At the back of her shop in New Taipei City, Gu tips a plate of freshly cut Chinese liquorice roots into a wok of boiling honey, the first step in preparing one of her many traditional remedies.

“Chinese herbal medicine stores are a unique cultural icon,” the 36-year-old explains. “They are not just a place where you come when you are sick to pick up medicine.”

But shops like hers are dying out – with some 200 closing their doors every year – even though traditional medicine remains wildly popular in Taiwan.

Authorities have not issued any new licenses since 1998 and those that exist cannot be passed down to younger generations.

Gu’s father-in-law is the license owner but he recently suffered a stroke and she now fears the worst.

“If I am forced to close shop, the biggest regret for me other than losing our livelihood, is losing our tradition,” she laments.

The license shortage stems from an attempt by authorities in the 1990s to better regulate the largely artisanal industry and bring traditional remedies into the purview of the professional medical community.

By refusing to issue new licenses, authorities hoped professional doctors would offer traditional medicine options in a more regulated and scientific capacity.

“In Taiwan the simultaneous use of Western and Chinese medicine among the public is very prevalent and we need trained medical personnel to make sure they don’t interact with harmful consequences,” says Chen Pin-chi, division chief of Chinese Medicine and Pharmacy at the Health and Welfare Ministry.

“We initially hoped that professionally trained Chinese medicine doctors or pharmacists might slowly take over the running of Chinese herbal stores,” she adds.

But things did not turn out as planned.

The lower pay and profits struggled to attract young doctors and pharmacists while patients kept going to the family-run dispensaries they trusted.

The average age of a traditional medicine store license holder is now 61 while the number of remaining stores has halved in the last 20 years to just 7,900.

Taiwan’s approach contrasts with that of the China and Hong Kong where authorities have pushed policies to boost and export traditional medicine.

According to the Compendium of Materia Medica, the sixteenth-century text that is the lodestar for traditional practitioners, there are more than 1,500 different kinds of herbs used in Chinese medicine.

The average store might stock between 200 and 500 herbs, roots, animal parts and minerals – 355 of which are classified as medicine in Taiwan.

Traditional medicine also permeates Taiwan’s cooking – the island’s signature beef noodle soup dish usually contains at least eight herbal ingredients – meaning ingredients are just as likely to go in the cooking pot as they are a tincture.

Lee Chia-ling, 42, has worked alongside her father in their family shop for more than 10 years, learning remedies from him.

“It was very hard work in the beginning,” she says. “You need to get your hands dirty. Sorting, washing, chopping and slicing, lots of work goes into processing raw herbs and roots ready for use.

“And even now, I am still learning new things from my father,” she explains.

Her father Lee Ching-chang, 69, says it takes three to five years to learn to distinguish the basic ingredients and how they react with each other.

“This is very much a profession where experience counts,” says the older Lee, who entered the trade when he was 15 years old.

“If the government will not issue any new licenses then the second generation cannot carry on with the shop,” he laments.

The license shortage has prompted protests on the streets of Taipei and the government is in talks with industry leaders to try to find a way forward.

“The Health and Welfare Ministry is well aware of the urgency of the matter and is actively trying to seek a solution,” Chen Ping-chi says.

“Hopefully we can come up with something soon that would allow Chinese herbal medicine shops to continue to be operated by the younger generation.”

Gu is painfully aware the last 20 years have produced no solution and fears a change to the law may come too late for her family.

“If this situation continues,” she warns, “there won’t be any Chinese herbal stores left in Taiwan.”

The three-day gaming extravaganza, which ends on Sunday, held in partnership with Intel, will see over 60 gaming talents from 11 markets across Asia Pacific brought together to be crowned LoC III Champion.

Following last year’s successful “Legion of Champions Series II”, the competition has expanded to include first-time competitors like India, Japan, and Korea, in addition to Hong Kong / Macau, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The champions from the 11 markets had already battled it out at multiple elimination rounds at the local level before coming to face-off in an intense international showdown at Central Plaza Ladprao, Bangkok.

