Freischmanns – งานแรกในอเมริกา When the past lets you in, what would you do?  I don’t know about you, but I have already gone in to the past so many times…through my memories. There are a good number of places in the past that come up to me and some of them are still fresh in my mind such as Fleischmanns. The New York Times’ Classified Advertising column led me to this small town in Upstate New York. I looked for a job while I was waiting for my thesis to be approved, and I saw Ad posted by a saw mill.

A Kick in the Teeth – บทเรียนชีวิต “You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.”-Walt Disney The quote reminded me of quite a number of things that unpleasantly had happened to me. They were awkward, embarrassed, disappointed. Though, most of them had been quite some time ago, I still remember some of them distinctly. My name was on the list of the students who eligible for further study at Chulalongkorn, the most famous university in Thailand. But it was only less than a week later

Don’t Just Learn from Classrooms – ออกไปท่องโลก The other days, I saw a familiar face on Facebook. The guy was one of the speakers at a prominent seminar about the investment in Thailand. As looking closely, he is my cousin, Guide is his name. About a decade ago, Guide won the scholarship from a big company in Thailand and he was accepted by Columbia University for his master degree in engineering.  He asked for my advise when we met in Bangkok. Over the table, we ate, talked just about everything but study. However, at the end I said to him ‘don’t

ECO101 “Go out and spend money, don’t just put them in the banks.” I was so confused to hear what the professor said in the very first session of his ECO101- Introduction to Economics class. It was totally different from what my mom had been telling me all along. But I didn’t try to get to the bottom of this dilemma since I never had enough money to worry about what I would want to do with it.  After started earning money and having some saving, the words has literally sinked in. I started to spend but still cautiously, basically for

Cancer or Arthritis ‘Everything looks good.’  Dr. O’Donnell, the pulmonologist who has been monitoring my lung since 2005, told me this morning. With the smile on his face, Dr. O showed the CT scan result on his laptop and also read the comment from the radiologist. He went on to do the routine check of my breathing and asked me whether everything else is ok. “Yes, except my knee.” Dr, O didn’t seem to pay attention to anything rather than my lungs. He also gave me the flu vaccine and told me to come back next October. It’s the normal practice

Wanted to Go Home Upon hearing my mom mentioned that she would want to go home, I quickly reminded her that we were in our home. With softened voice, my mom humbly said she meant the home in Korat.      I don’t know exactly how long mom had lived in the town but it must be more than 30 years. We, eight of us, were born in Korat, a province 150 miles northeast of Bangkok and moved to Bangkok when I was 25 years old. We had grown up with hurricane lamps, fetching water from the ponds, living in a less-than-decent houses

Those Small Little Things In the past two weeks, I have been writing memoir. A story a day keeps me out of being home alone. I have to confess that writing is not my forte but somehow I start to feel comfortable and even like it. Well, I didn’t realize this until a few days ago. Tawni, the art director of Sullivans, asked me to write ‘From Vance’ for their 2022 catalog. I said “Yes” without knowing what I would write about. And this time I have to do the writing by myself since Susan, who had wrote for me for

Lady Kobkul “Who’re your parents?” was the first sentence Mrs. Kulviwat greeted me when we first met in 1977. Through some uncomfortable of Thai-Chinese aristocracy when a boy dared to date a high society girl, I became her son-in-law a few years later. I resided in the States but by my profession, an importer, I had to go back and forth to Thailand and stayed with my in-law when I was in Bangkok. With her socializing and benefit for society dinners, we hardly had dinner together. I went to bed long before she got home but she was always up before

Everyday is Christmas in Thailand “Do you have Christmas in Thailand?” ‘If you mean family getting together then, every day is Christmas in Thailand.’ My friend at the college was curious and wanted to hear more about the norm and culture of a country in the other side of the globe. Having dinner together was considered an event of the day when I was in Bangkok. There was no need to dress properly simply because we did this every day. The table was always fulled of food and surrounded by members of our families; mom, my siblings, in-laws and their kids.