The unforgettable experience at the United Nations.
From a beginning to an end of a journey, it was so different from another field trip that I have gone to. On 15 November, when I arrived at the United Nations located in Rajadamnern Nok Avenue, the feeling was like I stepped into the building of an airport walking through a metal detector to scan everything through an x-ray machine. This is a sign of the beginning of the trip to get myself ready to see the new world.
After the security check, I finally got into the UN building with an intention to learn new things from a lot of wonderful people. As I saw many people walking around in the ground floor, I did not realize that I was in Bangkok anymore. Most of them did not seem to be here in Thailand at the first place. They come from different countries, speak in different tongue, but work together as one. They reflected the diversity among staffs in the organisation. There is a blend of cultures, backgrounds, experiences and skills that creates ways to solve problems and benefits the organisation diversely.
“Don’t forget to pick up your name tag at the reception,” said a middle-aged lady with a long dress and a red coat named Ms.Tuenjai. She called herself as a guide for our field trip to take us to explore around the building. I went to grab my name tag and stuck it on my shirt so that people could see clearly that I was an officially visitor.
Everybody was so excited as it was the first time that we had a chance to come and visit here. As usual, we grabbed our phone to take a good shot around the building keeping it as a valuable memory that once we were here gaining experiences at the UN.
Standing right on the first floor, Ms.Tuenjai was introducing us a building with welcomeness. Right in front of us was a canteen which is not a usual one that we have seen before. It’s full of many restaurant styles including various kinds of international food.
Along the way to the second floor, there are pictures of the former secretary-general hanging on the wall. It reminded me of a museum where the artworks were showed
Ms.Tuenjai was taking us to the enormous hall room on the second floor. When the door opened, I was so surprised how gigantic it is. “This is the biggest conference room in the UN building. There are approximately 900 seats in this hall,” she said.
While we were exploring around the huge room, cameras keep making sound of a shutter continually, a question was suddenly asked by Ms.Tuenjai, “Do you think how many languages being used in the UN conference?” We were trying to answer the question. Some was right, and some was not. The lady told that they are using 6 languages which are English, Chinese, French, Spanish, Russian and Arabic. However, there are 2 languages that are not used in our continent which are Spanish and Arabic.
Once again on the ground floor, we were invited to the theater room to receive a new interesting things from many talented staffs. I thought I would fall asleep at some point since the environment served me very comfy to take a good nap. Inversely, they gave us an valuable knowledge, perspective and also a little experiences which we cannot find easily in our daily lives.
The first speaker, Ms.Kauita Sukanandan, talked about the basic information about the United Nations and also introduced us a rap song called ‘What is the United Nations’. It is about how the UN was formed, its goals and its successes. After listening to this song, it was so catchy and still haunting me until now, especially in the hook verse.
This is the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l2W7Ikrp6Y&t=3s
After that, there’s a woman who presented us a Kahoot quiz for testing us that we were listening the previous presentation carefully. As usual, we were enjoy taking a quiz and competing for getting a prize from the staffs. This is a very good way to make us more engage in the presentations.
The UN field trip has gone beyond my expectation. It is such a great time that once in my life I have a big opportunity to come and visit one of the most valuable place in Thailand.
