English food menu for Thailand Floating Markets

cite this article: Arunrangsiwed, P. (2019). English food menu for Thailand Floating Markets. Retrieved from https://sw-eden.net/2019/12/30/english-food-menu-thailand-floating-markets/

English food menu for Thailand Floating Markets

Why floating markets?
Why riverside markets?

In Thailand, people call both places with the same word, “Talad Naam.” There are so many research studies collecting the data from floating and riverside markets in Thailand, but most of them did not contribute anything to the places. The researchers and scholars often asked folks and hawkers for information to fill in their research findings. They finally wrote and published their papers. It is a good thing that they suggested the way to develop or improve various attributions of floating markets.

However, only few of them contribute to the markets. They might have their personal reason not to contribute to the floating markets. They might get a small amount of fund. The only thing they could do with that amount of money might be only the data collection and publish the paper.

Generally, we have heard about “research and development.” Without a-large-enough fund, people cannot complete the development part. Many people got too-much money to run their research, while many people do not have the chance to get enough money.

Anyway, anyhow, a part of the research study that I would do is to translate Thai menu into English and test its effectiveness. I started to write the proposal of this study, and I wrote that I would translate the menu for Wat Sapan floating markets (ตลาดน้ำวัดสะพาน). This is because there are many foreigners here. I thought it was a good idea to tell the folk leader before I submitted the proposal. Then, I went to the place and told her/him and other committees about my plan. The folk leader seemed to be slightly interested. I think it is better than not to be interested at all.

Something that is very familiar for the researchers is that we all need to wait for the institute to approve the proposal. After the approving, we could start the projects. Sometimes, it takes many weeks, and, many times, it takes three or more months.

Few months later, my project was approved, so I could start to translate the menu and help the hawkers pinning their shops into Google Maps. When I revisited Wat Sapan at this time, I saw that many shops had already had English menu. I am a kind if, “wow.” I was very excited at that moment. The folk leader, who I talked to, was not just slightly interested, but in fact, he was very interested in my idea. He and hawkers together made the English menu and also Chinese and Japanese versions.

When I saw that, I was very happy. The folks did not just wait for the researchers or scholars like me to help improve their floating market, but they actively take the action. I really want to see all other floating markets or riverside markets in Thailand have the management system like this. They just need the idea, and they could run the project by themselves. I decided to only pin the shops in Wat Sapan floating/riverside market in Google Maps. They have already had English menu. I would look for other floating markets to run the full project.

It is important to note that I posted this article in this webpage before I put everything together and submitted to the university. In other words, I owned the copyrights of this article or blog post, and later, I reused this copyrighted material in the research report. Similarly, I wrote an article for a conference in Phayao, and later, I used the article for the research report. That also means, I owned the copyrighted material before reusing it again in the research report.