Day 2 (5th Jan)

We went to the White Temple today. The White Temple itself was stunning itself with the sun rays reflecting on the temple, making it glow and enhancing its beauty. It looks like a dazzling diamond on the ground. I envy the Thais that they are able to have such a majestic structure in their country, as compared to Singapore, where we only have high buildings and there is little spaces for building such structures due to space constraints. After that, we went back to Chiang Mai, where we visited the Wat Chedi Luang Temple to engage in monk chat with the monks there. I was surprised that temples do offer university education for the monks. I thought that being a monk means that one will only be exposed to the scriptures and the teachings of Buddhism instead of receiving tertiary education. But they were keen to improve their knowledge apart from Buddhism and I feel that we can learn the spirit of ‘education is not bounded by circumstances’ from them. After that, we went to Nimmanhaemin Street to conduct surveys and interviews. The survey was quite successful, it is only that the interview was a tat disappointing. Generally the Thais were quite easy to approach and they were very helpful in doing the survey. I wondered if we were to conduct in surveys in Singapore, would the level of response be the same for Singaporeans. During the interview, I found out that Thai youth (from what the interviewee answered our questions) in general are apathetic to political and social issues concerning their country unless it is related to the fields that they are studying. This led me to think why the Thai youth have this mind-set. But looking back at Singapore, our youth are also somewhat apathetic to such issues themselves and they are more practical and selective in the knowledge that they want to know as a research has shown. This led me to think of how we can change this mind-set that the youth have on these social issues themselves. But personally, I do admit that I am quite apathetic to the political development Singapore due to the stability and predictability of the government in Singapore. Am I taking the stability and predictability of the Singapore Government for granted?