Skillful 4: Reading & Writing, page 89 - Critical thinking, E.1

What is it?

In their critical thinking exercise that concludes the reading "Suburbs of the Future", Warwick and Rogers (2018, pp. 87-88) invite us to discuss two questions that test our understanding of ideas in the reading by applying to another context and by extending them beyond what the reading tells us.   

We will discuss only question 1; you might, however, find local development issues to be useful support. 

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1.

• Which of the predictions made in the text do you think are least likely to happen? Why? 

You have 16:00 minutes to plan and write a response to this question. I suggest you divide your time roughly as:

• planning = 5:00 minutes 
• choose your topic(s) - whose predictions? 
• make notes - why do you think them unlikely to happen?
• related ideas in the article? 
• your own examples? 
• own experience? 
• own knowledge? 
• organize - which first? Connections between them? 
• writing = 8:00 minutes to quickly turn your preplanning into sentences organized in paragraphs
• editing = 3:00 minutes.
• publish = 0:01 minutes (It's an important part in the writing process, but often the quickest.)

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A useful strategy - as usual 

Imagine you are writing for someone who has not read the question you have chosen to answer or the article that the question follows up. Your aim is to clearly communicate your response to that reader, so it might help to paraphrase the chosen question at the start of your response to it. 

This is also a useful strategy in exams such as IELTS and TOEFL, where it's important that your independent writing response makes sense independently of the question to which it must respond.  

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Reference

• Warwick, L. & Rogers, L. (2018). Skillful 4: Reading & Writing, Student's Book Pack (2nd. ed.). London: Macmillan Education

Beer: Nainai

        “Nainai” is a popular Thai history book that has been adapted from the academic thesis of Chanun Yodhong under the title of “Gentlemen-in-waiting: homosocial life and gender in King Vajiravudh’s court”. This book presents the idea of homosexuality and monarchy, which is a huge taboo to discuss in public. I, personally, do not like this book because it leads the readers to the idea that King Rama VI was homosexual by his personal interests, the ambiguous evidence, and his relationship with the royal guards.

 Firstly, the book discusses King Rama VI’s personal interests toward the kingship. It is well known that the arts reached its highest point in Thai history during his period. People who worked within these areas have been promoted and received acceptance from society. While other rulers before him focused their time in creating a nation, protecting the country, and supporting Buddhism, King Rama XI spent his time in music, plays, and literature. Some academics explained that the country was already in a good shape with the system his father, or King Rama V, had implemented, therefore, he had a lot of time to contribute to the arts.

 Next, the author cites sources from King Rama VI’s personal archives which could be ambiguous. For example, there is a portrait of him in female clothes taken when he performed in a court play. Originally, only females were allowed to perform in the court; they later changed the rule; males could perform both male and female characters. Moreover, the author only chooses the evidence that supports his idea and disregards the rest. He does this to make his statement stronger and trustworthy which has a conflict to research methodology in history; evidence should be compared.  

 Lastly, the court of King Rama VI consisted of mainly male royal guards. Normally, only females are allowed to work in the inner site of the court where the king spends his personal time and sleeps. King Rama VI had a different system as many of his staff were royal guards. A few royal guards are well known to have been his favorite and to have had  influence on the king. There are alternative theories that could explain the relationship between him and his royal guards. This could be the idea of companionship from the ancient Greek and Roman times, where the emperor had a very close relationship with his favorite soldier. This could be the influence of the scout system in Oxford University which  King Rama VI attended. Students were typically from royal and noble families, so they were allowed to have a male personal servant.

In conclusion, a person’s sexual preference should be personal. We should embrace people for who they really are. We do not know whether King Rama XI was homosexual, therefore, we cannot judge him by his interests, vague evidence, and his relationship to others.

Phing: Two devils and more

I visit my friend’s shop frequently because she's just started her business. Inside of her shop is full of hundreds of suits, shirts and trousers. She is always proud to present her Italian suits, which will be looking-good on Thai men. Honestly, I did not see empirical differences in them from British suits. However, I have changed my mind after watching Vincenzo, a South Korean television series. It was launched on Netflix and has gained popularity in Thailand. The combination of action and comedy seem to make it become many people’s favourite. In contrast, I'm not keen on watching this series anymore because I can't stand the protagonists and their attitude toward LGBTQ+.

 'Un diavolo scaccia l’altro' is an Italian sentence that means it takes a devil to drive out another devil. Vincenzo, a Korean-Italian mafia lawyer, often speaks this catch phrase and I hate to listen to it so badly. Vincenzo was adopted and grew up in Italy, before coming back to Korea to find  1.5 ton of hidden gold. I agree that this character sounds cool as a James Bond character, but I do not support how he fights villains. In the story, there is an unrivalled conglomerate that hinders Vincenzo from getting the hidden gold and kills a lot of people to protect their profits. This organization can commit any corrupt practices for their goal, and Vincenzo also has done many illegal things to eliminate this enemy, even killing other people. I think that this TV show is normalizing a kangaroo court. People should not have to become a devil to fight for themselves.

