Thanks for the books, Kate!
Finished my Jane Austen novel and started Branded, a book which exposes brand name culture in teen America and shows why many corporations direct their marketing toward adolescents and what it’s doing to society. Perfect book for Thailand too! I’m afraid that all the Starbucks stores around here can only mean one thing: Gap and Old Navy are on their way! (I seriously know of three Starbucks in walking distance from my house.) Very sad. There is a very popular Thai coffee shop here called Black Canyon Coffee, which recently received a huge award (probably from the U.S.) for “successful national branding”. Oh great. Now they’re actually rewarding developing countries for branding their own kids’ brains out too.
Got up early to take a walk this morning and realized for the first time how close I am to Chulalongkorn University and its running track. I’ll have to go there in the mornings from now on.
Learning lots of Thai. Here are some words:
Noeng – not actually sure how to spell it (with the oe pronounced like the oo in “book”) means “one”.
Tong bai – also not sure how to spell it – is (pronounced TONG bye), means “straight ahead”. This is good to know for directing the taxi driver!
Miss Universe will be decided in just a couple hours! My guess is that Miss Canada, who is absolutely beautiful, is going to win!
