Wednesday, May 24, 2006
My Great, Great-Grandpa!
Not long ago, I wrote about destiny.Well, rather, I mused about it.
I wonder what made me keep going back to Japan.
Now I know (more).
It is him. :)
In this picture is my great, great grand father, Phya Visutsakorndit (Sai Jotikasthira). In one of his various posts during his service to King Rama the V, he was sent as a Royal Envoy of Siam Court to Imperial Japan. In the year Meiji 36, my great, great grand pa set sail with his son, my future great grand pa, Major Luang Jarunrittikrai, then probably a young teenager, to Japan.
This link would lead you to the news about both of them that I found two nights ago from the web site of Japanese Embassy in Thailand. Imagine the pleasant surprise (and shock!) to find out about your ancestors this way! Luang Jarunrittikrai is the father of my paternal grandmother. But she never talked much about her father or her grand father. And I grew up more with my mother's side of family, so I never knew.
http://www.th.emb-japan.go.jp/th/jis/publ/pub1_46/pub12.htm
But, now, I know why I enjoyed studying diplomacy as a master's degree! And now I know I always fond of the old Japan. Moreover, now I know why my Ph.D. is gearing more and more towards Bushido! It is because my great grandpa used to graduate from both the cadet school and the army college (sort of their graduate degree)!
I only found all these out recently, well after my dissertation is already in progress and I already got the scholarship to go to Japan myself.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, if this is not destiny, then, what is? If you think this kind of things do not run in the blood, well, I invite you to think again. It is truly amazing that I find out about them this way. But what a moral boost for a tiring graduate student! :)
And what a benchmark, too! Now I would have to give all my best not to disappoint them. But with his smiling to me like that, I know I could do it! Right, Great, Great-Grandpa? :)
