This chapter starts from when she obtained her student visa, describes the environment at the university in England and the lovely teaching style of her lecturers. Up until the time when she had to write her final project – the tough dissertation – that she gave up on but later changed her mind to fight for it at the last minute. She barely dragged herself to the finish line on her dissertation through sleepless nights but she managed to go through it and got her expected degree for herself and her family.
Grace's perception of England (and western countries) and the power of Television
As a little girl growing up to be a young adult, Grace had always perceived that all western countries were developed in every little corner. She fully blames this on the limited media that she saw in Thailand and the misleading images from Hollywood building up an American dream belief all over the world.
In Thailand, there are only 5 – 7 national television channels. Before Grace left Thailand in 2005, there were 6 channels and there were only a few western films each week. Most of them are from America and we all know what American films are like – everything is big – big budgets, big cars, big houses and etc.
An example of an American film
In addition, she had little knowledge of geography; she had always thought that there were only a couple of groups of people in this world. When she saw Caucasians she thought they were all American, although her parents told her that they were English or French. However, she thought the English and French were a group of people from America. Just like she thought people from Korea, China, and Taiwan were from Japan, the same as she thought the people from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and etc. would be from India.
Remembering hazily, Grace - like many of us who are from the far east side of the world, was so excited that she was shaking because she wanted so much to see England. She had visited other countries previously, but never once went as far west as England.
Going aboard for the Thais is much more than just a relaxing holiday, it has become more of a way to show off the level of wealth of each individual and their family. As not only does it require a lot of cash for travelling, but it also requires a stable financial history in order to obtain a visa. Going aboard to study degree courses in a country like England is a dream comes true for many Thais. As apart from significant requirements financially, also you have to show how competent you are with your level of education and more importantly your English skills - writing, reading, listening and last but not least speaking. The funny thing about us is that majority of students are filled up too much with English grammar but lack speaking skills and the reason behind that is because there isn't much chance to practice unless you have a lot of western friends to speak to. However, there is a group of Thais who can work very well in most skills, particularly speaking and this is the group of international school pupils.
Thai education fees
In Thailand, education isn't for free like in many developed countries. In some institutions, English is not taught until primary school year 5 - this type of school is established by the government and the fees are as cheap as THB250 (£50) per semester. Another type of institution is a private school where English is taught from the first year kids enter, but it's only taught once or twice a week for just about an hour or two as a subject. The fees for the private schools can range from THB5,000 - 30,000 (£100-600) per semester. Another institution is called an international school and here English is taught in every subject apart from Thai language class, and their fees can be as high as THB1,000,000 (£20,000) per year. Currently, there is another type of institution called "bi-lingual" where kids learn in both Thai and English languages. Grace didn't know much about this type of institution as it was for the new generation and had just started to boom when she had already left home to come to the UK.
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| An example of fees from an international school in Thailand Source: rism.ac.th |
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| An example of fees from an international school in Thailand Source: isb.ac.th |
UK education fees
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| UK and EU student fees Source: LSBU |
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| International student fees Source: LSBU |
To obtain student visa isn't considered easy for many Thais, as not only students have to be ready to show they have an adequate amount of money to cover both the uni fees and the cost of living but they also have to pass several requirements in order to get entry into a UK degree course. For a Masters or PHD in particular, they have to prove their knowledge and understanding of English and a candidate must pass a test in English conducted by prospective university and/or provide the result of an acceptable academic English test such as TOEFL or IELTS. There are also other exams at some universities according to the course in which you wish to enrol. An example might be an MBA course, asking students to sit an exam on maths/statistics. There is also an interview in English asking general questions and exploring their knowledge of the course subjects. For instance, if the course is in Marketing then there might be questions regarding the 4-7Ps, SWOT analysis and the BCG matrix. Additionally, there is a minimum Grade Point Average (GPA) for Thai students who want to go on a Masters degree course, normally it will have to be higher than 2.70.
Being able or having an opportunity to study aboard, like in the UK, therefore isn't something that many Thais can do. Since the students have to have both enough funding and also to pass various requirements. Grace managed to pass the requirements smoothly and that was because she had graduated from one of international universities in Thailand (taught in English). When Grace passed all those requirements and hassles she was thrilled. A week before she left home, she was terribly busy with packing. Packing for a weeks holiday is such a pain already, so imagine packing for a year. She ended up with 3 suitcases and together they were over-weight. Fortunately, she didn't travel alone but with other 16 fellow students and she managed to ask one of them to take one of her suitcases from her to make the weight.
