Snap Shots: by Harry Flashman

Camera Care

Just where do you go to get a camera repaired in this country? Let me tell you right off, that if it is an electronic and or digital that is out of warranty, it is probably better to buy a new one! Sad, but true, I am afraid. We are in the age of disposable technology.
Another sad but true is the fact that eventually all mechanical things must fail, yet we expect our expensive cameras to last forever. This represents a double standard worse than double pricing, because we are fooling ourselves in this matter.
OK, how do you look after your expensive investment? The first thing to remember is that cameras are very delicate pieces of equipment. They have lots of moving parts (shutters, apertures, film transport/wind on, LEDs, and a whole farmyard full of pixels, etc.) plus expensive optical glass in the lenses, mirror system and viewfinder, let alone all the fancy electronics, batteries and such. The humble camera is not so humble these days.
Let’s start with the outside and clean it. Do not get the kitchen universal “Spray ‘n Wipe” all purpose cleaner and spray liberally. The family that sprays together doesn’t always stay together. With a clean soft brush (like a child’s water colour paint brush, or a lady’s make-up brush) gently wipe the nooks and crannies on the surface. Round the eye piece and all the little edges, and under the knobs. Now dampen a cloth with plain water and gently rub it all over the exterior of the camera body. By now, the camera should be looking like new again – but we’ve hardly started!
The next item to deal with is the lens. Unscrew the lens and put the camera body aside somewhere safe. With your soft brush gently dislodge any dirt and dust from the lens barrel. What is really good here is one of the soft blower brushes available in most camera shops for around 180 - 300 baht, depending on fancy packaging and a little bottle of cleaner. Go for the brush only type - do not use commercial camera cleaning fluid anywhere near your camera! Blow brush the lens elements as well (front and rear).
Now with a very clean damp cloth gently clean both the front and rear surfaces of the lens. Use a spiral motion to clean from the center to the edges. Use a fresh piece of the cloth and give it one last swipe. Put the cleaned lens aside safely.
Now let’s turn our attention to the camera body. This is where you have to put in the majority of your time, and the ultimate care and attention. There are certain things you must never do. Let’s look and note these first. You must NEVER touch the mirror or the focussing screen with your fingers. Even to change the focussing screen, you will be supplied with special tweezers by the manufacturer.
The other part of the camera that should never be touched with your fingers is the shutter. This is a very delicate part of the workings and can be bent or twisted very easily. The other DO NOT is oiling or spraying with CRC or other similar lubricating fluids. Leave lubrication to the manufacturers agents or camera repair shop only.
Now open up the back of the camera and clean the internals with the blower brush again, taking particular care with the channels where the back fits in as it closes. You are quite likely to find small particles of dust and dirt in the cassette holder area, as this is the part you open up every time you change film. The pressure plate inside the back has to be completely clean too, because the film emulsion runs across it. Any dirt or grit there will leave a scratch on the negatives.
The last area to check is the battery compartment. Again, a quick brush and blow should be enough. Do not use the damp cloth in here. Finally, if you don’t know how old the battery is – then change it for a new one.
Thanks to my photographic friend Ernie, I can also give you the name of what I believe to be an honest repair shop in Bangkok. It is TK Camera Repair, 164/1 Sukhumvit Road 8, and is directly at the Nana BTS station on the left side of Sukhumvit inbound. The manager’s name is Oddy.

Modern Medicine: by Dr. Iain Corness, Consultant

DNR – is it the end?

