Post Trip Reflection

One of the most important takeaway from this enriching trip was the insights to the Thai culture and heritage. From a foreigner’s perspective, I would say that the northern Thai heritage is characterised by the numerous temples. Temples are as common as petrol stations in Singapore. This reflects the importance of Buddhism in their culture. However, the locals would of course disagree with me, they appreciate their culture much more comprehensively and are reluctant to downplay the complexity of their culture. This is the challenge of cultivating cultural literacy, that there is no fast track to becoming well-versed in any culture. Cultural norms and people’s way of life exhibit mutual influence and are intricately interwoven. Unless one fully immerse himself in the foreign way of life, he will never fully understand their culture. Then comes the problem of dynamism. In today’s fast paced world, changes occur so quickly. A new phone, new social media platform, new infrastructure etc., can quickly alter people’s way of life in a couple of years. On top of this, the culture across different villages, towns or cities, and between different demographic groups are probably different too. How extensively culturally literate can any person be? Eviscerating the fleeting content of cultural knowledge, we are left with the principles of respect, modesty, tolerance and compassion, which guide us through the process of cultural immersion. Ultimately, cultural literacy turns out to be a set of virtues that teaches us to treat others nicely. My pre-trip expectations of learning about the Thai culture were met with these valuable insights attained.

 

Another main focus of this trip is none other than the fieldwork. Our group sort of went through the trials and tribulations before ending up on the right track. We went Thailand with a plan in mind, only to find out that it does not work. Though we eventually found our ways, I feel that we could have prepared more for the trip. Specifically, we should have delved deeper on the practicality of the tangible-intangible heritage framework. In retrospect, our inexperience might have being the reason that made us believe that we had the right plans. We were idealistic that the fieldwork data would fit into our research framework. In reality though, the tangible-intangible framework required very high level of execution to succeed. We would need to have almost zero communication barrier with the respondents to get the in-depth responses out of them. The respondents needed to know the differences between tangible and intangible heritage before giving their inputs. However, the reality was that we had an immense language barriers to overcome. It was difficult to convey the more complex ideas and our questions usually ended up getting interpreted as “what is culture and heritage to you?” and the answers lacked depth. In essence, we lacked the techniques in crafting interview questions to get the answers we wanted. Given this valuable research experience, I believe that I will be better prepared for future documentary work, especially when it comes to data collection through interviews.

 

Of course we also enjoyed our stay, especially taking advantage of the cost of living there. The barbeque and steam boat buffet outside CMU was criminally cheap at S$8. A typical one hour massage costs the same price too. Shopping at the night markets in Chiang Mai’s temperate winter weather was also particularly comfortable. The pace of life at was much slower at Chiang Mai, except when we were trying to cross the roads, which we had to dash a little to avoid vehicles that refuse to brake. Otherwise, it was pretty relaxed there, though sometimes things got too slow for comfort. On the evening we arrived at Chiang Mai, our dinner at a bar restaurant took over one hour to come. The same thing happened when our Bingsus weren’t ready one hour after we placed our order. As we were just getting accustomed to the Chiang Mai lifestyle, the trip has come to an end. Now, it is back to the hectic schedule of NBS as a new semester commences, in hot, expensive and clockwork Singapore.