Brief Bio:
Kwan is a mid-career scientist in Thailand. She is dedicated to her family, to her work as a university lecturer and to her practice of Buddhism. She has many hobbies including open water scuba diving.
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In Thailand, children can now use either their mother’s or father’s surname. I kept my father’s surname even after getting married. My husband understands that’s important for my publication track record as a scientist. The other reason is that there are now only four of us in my family with this surname and it could mean the end of our family tree. My husband and I had this somewhat funny, somewhat serious, conversation before we got married about our kids using my surname. But names are after all just creations. It helps to keep track of one’s lineage and to avoid inbreeding but perhaps names don’t really matter.
I was born and raised in Bangkok. My first home was in the eastern part of the city. We had a yard and fruit trees. It wasn’t a big house but there was a fair bit of surrounding space. We lived there till I was about 11 years old. Later, as the city traffic got worse and I was entering Primary High School, which is Junior High in the US system, we moved to a town house in the northern part of Bangkok. It was smaller, about half the size of the previous house and in a more urban area with no surrounding land at all, no trees. My Mom made that decision to move us closer to her work place.
I feel that it probably created some tension between my parents as my Dad’s company was closer to the old house and he had to spend more time and money to get to his office. Eventually with other problems, they did not stay together. They separated when I was 23 just as I was finishing my 6th year in college as a student in veterinary medicine.
Both my Mom and Dad influenced me but to be honest, it wasn’t a positive relationship when I was growing up. I totally agreed with my Mom when she told me that she did not want to stay with my Dad anymore. I remember telling her, “Go ahead and do whatever is comfortable for both of you.” I didn’t see them being happy together. It didn’t occur to me back then that I might perhaps have been part of the reason for their separation as I supported what my Mom said. Years later, there were so many stories about them, things I had never heard nor realized before.
During my younger days at home, I feel I had a normal life like most other children in Bangkok. On the religious side of things, I remember how we would put meals together in the morning and offer these to the monks. The Buddhist monastery and temple were within walking distance of my first house, and the monks would walk by every morning to receive their daily food. In return, they would give us their blessings. This was an even more special event on my birthday when we did this activity as a family.
I also learned about Buddhism at school. It was a required subject and covered the theory about Buddha’s teachings. I’m not sure if it was my inability to understand what we were being taught or if it was the teacher not really knowing the core of practicing the Dhamma, the Way or nature of things, if you will. As students, we just memorized the words to pass the exams. But all this came back to me when I was much older, when I was in the U.S. working on my PhD in immuno-parasitology.
As a teenager, I vividly remember when my mother and I went on a trip to the south of Thailand. It was during one of my school breaks. On the way back, we stopped at a remote temple in the forest. It was in the afternoon and there were lots of chickens around. The temple had been founded by a monk who is still recognized as one of the most venerable monks in Thailand.
I remember being a little scared as the temple was in the forest and I imagined big spiders and snakes. The temple wasn’t modernized like the ones in Bangkok. In designing the temple, this head monk didn’t want to build an ornate pagoda; he just had the stone from the area arranged in a circle and called it the chapel. I remember my Mom explaining to me that he did not wish to invest time or money on things that were not truly permanent; instead, he wanted to spend more time teaching people and the junior monks about Dhamma, the Way.
Sure enough, when I went to use the toilet there, I did see a spider which was as big as my hand!
I don’t think we were there for more than an hour or so but my memory of him remains vivid. He was sitting on a stone, and there were lots of chickens around. He was wearing the monk’s simple saffron-colored robe with one shoulder uncovered. My mother went forward to bow to him and I followed her; we knelt on our knees and touched our foreheads between both hands, palms facing down to the floor, in front of him. I copied all the things she did. We called him “Buddha-dasa” which means “the disciple and slave of the Buddha.” He dedicated his time to teaching, writing books and giving talks at religious gatherings. The photos in his books usually show him with chickens around; he was known for his sense of mercy especially to small creatures and they came and stayed around him. He probably also fed them. He died over twenty years ago. Now when I think back, I was so fortunate to have met him as he was such a revered monk.
But my Mom didn’t go to temple a lot when I was young. When I was 1, she began her PhD as a sandwich program with a university in Japan and also continued working. She would travel back and forth between Thailand and Japan, sometimes being gone for about 6 months at a time. It felt like forever! She finished her degree when I was 5 or 6. During those years, I was looked after by many people including my Dad, nannies, my mother’s sisters and my grandmother who came from the southern part of Thailand; they stayed with me and left when my mother returned. I missed my mother and I still have bad memories from those years.
