Hello and welcome back everyone to Salem,
even though most of you would still rather be at home playing video games and eating chips with salsa (my favorite). I hope you all had a fantastic break. As the price of airline ticket to Thailand is extremely costly, I did not go home. Instead, I decided to go back to upstate New York where I had spent a year as a high school exchange student in 2000-2001. As much as I'd like to say that my whole break was awesome, I can't really say that. It has some good and bad parts. The good part was visiting my host families, friends, and teachers there. It had been four years since I last saw them. For the most part, my break was a very restful and relaxing one, just what I needed after four months of nonstop schooling here at Willamette. For the last week of my vacation, I went up to stay with my dad's friend in New Hampshire. It was really sweet, the area was stunningly beautiful. Everywhere I looked I saw snow, on the ground, on top of mountains, just simply beautiful. I honestly did not want to come back to Salem : )
As I said earlier, there was one bad part of my vacation. It was the catastrophe that happened back at home in Thailand. On the Boxing Day
morning (local time), the massive seismic waves simply smashed the southwestern coast of Thailand. It was, by far, the worst natural disaster that ever happened to Thailand. Although my country was not as badly hit as some other countries in the region, the whole thing was simply unimaginable for me. I called my dad as soon as I found out, and it was such a relief to hear his voice and him saying "we're all safe and sound." Although my family was not directly affected by this tragic incident, it was still very tough for me to be away from them during the time like this. Anyway, the vacation is over and we are now back to our normal lifestyle, I hope you all did not have as hard of time as I did getting myself motivated, focused on school. I am having a very busy and difficult semester; all my classes are three hundred levels. Yuck! However, I want to make a promise to you all that I will bring you interesting articles about Thailand consistently. With my selection of articles, please, if you can, email me some feedbacks. I'd love to read them. I think this is it for now, I'll see you soon.
What you missed in Thailand:
Thailand to turn the tragedy around
This article is very interesting as it talks about how instead of viewing it as a soul-shaking incident, the Thai government should look at the tsunami tragedy in a positive way. According to this news article, the tsunami is indeed a golden opportunity that the government should seize to re-think and rebuild the country to be an even better place than it was
prior to the catastrophe.
Tsunami's political impact
While for some the Tsunami incident maybe the end of everything, for others it paves the way for a new beginning. With the upcoming General Election scheduled on February 6, an incumbent Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai Party is expected to win this election easily. Recent polls have shown that the prime minister's party, alone, is
likely to win the majority of seats in the parliament; the party is expected to gain as many as 250 seats out of 400 available seats. You guys might not find this interesting, but it is indeed. Thailand has a multi-party system, so it is really hard for any single party to win a majority of seats in parliament. As the matter of fact, I don't recall this happening before. We've always had coalition governments. Anyway, the Thai Rak Thai party, according to many political analysts, owes so much to
the prime minister's handling of the tsunami. (This whole story certainly reminds me of President Bush's popularity in the post-9/11 America)
A bowl of Thai curry may help fight cancer
A lot of people here love Thai food, and so do I! I must say that food is one of the things about Thailand that I have always proud of, it's just simply delicious. If you already love Thai food, this article will make you want to pay another visit to a Thai restaurant this weekend. However, if you're one of those people who has never tried Thai food, this article will tell you one of the reasons why Thai food is right for you. Beside the superb tastes, Thai food also keeps you healthy! The following article informs us how Thai food helps decrease the risk of cancer. Very interesting!
Widespread Terrorism in South of Thailand
Terrorism has successfully captured media attention since 9/11. Most of media coverage on terrorism have primarily focused on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Muslim extremist movement in the Middle-Eastern countries. Terrorism is, in fact, also widespread in South-East Asian countries as well. The Bombing of Bali, the separatist rebel in the Philippines, and the violent in the four southern provinces of Thailand are good illustrations for the widespread of terrorism in the region. Having lasted pretty much for a decade, the violence in the South of Thailand has clearly been aggravated since the beginning of the year. Killings happen every passing day between the military and the so-called 'Muslim Extremist Separatist.' This piece of news article provides an overview situation of the region when Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatr was in the area few days ago.
Thai View of the Presidential Debate
Since it can hardly be denied that the United States is the most powerful country on earth, a lot of people pay close attention to what happens in America. The Presidential Election is one good example. It's not only big here, but elsewhere as well. Many Thai people are paying close attention to the campaigns and are looking forward to November 2nd. This article talks about how the Thais think both candidates performed on the first Presidential Debate last week.
Italian Food booms in Thailand
A lot of people have told me that Thai food the most delicious and
healthy food in the world. For me as a Thai, that is something to be proud of. However, a lot of Thai dine out occasionally in some fancy foreign food restaurant. We have tons of them in Bangkok. This article provides you the insight about how the Thai love the Italian food.
Continously since the outbreak was first located in South Korea last December, H5N1, also known as the 'Bird flu' or 'Avian Flu' virus, has consistently spread throughout Asia. The virus hits Thailand big time! It has panicked the Thais greatly, a good many of our people stop eating chicken completely. And since the frozen chicken is on of our major exports, our economy has undoubtedly been affected by this outbreak. Recently, as you will be reminded in this news article, many Thai scientists have warned our government as well as our public about the possibility that this bird flu virus could be strengthened and eventually transformed to Human Flu, or Thailand Flu which could kill as many as 25 million people similar to what the Spanish Flu did in 1918.
As the US presidential election is coming up in less than two months, heated campaign of both parties are at its climax. There have been so many opinion polls conducted about people's favorite choice for the office.
These opinion polls are not just conducted across the nation, but worldwide as well. Now it's time to take a look at who do the Thai support for the upcoming election...WARNING: you might not want to read this if
you are a Democrat.
In a lot of discussions from my International Politics class, people often talk about the role of the United Nations in manipulating the current world. "the UN should do this, and why didn't the UN do something about that?" However, I find it a shocking surprise that a lot of people, once asked what they know about this worldwide organization, reply "Kofi
Annan, that's about everything I know." Clearly, the position of the UN Secretary General is very crucial. Therefore, I have chosen my news article that relates to this issue. It's about the upcoming election of
the UN Secretary General in 2006 to replace Mr. Kofi Annan. This extremely short piece of news talks about one of the declared candidates in this election, and he is our Thai Foreign Minister.
Hi,
My name is Aekaraj Guruvanich, however, I figured that it would be much easier to have people called me by my nickname which is "Raju." As an exchange student from Thailand on campus, in Kappa Sigma to be exact, I must say that I am certainly having a memorable time here at Willamette.
I have found people here to be awfully friendly, which really makes my life here much easier. And since I have had a bunch of people come and talk to me who showed their interests in learning more about my country, culture, and perspective, I have engaged myself into this program organized by the wonderful Language Learning Center. I'm really looking forward to contribute to this Willamette Community, and of course, I am also, and always, looking forward to the weekend, just like everybody
else.
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