Bangkok, Thailand | At Bangkok's Reclining Buddha temple, Krairath Chantrasri says he is a proud custodian of an ancient skill -- the body-folding, sharp-elbowed techniques of Thai massage, which was added Thursday to UNESCO's prestigious heritage list.
Originating in India and practiced in Thailand for centuries, the massage was popularized when a specialty school opened in the 1960s to train massage therapists from around the world.
Nuad Thai's addition to UNESCO's list of "Intangible Cultural Heritage" practices "is historic," said the Thai delegate at the United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural Organization meeting in Bogota, Colombia.
"It helps promote the practice of Nuad Thai locally and internationally," he said.
From upscale Bangkok spas and Phuket beach fronts to modest street-side shophouses, "nuad Thai" is ubiquitous across the kingdom, where an hour of the back-straightening discipline can cost as little as $5.
Krairath, who teaches at the Reclining Buddha School inside the famed Wat Pho temple, helps thousands of Thai and foreign students who flock to the centre each year.
The son of a masseuse, he takes great pride in his role sharing the ancient discipline at a temple whose certification is a proud banner for any massage shop.
"I'm a continuation of our collective knowledge," the 40-year-old told AFP.
At Wat Pho's complex, trainees run through a catalogue of moves targeting the body's acupressure points with thumbs, elbows, knees and feet while also incorporating deep stretches and contortions.
Doctors and monks were said to have brought these methods 2,500 years ago to Thailand, passing its secrets from master to disciple in temples and later within families.
Under Thailand's King Rama III in the nineteenth century, scholars engraved their knowledge of the field onto the stones of Wat Pho.
The nuad Thai school, which has trained more than 200,000 massage therapists who practice in 145 countries, first opened in 1962.
- Turning the tables -
Massage employs tens of thousands of Thais.
The school's director Preeda Tangtrongchitr says they usually see an uptick in interest from Thais when the economy is bad.
"For many people who are disabled or in debt, this job is an opportunity because it requires no material -- only their hands and knowledge," he said.
Today, a therapist at a top-end spa can charge around $100 an hour in Thailand, and two or three times more in London, New York or Hong Kong where the Thai massage brand is booming.
But the training is "demanding", says Chilean Sari, a professional masseuse who travelled to Bangkok to learn the discipline.
"The technique is very precise; there are so many things to be aware of," the 34-year-old told AFP, as she made rotations with her palm on a fellow student's skull.
The teachings focus on directing blood circulation around problem areas to solve muscle aches -- sometimes drawing winces from clients unaccustomed to the force applied.
Studies have shown it can help relieve back pain, headaches, insomnia and even anxiety.
For Matthieu Rochefolle, a nurse from Lyon, France, adding Thai massage techniques to his repertoire of skills could help his elderly patients aching for relief.
"It could also allow me to earn a little more," he said.
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Can Giuoc, Vietnam |
Former US first lady Michelle Obama and Hollywood A-lister Julia Roberts toured a high school in rural Vietnam on Monday, urging a classroom of teenage girls to stay focused on their education to transform their lives.
The promotion of girls' schooling has been the cornerstone of Obama's charitable work since her husband Barack Obama left office in 2017 after two terms as US president.
"When you educate a girl you give them power and a voice and an opportunity to improve their lives and the lives of their family and the lives of their community," Obama said at Can Giuoc high school in southern Long An province in the Mekong Delta.
Accompanied by Roberts and Jenna Bush Hager, daughter of former US president George W. Bush, Obama encouraged the girls to stay the course of schooling.
"I want you all to stay committed and focused, it will get tough at times -- it already has for some of you -- but it is well worth it," she said, before the women sat and chatted with students.
"Even if your families don't understand that today, trust me they will, when you go off to college or start your businesses," she added.
With its booming youth population and fast-growing economy, Vietnam routinely outperforms its neighbours in education rankings, especially in math and sciences.
School enrolment rates are also high at 91.7 percent, but the quality of schooling often drops off in rural areas, and in the poorest pockets of the country economic pressures can force girls out of school early.
Student Truong Thi Hai Yen said Obama's visit -- and life story -- was a major motivation.
"She kept trying every day to be better and now we can see that she is very successful," the 16-year-old told AFP.
In her best-selling book "Becoming", Harvard-educated Obama details how her own education and good teachers shaped her life and paved her path to becoming a successful lawyer, university administrator and advocate.