A few years ago, a consultant in a hospital in the UK was reported to have hung a sign over a patient’s bed that had only three letters – DNR. Turned out that they stood for “Do Not Resuscitate”! Needless to say there was a great furor over this, with much heated argument on all sides.
There were those who looked at the resuscitation matter as a bean-counter would. If the patient was not a member of the working community generating Gross Domestic Product (GDP) then this patient was a drain upon community resources. What was to be gained by resuscitating such people? This approach always amazed me, to be quite frank. Do bean-counters not have mothers and fathers?
Then there were those who would claim that all human life is sacred and everything possible must be done to keep the patient alive, no matter how courageous those procedures would be. And no matter what the patient would go through as a result of all this. Quality of Life was not under consideration for this group.
Eventually some reason returned to the emotive debate and it was decided that the only ethically correct way was for the treating physician to discuss all the options with the patient, and let the patient decide whether or not he or she actually wanted to be resuscitated.
However, there would still be the vexed question as to what happens when the patient is incapable of making such informed decisions through conditions such as Dementia, for example.
Further ethical argument and discussion ensued, and it is the consensus these days that ‘resuscitation’ only refers to Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR). In other words, the resuscitation that would be done following a cardio-pulmonary arrest. The question of DNR did not refer to other treatments such as antibiotics, transfusions, dialysis, ventilator support or even care in an ICU.
This to me looks like a reasoned approach and the American Medical Association Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs issued an eight point guideline to be used. The first is the most important, and the rest hinge upon that. Point 1 stated that “Efforts should be made to resuscitate patients who suffer cardiac or respiratory arrest, except when CPR would be futile, or not in accordance with the desires or best interests of the patient.”
The efforts would be considered futile if they could not be expected to restore cardiac or respiratory function. This is the situation where you already have a seriously ill and dying patient, and even if you could get the heart started again, the damage to the heart would be such that the patient would become a coronary ‘cripple’, on top of all his or her other problems. And that gets us back to the Quality of Life.
In my mind, unless we (as treating physicians) can offer the patient a better quality of life, are we treating the patient ethically by embarking on a course of treatment or therapy that leaves the patient with a poorer quality of life?
I had a friend who developed stomach cancer. By the time he consulted a doctor after months of symptoms, it was really too late. He had been continuing to work in his small business, but he could continue to function. Unfortunately, he consulted a surgeon who could only see the fact that the man had stomach cancer and he operated. The operation was hazardous, the cancer could not be totally excised, he never recovered and spent his last three months in hospital with tubes out of every orifice, begging to die.
As medical practitioners we must never forget the Quality of Life, and as patients you owe it to yourselves to always inquire as to what the Quality of Life will be after any proposed course of action. It may be the most important decision you will ever make.

Dear Hillary,
A couple passed through our lives, and my wife noted with alarm the total lack of even basic understanding between them. Recently joined, they had come together through the usual (for here) contractual arrangement - which they both understood and agreed to. But that was the end of it. She had no understanding of who he was, what he did for a living, etc., etc. She spoke no English at all, he no Thai. My wife was perplexed. How could they possibly stay together?
First I recalled that one of the most thrilling moments of my life was the first time I made love to a girl I couldn’t talk to. As a budding intellectual, I had found it impossible to enter any relationship without a great deal of soul searching discussion - which consistently squelched the fires below and stopped any further progress.
And then by extension I hypothesized that perhaps, if you could somehow magically endow all the ladies in Pattaya with a perfect command of the English language, perhaps many of the Thai/farang encounters here would never develop into relationships, and Pattaya’s (Thailand’s?) economy would be significantly different.
Your comments?
JC
Dear JC,
Aren’t you the contentious one! Firstly let me deal with your “most thrilling moments of my life was the first time I made love to a girl I couldn’t talk to.” This made me wonder just what it was that you were expecting from the deep and meaningless encounter? Germaine Greer referred to events such as this as the “zipless four letter word meaning intercourse and starting with F”. So what did you get? Personal gratification that was slightly warmer than handing yourself the solution, if you get my drift.
Your problems, where you felt you should have, and needed, a deep and meaningful relationship which “consistently squelched the fires below and stopped any further progress” to me smacks of repressed Calvinism, with all the self-recriminations that went with attempting normal relationships with the opposite sex. The parental tapes that said that sex was somehow bad were coming forward, and to overcome this, you had to put “meaning” into it. Forget simple lust. That was too much!
Now as to the hypothetical situation of all the ladies in Pattaya having perfect English understanding and expression, and whether this would stifle relationships - no, Petal, I think it would lead to even more spurious relationships. The belles of the bounteous beer bars would be even more skilful at extracting money for houses, gold chains and motorcycles if they knew the right words to use, as well as the right buttons to push! But I do agree that yes, the economy would be significantly different. It would move even further upwards!
Dear Hillary,
I have been trying to take your advice and look for female company away from the bar scene, as I know how shallow and grasping those women can be. So far all this has done is give me extreme frustration as I don’t know how to approach your good girls. For example, there is one girl in a display area in the Royal Garden who always smiles at me when I walk past, but by the time I have got up enough courage to talk to her (and I’ve heard her speak English, so that shouldn’t be a worry) there’s customers there and I’m too embarrassed to just hang around. Then when I decide to march right up to her the next day I find that her display has moved, and I have to wait for a few days until she is back. Don’t tell me to pretend to be a customer, because she sells shawls and stuff like that that I’d never need. I get so depressed that I go back to the beer bar, but the senseless chatter from the birds there is also depressing. What do I do now, wise one. (Bubbly and chocs if it works!)
Jeff
Dear Jeff,
What is wrong with the young men of today? If you are embarrassed about pretending to be a customer, don’t be! All you have to do is really become a customer! Just because she sells shawls doesn’t mean that you can’t be buying one for your aunt, or mother, my shrinking Petal. So next time you see her in the shopping center, go right up like any other customer would, and ask the price of her shawls. You don’t have to buy that day, now do you. You can ask if she is in the center all that week. You can ask does she get any time for a break, maybe she might like a cup of coffee? She will soon tell you if she is willing to entertain the idea of being entertained. Do that a few times and you will see if the attraction you have for her is more than just physical, and whether she is interested too. Relax! Even if she isn’t interested, it is not the end of the world, and you just got some practice at talking to a woman not from the bars. After all that good advice, please leave the champers and chocolates with my secretary on the way out! Best of luck!

