In recent days, there have been great posts made on many of the various Southeast Asia blogs. For the benefit of busy New Mandala readers I have taken the liberty of selecting a few highlights:
- Bangkok Pundit’s excellent post on Thai Rath cartoons.
- A very handy overview of the cost of living in Bangkok by Matt Crook (The Lost Boy).
- Gnarly Kitty’s outline of her run-in with Sitthichai Pookaiudom, Thailand’s Minister for Information and Communication Technology.
- And, last but not least, a teaser from the prolific Richard Barrow over at Thai Blogs. He will shortly be posting an interview with “the only Westerner ever to break out of Thailand’s Bangkok Hilton”. More details are available here.
These four very different posts all have a lot of offer. Of course, if you have suggestions for other websites or posts that New Mandala readers should be aware of, then please post them as comments.
5 responses so far ↓
1 jonfernquest // Jul 6, 2007 at 1:20 am
Boy those were fun to read and look at. Where did Gnarly Kitty go, anyway? And do ministers really divulge all their intimate personal sex histories during news conferences? The cost of living thing was great too. (There are nice places for 7,000 near subway stations but the waiting lists are humungous at least a couple of months ago) The Sonthi and Surayud pair in the cartoons is hilarious and the Nak Kaan Muang jumping like frogs through a hoop! The knife through the law book and the professor in a big sweat is classic too. Who says there isn’t press freedom.
2 max // Jul 6, 2007 at 1:29 am
this new blog looks to be promising,…
3 Historicus // Jul 6, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Kitty’s comment about Chinese-ness is interesting. There seems to be a run on Chinese/Thai stuff at the moment.
A notable one came from Dr. Panitan Wattanayagorn who is supposed to be an Associate Professor of International Relations at the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University but is serving the military-appointed government as an “adviser.” He recently was reported as saying that Thailand should get closer to China because Thailand is basically run by Chinese anyway (Sino-Thais, that is) so we have a great connection already - or words to this effect.
A couple of taxi drivers - those nasty Thaksin supporters! - have also mentioned that politics is looking like a battle between rich Chinese and poor Thais. One also expressed his desire to get rid of the monarchy!
I notice that his enemies now refer to Sonthi Limthongkul just as Sonthi Lim. Maybe that’s not new?
I wonder if others have noticed similar views?
4 Srithanonchai // Jul 6, 2007 at 6:52 pm
The Chinese amongst themselves are not necessarily united, of course. Upcountry, I recently talked politics with Chinese who run the provincial chamber of commerce and the industry assembly. After joking about Banharn and identifying his “sae” they agreed that Thaksin was no good. But they did not refer to him as a fellow Chinese. Maybe, they are just so used to be amongst Chinese-Thais most of the time.
5 Thaibloke // Jul 11, 2007 at 2:19 am
In between the buffoonery, how on earth does Sittichai sound like Tom Jones, bloody ‘ell !!
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