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| An example of UK postgrad study requirements for Thai students Source: grad.au.edu |
Being able or having an opportunity to study aboard, like in the UK, therefore isn't something that many Thais can do. Since the students have to have both enough funding and also to pass various requirements. Grace managed to pass the requirements smoothly and that was because she had graduated from one of international universities in Thailand (taught in English). When Grace passed all those requirements and hassles she was thrilled. A week before she left home, she was terribly busy with packing. Packing for a weeks holiday is such a pain already, so imagine packing for a year. She ended up with 3 suitcases and together they were over-weight. Fortunately, she didn't travel alone but with other 16 fellow students and she managed to ask one of them to take one of her suitcases from her to make the weight.
We like the cold
After a long exhausting flight, Grace arrived at Heathrow airport at the end of January. She found that day was very cold, but she liked it so much that she walked out from the airport to a waiting shuttle bus without any coat, just a top and jeans. Grace's course director had to tell her to put her coat on, as she must be worried that Grace might catch a cold, which she literally did just about a week later. The reason Grace didn’t wear her coat, was because she was from a warm climate and the weather she normally experienced was pretty much hot, hotter and hottest, not summer, winter and rainy. So she was dying to feel the coldness. Grace perceived cold conditions as luxurious as only some houses in Thailand have A/C, as it's expensive to install and it's also costly to run, because of the cost of electricity. Grace believed this is the reason why the Thai prefer light skin colour as well, as it represents wealth because it shows people can afford to stay away from the Sun.
After a long exhausting flight, Grace arrived at Heathrow airport at the end of January. She found that day was very cold, but she liked it so much that she walked out from the airport to a waiting shuttle bus without any coat, just a top and jeans. Grace's course director had to tell her to put her coat on, as she must be worried that Grace might catch a cold, which she literally did just about a week later. The reason Grace didn’t wear her coat, was because she was from a warm climate and the weather she normally experienced was pretty much hot, hotter and hottest, not summer, winter and rainy. So she was dying to feel the coldness. Grace perceived cold conditions as luxurious as only some houses in Thailand have A/C, as it's expensive to install and it's also costly to run, because of the cost of electricity. Grace believed this is the reason why the Thai prefer light skin colour as well, as it represents wealth because it shows people can afford to stay away from the Sun.
Value of money
The shuttle bus dropped Grace and the other students at the residential hall at which most of them had already made a reservation and paid in advance since before they left Thailand. Grace was very excited at the thought of seeing her room, as from the residential hall’s website she recalled it looked really nice and the building looked very British.
The shuttle bus dropped Grace and the other students at the residential hall at which most of them had already made a reservation and paid in advance since before they left Thailand. Grace was very excited at the thought of seeing her room, as from the residential hall’s website she recalled it looked really nice and the building looked very British.
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| Residential Hall in London Picture: lsbu.ac.uk |
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| Bedroom in the residential hall in London Photo: lsbu.ac.uk |
But when Grace got into her room, she was slightly shocked, as the quality of the room was like a room that cost less than £50-60 a month in Krungtep whereas she was paying £92 a week that year in 2006. This is the first point when Grace started to miss home, as £92 a week was equivalent to £368+ a month and it was equal to 29,440+ baht (calculated from 368 x 80 as in year 2006 £1 = BHT 80). For that amount of money in Bangkok, you could rent a 2 – 3 bedroom apartment with all sorts of shared facilities such as swimming pool, tennis courts, gym, Jacuzzi, saunas and steam rooms and etc.
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| An example of a 3 bedrooms 2 bathrooms for rental in Bangkok Price: £380 per month (2006) £600 (2011) Photo: propt69.com |
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| An example of 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom for rental in Bangkok Price: £310 per month (2006) £500 (2011) Photo: propt69.com |
Struggle with foods
Fortunately Grace liked western food and was very used to bread, however, most of the Thai students were craving food from home – Thai food and unfortunately not many of them really knew how to cook.
Here is the reason why most of us don’t know how to cook, if you ever have an opportunity to visit Thailand, you will find that in developed cities there are food stalls everywhere. Cheap good food such as a dish of fried rice with curry and/or stir fry or a bowl of noodle cost just about THB50 (£1) in a local restaurant, dislike in the UK which would cost at least £6.
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| A bowl of noodles in Thailand for £1 Photo: iampr.net |
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| A bowl of noodles in England for £6 Photo: telegraph.co.uk |
So normally we just eat out. There are some city dwellers who like to cook but it’s very rare as buying food is cheap enough and a lot easier – no preparation and cleaning up to do afterwards.
Some of Grace’s classmates had never cooked at all and complained with Grace that it was very difficult in England because in Thailand they had their breakfast placed in front of their bedroom in the morning by servants. Grace wasn't used to that but she just had to walk from the third floor when her bedroom was located to the ground floor and most of the time food was left there for her by her parents.
