Thursday, November 21, 2024

Thailand's 1st Interscholastic Student Newspaper

TAG

the union international

The Union’s 2023 College Panel

The Union's 2023 College Panel invites 6 top US university applicants from Stanford, UPenn, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Yale, and Dartmouth to share their insights and...

Street Wanderer

If you ever glance out of the window onto the streets of Bangkok, you might wonder, “why are there so many dogs wandering around?”...

The Bizarre Culture of Music in Japanese Train Stations

Imagine yourself in the world’s busiest station, Shinjuku Station, in the heart of Japan’s capital, Tokyo. Pushing aside the hundreds of commuters to catch...

The Lethalness of Economics

Economics is defined as the study of scarce resources, production, consumption, and the connection between all financial decisions made in our daily lives that...

THE UNION IS RECRUITING! 2023-24 Academic Year

Calling all existing and new members! Sign up now to join The Union's 2023-24 Staff. New members: sign up to join as a staff member Existing members: sign up to renew your interest in The Union, and apply for executive positions if you're interested CLOSES OCTOBER 1, 2023 (Sunday)

Apply to join the first cohort of UNITE Young Leaders

The Union International is thrilled to announce the launch of UNITE – a special initiative aimed to raise the voices of young changemakers and accelerate change.

Roald Dahl’s Books Rewritten

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The Witches, The BFG, and many more. All of these books have been written by the British author Roald Dahl, many of which you may have heard of or even read as a child. Born in 1916, he became famous for his children’s literature, before passing on the 23rd of November in 1990. However, recent changes made to these stories to make them more “acceptable” in the modern world have brought on a flood of conflicting complaints and support from critics, fans, readers, and writers alike.

Living in a Box: Exploring Hong Kong’s Coffin Homes Amidst the Housing Crisis

Imagine working a 10-hour shift only to come home to a space the same size as your cubicle at work. While this may be hard to imagine for some, this is common in Hong Kong due to the exponentially increasing population and the limited space. To create a coffin home, flats were illegally subdivided into around 15 partitioned units, sharing a kitchen and bathroom. Each home is usually only large enough for a bunk bed which is surrounded by a metal cage. Not only does this bed have to hold one's basic necessities, it also has to function as sleeping quarters. Therefore, for many, these coffin homes only allow for the uncomfortable position of bending their legs in an almost fetal-like position while lying down.

Tutoring: Option or Necessity?

In our society today, getting into a top-ranked university has become a “be-all-end-all” of sorts. Certainly, having “Harvard” attached to your resume can get you a long way in life, whether you aspire to inherit your parents’ million-dollar business or work in Fortune 500 companies. This, however, has created a billion-dollar beast of its own: the booming tutoring industry. Take Thailand, for instance, if you have ever walked around Siam Square, you have probably seen at the very least three large, colorful billboards advertising tutoring services, promising top marks in standardized exams like the IELTS or SAT. Sure enough, the stats paint the picture even better; according to OPEC (Office of the Private Education Commission) 2,600 tutoring institutions were operating as of early 2020 in the nation; In the same year, the Kasikorn Research Centre reported that an average household spent 1.77 million baht every single semester on tutoring for their school-age child. Most of you may not think much of this, but if you have the money, go for it right? Well, that is exactly the problem. Not everyone has the money.

The Implications of China’s Reopening on the World Economy

2022 can be described as a year mired with exacerbations of supply chains, rapid inflation, and shrinking economic growth worldwide. In China, the notorious Zero-Covid policy severely restricted the movement of Chinese citizens, for millions, this led to forceful quarantine in fever camps or being confined in apartments for weeks on end.

MOST READ