You are not alone during Christmas Time
Dear son
in NYC, USA
Your letter writing is good, very good indeed. It reflects your true feeling. People can write good materials when they are free, having time to write something not in a hurry. Hey, you can be a good writer.
I did not post your writing online for it is quite personal for us. But I answer your letter in this online blog.
I spent 7 years with different experiences of Christmas nights in 2 university towns in Midwest, USA. During the year when I had your mother with me, I don’t feel much lonely. But since it was the holiday, no work, no going to school, just free time. So we stayed home, watch TV, and had some good food we fixed. During the other days of the year, we had to be busy studying, working to have few more money for our grocery stuff. There were 2 years, your mother came back to Thailand to work, and I continued my further study, that I had some feeling of loneliness. But that had made me a better writer, in Thai, for I had time and serenity to really write with clear mind and reflecting my true feeling. Then I used the light air-mail paper to write letters home, with ball pens, no long distance call for they were so expensive then, no fax, no e-mailing, no SMS, no labtops, or personal computers during my college years.
Dear son, you are not alone, it is quite normal for a Thai, who are Non-Christians, spending their lives in a country, dominated by Christian culture. Christmas is the time for family reunion; you can join them if you like, to learn some American or western culture. However, you can also spend the time of your own, to look back at your life, what have you been doing – we may call it “life reflection”. If you write a diary, you may spend time to read it from the first page, first day of the year till the very last of the year. Just like you see in TVs, they are reviewing what they have presented during the year. Then you will learn something.
Son, you are successful in your life, in your own way. I and Mom are proud of you. However, you may have to think about your new future – further study for your MS or MA in something, settle down and have a family of your own, coming back home to Thailand, and designing a kind of job or career you like and enriching your life. Enriching one’s life does not necessarily mean being richer, or financially successful. An enriched life is something you can tell yourself you have done something worthwhile, making yourself happy, and you can be proud of. Every 4-5 years, I will find ways to change my way of life, just a little bit. When I was teaching at the university, I will exchange courses with my colleague, started a new course, new research project, have volunteer work outside the university.
The words I hate the most are – doing routine, as usual, usual procedure, the same, etc. Now it may be the time of your life to find new direction, even if you like what you are doing now.
Happy New Year 2010, go to the New York Time Square, and take pictures of Youth’s life with Fun during the “New Year Countdown”. Send me a CD of photoes, of New Year Life during the New Year, in high definition, life in NYC, Manhattan, Brooklyn Neighborhood, etc. I, Mom, and Pi Palm will go to Hong Kong during December 29, 2009 and January 1, 2010. We will send you our pictures.
With love.
Dad at Home
Aree Samphan
Bangkok, Thailand
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