5 Jan/Day 2: Blue and White

Today was a mix of blues and whites. Blue was the sky, a cerulean-cobalt endless canvas uninterrupted by any clouds. It was my favorite kind of weather too, with a chilly breeze that demanded a windbreaker (a NTU USP windbreaker that is) to keep warm, conflicting the sun that made me break into a sweat after a few minutes of standing in the path of its rays. White was then the architectural work of art, the White Temple or Wat Rong Khun. The elaborate details of the iridescent diamond shaped silver mirrors placed carefully along the temple’s exterior added to its exquisiteness, making it not only blindingly beautiful figuratively, but literally as well. I was especially in awe as I approached the bridge leading to the main building. I couldn’t imagine how long Chalmerchai Kositpipat had took to construct this masterpiece, let alone conjure such a complex design. I was taken away yet again by the wax figure of a meditating monk who was so incredibly lifelike that I caught myself waiting for any signs of breathing to tell me otherwise. While not a very religious person, I made a mental prayer for good health and happiness for my family as well as fruitful remaining trip.

Speaking of prayers, I noticed the countless silver ornaments hanging from the tall tree-like structures and sheltered walkways, containing the wishes of millions of visitors. Seeing the metal pieces reminded me of a quote by Anthony Bourdain, “Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life – and travel – leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks – on your body or on your heart – are beautiful…”. For these visitors, and myself, they had put their faith here, hoping, as I do now, to take away from the experience in return. This was what I hoped too for our research and trip, to make memories that would become a part of me.

Our next stop was another temple, Wat Chedi Luang, where we got the chance to interview a monk. While our research topic had little to do with monks, it was a unique experience not only to interact with a monk but to learn more about his life as well. With preconceived ideas of a monk’s life, I realized I had fallen into the trap of not having a more open mind as well as one that was quite outdated. The conversation with our monk broadened my understanding of Thai culture and its close links with Buddhism as well as their lifestyle in the choices they make to become a monk and what they study. Though we had little to take away from this experience in terms of our research, the knowledge we gained was still meaningful.

Moving on, we headed to Nimmanhaemin Road to conduct several street surveys with the youths of Chiang Mai, especially the Chiang Mai University students hanging around after school. Once again, I took a step out of my comfort zone to approach strangers, trying my best to overcome the language barrier between us. Initially, as we started out in pairs to interact with the youths, I felt quite disoriented and took some time in gathering my courage to ask students to take the survey. Slowly, egged on by the surprisingly polite responses, we managed to gather about 40 to 50 results altogether. We finally had some concrete material to work with that would help with our research. Our visit to Nimmanhaemin Road ended with a gem we found along a small street, a cat café, Cats on Ice. This was definitely one of my favourite parts of Chiang Mai as well as the trip as I felt immersed in the youths’ culture which was not very much different than Singapore in this aspect of spending time and studying in the many cafés along the street.

Finishing off the day with a group meeting, we sat down together to discuss our day’s collection and how we would proceed. We realized that we faced the same difficulties, language barrier aside, with a particular question of which many misinterpreted. Together, we sought out means to make the survey clearer with the only consolation to do a better job at explaining when they came to that question. We also shared our experiences with one another, learning techniques from one another as well as laughing at some of the funny instances we came across. Before heading out to explore the night markets, we collated the responses on one Google Forms site and planned on repeating our fieldwork along with our focus group discussion at CMU on Thursday. I felt that this meeting was much needed in gathering what we had found and debriefing one another, sharing feedback as well as get in touch with one another. While we navigated through our fieldwork together, we were merely in the presence of each other rather than spending time collectively, being too focused at the task at hand.

Very well timed, tomorrow would be a free day, a chance for us to put aside our project work and enjoy Thailand together.