Grace remembered a week before she left home, she just knew that she was going to fancy having some Thai food while she was in the UK and so she asked her mum to show her how to cook a curry. She was surprised to find that the curry is actually cooked in a wok, not a pan as she had always seen the curries in saucepans and so she made the assumption that was how it was cooked. She thought the wok was just for stir fry and anything fried only. She couldn’t believe that at the age of 25 she had only just discovered how the curry was cooked. Still, it wasn’t like she completely didn’t know how to cook, before Grace left home she knew how to cook fried eggs and a fried chicken dish with basil leaves.
None of the Thai students had prepared for cooking and hence no one had any cooking equipment. Someone went to buy a wok so we could cook our traditional meals. Grace also found the food shopping such a nightmare, she had never shopped for food ingredients before and so she got confused and couldn’t specify what particular veggies were called and which ones were used for which dishes. Some of them looked just the same to her, so to make things easy she just bought some frozen meals and lived mainly on bread with peanut butter and cereal. Frozen meals were very challenging as she didn’t normally eat frozen meals. She had never had a frozen meal before she came to the UK. Indeed she was glad she was still alive after she fried a frozen buttered fish rather than boiling it in the bag or cooking it in the microwave. She didn’t realise she was supposed to read the instructions first!
Struggle with study
When Grace got here the first week, the majority of the students caught a bad cold including her. She was coughing as though her lungs were going to come out from her chest. It was because of the cold (Husby comment: no it wasn't colds are caused by viruses and it was probably caught on the flight!). Fortunately Grace was very busy with course studies and so she had less time to moan or feel sad about how she lived. Still a couple of her fellow students were crying as they were missing home and some complained how hard their life was.
On the first week after we arrived, the uni also arranged what was called a “residential weekend” in which all students in the same class gathered together to do some group work off-site over the weekend. The course that Grace was enrolled in was a joint venture course between a university in Thailand and a university in England whereby the first term was taught in Thailand and then they moved to the UK, thus Grace and her Thai classmates had never met with the other classmates in the UK before. It wasn’t something Grace had expected. She wished she had known, was more aware of its objectives and so she could have prepared herself to obtain as much knowledge as possible. Yet she enjoyed herself very much as she was mixed with her classmates from many nations such as Argentina, Belgian, French, American, Polish, China, Greece, Venezuela etc. There were not as many British students, as far as Grace remembers, there were just two British students in her class of approx. 40 students.
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| Residential Weekend |
Western teaching style
She enjoyed the way the lecturers taught the most. She didn’t realise how much she had learnt until she got to work. As Grace liked the English language so much she enjoyed just simply sitting in the class and watching how the lecturers spoke.
There was a lot of report writing and presentations. Grace hated presentations so much that in one of the presentations, without realising herself she said “my last slide” with a sigh of relief when she got to the final slide of her PowerPoint presentation!
Grace found the teaching very different from the training received in Thailand, although it is difficult to explain how exactly! In Thailand, they get students to do a lot of remembering - learning by rote, in contrast, in the UK there was lots of course work, case studies, presentations as well as the lecture notes which she somewhat understood, not just remembered and so she started to learn how to put her knowledge into practice when she didn’t know before.
How did Grace know that she didn’t know how to apply her knowledge? Well there was one case study asking how she would promote a product, she can't recall exactly what that product was but it was something like a car and in order to do some promotions she put down a couple of promotional tools such as giving coupons, advertisement and also buy 1 get 1 free! When her lecturer returned her work, he circled buy 1 get 1 free and noted something like - it would be expensive to do buy 1 get 1 free for a car (Husby note: although this happened in the recent recession in the US). Then she began to realise a bit of what the problem was, but not fully, she just thought she was silly and hadn’t thought as she was just trying to put down whatsoever she remembered from the text books as much as possible. However, just recently, Grace realised that at the time she didn’t know how to apply all her knowledge properly.
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| Photo: funingallery.com |
Another unforgettable experience was when one of Grace's lecturers invited her friend in who had helped create a notable project for Adidas, she thought that was so cool as she felt like she had met a marketing celebrity.
Writing dissertation and graduation day
Writing dissertation and graduation day
The course had been very tough for all of us and most of us had got a mark that was not far away from just a pass. We were very discouraged, some students even failed in some subjects. When Grace first started the course she even cried to herself a couple of times. She never thought she would make it through and felt like giving up from time to time. Even until the point, at the very end of her last term, she didn’t even want to write her dissertation. Grace was so exhausted and felt she was satisfied with just obtaining a post-graduate certificate. Writing a dissertation was such a pain, but it was valuable and it has stood Grace in good stead even until today. However, if it wasn’t for Grace's supervisor she probably couldn’t have done it either. She had to conduct research and write it up in under 20,000 words. Grace decided to change the topic of her dissertation at the end, as her supervisor suggested a particularly interesting area. It made the work harder, however she got to learn so much from it and it has paid off. It was so difficult and Grace was lazy too, once her supervisor replied to her email by telling Grace that she was procrastinating and needed to take the Nike motto which was “Just do it”.
