Foreword:

HELLO – My name is John and I am excited to introduce my friend Doctor Shingha Jantriwong   She will offer  you some ideas you apply to your own life style based on her 40+ years  academic study of rural elderly in Southeast Asia and  also her additional training in Thai traditional medicine.

But who am I to be the one to introduce Doctor Singha? Well, I am retired from the United States Department of State – think Embassies and Counsels.  In this capacity I got to see a lot more of the bigger world than most Americans ever do. I was interested myself in academia and was a student in Chulalongkorn’s College of population studies – (think demography). And that is how I came to know Doctor Singha.

But, in my role with the State Dept, mostly in poorer rural areas, I realized that all over the world there are pockets of civilization where the “old ways” survive.  Elderly family members cruise along into old age with stamina. This is not always true in what we often call the “first world”.  But some of those “old ways” have power and deserve to survive.  And that is where people like Doctor Singha step in.

 This is Doctor Singha’s story, and I will do my best to tell it.

 Doctor Singha grew up in a village an hour’s drive east of the Thai provincial capital of Surin and close to the Cambodian border, (easy to find on a computerized  maps these days) and. Doctor Singha’s  father was a teacher and a major influence in her life. Dr She was smart at a young age, and this was discovered through Thai government testing of children. She went to a boarding high school in, Surin, and followed that up with her undergrad university degree at Mahidol University in Bangkok.  This was the beginning of years of Thai govern funding of Doctor Singha’s research into health and welfare of rural Thai population.  That study expanded into Cambodia and Lao and resulted in publications leading to Doctor Singha’s Ph.D. with honors.  For twenty more years Doctor Singha took turns as Assistant Professor and/or Administrator to the President of Surindar Rajbat University.   Now she is retired.  Throughout this period, she participated in programs with the Thailand Traditional Medicine Organization. (check to see if there is a more formal impressive name for this? ) 

 Now Doctor Singha, in her mid-60s, is often mistaken for someone 20, even 30, years younger than her true age.  She works in her garden almost every day She usually swims two or three times a week and has an active roll in the lives of three grandchildren.

And I present to you.  Doctor Singha who will share her personal health regimen and how it has been working for her.  I urge you to give this a try and report back later.  And this might be Doctor Singha’s last and most important research as she seeks to learn from your result if her morning food regimen can make the transition to a larger, modern world.

 W00W What an amazing introduction from my friend John.  Yes, that is my story.  But at my core I am just one of many Thai farm girls. The only difference is that I came from a solid home and I worked hard to earn opportunities for higher education.  And, yes, as John said, the old ways of life have special value and should not be ignored.  I have had a role in contributing to that.

Here is what I have been doing for several years now.   My most important meal of the day is a morning smoothy. Years ago as a researcher, I would sit with elderly rural people, mostly women, and interview them.  They often had raw vegetables and fruits handy and nibbled on this their major meal.

It was only later that electric mixers/ blenders became available.   Even later my new knowledge of traditional Thai medicine all clicked into place, and I made the transition to create my own health-conscious recipes which I can quickly make and then charge out into a new day.

 This was not expensive.  But I urge you to give this dietary change a try and report back to me.

 This too is useful research to show all of us that this success that I feel in myself can make a transition to the modern world users.