Jim in Thailand: Welcome to Bangkok

Bangkok, or Krueng Thep in Thai: the City of Angels. I have spent the past three weeks in this amazing place with nine other IU students and one professor. This constitutes a credit-bearing course for us entitled, Service-Learning and Educational Consulting in Thailand. Our professor, Nancy Chism, has contacts at several universities in Bangkok and set up this course as an opportunity for students to learn about the role of educational consulting and to gain a better understanding of higher education in Thailand. We were split into teams, each team working exclusively with one assigned institution. My team, which included Brittany Graham and GaoLing LeBeau, was assigned to Chulalongkorn University (or "Chula", for short). In addition to providing presentations on issues ranging from faculty development to student activities to internationalization, we also attended classes, met with administrators, and had many informal discussions with our peers in higher education at Chula.
It has been an amazing opportunity, not only to experience another part of the world (sights, sounds, people, and of course, the food!) but also to gain a better grasp of the complexities of international, cross-cultural communication and collaboration. I have learned so much, both from the standpoint of serving in a consultant role (not easy! This requires patience, humility, and careful listening in order to understand how one can best serve the institution) and simply through observing and experiencing the way academia is done in another part of the world.
The opportunity to build relationships with scholars and fellow higher education doctoral students has been especially sweet.
In the following posts I hope to provide a glimpse into my experiences here. More on the university later. For now, welcome to Bangkok!


Elephants are special animals in Thailand. Wars used to be fought over them centuries ago.


Buddhism is the dominant religion in Thailand. One component of the religious belief system is a belief in spirits that live in certain places and are associated with certain activities. Thus, nearly every home, business, and office building has a small, raised house outside that is dedicated to the resident spirit, to serve as a place for it to live. Typically, these houses are decorated with miniature furniture, candles and incense, and are always kept very clean. Small dishes of fresh food are placed inside them each day. I know I said "small house," but some are more mansion-like, such as the one below, which is located outside a large mall.


Yes, they have frangipani in Thailand! I think they are also known as plumeria, but Julianna and I first met them while we were living in Cape Town, South Africa, where they are called frangipani. So beautiful and always blooming.



Thailand, and especially Bangkok, its capital city and hub for business, fashion, and tourism, is a busy, bustling, urban conglomeration of concrete, (some) green space, small canals, many shrines and temples, a grand palace, tons of street food vendors (which deserves its own post - I love food, and these have been a highlight of my Thailand experience!) and a big river running through it, the Chao Phraya.
Our accommodation was situated very near to the main shopping district of Bangkok - one can buy anything one needs in the 4 huge malls in this area. In addition, if one has a craving for American fast food, it's nearly all here: KFC, McDonalds, Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, Dunkin Donuts, even Subway and Swenson's Ice Cream (which I thought existed only in one place on earth: Jackson, Mississippi. Gieser family: Do you remember going there with the college students during our Canton days?).





One of the national pasttimes is muay thai, or Thai boxing, which combines punching and kicking. The mall across the street hosts an outdoor match every Wednesday evening.





There is a 7-Eleven on almost every corner (notice the sign below?). The one in Wheaton went out of business long ago, but apparently they are thriving elsewhere in the world.