I think I started to be a good student when I was 12, just as we were moving to the second house that my mother had chosen close to her workplace. In elementary school, I never thought I was one of the good students but in the last year, my grades got better and one teacher said, “If you attend to your studies a little bit more, you could beat most of the class.” It made me feel like “Wow, am I really a good student?” At the new house and school, I gained more self-esteem and remained in the top 5 to 10 of my class.
I was also raised “next to the bench” so to speak, meaning the laboratory bench at the National Research Institute where my Mom worked. Her PhD was in agricultural biotechnology and she specialized in the biocontrol of mosquitoes. Her research often involved long time-course experiments and she had to collect samples every couple of hours. My brother and I would sleep overnight in her office so she could watch over us while working in the lab. I also got to know her colleagues and the University research students who were under her supervision. When I was in High School, almost every single evening for 5 years, I had to meet her at her office and we would go home together. I developed a good feel for that environment of science and research.
My parents met as classmates when studying pharmaceutical sciences. My father worked for an industrial pharmaceutical company on the precursors for antimicrobial drugs for diseases like TB, if I remember correctly. He later became Managing Director and head of Human Resources. He had to drive quite far each day. When I was in school, he was responsible for waking me up every morning and dropping me at school before going on to his workplace.
I remember my parents being very hard working. Both were born under the Chinese astrological sign for the “snake.” In Thailand, we believe that people born in the Snake year have this tendency to work very hard; they cannot sit still, they always need to do something, never rest and never relax; they are workaholics.
My parents married when they were 27 and my brother was born when they were 30. In the six years between my brother and me, I heard that they didn’t have a very good relationship as such but then, there you go, I came along.
I was often told that my Dad was a handsome guy when he was young and a bit of a celebrity. In addition to his corporate job, he was also in films. I used to go to the theater sets when he was making a movie or a soap opera. This probably gave him an opportunity to socialize and meet people. I didn’t have any interest in acting, not at all.
I enjoyed science because I probably was proud of my mother with her doctoral degree, and seeing people wearing coats in a lab with pipets, petri dishes and machines. I felt a natural inclination to be a scientist. When people asked me back then, “What career would you like when you grow up?”, I would say “a scientist, with my Mom as my role model.”
In high school, I became more independent and had more school activities. My mother gets credit for this. From age 6 onwards, she encouraged me to study classical Thai dance and to also sign up for the junior music course. During the weekends, I never had much free time; my friends got to watch cartoons and movies on TV but for me, I had to get dressed and be ready to go to class on both Saturday and Sunday. I continued with classical Thai dance till I was in High School and did performances at school and at community events. I also was a table tennis school athlete. Mom was the coach. She was my life coach and my extracurricular activities coach.
High School in Thailand is usually for 6 years but you can take the National Educational Test for early entrance into University. You are tested on various skills such as typewriting, which was before we had computers. In addition to my good grades, passing this test allowed me to skip the last year of High School. One point here about doing well at school and doing lots of other activities, I think I got a little egotistical. I never failed in things I wanted to accomplish.
With university, I wasn’t sure yet what I really wanted to do and so my Mom asked a friend to let me complete some questionnaires and do a personality profile for the types of academic programs that best suited me. It turned out I was more inclined to be a humanitarian, working with people. I liked animals, liked biology and the possible programs on the list included medicine, veterinary medicine, social welfare; those are the 3 professions that I remember from that profile test.
I remember pets from my childhood like the white lab mice that my mother brought home, so I said, “Why not become a veterinarian?” I wasn’t sure about becoming a human medical doctor because I had heard about people suing doctors and I thought that even if you did your best as a doctor, you might get sued! At the time, I didn’t realize that being a veterinarian also involved dealing with people but anyway, at the time, no one was suing vets.
My Mom was very open-minded and never forced me to choose or change my decision even though human medicine would have been considered as a more prestigious profession.
It was as it was meant to be. I got into one of the best universities in Thailand. I had good grades and back then it meant you became a teacher. I believe the thoughts and opinions of people change as they grow older but even now, I enjoy working with people. To teach, nurture and work with students is the most attractive part of my job. I don’t know if I would have chosen to be a veterinarian if I had to do it all again.
When I graduated, I was hired as an instructor at the University and then, I was awarded a very prestigious scholarship to go for my PhD studies in the U.S.
