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Prevailing Culture

12/22/2013

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Thai-Thailand-Ghost-CultureClick for some BKK airport ghost stories!
The 'new' airport in Bangkok was being built when I first arrived in Thailand and a few of my friends from the US and UK here were working on the logistics side of its construction.  The project suffered under the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and had numerous problems, and it's not everyday that such a large venture is undertaken.

The people I knew organizing the effort used the traditional plan of working on such a project and came to Thailand uninitiated in Thai culture.  First, they planned which phases of construction would take place when, starting with the terminal.  The Thai contractors balked at the idea, and the foreign logistics team had no idea why.   Working culture in Thailand can also be different than the West as what Westerners may see as giving feedback to a boss may be thought of as disrespectful here.  This made it difficult for the foreign team to know what was the objection to starting the project, but eventually it was brought to their attention that the project needed to have a spirit house built first, as the land was believed to be ill-omened. (There are now several spirit houses on the property.) 


Once the contractors agreed to build the spirit houses, they also wanted to use standard safety procedures for the workers.  Normally many Thais wear open shoes everywhere as the climate is hot and they easily slip off to enter homes and shops where people remove shoes before entering.  The safety standards required work boots for the contractors and so the company purchased them.  Still, the workers did not wear them.  Once again, the people overseeing the project needed feedback to find out why things were not going according to plan.  Turns out that the workers (most from rural parts of the North) saw the shoes as formal wear, and did not want to dirty them.


As the project progressed, large numbers of workers were not showing up.  The project was already well behind schedule and the logistics people in charge were concerned that people were quitting for unexplained reasons.  When the workers that disappeared returned, the bosses were angry and the workers were confused.  November is harvest season and in many cases the workers thought it was understood that they would return to help their families, as was done every year.  Thankfully at this point the foreigners I know understood that they needed to work within the culture.  


When the airport was finally completed, it experienced the normal adjustment period hiccups that are to be expected.  This was anticipated... What wasn't was that the airport drew two crowds of tourists.  There were the people arriving by plane but a large group of Thais cane to the airport as well.  In its early days Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK) attracted about 100,000 people coming to picnic.  After such a long wait for such a huge project, who can blame them?


The purpose of this story is to illustrate some ways that foreigners need to adjust to the ways of Thailand while here.  While we have a clear message to deliver, Thai culture will always prevail in Thailand.  It's not to be thought of as an obstacle, but part of the principles of our foundation informing our campaigns.  What we seek to do is to bring greater understanding of History and we are in a unique place and position to do so.  The World continues to be brought together through the Internet and social media and we would like to see that benefit everyone.  


Here's a great video by the No Hate Speech Movement about the World and the Internet: 

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Why Anne Frank?

12/14/2013

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Anne-Frank-Improve-World-quoteClick for more info on Anne Frank
The story of Anne Frank has been told countless times and her diary has been translated into seventy languages. There is a Thai translation, however that version is out of print.  On our Thai resources page, there is a link to the movie translated into Thai language that is free.

We have the story because of Miep Gies, a Dutch woman that helped to Hide Anne and her family as well as another Jewish family, the van Pels.  Miep was lucky to have been released after the Franks and the van Pels were found and she collected the families' papers that had been strewn on the floor during their arrest and she also recovered Anne's diary.  

Miep-Gies-Dutch-Catholic-Holocaust-Anne-Frank-DiaryMiep Gies, the hero behind The Diary of Anne Frank
Miep Gies was an Austrian Catholic that refused to join a Nazi women's organization in the Netherlands and was threatened with deportation.  She married Jan Gies and was able to remain in the Netherlands. During her childhood, she was saved from malnutrition because of a food shortage in Austria by a Dutch family. Miep often said that she is not a hero, she has been paying it forward. 

The story is so popular in part because of it's completeness, people relate to Anne's personal accounts of family squabbles, her first kiss and are inspired by her outlook.  This story is also great for young teens because of what they have in common with her.  

We would like to tell the story as a video.  The materials that we produce are meant to fulfill very specific needs.  Our audiences are supporters, teachers in Thailand and students in Thailand which are very different groups in some ways.  This would have to be teacher and child friendly, suitable for ESL students and translated into Thai language as well.  In order to meet this criteria the films are under ten minutes, culturally relevant to Thailand/East Asia, visually interesting, captioned and meant to leave people wanting more.  

The main challenge is that most of the visual material pertaining to Anne Frank is not in the public domain.  And it should be.  This video may take a while as we need to come up with a creative solution to this problem.  While it is unfortunate that the material that is so educational is copyrighted, it may help us to create something unique.


Post script edit: Seems that someone else had a similar idea, so we may re-think this.  Looks like a great project: http://www.deadline.com/2013/12/ari-folman-to-helm-animated-film-based-on-life-diary-of-anne-frank/

We want to remind you that time is running out on our Kickstarter.  This project will be the first of its kind in Thailand and is crucial to us gaining a wider audience.  

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Kickstarter now Live

12/5/2013

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Twenty six days to go to raise the funds.  Even if you can donate a few dollars, that would help greatly and we appreciate if you can share it as well.  We want to make the first film of its kind in Thailand!


Right now, our organization has a 0% overhead cost.  All funds (aside from the exciting prizes) go directly to making content.  No administrative salaries, all of our costs go to the people who professionally translate, film, edit and act.  We've been lucky to keep our costs low as we have good years-long relationships with the people involved in our project and the start-up costs are funded by the foundation's creator. 
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