DAY 2 (5 JAN) ❀ WHITE TEMPLE ❀

(DAY 2) ? –> ? –> ? –> ?‍?‍?‍?

We kicked off Day 1 at the white temple, an extremely majestic temple that was sparkling and glittering in shades of silver and white. It was by far the most spectacular temple I had ever seen in my life, and I was captivated at every turn and corner. Despite being Catholic, it was so fulfilling to see different religions and cultures and the different ways people pray. I do not get such opporutnities as much in Singapore, or rather, I do not go out to specially to do these things, hence, this was such a eye opening experience for me. After spamming my phone with a million pictures (none of them did the temple justice), I wrote a wish on a silver leaf shaped ornament and hung it up with everyone else’s. We soon realised that we should use this time to get more footage and information of our project, and so we went on a hunt to find people to interview. My group and I wanted to find an English speaking person such that we can truly understand the person’s feelings and emotions such that the interview will be more enriching and fulfilling. When conducting interviews in Thai, despite Mohn’s translation, it was not completely possible for us to connect with the interviewees on an emotional level. With an insane stroke of luck, we chanced upon an English-speaking lady boss that was so willing to help us with our interview. That particular interview was personally one of my favourites out of all the ones we conducted because I was the one that interviewed her, and I felt that I was able to empathise with her and really understand what she was going through as her stories made me think of my own life.

After an amazing morning at the White Temple, we had a long bus ride back to Chiang Mai. I really enjoy long bus rides because it gives me some alone time to think, and mainly
because it lets me catch up on sleep. ? Our next stop was Waroros Market, where our tour guide Patt told us we could find many smokers to interview. Upon hearing that, we were really excited and pumped up because we were so desperate to get some interviews done! We started off by exploring and tasting different delicacies, which is probably my favourite thing to do. After having our fill of fun, we decided to get to work! However, after almost an hour of walking up and down Ping River under the scorching sun, we could not find a single smoker in sight. Again, we felt so demoralised and disappointed with ourselves. It was really hard to find people smoking over there, and even if we did, most of them were tourists (which was not relevant for our topic), or locals who did not want to be interviewed. Coupled with the hot sun, the urge to give up and go back to the hotel room was very strong. But thinking about it, it is already Day 2 and we did not have much time left in Chiang Mai. After waiting around for about half an hour more, we managed to secure one interview, but were still unable to capture footage of smokers for our documentary.

All our hard work definitely paid off when we saw the amazing buffet dinner and it was so funny to see us typical Singaporeans bonding over our love for food. After a really satisfying dinner, we headed out to the hotel bar to interview some of the staff there because we figured they’d probably have seen many smokers in the hotel! Something that I realised in Chiang Mai is that the staff are all super friendly and helpful. Unlike Singaporeans who can be rather unhelpful and unapproachable at times, Thai people, despite their shyness, are always willing to help us. The staff we interviewed were smokers themselves, and shared a lot about why they smoke and what got them started. After that, we had a group discussion and then headed back to our rooms to look through the footage we collected so far. Since we may be doing a vlog for our media deliverable, we thought about just sitting down in front of the camera and having a very real and raw, unscripted reflection together. We reflected on our own opinions about smoking and why we have these opinions, and I thought that that sharing was just really beautiful. Not being very close to the USP students prior to this trip, I thought that our sharing was actually really nice and helped me get to know my group mates better through their personal stories ☺️ It truly was a good night!!