my favourite sentences...


You can hide memory, but you can't erase the history that produced them.

It was sad to see what used to be so fundamental to our lives fade away and disappear in front of our own eyes.

Words don't come out when you're deeply hurt. That's why people keep silent and give no explanation. Yet, Murakami once wrote in his novel, 1Q84, "If you can't understand without an explanation, you can't understand with an explanation." Sometimes, people tend to not wanting to understand things instead of wanting to understand things. In short, they tend to ignore the possibility of trying to understand things.

do you know what makes life interesting?
--> it's interesting because we don't know what the future holds for us. don't blame the fate. we decide our fate, it's our choice. we can't choose where to be born, but we can certainly choose the way we live our life...

the life is yours, why bother asking other people to paint it for you?...

when we're small our word has never been counted; when we're big every word has always been counted...

i may not be able to wait thirteen months for you, nor until you are twenty-five, but i can wait for you a lifetime -- Under the Hawthorn Tree by Ai Mi

waiting, though one minute, it's still unbearable...

death doesn't mean that we are no longer existing. death just means a move to another world...

why can parents wholeheartedly sacrifice everything for the happiness of their children, even their life? but why can't their children, whom they give birth to, do the same thing to them? what power is it that encourages them to do so?....

the thing i'm most afraid of is ME. of not knowing what i'm going to do. of not knowing what i'm doing right now.

people always meet new friends. but they should not forget their old friends. because without your old friends we don't have a chance to meet new friends. the memories with our friends will be there forever in our brain. we can't omit it though time passes.

Friday, April 4, 2014

Youth on the Bus: Comic Books, Facebook, Phone Call



Bus may be considered as an important mean of transportation in Bangkok. Most people, particularly students and employees, take public bus back and forth to schools or workplaces. It has since become another part of their life. However, for those who could afford a private car, they would choose their own way of traveling.

During rush hour, significantly when the students and workers leave their schools and offices heading home, the terrible traffic jam have annoyed me once I’m on the bus. It doubles the time I usually spend by walking to get to my place from school. I need to take more than half an hour on the bus with crowded passengers, and flooded vehicles on the road. I am extremely fed up with traveling by bus, and soon I prefer walking rather than taking any bus to school.

Again, on the bus, there are overloaded of passengers heading different destinations. It is therefore bored that you could not do anything freely but stand still breathing smoke into your lung shared by the motorist engines, and, at the same time, there is overpowered by various products of perfume and bodies’ odor. Sometimes, I close my nose or try to turn away from the source for I could not well breathe. However, it does not mean any discrimination against them.

If you are lucky enough, you could find a seat. Unfortunately, most of the time the seats are full once the rush hour falls. Anyway, I do not want to challenge for any seat for they should serve women first. While I am standing on the bus, I could have chance to observe surrounding people: what do most people like doing?

Observing someone does not mean that I want to dig into their privacy, I just want to learn about other people and, the reason is that I am a foreigner who knows little about Thai people in term of daily life specifically young people – my target.

On the bus, besides sitting, I saw some young people were reading books. Wasn’t it good to kill your time by reading a book?! It could help improve our reading skill as what I would say. But the question is that what books are they reading? With my curiosity, I continued my observation. I found that the books they were interestedly reading were filled with black and white color of drawing which covered almost every page and left small space for some text. The text was written exactly in Thai language, and I had no idea what it was about for I cannot speak Thai, let alone read. I guessed it was comic book since I used to see similar kind of this book when I was young, but I did not have enough saving to get one at that time. And the text should be the dialogue between actors presented in the book. The readers did not care about others, for the book was so interesting that you forgot surrounding once you started a page. They did not even catch a glimpse whether or not what was happening around. They would get off only if their destination was alerted. They then got off the bus and folded the page they had read, and disappeared in long distance.

I guess that kind of business is good to run in Thailand nowadays. I could see comic book stores set up in many department stores around Bangkok supplying their customers with diverse choices. I saw flooded of young people wandering around those stores choosing the ones of their favorite – maybe of their favorite actors or heroes – during the weekend. I was born curious, I wonder if they ever choose their books according to the writers or the content of the books for their selection? I asked myself. Still, I did not want to interrupt them. In fact, I cannot speak their language.

I do not know what content is written inside each book – whether or not they help educate their fans, the readers, or the book is just only for fun? It is worth to read a book. However, we have to decide which book could help improve our knowledge. Book is an important source of knowledge, at the same time, it could lead us to either good or bad because of both good and bad influential actors exist in the book. Most importantly, it much relies on the way the readers interpret information of what the authors are trying to transfer.

Besides, reading comic books, other youth also like focusing on their phones. There might any interesting thing consisted inside that I wondered since they could not take their eyes off! Moreover, their hands were busy too, taping buttons of the phone’s keyboard very fast. Was there hot news happening that they wanted to share with their friends? They were extremely busy. In fact, they were using Facebook – a kind of social network through which you could chat, upload photos, post information, share comment on something, and many other possibilities – and is very popular now among teenagers. (I knew these usages for I used to possess a Facebook account of which I found it distracted my study later.) These young students were reading their friends updates on their Facebook profiles and/or commenting something posted on their friends’ wall (I unintentionally saw it). They are very clever and are quick learners that they could skillfully use Facebook or other social networking blogs in communication. I could only make use of it 2 years after I completed my undergraduate degree in 2008.

We could see, because of the advancement of information technology, nowadays, people could connect each other almost everywhere around the world within seconds either through cell phone or computer. More convenience than that, scientists integrate internet program in hand phones so that the users could freely contact their friends and loved ones with their mobile phone everywhere within network coverage and, it is more convenience though they are traveling. However, we have to bear in mind that because of technology, some serious traffic accidents have been reported almost every day which caused by using cell phone or internet during driving.

Those students who were surfing Facebook with their phone looked busy; still, they were quiet for they talk nothing and were only active with their hands. The other groups of young adult, their hands were not busy, but their mouths were rather busy by talking with their mates. Their dialogue seemed like a kind of happy hip hop or rape song with high key volume of music attached with laughing and smiling of which they might think their loud voice could help create better atmosphere for the moment while other aunties, uncles, and elderly on the bus were having a nap. Those elderly usually take the chance of when they are on the bus to relax after whole day of hard work.

Meanwhile, at the other side of the bus, there also existed low and slow romantic music performed by couples of youth. That atmosphere was so sweet that sometimes I felt shy and jealous looking at them for I was always alone witnessing that kind of sugar sweet relationship - they were holding each other's hands, talking and often their eyes created a very sentimental connection of which I could tell as once I used to have that sort of experience.

I believe that it is only a small part of Bangkok people’s life I observed and, I will not generalize that all youth are the same. Frankly, I like observing, for from observation I learn something new and often interesting.


Now, I rarely witness any kinds of the above experiences since I decided to walk to school…

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