Mohn, you’re home!

Focus Group Discussion in Chiang Mai University. Difficulty. Hard.

The day started off with an enlightening talk with two assistant medical professors from the University of Chiang Mai. It irks me to blog this, but it seems like the situation in Chiang Mai seemed to be bleak from what I can gather from the doctors. There seem to be little or no governmental support for any nutrition related campaigns, and the Thai public are generally mired in other challenges that they remain apathetic to their nutrition, opting for taste instead of health. It is definitely disheartening to hear about the lack of awareness that people have for nutrition, which plays a key role arguably a human’s most important asset – health.

It was so bittersweet for Mohn (our CMU student attached and Mr Awesome) to finally be back in his university. On one hand he could finally bring us around the grounds of his beloved school. On the other, the prospect and reminder that he was actually going back to school (with all the stress and assignments) dawned upon him. All these manifested in a confusing expression of joy and anguish, which I found to be a tad amusing. (And now the jokes back onto me, school has officially kicked into full gear).

I had my virgin experience and the daunting task of conducting a focus group discussion today. It was truly a remarkable experience and it made me gain a new-found admiration for talk show hosts and discussion moderators. A focus group discussion is like an interview, but on steroids. Processing information rapidly and asking relevant questions that maintained the flow of the conversation was just the skin and bones. The critical part was to adapt to the dynamics of the group. I realised that a tricky balance had to be treaded. On one hand, allowing the one dominant person to talk too much and risk getting the rest uninvolved in the conversation and discussion (which sadly happened to us). On the other, shifting the attention away from Mr Limelight and risk an awkward silence with people who might not be willing to share as much, coupled with the risk that Mr Limelight might have the false impression that we are not giving him the due attention he deserves. Ultimately, although I felt that we had gained quite a substantial amount of useful information from the group discussion, it might be slightly biased as most of it seemed to come from one or two prominent individuals. I can’t help but wonder if the rest felt marginalised and only agreed with the main speaker due to a herd mentality and the pressure to conform. I felt that I had not, for lack of a better word, unleashed the full potential of a focus group, which was to incite meaningful discussion between different stakeholders in the conversation. So, hats off to Jimmy Kimmel, Conan O’ Brien and the likes. You sirs, have won my respect~

– Day 4