Last day in Bangkok

Tuesday morning saw us wake up to a Bangkok awash in demonstrations by the political party PAD, all wearing canary yellow shirts. They are protesting againt the current prime minister and are hoping to drive him from power. For more correspondence, here is Loyola's own Eric Welty with his take on today's events. See video below.

The protesters were out in full force, with thousands of them gripping the city. Most of them were centralized around the United Nations building in downtown Bangkok, which we happened to visit on this day.

The day began with a presentation at the hotel from a Mercer Senior Consultant, Tony. Tony is a Thai that has traveled across three continents and has many years of experience working as an HR consultant. His current role is to advise organizations on HR issues, as well as benefits and pension packages.

At this point the trip to the United Nations was up in the air, as the protests were gripping traffic in the city. After a few tense phone calls by one of our professors Fred Derrick to the tour guides and the UN, the decision was made to proceed to our scheduled visit.

On the ride to the UN we were expecting stifling Bangkok traffic, but the protests actually had the opposite effect. They discouraged drivers from entering the city and as a result our ride was brief. We still arrived about 20 minutes late, and due to the strict schedules of the UN, each of our speakers had to rush to complete their speeches. We were greeted by the public relations representative, who actually spent time in Lebanon, in the same capacity working for UNIFIL. For those who don't know, UNIFIL is a program that provides peace keepers to monitor the state of relations between the terrorist group Hezbollah and the State of Israel. His experience with UNIFIL was obvious to me from the start, as he danced around almost every question, and avoided any sensitive topics. I think as a whole, we were disappointed at the information he was able to provide. Again, for those of you who know UNIFIL, this is typical.

After this we had presentations from a number of UN organizations. UNICEF, ESCAP, ILO, etc. The theater type room was kept extremely warm, in order to comply with new UN Green initiatives. As you can imagine in a room that is kept at 78 degrees Fahrenheit, and about 50 people, it reached unbearable levels. At one point I thought i was going to faint. The speakers were all very informative, and some were really impressive. As a result of our shortened time line, most were not able to make it all the way through their presentations. Each fielded questions, and our class did not disappoint by firing off some really thought provoking and tough questions. This group has been really great at pressing all of our speakers, in a polite and respectful manner, to explain and elaborate on their statements.

Most very able to answer every question, but in many cases seemed resigned to the public perception and perhaps reality, that the UN cannot fix all the problems, and in most cases is just a forum for dialogue. Hey, at least they are trying.

I have gone back and forth the last few years on my views of the UN in general, and I am at the point now where I think its a necessary evil. If all we get out of it is a place for talking, than that is better than not talking at all. But I am a firm believe that the UN in its current state is in need of major renovations and process improvements.

Ok, so that is my rant for today. During these last few days, a fellow MBA student Heidi Boan has been helping me write this blog and edit my entries. I tend to go off on tangents sometime, and Heidi has been doing a great job of keeping me in check. I actually was going to ask her to write the UN entry, since I wasnt sure which of my opinions I wanted to express in this public forum.

Back to our visit to the UN. After all the speakers finished presenting, we were able to visit the main meeting hall, where we took an class picture on stage. After this we were served lunch there and headed on our way to our next stop.

Our next stop was so far my favorite of this trip. We visited a Thai jewelry factory that is family owned, 4 share holders total, and had revenues last year of about $650 million USD. The company is the largest jeweler in Thailand and has various holdings, such as insurance companies, golf courses, and restaurants. During my travels around the world I have been fortunate to visit many of these types of factories, so I was a bit skeptical if I would enjoy it. I mean, once you've seen one, you've seen them all! I couldn't have been more surprised. This was the first time we were actually allowed to interact with the employees, who were gracious enough to take time away from their work and demonstrate to us what it was they were doing. We were allowed a level of access that I had never before experienced in a jewelry factory. We got to watch designers using software to make new designs, rings being cut, pressed and finished. After this we were led to a presentation room where our hosts treated us to cake and coffee. To top it all off, we met the president of this company, INSERT NAME HERE. This gentlemen was kind enough to speak to us about his experiences and answered every question to the best of his abilities. I will allow the group that was responsible for this meeting to write the exact details of our conversation. But it was a treat! The guy has studied in America at Pepperdine University. He received his MBA from a Thai university and is currently doing his PhD in Philosophy.

The conversation with him was incredible as he provided interesting insights into doing business in Thailand and in general.

After our meeting, some of us headed over to their retail location where they have all their custom jewelry. The items that we saw were incredible, but quite expensive. After some of us headed over to the night market to purchase some souveniers. Upon return to the hotel, we had 10 minutes to turn around and head over to Thai boxing. What an event! I will edit the blog later to include some more details.

What an incredible experience this has been so far. We have all grown closer together and have forged many new friendships. I hope you are all enjoying reading this blog/journal as much as we're enjoying our time here.

I can't wait to come home and see my wife. I love you Viki! :)