Grace later got too tired as she was juggling with work as well as her dissertation and so she decided she wanted to give up. However, one night she dreamt seeing her friend posing that she had got her degree and when Grace got up she felt she would feel a terrible regret if she had come so far and if all her friends received a degree but she didn’t. As a consequence, she changed her mind and decided to continue with her dissertation.
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| Photo: catchwordbranding.com |
Grace later got too tired as she was juggling with work as well as her dissertation and so she decided she wanted to give up. However, one night she dreamt seeing her friend posing that she had got her degree and when Grace got up she felt she would feel a terrible regret if she had come so far and if all her friends received a degree but she didn’t. As a consequence, she changed her mind and decided to continue with her dissertation.
As Grace changed her mind and decided to finish her dissertation at the very last minute, it then ended up that she didn’t have enough time and had to ask, and paid approx. £100 for, an extension. The extension granted was only about a month and Grace used it until the very last day, right up to the deadline. Grace remembers the night before the deadline she didn’t sleep at all as she had to print out two copies and she kept adjusting the Word document as there were some tables that kept moving from place to place. The next day, early in the morning she had to find a place for binding. Grace had to drop it at the shop and picked it up later in the evening and quickly rushed to the post in order to send it off. She made it at the end feeling tired, drained but happy at the same time.
It took a while until the result came out. She was so excited and nervous every day and night. Grace recalled that she received the result through the post and she was jumping around telling her landlord and flatmate that she had finally graduated!
Before the graduation day, Grace arranged to get her mother to come from Bangkok by herself. She still feels very sorry but proud of her mother for making the journey, as she doesn’t know English but she was very brave catching the flight to come across the world by herself alone. Grace remembers a moment at the airport on the day when her mother arrived and looked like she was going to cry, they found a suspicious package in the airport and thought it could be a bomb or something and so they asked all the passenger to get out a certain exit which was different from the exit at which Grace told her mother she was going to wait for her. Since Grace knew that everyone had to get out from this only exit as she heard the announcement, she rushed to get out there first and stood behind a sign not too far from the entrance so she could spot her mother. Then she saw her mother came out looking like she was going to cry as she was feeling lost and alone, Grace just stepped out and laughed but deep inside she knew her mother must be scared to death as she doesn’t speak the language and was thousands of miles away from home.
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| Graduation day |
The graduation day was superb; Grace never felt that she had really achieved anything so great before. She could tell her mum was very proud of her. They both took a lot of photos that day.
The requirement for certain levels of education in Thailand and its impact
After Grace had graduated, she was in a dilemma thinking about whether she should go back home or stay longer in England. She wanted to go home so much because she was well aware that; as job specifications in Thailand detail a high level of education required, particularly in higher job roles, she would get a good job with good salary just like all her Thai fellow students who had already gone home. Finding a job would also be easy for her because, not only she had got some connections (your network of who you know being particularly important), but in Thailand there are not as many post graduates, as mentioned previously Thai education isn't for free so most cannot afford to study this long, over and above that she had also graduated from England (graduates from English speaking countries are in even greater demand).
Strenuous work until the day one dies, no opportunities to break through
The requirement for certain levels of education in Thailand and its impact
After Grace had graduated, she was in a dilemma thinking about whether she should go back home or stay longer in England. She wanted to go home so much because she was well aware that; as job specifications in Thailand detail a high level of education required, particularly in higher job roles, she would get a good job with good salary just like all her Thai fellow students who had already gone home. Finding a job would also be easy for her because, not only she had got some connections (your network of who you know being particularly important), but in Thailand there are not as many post graduates, as mentioned previously Thai education isn't for free so most cannot afford to study this long, over and above that she had also graduated from England (graduates from English speaking countries are in even greater demand).
At this time, Grace was dying to go home because she missed home and she also felt exhausted as she was working to help fund herself in the UK. She was doing physical labour where she had to stand all day on her feet. She always envisaged that if she went home she would be sitting all day working in an office. Nevertheless, because of the hardship and difficulty from her arduous work, she began to comprehend and understand many Thais who have to struggle because some of them have to work so hard all their lives.