Some people might not even notice that LGBTQ+ characters appear on South Korean television series once in a blue moon. Moreover, they usually look sillier than other characters. This TV show still has the same issue which should be improved. Lastly, this TV show still presents that being LGBTQ+ as related to mental illness which I don't agree with anymore.

Although many parts of this TV show are infuriating for me, I admire their costumes, which is excellent. They show me how Italian suits are smart and dignified. 

Aom: The American classic novel

There are plenty of popular books in this world for many reasons, like plots, themes, style or so on. With different perspectives, there are some people who dislike these popular books. For me, the popular book that I dislike is The Great Gatsby because it is hard to understand.

The Great Gatsby was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and published in 1925. The Great Gatsby is considered an American classic novel. The reason is that The Great Gatsby’s story has a universal theme such as the hopelessness of social constructs, follies and so on. It is used as part of the lesson in English and American history classes in American high schools. The story is about a poor man named Jay Gatsby having a girlfriend named Daisy. One day Jay was needed in the military and broke up with Daisy. After that she married Tom Buchanan. Gatsby wanted to become rich so that she would come back to him. Gatsby made her come back to him temporarily because she still wanted to have Tom. In the end, Gatsby was killed because of the misunderstanding.

When I was an exchange student in the US, I had to read The Great Gatsby for my English III class. I do not dislike it due to the plot but owing to the challenge of reading. I struggled in reading this novel because it is American literature with a hard vocabulary and writing style. I tried my best to pass this work by watching the movie, reading the summary in Thai, and asking friends and teachers for help. I did not read the whole book since it is hard for me and needs a lot of effort. The worksheet I needed to complete had to answer the questions and put the page of the evidence. Since I was not reading it, I had to read the chapter summary in Thai and find where the text was talking about. Moreover, I got the biggest work of the semester which was writing an essay about the American Dream using every article that I had read in the semester. This work was the most challenging one because I did not get the idea of The Great Gatsby about the American Dream. As a result, I searched the internet for the reference, and tried to understand it.

Even though I said that The Great Gatsby made me struggle, I have to say that I developed myself a lot from this book. My reading and writing skills were developed as well as my survival skills.

Phum: The Rollercoaster of Zack Snyder's

Phum: The Rollercoaster of Zack Snyder's

In these few years, the undoubtedly famous news is often about Justice League from Zack Snyder, the well-known movie writer, and director that either gets love or will be hating. In the past, while the superheroes movie was kind of an instant cliche with the good must win over the bad, and the bad must suffer from what they did, Zack Snyder brought us beyond the line of good and bad that he took "People who are a benefit for you is on a good side, no matter what they do to achieve it" too seriously, he releases The Watchmen from comics into the motion picture that told us about the evil side of the superheroes and the people we thought they're good such as the batman who's killing as the interpretation of Rorschach, immoral Captain America as the Comedian, or even Ozzy as the Iron Man but he's the Dictator. Everyone tells that this movie is the Predecessor of our era of the movie genre which a lot of the movie/series are taking it as the inspiration such as the famous Amazon Original's The Boys

Zack Snyder is such a cool director that he will put his signature in every movie that he directed making people will know that this is his directing, this method of director signature are found in general for the famous director such as Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie, and Christopher Nolan. The more he is influencing in, the more signature in it. But two head are always better than one, which is lead to this position of making movies, the writer. Zack Snyder often works with a lot of good writers that will always balance the silly reason into the better one such as Chris Terrio the person who is writing the good first draft of Star Wars IX and bring Snyder's Man of Steel to the top charts, also reimagining the Justice League, Deborah Snyder who is the background of success of Wonder Woman, Aquaman and his life by being his lifelong wife.

Sucker Punch and Army of the Dead is the movie that Zack Snyder is both directing and writing the plot, When I mention about these two movies, there will always two of the side, The loving side, and really hating side, firstly is Sucker Punch, the story be told about the girls who want to escape from their abusive stepfather, by using the fantasy and imagination to interpret the reality of the progressing plan. This movie is filling a lot of easter eggs and abstract interpretation of the protagonist's mind, people really love this because the story is really deep and tragic as for the girls who want to escape from their pity life and cruel master, the action sequences that really unique and excited to watch. But their story that has too many layers sometimes really hard to watch and understand, even more of the poster and description that will bait you into that movie, having thought that it will be some kind of blockbuster movie which you can sit and enjoy your time.

Another one is the newest movie that has just released on Netflix, the Army of The Dead, telling us about the former veteran squad that they get ignored by the government who supposed to pay them a favor after they're protecting the civilian in order to get out of the Las Vegas, they really want to get back there again to collect money inside the city for getting rich. This movie is an ambitious project that Zack Snyder wants to be the grand opening of his zombie universe, but this movie is under this topic, so there's to side of people, either Fanclub or people who don't like it, this movie is really a blockbuster genre that people can sit and enjoy but the big flaw of the movie is the character logic that very silly until it
critically affect the fun and the thrills of this motion picture and the overwhelming secret for the audience to collect.

Zack Snyder is a good example to a good director but he's still not a legend enough to make movies with his own hands like others(Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, etc.) because his personal emotion sometimes reduces the common sense and the plot-hole of the movie. Sometimes having a vast visionary is good but it still needs another person to arrange it.