Library of the National School of Buenos Aires, Argentina

National School of Buenos Aires (Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires) is a public high school in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It provides a free education in classical languages such as Latin and Ancient Greek, as well as other subjects. Classes are also offered in astronomy, photography, languages, sailing, tango, theater, history of cinema, Yoga, piano, chess, band, and martial arts. Among its distinguished graduates is Alberto Manguel, an Argentine Canadian writer. The Thammasat University Library owns a number of books by Alberto Manguel, including A History of Reading, The City of Words, A Reader on Reading, Curiosity, and The Dictionary of Imaginary Places. Last year, when Alberto Manguel was awarded the Alfonso Reyes International Prize for lifetime contributions to literary research and criticism, named in honor of a Mexican poet and literary critic, he was praised for being a great reader:

Alberto Manguel (Buenos Aires, 1948) learned from Jorge Luis Borges that reading is not a passive activity, but is part of the process of building culture… For this reason, he has dedicated his efforts to vindicate the act of reading as a liberating force that allows the individual to connect constructively with his community.

Manguel admits that reading literature may not make people any smarter, deeper thinkers, or better people, but it does inspire us to ask better questions and understand things.

Another renowned graduate of National School of Buenos Aires is the Argentine-born American composer Lalo Schifrin, who wrote the Theme from Mission: Impossible, which TU students may appreciate in a series of hit films in the collection of the Rewat Buddhinan Media Center, Pridi Banomyong Library, Tha Prachan campus. Schiffrin also wrote the music for the famous Bruce Lee film, Enter the Dragon. Schifrin recalled to a Buenos Aires newspaper that at the National School of Buenos Aires, he prepared to study law to please his father, a classical musician. Although Schifrin enjoyed jazz music, his family felt that playing jazz as a professional would bring him into contact with bad influences, such as drugs and alcohol. At the National School of Buenos Aires, Schifrin listened with his classmates to jazz recordings. He also appreciated going to horror movies, paying attention to the soundtrack music. Since at the time, movie soundtracks were not available on records, he would sometimes see the same film 16 times to be able to memorize the music that accompanied it. Even if the films of that era were often bad, they usually had good music.

National School of Buenos Aires was founded in the 1600s. Since the early 1900s, it has been administered by the University of Buenos Aires. At first only for male students, the school has been co-ed since 1957. To be admitted to the highly competitive school, students must take ten examinations after a year-long preparatory course in such subjects as language, mathematics, geography, and history. Around 2,100 students are enrolled at any time. The school’s current building was designed by Norbert-Auguste Maillart, a French architect who created famous works in Argentina and Uruguay. Among Maillart’s other noteworthy buildings in Argentina is the Palace of Justice of Buenos Aires. National School of Buenos Aires has been declared an historic monument by the Ministry of Culture of Argentina. Its library reflects the school’s aim to encourage humanist learning. Humanism is a philosophical and ethical approach that favors human beings, critical thinking, and conclusions based on evidence rather than accepting past superstitions. The school also inspires students to look at the whole world and not just what is happening locally. This approach, sometimes called universalism, values learning about things that apply to as many people as possible, rather than just to the people of one’s own country. The result is a well-educated group of outward-looking young people who are aware in general of world events. To help educate them, the school’s library owns over 130,000 books, with the largest collection in Argentina of publications from the 1800s.

Thailand and Argentina

Since 2016, Her Excellency Maria Alicia Cuzzoni De Sonschein has been Argentina’s ambassador to Thailand. Previously she was posted to the Kingdom from 2008 to 2012. As Thailand Tatler reports, she is much influenced by Tibetan Buddhism and supports Buddhist charities around Asia. She participated last year in the conference highlighting bilateral dialogue between Thailand and Argentina. The fourth edition of the Political and Economic Consultation Mechanisms with Thailand was held in Buenos Aires. Concrete short-term goals were discussed to promote cultural and educational bonds, foster trade exchanges in related services, and encourage university exchange students. Negotiations were also planned for agreements to cooperate in cultural and sports exchange. Thailand expressed an interest in cooperating with Argentina on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Thailand and Argentina share $ 1.6 billion USD in bilateral trade annually. Last year BCP Innovation, a Thai subsidiary of the energy company Bangchak Corporation Public Company Limited, agreed to invest in construction costs for a lithium mine in Argentina’s Jujuy province in the extreme northwest of the country, at the borders with Chile and Bolivia. Thai companies are also considering investing in other sectors of Argentina’s economy, including energy.

The ambassador’s other activities in the Kingdom last year included a visit to Unique Access Medical Partner Hospital, Bangkok, to discuss possibilities of developing medical tourism for innovative treatment of patients from Argentina. The hospital website noted:

Her Excellency announced her intention to publicly raise awareness of Unique Access Medical Treatment Protocol amongst the Argentinian people who might be in need of medical assistance.

In another activity last year, the ambassador participated in a Tango in Bangkok event which benefited the World Vision Foundation of Thailand (WVFT). The event at Dream Hotel Bangkok celebrated the ninth anniversary of La Milonga Bangkok tango group, a group for Thai fans of this typical Argentine dance form. Later this month, the second Thailand Tango Festival will be held in the Rembrandt Hotel Bangkok in the Sukhumvit area. Activities will include dancing to music spun by Pablo Martinez, a DJ from Argentina, and performances by popular Buenos Aires tango orchestras such as La Tanturi. To learn about the tango before the festival, TU students might wish to consult a book in the TU Library collection, Masculinities: Football, Polo, and the Tango in Argentina by Eduardo P. Archetti.

The ambassador was married to the late Ambassador Nicolás Adrián Sonschein, a career diplomat who was stationed at Argentine embassies in Ireland, Ethiopia, and Yugoslavia. Among Ambassador Nicolás Sonschein’s animated career was being ambassador in Yugoslavia during the war in Kosovo, and being transferred to an early diplomatic post in Moscow during the era of Nikita Khrushchev. The late Ambassador Sonschein also held diplomatic responsibilities for six year in Beijing and was fluent in the Russian, French, German, English, Italian and Portuguese languages, among others. He greatly enjoyed art and music, as well as reading about international politics, history, philology, Russian and French literature and the conquest of space. Her Excellency Maria Alicia Cuzzoni De Sonschein must have acquired much wisdom and learning about the diplomatic field and international culture from such a distinguished and accomplished spouse.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)