and said “Just say sorry?”. I was so confused with his words and wondered what he meant, so I asked him “Is there anything better than apologizing?” He looked at me unfriendly and blamed us as the assertive person. The question came to my head why he behaved rudely to us. It might be because of our genders. We are women and he is a man. I decided to stop arguing with him by asking another friend of mine to change the place for parking and called his travel agent about his behavior. Then my friends and I were not in mood for a while. We discussed about his purpose that it might be money, but we can’t give him because there weren’t any damages.

Even the world today is the modern world, there are many people who are stuck with the old concept of woman and ready to take advantage on women whenever they can. Nowadays it seems like the gender role between man and woman looks quite equal, women are more accepted, however the existence is not really equal. In Thailand, we can see that there are just a few women who can be leaders, politicians or work in high positions. In my opinion, throwing this old point of view away from Thai people might be hard work, because a plenty of women still appreciate following and depending on men.