Mowae Apisuttipanya

Dr Mowae Apisuttipanya, or simply Dr Mo, as he is known to many, told me he feels blessed by God, but I think it is also accurate to say that his family, his community and his patients are blessed to have him in their lives.  This is a young, friendly, highly energetic man, still in his 30s, who not only commits fully to life, but has survived and flourished through sheer tenacity and resilience, and who has been prepared to make considerable personal sacrifice for those he holds dear.  If this man is on your side, you are already a winner.

While Mo sees his cautious approach to decision-making as potentially one of his areas of weakness, with its accompanying inability to readily trust his gut instincts, he did jump headfirst into living in Hua Hin in July 2021, without ever having visited it at all.  Admittedly, it did take him three months of carefully weighing the pros and cons when he was invited to become a partner at Be Well Medical Centre, located on Phetkasem Road just south of the town centre.  But I sense that his hesitancy was based on concerns for how his decision could impact others around him, much more that its impact on him personally. He does, however, wish that prices were cheaper here, particularly in the housing sector.

Mo experienced a difficult and dislocated childhood as a result of being born a member of the Karen ethnic minority in Myanmar.  As an adult, he now despairs of any genuine political solution to the unrest in Myanmar, which has around 135 ethnic minorities which loosely belong to 8 larger groups, that caused him trauma as a child.  As an 8-year-old, he was forced to make the trek across the border into Thailand with his parents and six siblings when his entire village was burnt to the ground by the military in an attempt to suppress, if not exterminate, the Karen people. He still has nightmares and can hear the gunfire.  He lost several family members, and recalls his grandfather being hung upside down.  Mo became not only homeless, but also stateless, trapped in Thamhim Refugee Camp in Ratchaburi for three long years, or over a third of his young life, to that point.  The days seemed interminable, and conditions in the camp were far from the comfort of having his own home on the riverbank, and enjoying the pure childhood friendship and innocence of playing naked in the water with his friends. All this the years in the camp as a displaced person stripped from the impressionable young Mowae. I wonder if this is why he now claims, “Life is good, play more” as his life motto.

Eventually his family was able to resettle in Kanchanaburi, where his elderly parents still reside on their farm to this day, in a home bought for them by Mo with the very first of the saving he was able to accumulate when he started work.  This is only one of the sacrifices Dr Mo has made. It is with patent, but patient regret that he mentions to me he is still to become a home owner in his own right and start his own family. Ever the optimist, Dr Mo is aware of how life is becoming better for many people around the world, with the advent of improved communicational and medical technology. Home is Mo’s favourite place on earth, and for now it is where his parents live.

 Life was not easy for the family of nine, and finances were always tight.  Mo realised early on that education was the only escape from poverty, and he determined that he was going to use all his mental abilities to empower his escape.  Even learning the Thai language was a struggle for him.  Because of the schooling he had missed, he was the wrong age to enter the Thai education system, and instead found himself learning Thai in the temple, along with the pre-school aged children.  Much older than the other students, Mo recalls having to help the monks with toileting their young charges.

Dr Mo would tell you it was divine intervention that led him to a refuge centre and orphanage started by a New Zealander, Catherine Riley-Bryan, a Christian missionary he calls MoMoCat as a term of endearment.  Catherine’s efforts at Bamboo School led to him being sponsored by Dr Max Hammonds, a retired American anaesthesiologist and his wife Caroline.  Mo feels enormous gratitude for what the couple, along with some support from friends along the way, has done for him, in sponsoring his education from Year 1 until his graduation from medical school in the Philippines.  Their generosity has spread like ripples in a pond, allowing Dr Mo to pay it forward by continuing to support his three younger siblings to achieve their own educational goals.  The American couple are family to Dr Mo, he has regular contact with them and is planning to visit them at their home next year.

Few in Hua Hin would be aware that Mo does quite a lot more than “dabble” in watercolour nature painting.  He engages his imagination to bring to life idyllic scenes of rural and coastal Thailand.  I encouraged him to seek to organise an exhibition, only to be told that he has sold most of the dozens of paintings, with all proceeds going to the Bamboo School.  The former student has become a benefactor. I still think an exhibition is on the cards within a few years, if Mo is able to retain a few more of his pieces.  I can easily imagine the local 5-star hotels vying for the opportunity to host his exhibition.  This man has serious talent, and when the cause is such a good one ….!

I believe Dr Mo is a wonderful family practitioner because he acknowledges that making people happy can be a complex issue, as everyone has their own expectations when it comes to happiness.  Mo knows, though, that a smile, and few simple words of respect and empathy, and perhaps even a hug, can go a long way.

Although Mo has a strong personal relationship with his God, he is not a preacher nor a pastor.  An Adventist Christian, he is conscious of what he fuels his body with, and how he models appropriate and respectful behaviour.  He admits he is still challenged by managing his emotions at times, and needs to be less moody; that as a leader he needs to be more balanced.  I would contend this struggle is at least partially as a response to childhood trauma. A source of on-going frustration has been his perception of a lack of ambition in his younger siblings.  Like a parent to them in lots of ways, Mo wants to see them find and embrace their passions in life.

Of all his siblings, Mo has been the only one who has had the temerity to question his father’s decisions.  Although he loves his parents, Mo has the courage to speak out if he thinks his way is better, which has not always endeared him to his father.  But it is clear that Mo has his parents’ best interests at heart.  It would be much easier for Mo to move them, at 68 and 64 years of age, to reside here in Hua Hin, where his youngest sister also works.  However, Mo has decided that moving them out of their own environment, where they now live in comfort, would be detrimental.

At the end of a recent Facebook post, Mo described himself as, “Nothing fancy, just a simple man.”  I certainly beg to differ.