Where will we go from here?
How would I know.
Where are we heading?
I would love to know, too.
Is there an end game for all of this?
I have no idea.
There are hundreds of unanswered questions during the four years of Bachelor degree, and that multiplied like blood cells after graduation. It's startling, and also daunting, to be leaving school; the only place where our identity can manifest fully. In the real world ahead, we have to conform ourselves to the society above us. I've had a fair share of that myself due to some experience working part-time/freelance.
I used to hate the society I am living in. I hated the way people interact with each other, and how they depend their whole lives on the collective identity based on the imagined community. I hated that people refer to themselves as a collective individuals rather than their individual self.
Collective, collective, collective. We, Us, Ours. Them, Theirs, You People. Kill, War, Genocide.
Then, what am I without the society? What is the society with out people? It's undeniable that I, too, am a part of the society I loath. There is no escape, and we are all trapped here together. I cannot escape my nationality. I can pretend like I am not a part of all this, but at the end of the day, this society is inescapable.
People around me called me an ungrateful little shit.
But what is there to be grateful for? My family worked my ass off to earn this place in the society, yet I have to be grateful for something that does not exist, rather than being thankful for my family and their hard work? I don't understand, and I might be better off that way.
Now that you are very sceptical about me, lets get to know each other once again.
I've realised that I haven't had a proper self introduction yet. So here it is.
My mother gave birth to her first child, me, on the 1st of September, 1993, making me the first grandchildren of my grandparents before my brother was born four years later. Disobeying the traditional Thai belief that the child has to be named by a respectful monk in order to have a prosperous life in the future, my grandfather named me himself after an angel in heaven.
I’m basically the girl version of Raphael in Thailand’s Buddhism context. Actually, I’m more like Lucifer, but that is not the point.
The name is Rata, by the way.
It’s a name of a red flower in Māori (Metrosideros fulgens), and it’s a kind of rodent in Spanish (La Rata).
My grandpa didn’t expect me to take Spanish in college, so yeah. Apparently, it has quite a good meaning in New Zealand, a place I’ve spent some time in while i was growing up. I was too young to remember the details, but I remember it being awesome.
In the year 2000, my mother moved me to a British international school (St. Stephen’s International School BKK), and I stayed there for ten full years. During my ten years in the school, I’ve never thought the British accent was sophisticating at all. On the contrary, I tried my best to imitate different American accents from films and other medias. I’ve never actually look up to the British culture I grew up with while I was in school. I used to joke around about how the teachers are not making sense when they speak with a British accent, let alone northern accents.
Oh, how the table have turned.
After leaving school to undergrads, I then realised how sophisticated everything was in school. All the tea time, the way we are taught to hold ourselves, the language we use, and so on so forth. College is a wild place, and our school was a school for richer kids. I’ve never thought of myself as a snob, but I have to admit that I was. I am truly sorry. Our school was very small, therefore I don’t usually meet new people much.
I think it was during the iGCSE period (Year 10? I think so…) that I’ve realised that I can not do math. The core Math course was too hard for me to do, and I was thankful to every gods in the world that I’ve received a C for that. My brother, on the other hand, is a mathematic genius. This is not a gender/sex thing, it’s just that I wanted to be less like my brother, and more like myself. So that’s why I seek out a different path. I am also a bit of a rebel, and I want to prove to my parents that I can get by without being good at math because, in real life outside the text book land, there are these little thing called calculators, and it’s every offing where.
So I stop. I stop doing math completely. I cannot find x. After iGCSE, I’ve decided that math and I are over. I’ve chosen Literature simply because I thought I would be better off writing an essay than solving someone else’s problem.
I’ve found my way of life.
There was a gigantic fight four years ago between me and my whole family because I was seeking an alternative path. I understand them completely, but they also have to understand the fact that it is my future, and not theirs.
Will my life be easier if I’ve taken a business course rather than a Liberal Art major? Maybe. It’ll sure be less complicated, with less philosophical questions where the answer is another question. I wouldn’t care so much about gender equality, nor the fact that people are inhumane to the point that they might as well be the new Hitler of the 2000s. I might not have a critical opinion like I am now. I might see the world differently. Liberal Arts is a degree where you need to use what you’ve learnt and reflect it upon yourself, and the people around you. It’s the tip of the ice burg I want to remain on. Seriously, I would not want people unleashing what is below my superego. It’s too dark for the society to handle.
I see people being all literate on the internet, calling other people stupid and ignorance, when they, too, is illiterate as fuck. I am sorry, but there is a balance of being selfish, and being a member of the overall society. I simply do not understand why the people around me think that the bigger picture is not important. A nation cannot exist on its own, and therefore we should consider the world as one nation, regardless of our differences. Aren't we all the population of the world? Why only care about your/our people without giving two shits about the rest of the world?
Liberal people trying to be free of all identity boarders. Illiterate people wants something to hold onto to feel like they belong in the little community they are in, and that makes it easier for the hegemonic group to interpellate them with the imagined community ideology, making them unreasonable robots (no offence to robots).
You see, most people in the country were taught, since birth, to not ask question.
At home, it’s annoying for kids to ask questions simply because the parents does not know the answer as well.
At school, if the student ask questions, the student is viewed as not paying attention, and therefore will get their points deducted. Seriously, the teacher does not make any sense, but due to the ego and the cockiness of the teacher, we are not allow to not understand them. Shitty, I know.
We can not question religion, nor any practice leading towards religion. Let us not get into that real deep, or this entry might gain a lot of hate from the supernatural believers, and they might send me rape threats. Oh, I am not overreacting. Welcome to Thailand.
You are going to regret being outwardly critical in this place, especially if you are a radical feminist. Rape threats on all your houses.
This entry is going to go on forever.
Let’s end this right here, shall we?
I want to conclude this with a more positive note. I am not a hateful bitch who criticise everything, but I’m the bitch that believe in equality in its different forms, and in factual arguments. To me, religion is irrational and can not be proven. It’s one man’s word against physical evidences from sciences. Let me quote my friend here:
“But isn't it funny? a person who believes in something no one else does is considered a maniac but if a group of people believe in the same thing, it's religion?”
It is hilarious, but it’s the joke that might get us killed.
The four years in a Liberal Arts school taught me not to associate myself with people who does not see human being as equals. hey are not stupid, oh no. They are just people with too much insecurities that everything is threatening. What a shame.
After all, as I’ve mentioned above, I am a part of the society I loath, and it’s my responsibility as well to make this a better place for myself and everyone in it. Why? you might ask. Well, I may be a selfish motherfucker, but I am a selfish motherfuck that lives in this society. Thailand is my home, no matter if the people are culturally illiterate as fuck, it is still my home.
Liberal feminism seek to educate.
Dear god of feminism, please give me the strength not to kill people.
With hope at last,
Rata Pengmesri
PS: Please don’t send me rape threats. I might be a free-wheeling bisexual, but I am also asexual … except if you are Aaron Johnson, then please.
