On the second Saturday of January every year, the Thai people celebrate National Children’s Day. This has been going on for about 50 years now. Children are seen not only as the national treasure, but they are also seen as the future of the country. It is important that they are protected and that they are guided into becoming responsible citizens. In the West, we are taught that adults always come first. But in Thailand, an old woman, weighed down with shopping bags on the bus, will actually stand up in order to let a child take her seat. Well, maybe not as extreme as that, but adults do let children take their seats even though their feet might be killing them.

On this special day, all over the country, children are entertained with many events. In Samut Prakan, the local Naval Museum and Naval Academy opened their doors for the children. This morning I went there with Nong Grace (see pictures below). There were hundreds of children playing on tanks and warships and having their pictures taken with guns that were taller than them. There were plenty of games for them to play and prizes to win. After the Naval Academy, we stopped by the post office as I needed to buy some stamps. Set up by the door there was a table ladened with a large variety of candies and also ice cream. All of this was free and was being given out to every child that came into the post office. I suppose it is a bit like Christmas.

When we got back to the Paknam Web office, I gave Nong Grace a 1 kilo bar of chocolate (see picture below). You should have seen her eyes. You cannot buy big bars of chocolate in Thailand. If you look carefully in the left hand corner you can see she had already started to nibble the chocolate. Nong Grace will be taking the Entrance Exam for Kindergarten tomorrow and we will be posting the results on her www.NongGrace.com website later. BTW, that is a website she is very proud of. She has been going around telling everyone that she has her own website at “nong grace dot com”!