After three days of intense competition, the champion team will take home a cash prize of USD$7,000 (Bt221,000) and USD$5,000 worth of Lenovo Legion Y530 notebooks, while the first and second runner up will be awarded USD$3,000 and USD$2,000 respectively.

During the previous LoC II last year, the tournament had welcomed participation from close to 7,000 gamers and 20,000 on-site attendees.

Such events have become crucial and valuable moments for Lenovo to interact with the gaming community and better understand their gaming needs and motivations.

The evolution of Lenovo Legion has been driven by feedback from the gaming community itself, with its latest innovations offering purposeful design to match the needs of the modern avid gamer.

Hundreds of gaming fans are expected to attend this year’s Grand Final of “Legion of Champions Series III” in Bangkok to witness the battle and the birth of a new champion.

The company said the new store features the full range of Dell’s gaming products including laptops, desktop, monitors and peripherals. The company said it offers something for everyone, from Dell’s premium gaming brand, Alienware, to their Dell G Series gaming laptops.

The new store is an integral part of our go-to-market strategy to showcase our complete suite of gaming solutions and enable customers to experience first-hand the capabilities of Alienware and Dell Gaming products,” said Anothai Wettayakorn, vice president, Dell EMC Asia Emerging Markets and South Asia Consumer Business.

“Our aim is to offer gamers not only a place to buy the best gaming devices, but also a place where the gaming community can converge and exchange experiences. Apart from the VR experience suite where store patrons can immerse themselves in virtual reality – all powered by Alienware systems – the store also houses a suite for workshops and other gaming activities that will enhance our customer brand experience.”

The Alienware Experience store is located on the 4th floor of CentralWorld and opens from 10am to 10pm daily.

READERS might enter Christopher Moore’s new non-fiction book “Rooms” with certain presumptions even if they know in advance it’s about the different spaces in which we choose to live. Imagine all the “room” this subject affords for mus?ing on the quality of life past, present and future. Right from the outset, you can see the universe of possibilities.

But the entry-level presumptions can also be just as limiting as the four walls enclosing you at any given minute. Readers might well set out thinking in terms of enclosed spaces in general (and wouldn’t be far off, in that respect). They might still be giggling over George Carlin’s classic stand-up routine about a home being just “a place for your stuff”, with dif?ferent rooms for different kinds of stuff, and the more stuff we acquire, the bigger the home we need, and the bigger the home, etc.

Maybe the readers will be wondering how soon they’ll encounter Donald Trump’s ambition to build a big, beauti?ful border wall to hold back the barbar?ian invaders and turn the entire conti?nental United States, all 10 million square kilometres of it, into one safe and cosy room.

Trump does not appear in Moore’s book (though Edward Snowden does and, given our belief that rooms should pro?vide privacy, you might guess why). Nor does George Carlin show up, this being an unwaveringly serious treatise.

“Rooms” is dense with history, philos?ophy, psychology and science, from the social to the neurological, and it’s schol?arly to such an extent – bilious with foot?notes and afternotes and indexing – that it ought to get Chris Moore a PhD at any university he chooses.

He doesn’t need a PhD, of course. Moore is an Oxford-trained former prac?tising lawyer who went on to become one of the most celebrated expatriate authors in Asia, the creator of the universally fol?lowed fictional detective Vincent Calvino.

Even more so than with his magnifi?cent dual contemplation of self and Southeast Asian history in last year’s “Memory Manifesto”, with “Rooms”, Moore will shame the reader whose abil?ity to focus has evaporated in the modern tech era, where gadgets do all the legwork for the brain.

This is an author who isn’t shy about commenting on social media regarding current events, but he has somehow set his own not-inconsiderable online net?working aside and found a staggering block of time to give intense and sustained thought to an aspect of evolution that’s sel?dom so fully considered. The depth of his insight is impressive, and no reader will go away unrewarded.