During my first year in New York, I had to learn so much and cope with the cold weather, the language and culture. I was spoilt at home with housekeepers who did the dishes, the laundry and grocery shopping. I rarely did any of these things on my own in Bangkok. I remember for instance in my first week going to Wegman’s, the large supermarket in town, and aimlessly walking up and down the aisles with the shopping cart because I didn’t know what to pick and what to buy. My first meal was to just boil some water and have instant noodles from a packet. I ate those noodles with watery eyes, feeling forlorn and culture shock knowing I had a lot to adapt to.
In terms of academics, I was not that good anymore. The students at my University were the cream of the crop from all over the world. My classmates were so disciplined and smart. I had to work hard to keep up. The first 2 years was a hard start with a lot of coursework with topics and subjects that weren’t covered in much detail when I was in University in Thailand. The language of science is different from normal English communication and that was another hurdle that I had to overcome. The examination system was also not multiple choice and required conceptual analysis and a written response in both English and rigorous science; this was challenging and put me in the middle of the class versus being in the top 5 of the class every year of my vet school program. I consulted my lecturers because I was disappointed with my grades; they told me that I was not directly answering the questions in the exams.
With choosing my research advisor in my first year, I got to rotate in different labs. I chose to work on a parasite that is prevalent all over the world. It can be a dangerous disease for a woman of reproductive age but my personal concerns were quickly dispelled when I learned more about the science. The organism had been well-studied and with its relatively fast replication cycle, I felt comfortable that I would have time to repeat experiments quickly and complete my PhD within my 5-year scholarship. I studied the signaling pathway for cytokine production in response to infection in the mouse model. I learned a lot of cutting-edge experimental methods that I hadn’t previously done in Thailand and that was exciting, to follow the method and to get reproducible results. At lab meetings, I remember working late into the night to make sure I was more than prepared and that I had good notes and the confidence to present my progress to others in the lab. During this time, the son of my mother’s good friend helped me a lot. He was enrolled at the same University and being Thai himself, he understood what I was going through and became a good friend.
I also tried to make other friends. My eye caught sight of a lady, one year ahead of me in the program, who looked Asian. But it turned out that she was South American. She looked so much like a person from Thailand and I was looking for people to be friends with. When we talked, it became clear that she wanted to mingle with other Americans and wasn’t open to interacting with a new student and at that, a student from a different culture. In Thailand, it kind of reminded me of the Hill tribe people who come to the big city of Bangkok, and that’s how I felt about coming to the US, a foreigner that we really don’t want to get to know!
The first year was hard with communication and making friends. My English test scores were not bad but I couldn’t speak well enough to say what I really meant and I was overwhelmed. I didn’t buy a TV and that was probably a mistake. I now tell students going to the US or other country to get a TV and to watch different local programs, both to relax and also to learn some of the culture and communication norms.
Buddhism came back into my life when I was in the middle of my PhD program. A new postdoc had just joined the lab; she was a nice person, but I somehow felt uncomfortable when my PhD advisor asked me to share part of my project with her. I’m not sure if I wanted to control everything and became very stressed. Looking back, it was a minor issue, but I remember feeling such intense pain.
I don’t remember exactly why I had to share my project with her. But I do remember the person, how I felt this relentless anxiety. She was very friendly, always smiling and had a good relationship with our major advisor. I felt that she could say whatever she wanted with her good communication skills. I was not happy to work with her and what emerged in me were questions like “Why am I unhappy, why is there a fire in my heart, why is this so persistent?” I couldn’t calm myself. It wasn’t a competitive environment and yet, I felt so stressed.
I started to think deeply about suffering, why was this feeling so deep and painful and how could I find a way out of this tension.
I thought back to what I had learned at school about Buddha’s teachings and the 4 Noble Truths: suffering, the cause of suffering, its cessation and the path towards ending a sense of suffering. But these were just words. “How did they relate to each other to get me out of these awful feelings?” I could not find my way out.
I emailed an old friend in Bangkok who I knew practiced Buddhism and asked him what I should do. He introduced me to a website on Buddhism but again, there were just more words. I decided to just set my feelings aside and to focus on my PhD research and student life. The anxieties subsided but weren’t totally gone. My relationship with the Postdoc got better as time went on. I got involved in other activities, performing Thai classical dance at events and playing table tennis for the College. That was the beginning of the feeling of true independence for me.
When I graduated, I returned to Bangkok and continued my university position an instructor.
I had been away for five years after more than 20 years of living in Thailand and being part of the Thai way of life. Living in the U.S. had changed my mindset. I saw things differently at home and noticed many little and big things like people not being respectful of traffic laws or other people’s rights. For instance, people would ride their motorbikes on walkways to avoid the dense traffic conditions in Bangkok and it made things very dangerous for pedestrians. I didn’t realize that I was voicing my criticisms and that people were getting annoyed. One day, a colleague pulled me aside and gave me a talking to. I think I am still facing the consequences of my outspokenness to the present time.