The Obamas have dedicated much of their time post-presidency to the non-profit Obama Foundation, which includes the Girls Opportunity Alliance initiative that Michelle promoted in Vietnam on Monday.
The former first lady announced last week a $500,000 donation to the Alliance's work world-wide, money earned from merchandise sales related to her book.
She will travel next to Malaysia with Barack and Roberts to speak at an Obama Foundation Leaders event on Tuesday.
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The Hague, Netherlands | A Dutch non-profit group committed to ridding the world's waters of plastic, Saturday unveiled their latest invention, a floating garbage-collection barge called "The Interceptor".
It is built by The Ocean Cleanup, who say it will "close the tap" on the greatest source of garbage reaching the oceans: rivers.
The barge, which will be anchored in polluted rivers, is capable of scooping up to 50 tonnes of garbage per day floating downstream, said its inventor, 25-year-old Boyan Slat.
"Under the right conditions we think it could even achieve double that," said Slat, who is the CEO and founder of The Ocean Cleanup.
"The Interceptor" resembles a large houseboat attached to a curved barrier. It is 24 metres (78 feet) long, solar-driven, fully autonomous and able to collect plastic in rivers around the clock, Slat said.
Placed at strategic positions in a river system, its barrier directs plastic to the waiting "mouth" of the barge, from where it rolls up a conveyor belt and is dumped into one of six dumpsters.
The barge has a capacity to carry 50 cubic metres of waste plastic, the equivalent of 271,000 Rubik's cubes, said Slat.
Once full, an onboard computer sends a message to local operators to pull out the dumpsters and empty them "as easily as you would clean your vacuum," Slat said at the unveiling of the machine.
The project will tackle 1,000 of the most polluting rivers in the world "within five years", which contribute to 80 percent of global plastic pollution, he added.
Two of the machines are already up and running: one in Jakarta, Indonesia, and another in Malaysia. A third is being prepared for deployment in Vietnam.
Slat used a fourth Interceptor for the presentation in the port city of Rotterdam's harbour on Saturday. This one will be sent to the Dominican Republic, he said.
Earlier this month, The Ocean Cleanup announced that a special ship designed to clean the world's oceans had harvested its first plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
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Paris, France |
A British girl who lost both her legs when she was just 18 months old has made her Paris catwalk debut on the Eiffel Tower.
Nine-year-old Daisy-May Demetre from Birmingham walked for a luxury French children's brand in the show high on the Paris landmark Friday and told AFP the experience "makes me feel pretty and special".
Daisy-May was born with fibular hemimelia, where part or all of the bone in the lower leg is missing.
She had to have the double amputation while still a baby and later received prosthetic legs on which she learned to walk.
The Paris show was her third appearance as a model for the label Lulu et Gigi, after New York and London fashion weeks.
Her father Alex Demetre said the disabled community were behind his daughter.
And he said he was not surprised at all the attention.
"I'm not surprised because I know what Daisy is like, she's an exceptional young girl proving that disability doesn't hold you back and she's a great role model for anybody trying to pursue their dreams.
"Any goal she has in her head I think she can achieve, anything she chooses to do. That's a great feeling as a parent," Demetre added.
"Obviously coming back from a situation when she was born, when you see no future, where you see no hope... (now) anything is possible, that's an amazing thing," he told AFP after the show.
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Paris, France |
Spring summer fashion is about the race -- often in vain -- to get a flat tummy.
But that was not the case on the Paris fashion week catwalk, where two pregnant models walked the runways.
The French designer Marine Serre sent her mum-to-be out cradling her tummy in the drizzle at her outdoor show, while the Chinese brand Dawei had another heavily-pregnant model in a vertically striped sweater dress to accentuate her bump.
While Serre's choice was also to add a touch of hope to her apocalyptic-themed show "Black Tide", which warned of the environmental catastrophe, pregnant models are becoming something of a thing these days.
Though the trend is not without its risks.
While model Lily Aldridge batted away the worries about walking at New York fashion week last year, Slick Woods will never forget doing Rihanna's Savage X Fenty lingerie fashion show in the city last September.
She began to go into labour just before the lights went up but she soldiered on.
The 22-year-old model was already 2 cm (0.7 inches) dilated when she tottered offstage.
"My last memory before going into the hospital is of Rihanna spanking me with a whip," she later wrote in an article for Vogue.
Such was the initial rush, that the American songwriter Erykah Badu had to act as her doula over FaceTime.
But in the end her son Saphir was born after an 18-hour labour.
Woods' due date was two days after the show.
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