Day 1

Day 1

Fay, Shen Fuyang

 

We spent the whole morning (almost) on the coach, travelling from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai. We stopped at a place where there were hot springs and I saw some tourists digging their feet into the warm water. I did not because I was too lazy to take off my shoes. After that, we arrived at Mae Fah Luang University, where we had lunch boxes in the canteen. To be honest, the food was not nice. I did not touch most of the food items in the lunch box and gave away the rest to an auntie at the coffee shop.

 

Afternoon was much more eventful. We had a mind-blowing discussion with a sociology professor, Prof Chirada, at Mae Fah Luang University. The discussion, or Q&A session, intended to provide more information specifically related to our research questions, ended up covering a wide range of topics such as Education, Social Media, Transgender issues, etc. Though these are not directly related to our project, I appreciate how the professor provided us with a deeper understanding of Thai culture and Thai people from different dimensions. For example, I learnt that Thai people tend to be conscious about their public image, a reason why they often shy from expressing their own unorthodox opinions publicly. I also learnt that Thai youths are rather politically apathetic. At the end of the discussion, Prof. Chirada also gave us a rather comprehensive introduction on youth security programmes in Thailand and Myanmar. Through the comparison, I see how different countries approach matters differently, and how they prioritize government spending on causes that they find more important. In this case, youths receive more support from government in Myanmar as compared to Thailand.

 

Prof. Chirada then introduced us to a Japanese professor, Prof. Yuki, specializing in Gender Studies. We hosted an interview with Prof. Yuki following the session with Prof. Chirada. However, given her background as a Japanese, she has limited understanding about situations in Thailand. But nevertheless, she was very supportive and answered our questions to the best of her abilities. I really appreciated her effort and kindness.

 

At some points, though, my groupmates and I felt a little bit disheartened, as Prof. Chirada raised quite a number of doubts on our research topic, especially when she pointed out that it was hard to draw a causal connection between people’s consumption of foreign entertainment media and their changing perceptions of female empowerment. She explained further that the multiplicity of foreign entertainment media result in conveyors of a variety of cultural practices and beliefs, which makes a definite conclusion impossible to reach, unless the research is conducted with the mass population.  However, the disappointment is diluted after a meeting with Prof. Geraldine in the evening. We realized that it is OKAY to face a situation where things seem to go against our plans. What’s more important is through this process, we learn how to refine our research topic and how to phrase our interview questions better to minimize the use of jargons, therefore minimizing confusion on the part of the interviewees. After all, what’s the fun with research if we knew all the answers beforehand with 100% certainty?

 

After we feel re-energized for our research project, we held a quick group discussion in the hotel room. We decided to engage more youths in our interviews and surveys to look at gender issues from our research subjects’ point of view. What professors, or people who are presumed to be knowledgeable, suggested, may not always turn out to be true. Apart from secondary sources and experts’ opinions, we have to look further into the ground and dig deeper into the reality out there. That’s the whole point of our fieldwork process.

 

After that, we went to shop at the night market in Chiang Rai, where I bought presents for my friends and witnessed the filming of a Korean show, featuring Korean celebrities whom I failed to name.

 

To sum up, today was pretty long and intense. But it was good as we understood better about the objective of our research and learnt that we had to adjust to the situations presented to us and deal with them with confidence.