June 2005 Archives

"You guys are famous now!"

That's all the SMS from my friend Ben said. And then his follow-up SMS explained it all: Piyawat's and my picture was published in the newspaper.

Now don't get any wrong ideas. We weren't on the front page of a Thai tabloid. That space is saved for pictures of the people who were just arrested with their accuser's pointing fingers at them. No, that wasn't us. Instead we were on page 4 of section 3. But it was BIG picture!

So what did we do that was so newsworthy? The research on Children's TV and our trips around the world, of course!

Our research is actually a small part of a much larger project. About 30 Thai people are working on the project on different areas. And as I found out this week, the project also has their own PR Department, or at least there are people on the project whose job it is to get the project in the news.

So this week, Piyawat has done a couple of newspaper interviews (in Thai, of course) and a third newspaper published an article that he had written (in Thai, again). And then the big picture showed up three days ago.

So, if you read Thai (or want to try) you can check out the following links:

One of the articles was in the Matichon newspaper. This one was published with a picture of Piyawat and my puppeteer heroes in New York. It's too bad that the article is about Australia.

And the other article is in the Krungthep Turakij newspaper. This one doesn't have any pictures in the online version, but Piyawat scanned the actual newspaper, which you can see to the right. (Click on the pic to get a bigger version)

So this week's lesson learned? It pays to have your own PR department!

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This post was selected as one of the "Favorite Posts of 2005". To read more "Favorites", then visit Favorite Posts of 2005.

Wow, it's been a very long time since I have published anything on this website. It's been exactly six weeks in fact. I think that is a record for me over the past three years since I started this website. (By the way, my three-year anniversary for sgtowns.com and my move to Thailand is coming up in a couple of weeks. Amazing.)

So I last wrote from Toronto, on the way to Vancouver. Our stop in Vancouver was very nice -- our meetings were productive and our visits with our friend Gordon were fun. Vancouver is another great city; one of the most beautiful I've ever seen. I wouldn't mind having a summer home there.

After Vancouver we headed back to New York City, where we had a few final interviews. One of the interviews was with a couple of puppeteers, one of whom was one of the original puppeteers from the Muppet Show. Since I used to love that show as a kid, I guess she is one of my heros. That afternoon we met with one of the original producers of Sesame Street. Guess he's on the hero list too.

One of the highlights of our time in NYC was meeting and hanging out with Joe and Peter, whom I met through this website. They turned out to be cool guys and we very much enjoyed hanging out with them. They took us to a delicious cuban restaurant near Union Square for dinner. Aroi Mak!

Our last few days were all about some R&R at my parent's home in North Carolina. We did the usual tourist things like eating country-style dinners and visiting the swinging bridge at Grandfather Mountain. It was, of course, great to see my parents. I'm glad that they got a chance to meet Piyawat too, since they have read his name a few times on these pages.

Then, it was back to Bangkok for two weeks as I had to start teaching the summer semester. I'm teaching Prepratory Math again, and as usual, the student's aren't very interested in learning much Math. But since this is the third time I've taught it, I think that so far we have been quite successful.

And then, believe it or not, after a short while in Bangkok it was time to go back to the US again, this time for my sister's wedding in North Carolina. The wedding was a beautiful ceremony in an old country church on the top of a mountain. My sister had a bagpiper (is that the right word?) play the bagpipes at the service. It was partly a nod to the Scottish heritage in that part of North Carolina, as well as the Scottish heritage in our blood.

The reception was held at my parents' home. It was great fun to see relatives whom I haven't seen in years. In fact, some of them I haven't seen in decades, and some of the younger ones I had never met. Two of the young ones, boys from Texas, had me out in the yard throwing the baseball and the football along with plenty of punches-to-the-arms and elbows-in-the-ribs as 10 and 12 year old boys are wont to do. We also played my new favorite sport, "Throwing Rocks at a Barn". Needless to say, my shoulder was quite sore in the morning.

And now, for the last two weeks or so here in Bangkok, I have been trying to catch up with all the work that has piled up, as well as teach my math classes. Just today I finally feel that I am "working" rather than "catching up", which is a nice change. I even have some time to write a long blog entry. (One of the longest, I'm sure.)

It looks like I will be working a lot over the next month or so, so I don't know how often I will be able to post anything here. But I'll try to pop in now and then for a quick update...