By Harrison George |
<p>There are these tricky problems with translating Thai to English. Take, for example, the common or garden words phi (falling tone, not the ghostly rising tone) or nong. Because, some say, Thais regard age as more important than sex, these words tell you whether you are dealing with an older or younger sibling. But not if it is a sister or brother. Which is what the English reader expects to be told.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>The recent proposal which was endorsed by Education Minister Chinnaworn Boonyakiat, to send violent students to the troubled South to do community work, continues a long tradition in the thinking of the Thai mainstream.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>The scale of the flooding in Pakistan is difficult to grasp. An area equal to that of the United Kingdom has disappeared under water. Mercifully the number of fatalities (estimated at over 200,000 and still rising, with the threat of epidemics and starvation on the horizon) is so far lower than other recent disasters. But the number of people made homeless, and consequently more or less resource-less, is already greater than that of the 2004 tsunami and the earthquakes in Kashmir in 2005 and Haiti earlier this year, combined. Estimates of the damage to infrastructure – bridges, roads, railways, schools, hospitals and other public services – run to over $4 billion. The cost in lost output, crucially including food crops, is still too large to count.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>This week’s prize for twisted logic goes to Nipon Poapongsakorn, President of the Thailand Development Research Institute think-tank and member of the Prawase Reform Committee. The committee, tasked with reducing injustice and inequity in the wake of the red shirt protests, is looking at the tax system.</p>
<p>And that is a jolly good place to look.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>“Govt unveils new steps to ease poverty” reads the Bangkok Post headline, with the kicker “Democrats flesh out ‘people’s agenda’ with skills training, loans, debt relief”.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>Dramatis Personae<br />
Deputy Rector for Student Affairs<br />
Faculty Advisor to Student Drama Society<br />
Student Director</p>
<p>Act One, Scene One<br />
Office of the Deputy Rector for Student Affairs</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>The National Reform Committee has made a dramatic start in its work toward national reconciliation by seeking to eliminate the problem of ‘double standards’. In a move that took most observers by complete surprise – and shocked the government to its core – it ordered Maj Gen Chamlong Srimuang, one of the five leaders of the People’s Alliance for Democracy, to report for psychological testing.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>They managed to cling on to their terraced house through the Great Depression and got through World War 2 with all their children surviving. They saw them all married off bar one, and at war’s end, through the kind of thrift that borders on miserliness, they had scraped enough together to move two doors down into ‘The Shop’.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>It has been pointed out that the political messages from both sides of polarized Thailand, even when they are in English, are very much oriented to a Thai audience. They therefore use a Thai discourse which either looks deceptively familiar to non-Thais (and so is almost certainly going to be misinterpreted), or they sound a bit off.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>I don’t quite get this. I don’t even understand his name. ‘Mark V11’? Is that ‘Mark 7’ misspelled? Or ‘Mark V+11=16’?</p>
<p>Anyway, with the insouciant self-exposure of youth, he slags off on the PM on his Facebook page using language that is likely to put off any prospective employer who bothers to check. Then he joins Academy Fantasia, who obviously didn’t bother with an internet check.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>Funny how things coincide. With the bleary-eyed fatigue of watching 2 consecutive early-hours semi-finals, you don’t expect all these crowds at Sam Yan underground station. Eventually you twig. The fluffy toy animals, posies of flowers and wedding-thick make-up can mean only one thing.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>An extraordinary political crisis has arisen after a freelance article in the latest edition of Hin Kling magazine exposed the private views of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his aides towards the Thai military command. The article, which bizarrely appears in a magazine more noted for gushing puff pieces on Korean boy bands, quotes a raft of comments from the Prime Minister’s entourage mocking the army’s top hierarchy, though none directly from the PM himself</p>