“Rooms” is dauntingly expansive and requires pauses in the reading for rumi?nation, but it is captivating all the same in its chronicling of why and when and how we as a species moved from wall-less rural spaces to encumbered urban cocoons – and what that shift has done to us.

It is a voyage through time, backward as much as forward in the interest of com?parisons, but we have a knowledgeable guide who lets us relax and enjoy the ride. There’s a lot of ground to cover since the first permanent rooms popped up along?side the Tigris and Euphrates, the Yangtze and the Nile.

In 420 pages we look at group |psychology, the nature of power and |leadership, the knowledge that coalesced into architecture and the haunting spec?tre of Phnom Penh emptied of people by the Khmer Rouge. We visit palaces, harem chambers, military forts and tunnels, pris?ons, churches, “fake” and imaginary rooms and every kind of modern domestic room and learn why we choose certain colours and lighting for them. Moore’s itinerary includes everything from the Babylonians to Baron Haussmann and beyond.

You also discover, not incidentally, that you “almost certainly have Nefertiti, Confucius or anyone we can actually name from ancient history in your [family] tree, if they left children”.

In the introduction, Moore mentions Wittgenstein’s characterisation of philos?ophy as a means to “show the fly the way out of the fly bottle” and ponders in turn, looking around his comfortable room, whether he as the fly has lost the instinct to escape. “It is animal instinct to resist confinement,” after all, he writes, but 6,000 years of steady marching towards urbanisation – towards “room culture” – has curbed that resentment and walled off the instinct itself.

The factors contributing to this have been multiple, not least the need for rulers to control and thus confine the populace, allowing it a measure of convenience and applying more than a little brainwashing. The role of politics in subduing our once-wild nature is gamely explored in the book. But rulers being part of society too, Moore writes inclusively, “What makes us |different from the fly and more like the |termite or the bee is that we have self-|constructed our bottle.”

The less mobile that Homo sapiens became, once hunting and gathering could be left to others, the more our per?spective of personal space changed. We went from being forever mobile in Phase 1 to being forever active on mobile phones at the advent of Phase 3, exploring a dif?ferent kind of space, virtual and even vaster.

But much of “Rooms” is about what we left behind when we transitioned from “mobiles” to “sedentaries”. And it is dis?concerting to realise the scale of the loss.

“Mobiles were work minimalists,” Moore writes, needing no more than four hours a day to ensure they had adequate shelter and ample food, grabbing all the essentials on the spot from diverse and abundant nature. The effort only became toil when the tribe swelled and surplus supplies were necessary, and then came problems of food storage, leadership hier?archy, labour organisation, trade and a viable economy, and eventually taxation, wealth inequality, slums and the inevitable discontent and revolution.

Moving indoors also forced a transition of faith in the world.

“Rooms broke our link to nature, and a new psychological space opened. The space gradually filled with new gods, beliefs and the performance of rituals … A new set of myths, celebrations, rituals and superstitions sprung from room |culture. Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism are three examples of room-invented beliefs, and each of these faiths evolved blessing ceremonies and rituals for houses,” Moore notes, going on to mention the spirit houses of Southeast Asia.

And as for the future, “As writers such as [Philip K] Dick and [Charlie] Brooker suggest, our latest human-made con?struction might be our last. As we move deeper and more firmly into digital space, some fear that we may be build?ing a dystopian nightmare. Is it possible that the ancient mobiles had similar feel?ings about our judgement (if not our san?ity) as they watched us happily moving into what they saw as a dystopian world beyond the reach of nature?”

>> Rooms : On Human Dosmestication and Submission by Christopher G Moore

>> Published by Heaven Lake Press, 2018

>> Available at Amazon.com, US$14 (Bt445)

>> Reviewed by Paul Dorsey

Better Learning

EWA

Learn to speak English with speaking courses from favourite movies and TV characters, and memorise more than 40,000 English words with flashcards available in the app for free!

Manga Mandarin

App for global Chinese learners to learn Mandarin Chinese via original comics.

