This is my fourth time in Bangkok, but this is the first time I feel at home in this busy city. This city has grown so fast since my first visit in around 2012 - they even have taken serious steps in waste management. I went to a festival on my own to find the only exciting thing was that the government provided clear plastic bags assisted by two officers, which made throwing waste away even much more manageable. I don't feel that I can get lost or confused by the language. Even though the language is still a challenge here, I find more and more Thai people speak English very well. I've even mistaken one of them for a foreigner, as she speaks in a very Los Angeles accent. I always feel happy to be in such an intense event attended by a high diverse composition of people - and to see these people, no matter what their races, language, or beliefs are, work for the same goal: reducing demand for illegal wildlife products. I feel energized every time I sit at the airport gate, waiting for my flight home like this. Reminiscing all my take-home learning. But as I mistook a young lady as non-Thai because of her accent, my biggest learning this time is: I need to fight my own stereotype.

Someone said to me that "how to make indigenous people be appreciated (in many ways) in the country" is million dollar question - well turns out it is not. I sat down on a morning having breakfast with Megan Hill, NRM Specialist for USAID in their HQ (and she's from Montana!), and she said that after working in some of the developed countries around the world, she found that Paraguay is a country that has succeeded in terms of embracing their indigenous culture. People in that country are proud of their indigenous heritage culture. They even make their indigenous language a National language - and it is true, according to this article. She said that is indeed a very rare case. Paraguay even has a constitutional framework in which the rights of indigenous peoples are recognized. I checked this and found that Chapter V of the 1992 Constitution of Paraguay deals with indigenous rights, where Article 62 recognizes the pre-existence of the indigenous peoples, defined as “groups from earlier cultures” at the time of the country’s founding. Article 63 recognizes and guarantees the right of indigenous peoples to preserve and nurture their ethnic identity, to follow their own political, social, economic, cultural, and religious norms, and to be bound of their own free will by their customary laws in internal matters. Many details of indigenous rights and statutes on other issues are included: Act No. 43/89 provides regularization of indigenous settlements and Act No. 323/107 on indigenous education. Other issues like agriculture and criminality are also covered. This framework is not perfect, yet they are very progressive in making more effort to refine it.

Another case is that in this event, a member of the Vietnam National Party came and attended all sessions. The last day is an optional day, so the fact that she is attending a workshop for Social Behavioral Change Communication (SBCC) surprises me, and she got my respect. Many others chose to enjoy Bangkok - which is totally acceptable, but she was there and paid attention to the session even though she needed help from an interpreter. Having a working experience in the past with Vietnamese people, I am fully aware that they have a high level of conscientiousness - but I didn't expect that even the party members do the same. I am pretty sure that this Nation is going to be big someday.

Last but not least is the Western. Being colonized for such a long time might affect how we Asian see Westerners as intellectual people - powerful ones. In one session, a British behavioral change expert who works with UK and Singapore governments presented a lot of social psychology and behavioral economics theories and didn't mention participant bias in his presentation at all. We all know in psychology, the majority of studies published in journals have WEIRD (Western, Educated, and from Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic countries). This makes these theories and studies hard to be generalized or used in Asian countries and even the rest of the world. Then I was surprised that a Western woman then brought the issue up, and after that, this man admitted that flaw. This is crucial as I don't think the public is aware that these studies will fit in the Asian context simply not because they are stupid, but it is more because they don't have a scientific background. In the last day workshop, my trainer - a white man who works for a social cause in Bangkok also mentioned this flaw after he explained the theories around SBCC. I got the chance to talk to a BCC specialist from the Philippines who worked for more than 28 years to promote healthy behavior and also said that we in Asia face so many different challenges and contexts which can't be answered with Western theories. At the end of the day, doing and failing in a program is the sole answer for us to grow and understand better. And a note - even though Western societies are already moving forward with issues like racism, stereotype, and prejudice, universities like ETH Zurich - one of the top world universities, still face the racism problem towards Asians. But it was a nice experience to know that other Westerns acknowledge their own bias.

This learning is far greater effective learning than one in my classroom back in 2012 when I first heard the concept and basic theories of stereotype and prejudice. I hope more and more teachers and lecturers encourage their students to go beyond the classroom and find their own learning outside.

Don Mueang,
December 1st, 2018