Day 1 (4 Jan) Reflection

4/1/2016

Today the real work began. Early in the morning, we journeyed for three hours from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai. There was little time before the expected arrival of the doctor we would interview, so we were each given a lunchbox – an eclectic mix of hard-boiled egg, deep-fried chicken, banana, muffins, and sandwich. The meal felt Western, divorced from the local flavors, spices, and herbs I tasted yesterday. The muffins, however, had a saccharine sweetness, which, I was told, is the way the Thai like it. It seems like whatever forces of globalization have swept over this city in the north of Thailand, the taste palate endures.

The doctor soon arrived. Her experience with northern Thai diabetics and her observation as a Thai herself confirmed our suspicion that people tend to select their food based on taste rather than nutrition label. Sweetened drinks like Coke are ubiquitous, cheap, and popular. So are deep-fried snacks and preserved food high in sodium. Through the interview, I heard a familiar refrain: the people do not have enough information to interpret the labels, the regulations are lax, the government has more pressing issues at hand. It reminds me of my home country, Vietnam, where over 10 million do not have enough to feed themselves, let alone think about the nutrition content of their diet. Are nutrition labels relevant to them, or to the people in Chiang Mai? That is the question we have to answer to understand this multiplex problem better, and hopefully to shed some light on the problem. With no time to waste, the nutritionists (what my group call ourselves) went to a mall to interview its local patrons.

At the mall, my group mate, Xin Yu (who was responsible for video footage) and I disagreed over what questions we should ask the patrons. Wanting meaty research data, I wanted to ask whether they understand and use nutrition labels to select the healthier snacks while Xin Yu had a new idea to perform a taste test between two bags of potato chips of differing sodium levels, which would be more impactful for a video-graphic deliverable. After discussing without coming to an agreement, we decided to split into two interview groups pursuing two different sets of questions. I’m usually one to avoid disagreement, so I was surprised at myself for deviating from my natural tendency. In retrospect, I don’t regret having disagreed for a good reason. But it doesn’t mean that there wasn’t any discomfort adjusting to a changed plan and, being an introvert, suddenly taking on the role of main interviewer. While I was thinking about how to approach the patrons, Lukpong, (Prof Nat’s friend who helped out as our translator), came alongside me, asking me about the direction of the interviews and the order of the questions. Explaining my approach to her clarified my thoughts and made me more confident in my new role. Most of the patrons looked busy, but Lukpong found one old lady sitting alone who agreed to be interviewed. As I posed each question, Lukpong gently explained it to the lady in Thai. The way Lukpong interacted with our subject, the tone of her voice and her posture, was so gentle, respectful and sweet like a daughter to her mother that it struck me as something beautiful and admirable about the Thai culture. It’s the kind of warmth I rarely got to see in modern Singapore or even in increasingly cosmopolitan Hanoi, my hometown. I was grateful to see my inability to speak the local language was well compensated for by Lukpong. It was humbling to know that without her, no matter how much I tried to communicate by body language (or how many times I smiled), Bryan and I could not have had a single interview. The lady’s response yielded a different insight than what we gleaned from the doctor’s perspective. She was able to select the snack with the lower sodium level and explained that too much sodium could damage the kidney. Contrary to the doctor’s opinion, it seems that some people, perhaps especially among the older generation, do care about nutrition information of their food and not merely taste because they want to avoid diseases and hospital bills.

We could not continue, however, as a mall guard told us to stop. When we reunited, the rest of the nutritionists said they had not done any interview because they didn’t have a translator and most people there didn’t speak English. This was not a good location to conduct interviews as we had hoped. And so we left for the tulip festival, keeping an optimistic attitude for better opportunities. I told the rest the new finding and we decided to conduct more interviews on the street to the festival to see if our new hypothesis stands. This time, Xin Yu helpfully suggested that both sets of questions, hers and mine, be incorporated into the interview. The change would strike a good balance to satisfy both the demand for impactful video footage and the demand for well-substantiated answers to our research questions. With the help of Mhon, our volunteer translator from Chiang Mai University, we interviewed the local people on the street. Many of them were shy about appearing in front of the camera at first, but their desire to help us prevailed. They may not know much about our research but were willing to give of their time and thoughts to help us fill in our surveys and answer our interview questions. Their openness made them a joy to interview. The generosity of the local people with that most valuable resource, their time, made me think about how I should also be generous with mine. Too often I rushed through the day, trying to accomplish my own tasks and assignments while being oblivious to needs that I might be able to meet had I stopped to consider them. While I may not be able to help with all the needs there are, I should endeavour to help as I have been helped.

As I reflect on the day, I like how the nutritionists worked together as one group, each one playing her proper role, refining our interview as we went along. We were more effective together than when we were apart. I trust that this insight will help us to complement each other’s role even better in the days to come.