As an intern with few television experiences, I bore in mind what our supervisor Da-Yang (大楊哥) had told us to be observant and industrious, learning as much as I could from the participation of this shooting project in Thailand. Since on the battlefield most of the work demands real professionals, what interns could contribute was minor yet trivial with importance, like handing over bottles of water, wet wipes, tissues, tapes; however, Peiying (貢丸) and I would leap at any chance to take script notes, catch photo opportunities, prepare props, and carry tripod and boom microphone – hope to at least share the burden as a team and to completely blend in by doing.
Besides taking script notes, I also kept a record of the interviewees’ names and sometimes their contact information so that we can send them the DVD of related episodes afterwards. Assigned to such a mission, I got some lovely opportunities to interact with the locals, smiling and asking their names whether through our interpreter (小真姊) or not, and if they speaks English, we could share some interesting stories or personal experiences during the breaks of shooting.
On August 12, one of our two brilliant camera operators, Kuo (郭哥), my internship partner, Peiying, and I had to stay on Koh Sichang as the rest of the crew (主持人子儀, 導演小涵姊, 編導阿貴姊, 攝影師鄭哥, 翻譯小真姊) accompanied by a couple from the village set off to the sea on a relatively tiny fishing boat. While waiting in the house of a local acquaintance of Jackie 哥 for their return, I just couldn’t hold myself sitting still on the bench but walking around to find something to be busy with. Then, I ended up cooking in the kitchen with Wanna, beautiful wife of the house taking care of our lunch that day. Wanna let me pestle the chili and garlic as sauce, and she also let me taste every dish before deciding the level of spiciness of it!
Although we did not talk much owing to the language barrier, we communicated with our body language and the sixth sense :-P
<-- beautiful Wanna
<-- the friendly dog of the house
The fact of my limitation in language has become so obvious that I just have to accept it. Not depressed, however, as Yankee (子儀), Peiying (貢丸) and I met a guy from India while on the boat back to Pattaya, he said that he came here for his internship and worked closely with Thai people. As we know not many people in Thailand speak English, let alone Chinese or Hindi, he shared his secret skill of cross-cultural communication – concise and “incomplete” sentences – which largely reduces the probability of confusion ;-D
<-- Me, Peiying, and Anurag
* Really enjoyed the time in Thailand - the experience was just amazing!!!
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