Brainapse

Brainapse is an enthralling, engaging and informative learning app, which helps in exploring the anatomy, structure and functions of the human skull and brain using AR and explains the evolution of the human brain and the way it works.

Tynker: Coding Games for Kids

Tynker’s educational games teach kids coding the fun way! Kids learn to code as they fly drones, mod Minecraft, program with Barbie, control robots, and explore STEM. This app supports a Thai menu and has content in Thai.

More Productive

Eggzy – Focus & Time Keeper

Eggzy is an effective tool that helps you change your phone habits for the better in a fun and creative way. |It’s a great app for any person who needs that extra push to sustain attention on tasks and create a more balanced life.

Stiiitch Photos Stitching

Stiiitch stitches automatically. Users can export high-definition screenshots in just one click. Stiiitch features ultra-fast, ultra- effective high-definition long screenshots.

Canva: Logo & invitation maker

Canva makes design amazingly simple (and fun)! Create beautiful designs for work, school and play in minutes with Canva – no design skills or complex software needed.

Todoist

Organise your life from simple errands to your most ambitious projects – so you can get it all done and enjoy more peace of mind along the way.

Better Health

Running Walking Track Goals

Ready to achieve your fitness goals? Improve your health and get in great shape with the free Goals app. You want to lose weight or just count the calories you have burnt or the distance you have covered! Start today and track all your fitness activities (distance, time, speed, elevation, calories burnt and more) – whether you’re running, jogging, biking, walking or mountain biking!

Lifesum – Diet & Food Diary

Your personal diet plan, food tracker, calorie counter & healthy recipes, all in one place. Reach your goals with Lifesum! Discover how tracking small habits can make a big difference and join millions on their journey to a healthier, happier you.

Cove: The musical journal

Create music to help express complex feelings. Cove is a personal musical journal to help you with your emotional and mental health.

Moodnotes

Capture your mood and improve your thinking habits through an innovative approach to journaling! Moodnotes empowers you to track your mood over time, avoid common thinking traps, and develop perspectives associated with increased happiness and well-being.

A TABLET that’s actually far more than well, a tablet, particularly when connected it a smart keyboard accessory, the new iPad Pro 12.9 inch is actually more of a highly portable computer.

The new Smart Keyboard Folio, especially designed for the iPad Pro, turns Apple’s powerful tablet into a powerful notebook computer, one that’s more powerful and more portable than most laptops on the market.

The new Smart Keyboard Folio is among several improvements to the new iPad Pro. For example, it comes with a new and better screen design, Face ID technology, a more powerful A12X Bionic processor, advanced cameras, improved audio and a new Apple Pencil.

The new iPad is powered by Apple’s new A12X Bionic chipset with Neural Engine. Apple says the A12X Bionic is its smartest and most powerful chip ever, making iPad Pro powerful enough to handle apps you use everyday, like Microsoft Office and pro apps like Adobe Photoshop CC.

Apple is confident that its A12X Bionic delivers faster performance than 92 per cent of all portable PCs sold in the last year, including the most popular Intel Core i7 models.

The A12X Bionic has an eight-core fusion design with four performance cores to tackle heavy computational tasks and four high efficiency cores to take on everyday tasks. The new performance controller dynamically divides work across these cores, harnessing all eight when a power boost is needed.

And the new chipset comes with Apple-designed seven-core GPU that delivers performance twice as fast than the A10X Fusion in the previous-generation iPad Pro. Apple says the new GPU offers Xbox One S class performance in a thin and light device and the new GPU delivers 1,000 times the graphics performance of the original iPad.

The A12X comes with Apple Neural Engine, which is built for advanced machine learning in everything from photography to augmented reality. With its eight-core design, the Neural Engine can complete up to five trillion operations per second. In Photos, it intelligently stitches together your photos and videos to create Memories. It improves AR performance by identifying the environment like floors and tables more quickly, and even enables expressive Memoji by mapping up to 50 facial gestures.

In short, compared to the A10x Fusion, the A12X provides up to 35 per cent faster single-core performance, 90 per cent faster multicore performance and 2x faster graphics.