Language Matters : by Peter McKenzie-Brown

The price of a poor career choice

The problem with choosing a career is the same problem one has when first choosing who to have relationships with. Both choices come at an age where one lacks knowledge and experience and are prone to making big errors of judgment. If one wishes to enroll at a college/university for the year after high school graduation, then the decision of which college /university must be made before Christmas of your Senior year. Working backwards much thought and careful planning must have taken place in grade 11 to enable educated choices to be made. This means important life changing decisions are made at 16 years of age.

Jon Hartmann is Career Counsellor at Prem Tinsulanonda International School Chiang Mai. He was a regular contributor to the Chiangmai Mail.
The other more important decision of what subject or career to major in needs the most careful consideration particularly if one goes to the UK or Australia. At least with the USA system, one has a year of generic subjects before having to choose a major. However, top students doing the IB Diploma, AP subjects or Higher A levels can gain advanced standing and miss a large part of the first year in the USA. Decisions are so important yet the reality is many students just don’t know what to do.
Parents can play a critical role here. Typically parents will want their son/daughter to study a prestigious course from their life-experience like Medicine, Law or Engineering. They will not know about the bright new careers spawned by new technology. An animation artist, a web designer or a human resources specialist would mean very little to many parents unless they are in a new field. Yet the way work is changing suggests that many of the jobs the children of today will do will be like these new careers. Nearly all the growth in the job market is in the service industries which require people who can communicate, are flexible and can work in a team.
What if you choose the wrong career and end up in an area you don’t like, doing something you do not enjoy? Statistics show that this wrong choice will be a very expensive mistake for you and your family. The personal cost to your self-esteem and happiness will be considerable. Spending every day employed doing something you do not like will change your personality. Alternatively, look at the vibrancy and energy of those doing what they love! Going to work every day is a pleasure for them. So the HUMAN Cost is considerable.
The financial cost is equally damaging. The stories I have heard of doctors giving up in their 30’s, enrolling in art school and finally feeling liberated are inspirational but think of the financial cost. They have paid up to $250,000 for their medical degree. Their presence at medical school kept someone else out who may have made an excellent doctor while meanwhile they trained in a profession they were not suited for. The cost to the country is enormous and must be billions of baht in wasted courses every year. Tom Payne who is pioneering the Career Liftoff Interest Inventory in Thailand mentions that so many Thai graduates only discover what they want to do when they are 30. Before this they took the advice of parents and teachers who acted with “kind hearted bias” that never explored the interest or values of the student but concentrated purely on their academic ability.
Being a Career Counsellor at an international school I daily see students who are confused, stressed and uncertain where to go and what to do. I attempt in my job to help these students with aptitude tests, personality profiling, goal setting, college/university information and finally decision making. It is not always easy but for many students it is their first step into the adult world of choice and self determination. In Australia they appointed career counselors to all schools when youth unemployment reached high levels and generally this initiative has paid off handsomely. All students and many adults need career counseling too and thankfully there are private organizations as well as much “do it yourself” programmes on the internet. The one I recommend for grades 10 to 12 is www.myroad.com which specializes in the USA system but helps students focus career choices anywhere.
Alongside getting married then, choosing your career is one of the most important things you will ever do. You will need all the help you can get to make a wise choice but like a marriage, it may not be perfect but if you make the right choice for you, happiness and self fulfillment will come your way. The country will save money and what you give back to society will be much greater.

Learn to Live to Learn  by Andrew Watson

Webster – look it up!

Standing high above the world on a sky train platform in Bangkok, looking down the line towards a distant, sparkling, silver dream machine, affords the discerning traveller the luxury of a few moments of contemplative calm. Precious moments indeed, as the hustle and hurry of shoppers, like ants to sugar, continues unabated in the city’s labyrinth below.

