Fulbright Conference in Bangkok, Thailand

Sorry that I have been absent from posting for several days, but I have been attending a conference in Bangkok, Thailand. I will try to post info about the conferences and beautiful Bangkok and Thailand as soon as I can. I still have some things that I would like to post about Tioman as well and I probably need to catch you up on some of the "exciting" Malaysian news.

3rd Mid-Year Enrichment Conference for U.S. Scholars and Students in Southeast Asia

This conference allowed Filbrighters from across South East Asia to meet to share our experiences. The fact that the conference was organized by the Thailand-United States Educational Foundation (TUSEF) and was held in Bangkok made this experience a special treat. Thanks to everyone who helped to make this event such a great success!

The theme of the conference was "America's engagement in Southeast Asia: the role of people-to-people ties in strengthening connections". I may not have my numbers exactly right, but I think that there were 57 conference participants who are currently living in 8 countries (Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philipines, and Laos). Attending this conference was a unique experience for me because of the broad range of interests in Fulbrighters. I listened to presentations by artists, political scientists, journalists, economists, and anthropologists in addition to "normal talks", meaning of course, those presented by biologists.

On Wednesday morning I met Michael and Jaki, two of the student Fulbrighters in KL, at KL Sentral station where we caught the Express Train to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. We arrived in Bangkok a little bit after lunch time so we had some time to look around for a while before the conference started on Wednesday evening.

View from my hotel room.


We stayed at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Bangkok which was a beautiful hotel. They had a woman in the lobby playing music on a Thai xylophone/harp. I don't think you will find her at the Motel 6 in Lubbock.


We wandered around the city searching for lunch. When we saw what was on the menu, then we knew we had found the right place. You can't get fried rice with crap and rots pork just anywhere. Actually, lunch was great and cost about two bucks.


There was a large park just across the street from our hotel. Jaki, Michael, and Michael (three of the student Fulbrighters in Malaysia) are holding up the cool tote bags they gave us at the conference.


I was surprised to hear a marching band practicing. These kids looked to be Junior High age. Maybe I should start recruiting for the Goin' Band From Raiderland.


Giant swan.


Muscle Beach Bangkok.


We saw a lot more locals exercising in Bangkok than we do in KL. Maybe that's because they know that Thai food is so good and they need to work it off.