Love of Chinese culture inspires Thai teacher

Nitinun Chomchuen, a teacher at Tianjin Bohai Vocational Technical College, said she is a typical example of China and Thailand having kinship with one another.

Chomchuen, 35, who came from Nonthaburi, Thailand, graduated from Silpakorn University, majoring in Chinese language. She has a beautiful Chinese name — Huang Keying — and said she had a passion for Chinese culture since she was young, so decided to study Chinese during the senior year.

She studied for an MBA degree for three years at Tianjin University with a scholarship offered by the Chinese government.

In 2016, she began to work at the vocational college as a Chinese language teacher for Thai students — part of the Luban Workshop, a technological and vocational training program offered in partnership with the college and Ayutthaya Technical College in Thailand. It is the first of its kind among the current 25 Luban Workshops worldwide.

She engaged in some foreign liaison and interpretation work between the two partners thanks to her excellent Chinese and Thai and supported the Thai students in Chinese language training, some China-Thailand short-term faculty, student exchange program and long-term overseas student training.

So far, more than 100 Thai students have studied basic Chinese with her instruction, and her work is highly appreciated by her Chinese and Thai colleagues.

During her work at the college, she met her husband Sun Jianpeng, a Chinese who is a teacher in the engineering, practice and innovation project known as EPIP, the training model of the Luban Workshop.

Chomchuen said that students who completed their studies at the Luban Workshop can easily find their dream jobs when back in Thailand. The programs have attracted some students from member countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, including Indonesia and Malaysia.

"We have four majors including mechatronics, internet of things, new energy vehicles and computer numeral control technology — which are all preferred by Thai students," she said.