Adjusting back into academic life and the politics and responsibilities of being a junior faculty member brought me back to the crux of spiritual suffering. I was going through many different stressful situations. Returning to Thailand, I hadn’t planned ahead and prepared for what I would focus on as my research program back at home. I didn’t have a smooth transition and had to decide what I would research, which animal species, whether livestock or companion animals, and which disease I would study. Since we had a teaching hospital and I also had friends with their own clinical practice, I decided to continue working on infectious diseases which were prevalent in cats in Bangkok. I got free test kits through my US university mentor’s connection and worked on a collection of about 700 plasma samples. We got interesting results, the work was published and has been cited by other scientists. I’m proud of that. And since then I’ve continued in diagnostic and epidemiological research and training students.
At the same time of adjusting to work, I was enjoying my family life. I felt fortunate to have a good husband, a job, my PhD, and financial stability. I kept up my exercise routine just as I was doing during my PhD studies, and one day, as I came out from my fitness workout, my brother’s friend was there and I suddenly surprised even myself and asked him, “Do you know why we are born, what is the purpose of our existence?” It just came out of me. I was in a good mood after the exercise and I don’t know why it came up when it did.
That question was a turning point.
We were leaving the gym and walking through a nice department store after our work out and this question just came into my head. He was also an academic and worked in Prachya, the Thai word for philosophy. He looked at me intensely and said he did not really know either. I kept this question spinning in my mind and since then, I have been using the Buddhist practice to look for the answer.
What is the purpose of being born in this life?
At various points in my life, I had experienced a deep sense of suffering and now, here I was older and back in Thailand. I could seek the tools for the knowledge I needed to help myself. I started looking for books about meditation. I had heard about Vipassana and that it’s the best way to meditate to purify your soul, your heart and your mind, but I didn’t know exactly what it was. I was looking everywhere for answers. I found a booklet in the University bookstore; it was a shortcut to doing Vipassana, a How-To, written by the same venerable Monk whom I had met as a child at the forest temple with my Mom. I got the book and read it and when I read it, my background and ability was again not up to the point where I could understand what he had written. His language was formal, and I could not grasp the content and put it into practice. I didn’t finish that book and put it aside.
Soon after, I found another booklet by chance at the entrance to my commuting BTS Skytrain station. It was written by a Japanese monk. I didn’t know much about him, but he wrote with simplicity with just a few words on each page. I could pick little bits, one by one.
I began to understand more about Buddhism and the words used in Dhamma teaching. I went back to the University bookstore to look for more books. I started to learn about the Buddhist concepts of inner elements that combine to create the individual self. I began to understand that when I couldn’t control situations or people, or people misunderstood my intentions or had an attitude toward me for whatever reason, those things caused my suffering. As I did my daily activities around family and work, I started making time for listening to CDs, reading the texts and practicing the principles. Things began to change in how I reacted to situations and how I conducted myself. I now realize that if I hadn’t been pushed by all these challenges, I wouldn’t have worked to find my way forward. I started to practice the teachings of Buddha and the more I practiced, the more I felt the change in myself.
If there comes a day that I become more successful with my spiritual practice, there are people I would want to thank because I wouldn’t have found my path without the difficulties I encountered through them. I’m not at that point yet though.
Mae Chee Sansanee Sthirasuta, a Buddhist nun who founded a Buddhist Meditation Center and learning communityin Bangkok, came into my life during the time when I was just married but before I had my two children. I started to read her book about how she became a Nun. Her other books were about becoming a good and moral person, being a good mother, how to meditate and so forth. She was invited to give occasional talks at our university; I was able to attend these sessions because they were during our lunch break. This was about once a month. One of the things in her teachings made a big impression on me: “Just be happy and let your kids see your happiness, be a kind person so your children have an idol.”
When we were expecting our first child, my husband and I decided to go together for a course offered by the nun Sansanee at the Nunnery. These sessions were held on a Sunday and she would review the precepts of Buddhist teachings, the basic code of ethics to abstain from harming living beings, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and intoxication. She’d invite other speakers from the hospital who were specialists on pediatrics and pregnancy. We’d also talk about being mindful at all times, about mental anxieties and negativities that we should recognize as just coming and going if we remained mindful.
That’s where I’m at now, immersing myself in Buddhism and thinking about my roles as a mother, a daughter, a wife, a scientist and teacher and as a citizen of this country and the globe.
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