During the test, I found the new iPad Pro handled apps that were designed specially for iPad like Pixelmator and Linea Sketch fast and efficiently.

I used AnTuTu Benchmark V7.2.0 to test the new iPad Pro’s performance and it got very high scores of 546,454. Compared to the AnTuTu’s ever-growing database of iOS users from around the world, the new iPad Pro 12.9 in my hands was ranked third on December 31, after two other iPad Pro apparently of the same model. Actually, this was the highest performance score I have ever seen during my reviews of various mobile devices.

With the new Smart Keyboard Folio, I could type just as if I were using a laptop with a full-size physical keyboard. The new keyboard folio magnetically attaches to the back of iPad Pro and has two viewing angles thus making it easy to use on a desk or your lap. It uses the Smart Connector to connect to iPad Pro, so it never needs to be charged or paired; and when folded, it protects the front and the back of your iPad Pro.

It comes with auto-wake function that allows iPad Pro to wake or sleeps when you open or close it.

The new iPad Pro also features an all-new, all-screen design with advanced Liquid Retina display. It has beautiful rounded corners that follow the edges of the design to deliver ultrathin bezels.

The new iPad Pro has precision-milled glass, advanced pixel masking, and sub-pixel anti-aliasing to allow the display to follow the curves of the device, while a new backlight design allows the display to extend into the corners. This results in smooth, distortion-free edges, so whatever you are doing looks great from one rounded corner to the next.

And the Liquid Retina display is very bright. Actually, it is the brightest and most colour accurate iPad display so far, featuring P3 wide colour support for true-to-life colours; True Tone, which automatically adapts the display colour to your environment for a more natural viewing experience; and an anti-reflective coating for the best viewing experience indoors and outdoors.

Moreover, the iPad Pro has ProMotion technology, which automatically adjusts the display refresh rate up to 120Hz for ultrasmooth scrolling and incredible responsiveness on the display, whether using your finger or the Apple Pencil.

I enjoyed viewing photos and watching HD movies on the Liquid Retina display. Movies streamed on TrueID TV app from TrueVisions played smoothly and looked great.

And the four-speaker design improves the sound system whether you’re listening to music or watching a movie. Apple comes with a new audio architecture that delivers wider stereo sound for a high-fidelity, cinematic audio experience in any orientation for watching movie, playing a game or a FaceTime call.

The built-in sensors ensure that when you are holding the iPad Pro either in portrait or landscape orientation, you’ll get best sound experience with bass going to all four speakers while the mid and high frequencies come from the topmost speakers.

The new iPad Pro also comes with five microphones to allow it capture stereo audio when recording video in any orientation.

The new iPad Pro also comes with fast wireless and Internet connections. It uses 802.11ac Wi-Fi and uses fast LTE connection, supporting up to 29 LTE bands.

The new iPad Pro also supports future eSIM, which is available in 180 countries and regions around the world. I tested it on TrueMove H’s LTE, using microSIM and, yes, the connection was very fast. Applications were downloaded quickly and my snapshots were backed up to my Google Photos cloud storage in no time.

I used Ookla Speedtest app to measure the connection speed and I found that the new iPad Pro achieved the download speed of 85.0 Mbps and upload speed of 38.5 Mbps.

The new iPad Pro comes with a 12-megapixel rear camera, which is capable of capturing ultra-detailed still images and Live Photos in wide colour, 63MP panoramas, and 4K video at 60 fps. The Liquid Retina display is an excellent viewfinder for composing shots. The Live Photos is a mode for shooting a still with a short video clip.

With the advanced camera, large display and thin and light design, the new iPad Pro is excellent for enjoying augmented reality.

The test found that the new iPad Pro really captured beautiful, sharp and clean photos in most lighting environments.

The new iPad Pro uses a TrueDepth camera system for the front camera, allowing the tablet to use Face ID for secure unlocking. The 7-megapixel TrueDepth camera provides features like Portrait mode, Selfie Scenes in Clips, and Animoji and Memoji in Messages and Group FaceTime.