Strenuous work until the day one dies, no opportunities to break through
In Thailand, blue-collar workers earn nothing and are poor forever. They are often either illiterate or have received a low level of education without any qualifications. This lack of qualifications means they do not have a chance to find office jobs because in Thailand those jobs require white-collar workers to have a qualification (often a degree). Thinking about this Grace started to realise why in England job ads' do not as strictly specify qualifications, the reason behind it is that, in England, they want everyone to have equal opportunities and people believe that you can become qualified to do a job through work experience. It's not necessary that good well-paid jobs can only be performed by well-educated people.
The requirement for a certain level of education on job ads in Thailand discriminates in favour of a certain group to ensure they obtain good, well-paid jobs: it is biased in favour of the rich. Since education in Thailand is not free and therefore the poor cannot afford to go school/university they will never have an opportunity to obtain a good job. This is just one of many factors that makes the rich become even richer and the poor become dead poor with no chance to break through.
Often Grace has seen the rich in Thailand act like they were better than others because, as mentioned in previous two chapters, the Thai believe in omens and karma, so the poor believes they are poor because they were born without the merit that they should have gathered in their last lives. In conjunction with the lack of education that the poor have, this attitude makes them unquestioning of their position in society, they don't know how to look at the facts, and there are so many forces in Thai societal system that create difficulty for the poor to break through to the middle class.
The fair pure competition
After Grace began to understand the world, she felt very guilty because prior to moving to England she thought, like most of her class in Thailand, that she was born smart and better than others. She never cared about the poor. Similarly her pals liked to boast about their cleverness, that they were born brilliant and better than everyone else. As an example, one of her friends was studying a Masters degree course with a Marketing major, Grace's friend came to tell Grace that one of her other friends failed some subjects and exaggerated that she was so good because she passed. However, Grace questioned her for further info. and she found out that the boy who failed was an English graduate, whereas everybody else in the class graduated in Business (which of course has a large element of marketing). Accordingly, it was not particularly surprising that the boy failed and others passed!
From this scenario, Grace realised that most rich Thais like to boast, bully and compete but perhaps they forget that they have got rich parents to support them when they do anything. Grace felt that if one wants to have a fair competition in society, they have to make all variables the same. In other words, everyone would have to have the same education, at the same institution, with the same lecturer, the same parents who have the same wealth and stay in the same environments with people who have got the same of the level of knowledge. Then they can compete on a level playing field and declare their brilliance if they won, as it would be a fair game.
Don't say you understand the poor
The more Grace thought about all this the more she felt sorry for the poor, as since she was little she had always seen this group of people tyrannised. Some rich people like to think that the poor were born poor because of their fate, or worse because of their laziness. That was because the rich never had to be in the poor's shoes. This is demonstrated by Grace's friends who, after graduated, just went straight back to help their families' businesses. These people will never understand the difficulties of job hunting and working as an employee. Some when they got back to Thailand said they had been an employee when they came to study in the UK (they often worked in Burger King) and so they knew the hardship and knew how it was like to be a slave.
Whoever said this, Grace felt, actually knew very little because, although they had done manual or retail work in the UK, it was only temporary and it doesn't feel the same as when you are stuck in such a job forever. Grace experienced this herself, there was a time when Grace was working so hard she felt her legs were going to break but she could bear it because she kept telling herself that it was just a short-term thing. It wasn't only that, these people didn't work to live - they didn't really need the money, most of them worked to earn some extra income only. Besides, in developed countries there is a law stating a minimum wage, and so they would be more reasonably paid even though they were unskilled workers.
In Thailand unskilled workers earn less than a medium size Pizza Hut pizza for a full day of 8-9 hours work. People who had only done this type of job while studying in the UK would never know what it would be like having to do manual work with little pay, not even enough to fill up your stomach for your entire life. Grace imagined it would be totally exhausting and discouraging, as there would be no future to look forward to, no chance to progress to a better life, it would crush you both mentally and physically.
The gap between the rich and the poor and living in a country with no benefits
Access to quality education and job ads that discriminate against basic qualifications in Thailand is part of the system of unequal opportunities that has created a gap between the rich and the poor. Not just a small gap, but a gigantic one that helps the rich to become extremely rich and keeps the poor from becoming more wealthy and joining the middle class. That's partly why there are so many of the poor in Thailand and a relatively small middle class, this inequality also keeps the overall country relatively poor.
The poor in Thailand are very poor, some have to eat just rice with fish sauce and don't even have a television at home. In contrast, the rich in Thailand tend to have a better life style then most people in England. Where such a big gap exists and the poor see the rich consume so much, plus there is no "opportunity" for them to improve and develop their lives it can create resentment. Moreover, Thailand do not have a system like in the UK whereby if people are unemployed, they will be provided with benefits. So they are supported and not struggling so much with food and accommodation, although it is not much money. This is done partly so its people don't go out and do criminal things: cheating, stealing, killing, and prostituting which become issues for the whole society.
