DAY 4 (7 JAN) ⚚ CHIANG MAI UNIVERSITY ⚚

(Day 4) ?? –> ? –> ? –> ?

Our 4th official day in Chiang Mai was a work filled one as we had many interview sessions lined up for the morning and afternoon. We were scheduled for an interview session with a doctor the morning, a lecture at the school of Political Sciences, an interview with the dean of Nursing, a discussion on tobacco with the nurses and lecturers, and a focus group with CMU students. With such an intense schedule for the day, I had to mentally prepare myself for the gruelling day ahead.

As we drove around Chiang Mai University (CMU), I noticed how huge and wide spread their campus was (and here I was thinking that NTU was huge). We had to take Song Thaews to and from different schools on campus as they were all too far apart to walk. We planned to interview 1 doctor at 9am, but managed to interview 2 instead! The interview went extremely well as we managed to get opinions and information from such experienced and dignified individuals. They could both speak fluent English so it was very easy to communicate. I felt super enlightened after the interview because we managed to get so many answers and new perspectives, and it truly gave me the boost I needed to continue and power through the day. Soon, it was lunch time and we were all really excited to try some CMU canteen food! I was really taken aback by how congested and crowded their canteen was. It was so difficult to even walk past the stalls and they were long lines everywhere, and it took us ages to find an empty table. I used to think that NTU canteens were crowded, but this was on a whole new level.

Next, we had a really long interview and discussion with the dean, a nurse, and 2 other lecturers at the university. Although the interview was really long and filled with quite a lot of content, I realised it was quite difficult to get genuine answers from the dean. I realised this was so as she has a reputation to uphold, furthermore, she was representing the university, therefore it was natural for her to have to be politically correct at all times. Thus, we found it really hard to get personal opinions from her and she as not entirely willing to share. However, this was a good lesson learnt because it shows that although we may get good interviews with really important people, the information we need to get can still be out of reach. Hence, we should look for other ways to receive this information. On the contrary, the nurse at the discussion was extremely open with her sharing. She even provided us with props used for their ongoing smoking campaign, such as anti smoking hats, fans and creative posters! My group and I were so impressed with the anti smoking hats as they were so simple yet so so clever! We could not help but wear them around for the rest of the day (while taking a million pictures, of course).

We then rushed off to our last appointment of the day; the focus group with CMU students. We were so grateful to Mohn for helping us to organise this focus group with a bunch of his friends that smoke or used to smoke. The focus group was very different from all the other interviews we conducted because the participants were roughly the same age as us, and it was much easier to connect and communicate with them. They were very raw and real in their sharing, and gave lots of personal experiences and views that were very interesting to listen to. I thoroughly enjoyed that focus

group session as it widened my perspectives on smokers because seeing how accepting they were towards other smokers really helped me to be conscious of not being so judgemental in the future. We ended our day at CMU with a walk along their beautiful lake as we watched the sun set.

At night, we went to the red light district that was a 10 minute walk from our hotel to look for smokers at the bars. However, all we saw were tourists, hence we were not able to secure any interviews. While walking around, I saw many Thai ladies trying to gain business from tourists by offering sexual services. Initially, I felt rather afraid and disgusted at their behaviour, but after thinking about it, I realised that these women probably did not WANT to do this as a living. This was the first time I have seen this in real life and it really made me sympathise them and think about the circumstances that these Thai ladies must be going through for them to sell their bodies this way.

We ended the night but going to the quietest bar (mainly because we were all afraid) to have a drink with Mohn and just talk and bond over a couple of drinks. It was a nice and relaxing night to end the crazy and super stressful day we had.