The Face ID begins with data captured by the TrueDepth camera. Sensors read the unique geometry of your face and compare it to information protected by the Secure Enclave of the A12X Bionic chip. If there’s a match, iPad Pro unlocks.

And the TrueDepth camera brings Portrait mode to iPad Pro for the first time, creating a precise depth map to separate the subject from the background. It also features Portrait Lighting for stunning studio-quality selfies.

The new iPad Pro supports the new Apple Pencil that attaches magnetically to iPad Pro and charges wirelessly. The new Apple Pencil comes with double-tap function to allow you to switch tools. With a simple double tap, you can change tools –like from a pencil to an eraser within Notes without interrupting your workflow. You can also customise your taps to easily switch between Apple Pencil functions.

I was happy to see that the iPad Pro now features a high-performance USB-C connector, instead of Apple Lightning port. The USB-C port makes it compatible for using iPad Pro’s charger with other mobile devices.

Moreover, it brings a whole new set of capabilities to iPad Pro. You can connect it to accessories that change the way you use the iPad, such as cameras, musical instruments, or even docks or you can connect it to high-resolution external monitors, with up to 5K resolution. USB-C on iPad Pro allows you to connect to data accessories and a display at the same time, which is critical for those creative pros whose workflows require high-bandwidth input and output at the same time.

The new iPad Pro does not come with a 3.5mm headphone jack. If you want to use a pair of headphones, you will need to buy a USB-C to 3.5mm headphone jack adapter.

The new iPad Pro runs on iOS 12 and this brings several new features to the tablet, including Group FaceTime that allows up to 32 participants to join a video call.

The new 12.9-inch iPad Pro has a suggested retail price of Bt35,900 for 64 GB storage, Bt40,900 for 256GB, Bt47,900 for 512 GB and Bt61,900 for 1 terabyte storage. The new Apple Pencil retails for Bt4,490 and Smart Keyboard Folio is priced at Bt7,290.

>> Networks: GSM/EDGE; UMTS/HSPA+; LTE

>> OS: iOS12

>> Chip: A12X Bionic chip with 64-bit desktop-class architecture , Neural Engine, Embedded M12 coprocessor

>> Capacity: 64GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB

>> Display: 12.9-inch Liquid Retina LED-backlit display with 2732×2048 pixel resolution.

>> Cameras: 12-MP rear camera with f/1.8 lens; 7-MP TrueDepth front camera with Face ID technology

>> SIM types: eSIM, nano-SIM

>> Wireless connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 5.0

>> Connectors: USB-C, Smart connector

>> Sensors: Face ID , Three-axis gyro , Accelerometer , Ambient light sensor , Barometer

>> Battery: Up to 9 hours of surfing the web using cellular data network

>> Dimensions: 280.6 x 214.9 x 5.9mm (HxWxD)

>> Weight: 633g

>> In the box: iPad Pro , USB-C to USB-C Connector, USB-C Power Adapter , Documentation

This second edition of the carnival will include a food festival featuring different varieties of Kerala and South Indian food guaranteed to delight the expat Indian community as well as Thais and other nationalities.

Other highlights include stalls offering goods from Kerala, games for kids and a colourful cultural onstage presentation by talented artists from among the members of various South Indian Communities, which gets underway after 5.30.

Admission is Bt50.

 Find out more at Facebook.com/thaimalayali.samajam.

Playmondo, a world-class amusement park for kids and a hub of advanced games with premium safety standards, threw open its doors earlier this month at the Forum Zone on the second floor of CentralWorld.

Playmondo is a brand new amusement park on the second floor of CentralWorld.