Change for better
Grace learnt from her husband that in the past England used to have very similar system to Thailand with a huge gap between the rich and the poor. During Victorian times and even until WWII, when everything was destroyed and the whole country dealt with rationing. During WWII even the future Queen worked, the same as other people and when the war finished everyone had to rebuild their life started from closer to 0 and as people had died together in the war and shared the whole experience of cooperating as a country, people agreed to be more equal from then on. At this point the government made a commitment that the state, supported by taxes, would look after citizens "from the cradle to the grave".
As we can see, things can be changed for better. Grace's only hope was that the Thais would gradually change their attitudes so that they would understand each other more, love each other more and unite more. Otherwise, the Thais would have nothing left. Grace didn't want to see Thailand become like other countries where when the poor is aware that they are taken advantage of by the rich, then they might stand up together to fight for their rights and create a civil war. Before it finished, the country would already been demolished. The houses and buildings would have been burned until nothing was left. As same as in some other countries that currently are at war. There is nothing good in a war, as we can see where ever there is a war there is terrible destruction. The buildings burned down and people killed are bad enough, but the time wasted in such unproductive activity is just as bad. Such wasted time could be used to develop the country. There are examples that everyone can see, beautiful countries that after the war turn into deserted wastelands and ghost towns. Grace hoped that the Thai would not want to see that, as much as she doesn't want to.
Normal or abnormal?
Grace recalled when she was in Thailand, she thought people fighting each other was nothing serious and that is because in Thailand people live their lives so close to danger without realising they are. After Grace had lived in the UK for over five years, and heard about her friend's friend who got stabbed and she was very shocked. That was because Grace no longer lived in such environment. The same as people who live in the world with war, they will all see blood and people killed as a very normal thing - when in fact, it isn't. A life ended and/or condemned to pain isn't at all normal. Death is natural, yes, but not normal. These two words have different meanings. Someone might have fried egg for breakfast everyday in the morning, that is normality, not when you see somebody shot in front of your house every morning!
In Britain, if one is dead or has disappeared, they will keep going to find out until the end what happen. If someone gets killed, the murderer will be caught - no matter how rich they are - because there ain't no connection and corruption (not every murder is solved and not every policeman is incorruptible but most are). Everywhere in England is installed with what is called CCTV on which is recorded not only pictures but sound. Although Grace came from a family who has some connections in Thailand she still feels living in England sounds a lot safer to her. Even though she has connections, what if she had a problem with somebody who has bigger and better connections then she wouldn't be able to do anything at all. The more she thought about this, the more she felt sorry for the poor. She often saw news in Thailand where the poor had a problem with the rich and they had to keep their mouth shut and even though they were not wrong, they had to let the bad guy go - it was so unfair - she felt.
The rich can also get trapped as well. As once Grace's grandfather was cheated by his lawyer out of acres of land when the lawyer slipped a land transfer in a pile of documents that her grandpa had to sign. When that happened there was nothing Grace's grandpa could do. When Grace told her husband, her husband said no way that could happen in England (Husby comment: well it could happen but it would be reversed when challenged by the courts), because the law and regulations are strict to protect everybody equally.
What is culture?
When grace was younger she always thought that as long as she was behaving according to her Thai culture then she would be doing everything right. However, when she was on her Masters course, her major was in international marketing, which mean't she was taught a lot about different things in different countries comprising cultural differences. She learnt the meaning of the word "culture" which according to Wikipedia is the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterises an institution, organisation or group. Cultures are different in each countries and sometimes in different regions within countries. Grace felt it wasn't too different from an unwritten law as, if one doesn't behave according to a rule in that culture, they get punished too - punished by the people in that society. E.g in Thai culture, people think that being pregnant before marriage is wrong whereas it isn't in other countries.
So we can see that in some cultures something might seem right but it may be wrong in another. Such as in Sudan where they carried out female genital mutilation and still do it until today.
So, as we can see, culture isn't a fixed thing, it is just something that has been created and people behave according to the culture for a period of time until it becomes tradition and part of society. Hence if certain cultures are not suited to the current world, which has changed rapidly, then they should be changed. Even written law of countries are changed periodically according to changing times.
New British government to raise university education fees in England
As England has faced a recession for the past 4 years, the government has made a lot of cuts. One of those cuts was in funding to universities, from 2012 government funding to universities will reduce but they will charge higher fees for students on degree courses. There have been many criticisms of this decision as not many people agree and Grace also thinks likewise. Because, although she did not grow up in the UK, she has seen the terrible consequences in Thailand, providing evidence that unequal opportunity in education leads to a polarised society with greater problems.
