Counting Down to Exchange Study in Thailand

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Remember last summer I went to Indonesia, I was pleasantly surprised by the many similarities and differences in cultures between where Malaysia and Indonesia. It has been a year from now, recalling back to the 15 days I spent in Indonesia, I could point out 3 things that come first in my mind.

1. '' Why The Hell Did I Sign Up For This? '' x 1000

This was the mantra I kept repeating to myself while I was walking from a bus station to Yogyakarta city centre. I probably boarded to wrong bus at airport or I missed the bus stand where I was supposed to drop off. Hence, I dropped off at a bus terminal at the countryside of Yogya city.

On the GPS Map, the distance I needed to walk to city centre was about 4km. I did not have an idea about how far it actually was, I just thought 4km wasn't a big figure and sounded like a stroll.

Carrying a 60 litre backpack didn't help, and felt worse when the current location on GPS map didn't seem to move much.

It was not a fun memory that such thing to happen on the first day of traveling of a first time backpacker. But it sure is the memorable one.

2. Tent was flooded during rain in the mountain, and got help from the local hikers. I covered this experience in the Java Trip blog post.

3. Speaking local language and slang. Because of the similar language we shared, I had little trouble communicating with the local people. I found joy in picking up local slang unbeknownst among Malaysians and speaking the language to people living at the other side of political border.



Then 5 months later I traveled to Bangkok with a group of friends. After the Bangkok trip, I felt that the travel experience didn't give me much insight on the local culture because I was basically just doing what I had been doing back home. It was only a relaxing getaway with friends. After that, I had the chance to take a Thai language course and a sociological course on cultural identity studies last semester. I feel that the coming semester exchange in Thailand will be like a cultural study field trip where I will get the chance to observe and disguise as a native doing mundane cultural practices foreign to mine, for 5 months long!



It will be less than 40 days until I board the plane to Bangkok. I still have not had my visa and vaccination matters sorted out. Not much preparation has been done, I guess I like to wait until I have to do so.



I have a vision of myself being fluent in one more language spoken in my neighbouring country. If language is like water to fish, then I will be able to swim in many countries in Southeast Asia and Asia. But sadly after final exam of last semester, I have not been studying and practising Thai language other than watching Thai movies and drama passively. And have forgotten most of the Thai scripts I learnt...

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