“We believe that playing generates learning and understanding for children, and I have been in this amusement park business for a long time. Thus, I can easily observe a child’s playing behaviour and his or her preferences. Playmondo is built on the idea of turning an indoor amusement park into a small planet where children can play and learn safely while enhancing their imaginative powers. We have chosen a Tardigrade named Phi Mon as Playmondo’s mascot. This animal is known as the world’s most tolerant creature as they can remain in the nature in all climate conditions. We want the kids to learn about tolerance and the beauty of nature through this mascot,” says Hansa Kraikosol, chief executive director of Playmondo Group and a leader in the amusement park business.

Hansa Kraikosol

Playmondo is designed for kids from one year up to 13 on the concept “Play Plern Learn Roo” and features four play zones inspired respectively by the desert, ocean, volcano and jungle. Each activity support growth during childhood. Cognitive development is promoted through interactive games and reactive play such as the Ball Wall, against which children throw a ball then catch it on its return. Blue Blocks allow them to use their imagination and assemble the blocks in a variety of shapes. Physical development is encouraged through the trampoline and a climbing wall while social development is fostered through games that require kids of play together and make new friends.

Ple Nakorn with his wife and their children

For older kids, there’s “Playsquare Laser Tag”, a place for space warriors in the form of an advanced laser field with full lighting and audio effects that sets the stage for a galaxy war in which youngsters learn how to observe, defend themselves and visualise in the dark. The illuminated bulletproof vests and laser guns are brand new and imported from the US and the field is fitted with protective equipment throughout. Players must be at least 110 centimetres tall to take the weight of the bulletproof vest.

Pornpilas Assakul with her children

A number of celebrities turned out for the opening with their kids and took time away from the activities to share some parenting tips. They included Juthatham Chirathiwat, Vasu Virajsilp, Jannis Yangpichit, Milin Yuvacharuskul, Capt Vantita Lewchalermwongse, Pornpilas Assakul, Chirawan Techaruvichit, Praewpreeya Jumsai Na Ayutthaya, Bhumiphat-Sopin Rongratana, Wanwilai Techasomboon, Jongkol Palarit, Nathanaporn Euawanthanakhun, Pornpan Pongsak, Nantanach Mongkolrattanachat, Natarnin Khunathanard, Duangkamol Tirawat, and actor Nakorn “Ple” Silachai and his wife June Kasama.

Juthatham Chirathiwat and Vasu Virajsilp with their son

“My parenting style focuses on my children’s health. As germs and viruses are everywhere, we do our best to protect them when we take them out to play. We are also well aware of the influence of social media and avoid videos with explicit and violent content to prevent them from becoming familiar with and emulating inappropriate behaviour. I let them do activities they enjoy to encourage their skills. My son loves football and practises every day while my daughter is interested in art so she spends her free time painting and drawing,” says mother of twins Jannis.

Chirawan Techaruvichit and Duangrit Chairungruang with their boys 

Milin also focuses on letting her children develop their skills. “I let them do activities based on their age. Sometimes we take them on a trip to open their world, and learn about the things about them. My daughter is adventurous and confident and I am happy to let her play while I observe her from a distance,” she says.

Milin Yuvacharuskul and her daughter

“I use both traditional and modern parenting techniques to raising my kids, focusing on manners and appropriate behaviour as the first priority. I allow them to express their thoughts and make decisions by themselves and encourage them to ask questions when they are in doubt. I also teach them through activities we do together. For example, when we are watching cartons and there are some violent scenes, I try and explain. When we plan trips, I let them take part. My child is interested in maths and collecting car models,” says Vantita.

Jannis Yangpichit with her twins

Vasu and Juthatham are mainly concerned with hygiene and safety. “There are at an age when we need to watch them closely but without stifling their creativity.”

Praewpreeya Jumsai Na Ayutthaya with her sons

Ple Nakorn and June Kasama give their kids freedom while maintaining a light control. “Children are naughty and try to learn by themselves but it may be dangerous sometimes. We try and tell them off as little as possible. We don’t like to say no to them and we allow them to learn from social media. Our family enjoys exercising together and sometimes we take them out to learn about what they have experienced on online media in the real world, like going to the zoo, hiking or jetskiing.”

