Daily Reflections – 5 January 2016

 

Today’s trip to Wat Rong Khun temple, Chiang Rai was, for me, an experience like no other. To begin, I was touched by the story of how Wat Rong Khun came to be –the story goes that after making it big as an artist, Chalermchai Kositpipat chose to return to rebuild the temple he once vandalised as a kid. He redesigned the once-rundown temple into a magnificent, white one. This architecture wonder is now instrumental in drawing visitors to Chiang Rai, contributing to the tourism boom there. I was inspired by Kositpipat’s story. I felt that it really illustrated to me the need for us to never forget to give back to society even after we have gone far up the success ladder in life. On one hand, cynics may contend that wider society had not helped Kositpipat attain his success as an artist – perhaps only the encouragement and support from his family, friends and school did. Yet, there is much inexplicable joy that comes with giving freely to positively impact society. I do not think any amount of worldly riches could come secondary to the joy of knowing you have lived life for a greater purpose.

Additionally, I was amazed at the creative way Kositpipat had designed the temple to help visitors learn about Buddhism. Crossing a bridge to enter the temple, one would be struck by the images of a pool of hands reaching out into the sky. I later learnt that these hands symbolised us as humans reaching out for worldly things like greater fame or riches. Entering the principal building of the temple compound, one would see its walls filled with a painting depicting superheroes we can relate to (i.e. Superman) flying off into the sky, leaving us in a world filled with evil. I deduced that the paintings were meant to suggest that our imaginary superheroes would not save us from our greed, desires and temptations in this world – only turning to the Buddha would. I definitely enjoyed gaining a better understanding of why people in Thailand turned to Buddhism through looking at these interesting works of art. At the same time, I felt just so thankful to be on this overseas trip, visiting and understanding places like this one to see how the world is indeed just one open book!

Besides visiting the Wat Rong Khun, I had the chance to visit Tiger Kingdom back in Chiang Mai. I was really surprised to learn that there were actually places in the world where people could actually touch tigers and take photographs with them! Initially, I felt sorry for the tigers upon seeing how they appeared to be mere objects of play for excited tourists. Would they not thrive better in the wild? However, I subsequently learnt that the tiger population in Thailand has actually been decreasing and raising these tigers in captivity is actually a way of growing the population through letting them thrive, free from harm, in this environment. I was glad to learn that there were actually meaningful reasons behind practices like this one. Yet, I think it would be best if the tigers actually were raised in “safe forests”, protected from poaching. It does not seem very ethical to use the tigers as zoo show animals after all because it compromises on their dignity as animals.

With regards to interviews, I was happy to interview people of varying backgrounds today. This ranged from the random local walking around the Wat Rong Khun temple grounds, to the sales lady at Tiger Kingdom. Some of our interviewees felt the behaviour of Chinese tourists would improve over time while others perceived them as noisy. This really demonstrated to me that widening our sample size will likely expose us to a greater variety of responses from test subjects – thus broadening our understanding of how locals find Chinese tourists. Additionally, I had the chance to try my hands at video recording, something I have never done before. My hands were slightly shaky as I held the camera but I believe that with further practice, I will get better at this skill of video-recording. Video-recording is truly a skill useful when I do promotional videos for my CCA or future company in the workplace. I am definitely grateful to have been able to hone my video-taking skills on this trip. I am looking forward to discovering what I can learn from data collection tomorrow!