Webster’s delightful campus in Hua Hin/Cha-am

There’s a theme running through my head these days; rhetoric versus veracity, hyperbole or authenticity? Platitude or attitude? A search for truth, perhaps? Plus ca change! I peer at a poster promoting some kind of ‘international education’ and I wonder, with a healthy scepticism that only relevant experience of top and bottom can bring, whether the institution has any idea of what ‘international education’ does or can mean? I am eased out of my reverie by the approaching carriage, which whisks me off effortlessly to Chitlom and a meeting with the elegant and sartorially splendid Sanjib Subba, executive director of Webster University in Bangkok. You might very well have heard of Webster; they are kind of omnipresent in a subliminal way. You know you’ve heard of them, but you’re not quite sure why.
First impressions are important. A smile can make a difference. When you’ve been around as many schools and universities as I have, you can sense immediately whether or not it’s a place where people are happy to be at work. Webster has a plush, almost gentle feel about it, a soft focus if you will, but with a hard academic edge. I was met by a gentleman named Coke Mead, whose name alone deserves mention; two drinks for the price of one. A happy hour indeed, for he was most attentive and ushered me into the board room, no less, where presently I was attended by Sanjib, a Nepalese banker who has turned his attentions, for the time being at least, to charting Webster’s rise and extending their occupation of our consciousness.
Sanjib has been at Webster, Thailand since they first opened a campus here in 1999, in Cha’am, but their name stretches back ninety years to St Louis, Missouri. It became immediately apparent that even way back then, someone in St Louis possessed great vision of the potential needs of transient student populations. Thirty years have already elapsed since Webster actualized and embraced the concept of international education. In a short space of time, Sanjib presents me with facts and data to satiate my appetite; Webster is a private, not for profit, multi-campus and international institution offering a wide variety of undergraduate and graduate programs in Austria, Bermuda, China (PRC), England, Switzerland, Thailand, The Netherlands and the United States of America. Webster currently enrols more than 20,000 students worldwide and is listed in the top 10 private universities in size. In establishing the reality behind the rhetoric, you can’t beat data.
I was interested in understanding more about the reasons behind Webster venturing into the wider world. Webster’s concession to jargon is “Real Knowledge for Real World Success”. Great! But what does it mean? Sanjib smiled knowingly, “It’s all to do with taking education to people’s doors. We offer a technologically sound education which enables students to share skills and technology with their communities.” Hmm. Sounds great, again. But then again, I suppose that thirty years in the business does mean thirty years of experience, expertise and excellence (or they would never have survived) as pioneers in a particularly exciting field. Conscious of their pre-eminent place in what has become (whether you like it or not) a global marketplace, it is clear that Webster responds to demand. “More than four hundred students from Thailand had graduated from Webster even before we opened a campus here,” Sanjib informs me. (I hope you can follow that.)
On the road to being convinced, I was feeling mighty reassured that “working with the wider world” as Sanjib puts it, really is at the centre of Webster strategy. It’s a feeling that is reinforced by a faculty which in its recruitment and cross cultural make-up, rather nicely reflects one of my own mantras, ‘local, regional, global’. I also appreciate the application of a simple idea, (so often overlooked in the sometimes parochial confines of supposedly expansive and progressive international schooling) that if you want to teach students about the ‘real world’, you should go and fetch someone from the ‘real world’ to teach them! Oh, how joyously simple education can sometimes seem! The ‘application of common sense,’ no less.
But there’s an important ideological bent here as well; never has the need to incorporate and develop critical appreciation of global dynamics into international education been so real. I pity those myopic ignoramuses who question the educational value of bringing in experts from fields of journalism, television, or any other walk of life for that matter, to either deliver or at least help inform delivery, of curricula. Ted Wragg had a name for these people from ‘outside’ who can so obviously enrich education; ‘annotators,’ he called them. So many teachers after all, have been institutionalized since birth. Schools are all they have ever known, which represents a stifling and uncomfortable paradox; ‘What should they know of schools who only schools know?’ to paraphrase Kipling.
But there’s none of that at Webster. The artificial encumbrance of imagined barriers between education and the world outside is rendered irrelevant. They worked out long ago that they simply don’t exist. Webster embraces the ‘here and the now’ of the ‘real world’. Their worldwide faculty numbers two and a half thousand and most come from industry. For instance, a vice president of Standard Chartered delivers finance at Masters level. Naturally, she has a doctorate herself, but it was once again reassuring to hear Sanjib espousing the virtues of experience in industry alongside academic qualifications. Indeed, as you might expect, many of Webster’s Masters students are working professionals themselves. ‘Life-long learning,’ another cliché of currency, at least has real resonance here.
Catering for a highly mobile student body requires belief in ideals and the commitment to putting them into action. Then there’s the question of quality assurance. In a truly international setting, how does Webster maintain standards, I wonder? You’ll have to wait until next week to find out.
Next week: The Real Deal
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