Kids’ day out

– Tickets are Bt550 for kids 75 to 100 cm tall and Bt650 for kids taller than 100 cm and allow three hours of play.

– Tickets for Playsquare Laser Tag start at Bt350 per game. Each game lasts 15 minutes and has a maximum of 24 players.

– For more information, call (02) 103 2499 or (02) 103 2455, or visit Facebook.com/playmondo.

Artist+Run gallery, part of the gallery cluster N22, was packed out on the evening of Thailand’s national children’s day two Saturdays ago when a new exhibition “The Intangibles of Emptiness” opened. This opening didn’t feature speeches by either curator or artist but a live performance by Pichet Klunchun Dance Company who created paintings and installations that have remained on show.

For Pichet, “The” in the show’s title refers to dancers who use different parts of their bodies to create meaning in the assigned empty space, and for him, this ends, also, in emptiness after the performance. This work is thus his attempt to record such intangible emptiness.

In the small gallery filled with excited audience members, standing and sitting on the floor and chairs, plus many who couldn’t make it inside, members of Pichet Klunchun Dance Company, in construction worker outfits, walked around with both painting and construction materials and tools. What looked like an abstract painting was created by the performers who shifted back and forth between building and painting, with choreographed dance movements.

The performance, or the construction, continued outside the studio, after Pichet kicked open a seemingly locked door in the wall. With the gallery door now blocked by a waist-high brick wall, the audience had no choice but to follow the performers out through this small opening. Another painting was then created by the dance ensemble, while many materials were put into a working cement mixer.

Smoke was constantly emitted and many onlookers chose to stand further away. Thinking back about the performance now that the PM 2.5 issue reached a crucial point, many would be able to make the connection, just as Pichet intended, between the artists and the construction workers – both are craftsmen who need special skills in their works. We would also think about the fact that many materials are thrown out or put aside before the final work is shown to the public.

Also cheekily fun and ironical was the choice of background music, which covered a wide range of genres, as if to remind us that in many countries classical western music is not restricted to elite art aficionados and, by contrast, country music doesn’t appeal just to bluecollar workers. And in any democratic society, contemporary arts should be open and comprehensible to all people, no matter what their educational or economic background.

What made this similar to most exhibition openings, though, was the fact that most of the audience was made up of those working in visual arts, and very few in performing arts. And so while this work attempts to bridge the gap between these two fields in a country where most people think that such a division is still necessary, this remains a work-in-progress. Also, for the wider general public, this involves a visit to the exhibition to see the works and watch the video recording of the live performance, or record of the intangible emptiness, without the creators being present.

Word is that Pichet is planning to take this interdisciplinary work, first seen last year at a Chiang Rai mountain resort hotel, forward and will soon revive it in a larger gallery for a wider audience. Stay tuned.

In a performance titled “Knit”, Kawita uses her body as a medium to challenge the concept of materialism in a world where more value is attached to products than to the people who created the product.

In front of a colourful backdrop, she becomes the tools women use in knitting, dyeing and weaving. Simultaneously, her spider-like movements portray a woman fighting to construct her life through her labour, in the same way a spider struggles to build a web to survive.

“Knit” also involves audience participation to remind us to cherish the skills of the people who create the elements intrinsic to a luxury lifestyle.

“Knit”-inspired sweet and savoury delicacies will complement the hotel’s afternoon tea menu, including a red Mont Blanc dessert handcrafted by executive pastry chef Nicolas Pelloie.

The Knit afternoon tea set for two will be hosted in the Lobby from 3.30 to 4.30pm and is priced at Bt1,400-plus.

The hotel is meanwhile launching an Artist-in-Residence programme, letting a rotating selection of live there for up to three months while using a specially created studio to create original pieces inspired by their stay. Guests will be able to meet and chat with the artists in the studio and enjoy a rare perspective of the artistic process.

Kawita will be the first artist-in-residence, using the opportunity to curate new works for an exhibition in Europe later this year.

For reservations and details, call (02) 020 2888 or email diningpbk@peninsula.com.