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Hi from Surin!
I arrived in Northeastern Thailand, the so-called Land of Elephants. This town hosts the Surin Elephant Round-up, where hundreds of elephants from the province gather for a yearly meeting.
Being among animals can sometimes feel more pleasant than being among your own kind. Especially when we forget to treat those around us with kindness, an empathic quality that makes us human.
While seeing hundreds of endangered elephants in one place may seem reassuring, there are things I wish I could unsee.
Beyond just feeding the elephants with an admirably gigantic buffet of fresh fruit and veggies, the Surin Elephant Festival is a place where these magnificent animals are forced to dress up like Elvis, play football, and even dance.
As you can clearly see on the last video link (around 01:07), this elephant behavior is conditioned by the use of a bullhook, aka elephant goad – a pointy tool for stabbing the animal’s sensitive areas.
It saddens me that, in the 21st century, this is how we celebrate these creatures.
While Surin Elephant Round-up (which started in the 1960s) coincides with World Kindness Week (inaugurated in 1997), the festival doesn’t seem to understand its modern role, which should be in educating people.
And not in a way that it challenges 30 people from the audience to play a tug of war with an elephant (seemingly, this portrays the animal as incredibly strong). Instead, the education should be about the vulnerability of the species, and how outdated methods using a bullhook are.
Thailand was one of the countries whose organizations joined the creation of the World Kindness Movement. We all know it after another slogan – The Land of Smiles. So Thailand actually has the responsibility to be a leader in empathy, showing that an opportunity to help someone in need should never be passed up.
A reminder that we are still not completely alone dawned on me during a low-cost flight (!). A young plane passenger showed that kindness can be contagious. The more we feel good because of someone’s kindness, the more likely we are to pay it forward. Check out this inspiring Wizz Air story!
And remember to be kind, both to yourself and everyone around you.
Have a human/kind week!
Ivan Kralj
Pipeaway.com
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