My first 30 days in my sabbatical leave in Thailand

Airport pickup

Imagine I have been here in Thailand for 30 days (November 6-December 5, 2013)!

In Thailand

Well, it’s not quite a long time. But it’s my third longest stay in a country. Of course, Taiwan my home country is the longest one. The second one was in US, and I was there for almost 7 years. Then it came to the third one here in Thailand, in particular, in the city of Khon Kaen. What impressed me most for the past 30 days here?

Leaving comfort zone

First, I felt like I was back into the stage of my undergraduate study once again. I had to rent a condominium, bought some grocery stuffs, and looked around the neighborhood to find food (ไม่เผ็ด) to eat for the first few days. I had to study and worked hard on preparing my teaching material. When you get into a new place, definitely you need some people around to help you out with some awkward situation. These include airport pickup, friendly ride for grocery shopping, and touring you around the campus and the surrounding environment. In addition, I had to restart people networking because I was living in a brand new community. Everything is new, and there’re things taking you time to adapt. New things mean inconvenience, not in your comfort zone. So, such a thought may come up from your mind one day, and say ‘why taking trouble to be here?" But there’s always a time you have to leave your comfort zone and throw yourself into a strange place where you can really leave something behind and get to know yourself more and more. Even, you may begin to think of what is the most important thing ahead to pursue in your life.

Thai traffic system

Second, I need to get used to the new traffic system. One day when I was jogging along the street in the campus and I had to come across the road, I was almost hit by an incoming car from my left hand side. This means I have to reprogram my perceived system of traffic, no longer the one in Taiwan. We follow the right-hand side system in Taiwan, but here it’s in the opposite. Now I have to remind and train myself to watch closely first the right-hand side, when crossing the street, and be careful of the incoming car on my left-hand side when I come to the centre line of the road. This is my own rule of thumb and it seems safer with this carried in mind.

Khon Kaen University

Third, it’s the most enjoyable time when jogging in a huge green forest in the campus of Khon Kaen University. Basically, KKU is a forest university. Even, at noon time in a day of bright sunshine I can walk to my office without sweating because of lots of shades on my walking trails. The whole campus layout is in an axe-like North-to-South stripe on the map. There’re two big lakes right at the major entrance of KKU in the south side. In addition, there’s one smaller lake in the northeastern part of the campus, where you will see people jogging or walking around this lake either in the morning or in the afternoon.

What else

What else is interesting and impressive? Maybe wait for another 30 days, and I’ll see what to write about.

People Networking