The past week was a real ‘gift of giving’ ka.
The first was my 4-day trip, covering a few provinces in the north! This is one of the highlights ka:
In Prae, we were allowed to visit Khun Narongchai Prasertsak’s personal museum. A specially guided tour led me to learn more about our own treasures from so many valuable collections, including his designs of textiles that have been awarded/recognized nationally and internationally ka. It was a great blend of the old times and today's competitions. It also reminded me of our slower pace of the past when people were more relaxed and when ‘namjai’(kindness) was so common to get from people on a daily basis! We've lost while gaining from the modernity too!
The tour ended with a very nice afternoon tea with some chill time to enjoy talking with the host about his thinking about life!
I liked it most when he said,’ Giving is his happiness!’ as he has his freedom to do and design what he wants so it is now best to feel great from giving ka.
He gave each of the nine of us a kilo of washed ‘พุทราดอย’ (wild monkey apple).
All of us even our friends who have known him quite well felt real ‘grengjai’ (feeling like troubling someone too much despite the person’s willingness or years of friendship!).
Personally, besides the learning and feeling of grengjai, he showed the real meaning of ‘giving’ ka. When he opened his museum and home with his open arms, he gave the best to the guests. The ready-to-eat fruit was given because it was in season and he wanted us to enjoy it while we were on the road.
The whole afternoon was one of the precious gifts I received from this trip ka.
The second was a different type of ‘gift of giving’ the past Saturday.
Dr. Surin Pitsuwan asked me if I could help organize a session about scholarships for the so-called, ‘The Honor Society’, which is a gathering of Muslims to maximize learning in many aspects. He told me he’d like them to be inspired so they make efforts to learn the English language as the first step to then apply for a scholarship and see more of the world.
The program was crafted for the participants to realize that language proficiency offers more than just higher levels of studies as we could use it to sharpen our minds, to learn cross-culturally, and to care for and help many more people across cultures.
Thanks to my panelists who did a superb job ka. The first from the Australian Embassy shared with the audience what grants are available while the second who is a Thai-Muslim talked about his time in the US for his one-year exchange under the Global Undergraduate Exchange Program (administered by Fulbright Thailand), and the third told her story how she could get some grants after decades of work. The four of us had an informal talk and invited questions or suggestions.
When asked what keywords they got from the session, some of the answers were, ‘opportunities’, ‘from border to borderless’ (a speaker’s topic), or ‘change before you have to!’(Jack Welch’s quote that I used!), etc.
Dr. Surin ended the afternoon with one small panel for the audience to learn from direct experiences of two Muslims, one is a medical doctor graduated from Istanbul University and the other is working under ‘Teach for Thailand’. Dr. Surin’s effort, along with his Muslim friends, was definitely admirable for our younger generations to have increased passion and positive contribution to the development of our country ka.
Our session turned out to be quite inspirational as a good number came to ask more questions or to express their thanks to us!
I could pay it forward after I’ve got many, including the most recent from Khun Narongchai.
My heart was filled with gifts of giving!
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