📍writing from nairobi, kenya

Samakee. Samakee, meaning peaceful collaboration, was the first Thai word that I learned 3 years ago when I first moved to Bangkok. Since then I’ve made lifelong memories. I found my community, graduated high school, mastered the art of win motosais and ya doms, and ordered tangmoban everywhere I go.

Thailand was the first time I lived outside of my cultural identity. Before going I knew very little about it, or at least that’s what I thought…

Growing up I had a tradition of making a presentation about everything but especially for places I wanted to travel. In 2017 I made 2 presentations about Thailand. My presentation on March 22rd 2017 “Bangkok Thailand” focused on the capital, leaving no stone unturned: reporting on transport (slides dedicated to the BTS and MRT), weather, fun facts, AND a bibliography (11 year old Ara doesn’t play with plagiarism)…

Fun fact: did you know Bangkok’s real name is the longest city name in the world? It also has the world’s biggest chinatown and largest gold Buddha statue – 11 year old me.

My presentation on May 29th 2017, “Thailand or Russia” had a rather misleading title considering the only Russian spotlight was about the weather comparisons…Otherwise the entire presentation was about different Thai provinces. One thing that caught my eye was my features of Koh Samui and Phuket.

I love synchronicities because I dreamed of Bangkok, Koh Samui, and Phuket in 2017, forgot about it, then ended up living in Thailand 4 years later. I even had one of my grad trips in Koh Samui and went on a family trip to Phuket. I’m so grateful to have lived my dream and enriched my soul. It funnily reminds me of how we get so fixated on something and feel like it’s life or death when we direct all of our energy into it. Then when we inevitably forget about it and open up our mind to the infinite possibilities, it sometimes does happen.

I didn’t go to every city that I made a travel presentation on (yet), but I truly believe that coming to Thailand was meant for me. I learned so much living there and I am so thankful to have experienced it. There were times where I felt the worst, but there were also times where I felt infinite and on top of the world.

Even though I lived there for 3 years (2 if you don’t count the year I was away at college), I found myself regretting not doing enough. Not learning enough Thai, not exploring enough of the country, not trying enough of the cuisine. This reminds me of the short-sighted nature of mankind where no matter how much we have obtained or achieved, it never seems to fulfil us.

Lately I’ve been continuously learning the lesson of giving myself the grace to live slowly. There’s so much in our lives that rush us and make us feel like we’re not enough. Goals to achieve. People to see. Essays to write (this one is painfully real because I’m procrastinating my finals writing this as we speak). To be the best in some niche field because being ordinary isn’t enough.

In truth there will always be goals and desires that we will reach and some that we don’t.

You might be asking why I only had 65 hours in Bangkok.

My family moved to Kenya and for logistical reasons I had to go back to Thailand first. The already short trip got even shorter because my flight home got cancelled.

To be honest, in the moments of uncertainty not knowing whether or not I can go back to Thailand, I was scared. I tried to practice mindfulness and being open minded. Open to the possibility that I couldn’t say a proper goodbye. I told myself whatever the outcome, it would be the one meant for me. I’d love to say it cured my panic but I was still dazed. My mind wandered to existential questioning my existence mode:

What is home? How immersed do I have to be in a culture to belong? Is it quantified by the number of years lived? Fluency of tongue? Solely based on ethnicity? If by blood, what does this make third culture kids? What of those who belong by blood but have never step foot in their motherland? Are they abandoning their roots by identifying with the foreign country they lived in their whole life? (…) I’m going to stop here with the questions because it might honestly catapult me into an identity crisis again.

I don’t have the answers, but then again are there even axiomatic truths in life? I like to give meaning to things that otherwise could go meaningless. I feel like I’ve been having a ‘go go go’ mentality where I try to juggle a billion things while also trying to deepen my relationship with myself.

I was saying yes to so many responsibilities that I was neglecting myself. I think that God was telling me to slow down. To breathe and take some of my own advice to go back to the basics. Within the past 2 weeks I’ve quit my second job, flight = cancelled, lost a family member, and went to the hospital for an acute fever. If that isn’t a sign to slow down I don’t know what is.

I’ve also been catching myself spiralling in negative thoughts. One of my goals for 2025 is to reframe my negativity with positivity. To soften my inner critic and shower it with compassion instead. Thinking negatively has been a coping mechanism for my past self. By lowering my expectations and worrying about the future I felt like I could be better equipped to tackle the future.

Loss has taught me that everything is temporary. As cliche as it sounds you really have to appreciate everything for what it is in the moment. I could choose to think about death and existentially contemplate everything about my life or I could think about new life and how I planted 2 trees a week ago. I could think about the wonderful communities I have. I could think about how I saw giraffes for the first time yesterday. I could think about all of the love and abundance that is present in my life everywhere I go.

I found out I was moving to Thailand in one of the darkest periods of my life. Reading my journal entries when I was living in Korea makes me tear up to this day. One of the things I was struggling with was being comfortable in my skin. This was particularly challenging in Korea because it’s quite homogenous and it has conservative societal norms (it’s getting better but still). I’m extremely proud to be Korean American but it was pretty hard on my psyche being called racial slurs and made to feel like I didn’t belong in my own culture. Culture shock hit me hard especially with beauty standards where in the states everyone wanted to be tan and in Korea everyone wanted to be white.

Paradoxically I also felt so loved. I reconnected with a childhood friend and she’s one of my best friends now. If I had never moved to Korea I wouldn’t have deepened that connection. I got to see my grandparents who raised me. I also felt like I connected with my cultural heritage in ways I hadn’t before. Moving to Korea was the first time I moved anywhere and thanks to this experience I learned so much. I feel like it was a necessary building block for me to enjoy Thailand more.

Looking back I get reminded that no matter how much you want to escape how you feel, you simply can’t without running towards that very feeling.

When I was living in the city the only thing I wanted to do was leave. Now I never wanted to go back more. Then I got to Korea and I hated it and grew fond of it at the same time. I desperately wanted to leave. Finding out about Thailand felt like a breath of fresh air. When I was in Bangkok I was dying to get to London. When I was in London last year I wanted to transfer and never look back. Now I love living in London and couldn’t imagine my university years anywhere else.

Life’s all about perspective I guess. It teaches me to be grateful for what I have. Be where my feet are. There’s still so much I don’t know but I’m starting to like not knowing. I’m only 19 and have so much life to live. Thanks to all of my experiences I am me! I can choose to be bitter, or I can choose to be happy. There’s always gonna be a ‘problem’ in every moment of life but whether or not you let that problem be your life is up to you.

Here’s all of the things I did with my ‘last’ 65 hours in Bangkok:

• arrived and immediately ate Korean food with my brother
• rode a gazillion win motosais
• got lash extensions and won a lucky scratch of 300 baht off (shoutout to Bonnie lash BKK I love you forever)
• Pondered why there’s so much English everywhere
• Got boost (my order is an original strawberry squeeze)
• Ate Jumbo seafood
• went to an izakaya with Fame and yapped
• Had dinners with friends (is it possible to not eat at a mall here…)
• Had a cheeky night walk
• Woke up on my last full day disgustingly ill and couldn’t move lol

While there were many more things I wanted to do, I don’t want to take away from the fact that I accomplished a lot. There will always be time for me.

Thanks for reading! You’re always welcome here x

Thank you Thailand, until we meet again 🙂

Love,

Ara