Next - Chapter 4: Working in the UK
The requirement for a certain level of education on job ads in Thailand discriminates in favour of a certain group to ensure they obtain good, well-paid jobs: it is biased in favour of the rich. Since education in Thailand is not free and therefore the poor cannot afford to go school/university they will never have an opportunity to obtain a good job. This is just one of many factors that makes the rich become even richer and the poor become dead poor with no chance to break through.
Often Grace has seen the rich in Thailand act like they were better than others because, as mentioned in previous two chapters, the Thai believe in omens and karma, so the poor believes they are poor because they were born without the merit that they should have gathered in their last lives. In conjunction with the lack of education that the poor have, this attitude makes them unquestioning of their position in society, they don't know how to look at the facts, and there are so many forces in Thai societal system that create difficulty for the poor to break through to the middle class.
The fair pure competition
After Grace began to understand the world, she felt very guilty because prior to moving to England she thought, like most of her class in Thailand, that she was born smart and better than others. She never cared about the poor. Similarly her pals liked to boast about their cleverness, that they were born brilliant and better than everyone else. As an example, one of her friends was studying a Masters degree course with a Marketing major, Grace's friend came to tell Grace that one of her other friends failed some subjects and exaggerated that she was so good because she passed. However, Grace questioned her for further info. and she found out that the boy who failed was an English graduate, whereas everybody else in the class graduated in Business (which of course has a large element of marketing). Accordingly, it was not particularly surprising that the boy failed and others passed!
From this scenario, Grace realised that most rich Thais like to boast, bully and compete but perhaps they forget that they have got rich parents to support them when they do anything. Grace felt that if one wants to have a fair competition in society, they have to make all variables the same. In other words, everyone would have to have the same education, at the same institution, with the same lecturer, the same parents who have the same wealth and stay in the same environments with people who have got the same of the level of knowledge. Then they can compete on a level playing field and declare their brilliance if they won, as it would be a fair game.
Don't say you understand the poor
The more Grace thought about all this the more she felt sorry for the poor, as since she was little she had always seen this group of people tyrannised. Some rich people like to think that the poor were born poor because of their fate, or worse because of their laziness. That was because the rich never had to be in the poor's shoes. This is demonstrated by Grace's friends who, after graduated, just went straight back to help their families' businesses. These people will never understand the difficulties of job hunting and working as an employee. Some when they got back to Thailand said they had been an employee when they came to study in the UK (they often worked in Burger King) and so they knew the hardship and knew how it was like to be a slave.
Whoever said this, Grace felt, actually knew very little because, although they had done manual or retail work in the UK, it was only temporary and it doesn't feel the same as when you are stuck in such a job forever. Grace experienced this herself, there was a time when Grace was working so hard she felt her legs were going to break but she could bear it because she kept telling herself that it was just a short-term thing. It wasn't only that, these people didn't work to live - they didn't really need the money, most of them worked to earn some extra income only. Besides, in developed countries there is a law stating a minimum wage, and so they would be more reasonably paid even though they were unskilled workers.
In Thailand unskilled workers earn less than a medium size Pizza Hut pizza for a full day of 8-9 hours work. People who had only done this type of job while studying in the UK would never know what it would be like having to do manual work with little pay, not even enough to fill up your stomach for your entire life. Grace imagined it would be totally exhausting and discouraging, as there would be no future to look forward to, no chance to progress to a better life, it would crush you both mentally and physically.
The gap between the rich and the poor and living in a country with no benefits
Access to quality education and job ads that discriminate against basic qualifications in Thailand is part of the system of unequal opportunities that has created a gap between the rich and the poor. Not just a small gap, but a gigantic one that helps the rich to become extremely rich and keeps the poor from becoming more wealthy and joining the middle class. That's partly why there are so many of the poor in Thailand and a relatively small middle class, this inequality also keeps the overall country relatively poor.
The poor in Thailand are very poor, some have to eat just rice with fish sauce and don't even have a television at home. In contrast, the rich in Thailand tend to have a better life style then most people in England. Where such a big gap exists and the poor see the rich consume so much, plus there is no "opportunity" for them to improve and develop their lives it can create resentment. Moreover, Thailand do not have a system like in the UK whereby if people are unemployed, they will be provided with benefits. So they are supported and not struggling so much with food and accommodation, although it is not much money. This is done partly so its people don't go out and do criminal things: cheating, stealing, killing, and prostituting which become issues for the whole society.
