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Tuesday 25 September 2012

"Watching the Thais" is on sale now!!!

Finally, my book about living and working in Thailand is finished and available to buy. Here's the link: http://www.feedaread.com/books/Watching-the-Thais-9781781766699.aspx


At the moment, it's only available on feed-a-read.com and it will be on Amazon and others very soon. It will also be available in digital format, probably the kindle (when I can figure out how to convert it!) and then I am also working on a local printing (in Thailand) in English and also a translation into Thai so that remains an option for some people as well.

But for now, it's here to buy at a very reasonable price.



Tuesday 18 September 2012

Foreigners slammed for lopping trees

Ordinarily words would fail me, but in this situation, three words really do now spring to mind: "kettle", "calling" and "black". How many times have we heard of Thais lopping down not just a few trees, but whole swathes of forest in places like Khao Yai and Pak Chong but to name two areas? And the reason for this mass culling of nature's garden? To build new homes and especially high end resorts to attract high spending customers. Not a thought at all for the pernicious effects of this on the environment.

Now we are told that many Thais are indignant because they saw some foreigners on Koh Phangan island doing something as minor as cutting down one inconveniently placed tree to help with their business. "Hypocrisy" is another word that could be easily added to this list.

Here's the article from The Bangkok Post:

"A group of about five foreigners have been caught on camera lopping a large branch off a tree on Phangan island and have been heavily criticised by Thai netizens, many of whom demanded that the authorities arrest them.
Photographs of the foreigners cutting off the tree branch on the popular tourist island in Surat Thani were posted on Sept 15 on Pantip.com, a popular internet forum, by a person who went by the name of vuddiken. The link is www.pantip.com/cafe/blueplanet/topic/E12655715/E12655715.html.

 
 Foreign tourists sunbath on Phangan island of Surat Thani province. (Photo by Supaphong Chaolan)
The topic of the discussion thread is "A group of inherently bad foreigners on Phangngan island in pursuit of their self-interested business surreptitiously chopping down a tree to open a paragliding business."
However, the original poster did not specify when the incident happened.
One netizen said the group of foreigners should not have cut off the tree branch and asked if the tree was in a private or public area or if it was in a national park.
Many posters called on authorities, including National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department director-general Damrong Pidech, to track down these people and take legal action against them.
Thirayuth Plaisuwan, chief of tambon Bantai in Phangan, said he had been informed about the incident and will check whether the area was in a national park.
If the tree is public property, police will definitely find those responsible for the damage and take action against them, Mr Thirayuth said."

This is something that reminds me of when I first went to Thailand some fifteen years ago. I regularly used to hear opinions such as that the reason places like Nana Plaza and Patpong exist is only because of the foreigners who frequent them and that there are no bad girls or prostitutes in Thailand. It never occurred to the person opining this that it's Thais who own such business and that the country is replete with prostitution and many other unsavoury professions.

It seemed to me at the time that foreigners were always being blamed even for things that they had nothing to do with and in fact were 200% controlled by Thais. Perhaps it's a face saving mechanism or perhaps Thais realy do believe that foreigners are the source of everything bad in Thailand. Who knows!

Source: http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/312918/foreigners-slammed-for-cutting-tree

Monday 17 September 2012

Dog stands guard over deceased owner’s grave for six years

What a truly heartwarming and amazing story of true love and unbounding loyalty! This is why dogs are called man's best friend. The funny thing is that when the dog's owner died, the dog was never even at the funeral site so how did he find it and how did he even find the grave? There's so much more to animals, especially domestic animals, than we realise.

I'm quoting the story in full below because it's the kind of story that will brighten your day of even the most obdurate of people!

 

Capitan keeps watch over Miguel Guzman's grave (La Voz)An extremely dedicated dog has continued to show its loyalty, keeping watch on its owner's grave six years after he passed away. Capitan, a German shepherd, reportedly ran away from home after its owner, Miguel Guzman, died in 2006. A week later, the Guzman family found the dog sitting by his grave in central Argentina.
Miguel Guzman adopted Capitan in 2005 as a gift for his teenage son, Damian. And for the past six years, Capitan has continued to stand guard at Miguel's grave. The family says the dog rarely leaves the site.
"We searched for him, but he had vanished," widow Veronica Guzman told LaVoz.com. "We thought he must have got run over and died.
'The following Sunday we went to the cemetery, and Damian recognized his pet. Capitan came up to us, barking and wailing as if he were crying." Adding to the unusual circumstances, Veronica says the family never brought Capitan to the cemetery before he was discovered there. "It is a mystery how he managed to find the place," she said.
Cemetery director Hector Baccega says he and his staff have begun feeding and taking care of Capitan.
"He turned up here one day, all on his own, and started wandering all around the cemetery until he eventually found the tomb of his master," Baccega said.
"During the day he sometimes has a walk around the cemetery, but always rushes back to the grave. And every day, at six o'clock sharp, he lies down on top of the grave, stays there all night."
But the Guzman family hasn't abandoned Capitan. Damian says the family has tried to bring Capitan home several times but that he always returns to the cemetery on his own.
"I think he's going to be there until he dies, too. He's looking after my dad," he said.

Friday 14 September 2012

Those Boys in Brown are up to no good again!

 This is the story on Thaivisa.com courtesy of Richard Barrow's website...

Thai police applicants told they cannot have genital implants or try to enlarge them

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BANGKOK: -- There has been a lot of news recently of cheating going on for police entrance exams in Thailand. During the recent exams, everyone had to submit themselves to a pat down and go through a metal detector.

Now comes news that many people were disqualified from even taking the exams as they failed medical examinations at the Police General Hospital. I presume all of the usual contagious diseases were tested for, but according to the Bangkok Post, many people were disqualified for having tattoos on their body parts.

I didn’t realize that was true for police officers, but I do know that people applying for office work will have to make sure that they don’t have any visible tattoos.

What was even more surprising is that, according to a police spokeswoman of the Royal Thai Police Office, applicants who failed the health checks also included many who had injected paraffin gel into their genitals, and those that had their genitals implanted with small beads.

I am not sure how that would affect their job as this kind of thing has been going on for years in Thailand.

Full story: http://www.richardba...nital-implants/