Social Identity

Bangkok, Thailand

     If you haven't already know, I was born and raised in Bangkok, Thailand. Bangkok is the capital city of Thailand. The population is very high in such a small city, so it is full of skyscrapers. It is very lively! Later on, I moved to Texas, United States of America when I was 14 years old. From urban area to rural area, it was sudden change for me. I had to adjust my life style and it was not bad at all. I have lived in America for almost 10 years now. They are totally different but I love both countries and appreciate the positive in each and I am very proud of my foothold and background in both nations. 

   Luckily, I have a great opportunity to do the research with IRES program in Spain. The cultural in Spain is different from America and Thailand. Food transitions of America and Thailand are similar. We eat breakfast around 8 - 9 am. before we are going out to work/school. Then, lunch is around 12 - 1 pm. and go back to work after. Dinner is around 6 - 7 pm. However in Spain, I have "breakfast #1" when I wake up in the morning before I leave to work, some cereal with milk or piece of bread with jam. Then around 10 am., there's almuerzo  (brunch) break, or I call it "breakfast #2". I normally have some orange juice and some sort of pastry. 2 pm. is lunch time! If I have it at work's cafeteria, I will often have 3 courses: salad of some sort, main dish, and some dessert. The food is delicious and cheap too! Most of the time, I come home to cook some lunch and then take some siesta (nap) afterward. Dinner time is around 9 pm. I try to eat light but my Spain fam is not eating light dinner! So, I just eat huge dinner with them. But, if we don't eat dinner together (all 6 of us), I will just eat light dinner.

      Now that y'all are familiar with "Siesta", which is my favorite thing ever! It's not just me that love to nap after lunch, the locals love it too. Siesta affects life in here! In here, most businesses are shutting down from 2 - 5 pm. 

with Business hour. I was not used to this at all. In America, I am used to the businesses that open all day everyday, in Thailand also. I can go eat or shopping whenever I want to eat, but in Spain, if you come out before or after the lunch our, your life will be much harder now because it's so hard to find the restaurant to eat! We ran into that problem once when we couldn't find anywhere to eat, but TBG (The Good Burger, so American! I know) saved us! So, TGB is the goto restaurant for us from thereon. Also, Mercadona, our goto market, is open while other places are closed. So, we are always went to grocery shopping to stock on the food. I mean we can't survive with out food! However, sometime I still not considered that most of the places are closed during the napping hour. I make plans and then realizing... damn it! it's closed!! It can be really inconvenient at times, but when it's super hot, I won't feel guilty hiding out inside the apartment because nothing is open anyway.

   

Unintended group picture

 Language learning is very important. Knowing few words or sentences are very helpful in here. But, if even you don't know any, the locals will help you as much as they can. People in here are very nice. I was talking to one of our mentors. He was talking about how they are fighting for free college tuition, which I think it's very nice idea if American education will be like that too because I know a lot of people that unfortunate enough to go to college and some that have lots of loan after they graduated. Also, he was writing the book for his students by combining all the book that he had read and wrote the book that is cheaper and easier to understand for his students. I think it's very nice. 

     The video above is shown that parallel parking is everywhere in here, same as Bangkok, Thailand. However, it's not that often for me to do parallel parking in Texas. If I'm ever gonna be living in here, this is the only thing that I can't do. I would be hitting the cars in front and behind me, but I witnessed , several times, the car was backup into cars behind and pulled up to the one in front while it tried to fit in the parking spot. The driver didn't freak out or anything! I guess it's just normal in here...

     We have it easier in America. We should appreciate what we have, before it becomes what we had.