Change for better
Grace learnt from her husband that in the past England used to have very similar system to Thailand with a huge gap between the rich and the poor. During Victorian times and even until WWII, when everything was destroyed and the whole country dealt with rationing. During WWII even the future Queen worked, the same as other people and when the war finished everyone had to rebuild their life started from closer to 0 and as people had died together in the war and shared the whole experience of cooperating as a country, people agreed to be more equal from then on. At this point the government made a commitment that the state, supported by taxes, would look after citizens "from the cradle to the grave".
As we can see, things can be changed for better. Grace's only hope was that the Thais would gradually change their attitudes so that they would understand each other more, love each other more and unite more. Otherwise, the Thais would have nothing left. Grace didn't want to see Thailand become like other countries where when the poor is aware that they are taken advantage of by the rich, then they might stand up together to fight for their rights and create a civil war. Before it finished, the country would already been demolished. The houses and buildings would have been burned until nothing was left. As same as in some other countries that currently are at war. There is nothing good in a war, as we can see where ever there is a war there is terrible destruction. The buildings burned down and people killed are bad enough, but the time wasted in such unproductive activity is just as bad. Such wasted time could be used to develop the country. There are examples that everyone can see, beautiful countries that after the war turn into deserted wastelands and ghost towns. Grace hoped that the Thai would not want to see that, as much as she doesn't want to.
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| Civil War in Libya 2011 Photo: article.wn.com |
Normal or abnormal?
Grace recalled when she was in Thailand, she thought people fighting each other was nothing serious and that is because in Thailand people live their lives so close to danger without realising they are. After Grace had lived in the UK for over five years, and heard about her friend's friend who got stabbed and she was very shocked. That was because Grace no longer lived in such environment. The same as people who live in the world with war, they will all see blood and people killed as a very normal thing - when in fact, it isn't. A life ended and/or condemned to pain isn't at all normal. Death is natural, yes, but not normal. These two words have different meanings. Someone might have fried egg for breakfast everyday in the morning, that is normality, not when you see somebody shot in front of your house every morning!
In Britain, if one is dead or has disappeared, they will keep going to find out until the end what happen. If someone gets killed, the murderer will be caught - no matter how rich they are - because there ain't no connection and corruption (not every murder is solved and not every policeman is incorruptible but most are). Everywhere in England is installed with what is called CCTV on which is recorded not only pictures but sound. Although Grace came from a family who has some connections in Thailand she still feels living in England sounds a lot safer to her. Even though she has connections, what if she had a problem with somebody who has bigger and better connections then she wouldn't be able to do anything at all. The more she thought about this, the more she felt sorry for the poor. She often saw news in Thailand where the poor had a problem with the rich and they had to keep their mouth shut and even though they were not wrong, they had to let the bad guy go - it was so unfair - she felt.
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| CCTV camera in England Photo: engadget.com |
The rich can also get trapped as well. As once Grace's grandfather was cheated by his lawyer out of acres of land when the lawyer slipped a land transfer in a pile of documents that her grandpa had to sign. When that happened there was nothing Grace's grandpa could do. When Grace told her husband, her husband said no way that could happen in England (Husby comment: well it could happen but it would be reversed when challenged by the courts), because the law and regulations are strict to protect everybody equally.
What is culture?
When grace was younger she always thought that as long as she was behaving according to her Thai culture then she would be doing everything right. However, when she was on her Masters course, her major was in international marketing, which mean't she was taught a lot about different things in different countries comprising cultural differences. She learnt the meaning of the word "culture" which according to Wikipedia is the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterises an institution, organisation or group. Cultures are different in each countries and sometimes in different regions within countries. Grace felt it wasn't too different from an unwritten law as, if one doesn't behave according to a rule in that culture, they get punished too - punished by the people in that society. E.g in Thai culture, people think that being pregnant before marriage is wrong whereas it isn't in other countries.
So we can see that in some cultures something might seem right but it may be wrong in another. Such as in Sudan where they carried out female genital mutilation and still do it until today.
Female Genital Mutilation
So, as we can see, culture isn't a fixed thing, it is just something that has been created and people behave according to the culture for a period of time until it becomes tradition and part of society. Hence if certain cultures are not suited to the current world, which has changed rapidly, then they should be changed. Even written law of countries are changed periodically according to changing times.
As England has faced a recession for the past 4 years, the government has made a lot of cuts. One of those cuts was in funding to universities, from 2012 government funding to universities will reduce but they will charge higher fees for students on degree courses. There have been many criticisms of this decision as not many people agree and Grace also thinks likewise. Because, although she did not grow up in the UK, she has seen the terrible consequences in Thailand, providing evidence that unequal opportunity in education leads to a polarised society with greater problems.
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| Students protest against fees increase Photo: deadlinenews.co.uk |
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