ajarnsiam

Just catching up on a few posts here: I had got the impression you were an aspiring artist of some sort, otherwise I wouldn't have spent my time to advise you where to buy canvas. I hope the advice was useful.

So sorry you don't approve of Chinese or Thai art, but I'm sure the Japanese will be very grateful to know that you consider their art to be exquisite lol.

VF you recently described yourself as blase, and I certainly wouldn't disagree with you about that. But as a matter of interest, are there any issues that do concern you enough to try to do something about.

I'm away this weekend and won't be online for a few days, so don't take it personally that I don't reply.

Talking of preservation, there is a large body of opinion that the threat to indigenous languages and lifestyles over the next decade or two could be cataclysmic. Northern Thailand, along with many other rural parts of SE Asia, has many such endangered languages. Maybe this could also be an interesting development for concerned ex-pats.

Re the previous 2 or 3 posts, I hope I will also be allowed the off-topic leeway to suggest that the quality of life as seen from a super-sportscar may be somewhat different from that seen from shanks’s pony or an iden, but depending on how one measures quality of life I’m really not sure which would be better.

Well this thread’s pretty long list of authenticated wildlife sightings (or dinners) gives me cause for rejoicing in, rather than criticism of, the ways of northern Thailand.

I would say, again stating the obvious, that the fact that there are so many very large natural parks, many containing off-limit reserves, is actually a positive indication that successive governments have recognized the non-economic value of such investments (actually there may be other historical reasons, but I don’t want to turn this into a dissertation).

Again stating the obvious, the reasons why Thailand doesn’t have the sort of wildlife policies we see in many of our dev eloped home nations are that firstly, it’s a developing nation and has other priorities, and secondly, many of the indigenous species are alive and well.

I have never known a rural Thai to kill an animal for sport, but that doesn’t mean to say that it doesn’t happen. I think there are a couple of reasons for this: firstly, they prefer food straight from their ancestral environment rather than the battery farm or supermarket (worth reflecting on the fact this has been their ancestral environment since well before the colonization of north America); secondly it’s directly related to their long and deep mixed animist-buddhist roots.

I have known some seriously poisonous and/or lethal animals to be killed for self-defence, but where possible these are eaten rather than wasted.

Most of my food and much of my drink comes straight off the land (the water supply is tested regularly by the way). That doesn’t mean to say that I don’t enjoy good five star international cuisine, but I’ve already experienced that way of life for many years.

I’ve been an expat for many years (though not all in Thailand of course), and I’ve always, without exception, found that approaching it as a learning experience and engaging with the indigenous people is far more rewarding than approaching it from a perspective of assumed first-world superiority and patronizing condescension.

Thanks Canuckamuck and others for feedback on this topic. I realize there are still many, particularly hill tribers, who will kill wild animals for food and sport. Our species have a very long history of killing animals. That mental outlook can change for the better, but it won't be overnight. There's a grizzled old American who resides in NE Alaska, tens of miles from anyone else, who spends all his waking hours looking around for wild animals to kill. The yard around his cabin has many carcasses hanging around. That's just one person. Indeed, Alaska used to be crammed with a variety of large fauna, until successive waves of humans came along and sent them to extinction one by one. On a lesser scale, that's what's happening here in central SE Asia.

A Lao family squats on a corner of my rural property. Their friends come visit from Laos. Often they'll put out little hand-crafted traps for small wild animals (medium and large wild animals are already gone). Another neighbor puts out gill nets between trees to trap song birds - probably to sell in markets - for Buddhist merit. ....or maybe to eat, similar to Arabs in the Mediterranean region who will catch any type of bird, large and small, for sport. They'll say it's for food, but it's not really. I would gladly give those types of hunters $1 each to go buy some food at a market, and let the endangered birds fly free, but they wouldn't go for that. It's more fun to kill wild animals and birds.

Those bird guys that charge a fee to release a bird are quite a mystery to me. Why would someone pay a guy to catch birds and put them in a cage, just so you can watch one go free. If you want to see them free, wouldn't it be better to never pay guy so that he will stop catching them? Wouldn't it be better to put up a fuss every time you seen one of those guys, so other people might think about it and condemn the act as well.

Yet everyday there will be some idiots that will give this guy money and think they did some good.

Yes, I'm one of those idiots, the last time I did this was at the main wat in Phayao at songkhran. I did ask the vendor where the birds came from, she said she bred them.

Boom, re wildlife preservation, I fully support your passions, though I’m not sure what your specific goals are, as they seem to have shifted a few times during the course of this thread. I am not a zoologist, so I cannot answer all of your questions, but I am confident that some of the species which you refer to do exist in the wildlife reserves inside the parks, and indeed some wander well outside of the parks from time to time, like the clouded leopard family that was found about 3 kilos from my northern home-from-home and returned to the park by the villagers and the rangers. I am also rather sad to say that I have been offered wildcat laap a few times by friends in a nearby village. A neighbouring farmer recently caught a 30 odd kilo boa/python (by dropping a net on it from his iden in case you’re wondering how) which again was duly transferred to the reserve, unlike a similar sized one a few months back which was caught and cooked before the rangers could get there, though they did arrest the individuals concerned. I’ve seen a few other small mammal species locally (other than the bats and rats you referred to), but hey this isn’t an inventory of my wildlife experience. Obviously you won’t find these sorts of animals as highway road-kill as the highways don’t go through the parks or reserves. I do see the occasional wild parrot or two, and after counting about 15 species of bird around the house in the space of 30 minutes one morning I did actually buy the “Birds of Thailand” and some field glasses.

Down my way the fish are jumping and very soon the cotton will be high (well the rice actually). Have you spent time on a rice farm? The fish just swim in from the klongs and rivers – the whole area is alive with flesh, fish and fowl (excuse the Yeatsian allusion). It’s a balm to the soul of any city boy with a green heart. Nevertheless, the threats to species such as the Irawaddy dolphin and giant catfish are real and very saddening.

The green management award was one of ten different awards across ASEAN; just like you, I was interested in the details, but the news report didn’t give any.

Re the loner / self-help group point, there seems to have been a misunderstanding, though I do believe that it’s a good idea to have goals which are achievable, otherwise one descends further into a spiral of powerlessness, and all that that entails.

As for your point about housing developments, that may well be true in CR city, but CR province and the surrounding areas, both inside and outside of Thailand, have an extremely low human-population density.

You have mentioned rose-tinted specs a few times, and I’m sure we all recognize that condition, but so many on this forum have the cynical-tinted-specs about all things Thai, it seems to be the simplest way for displaced expats to forge quick, if rather superficial, bonds.

I do wish you all the best in your endeavours.

oh PS , the community-lake-net-fishing in one of VF's photos also takes place in a lake quite near me; yes the fish are almost completely depleted on that one day of fishing, but then the lake remains unfished (for 2 years I think) to restock. I can't comment whether this would be true of all such events.

Uh actually it did take a turn off topic, but on this occasion I was not the culprit - non mea culpa.

I certainly agree with the closing of illegal resorts on green land and welcome this, and also quite impressed with the Heraclian reference. On the other hand...

this forum used to be refreshingly free of the partisan politics, casual racism and misogyny that seem to be the raison d'etre of so many of the other TV forums, but just taking a glance at some active threads it would appear that changes are afoot.

But while we're on the topic of Augean Labours, I also welcome the current interregnum's continuation of the government's policy of applying the visa and immigration rules more stringently, and perhaps even tighening them up a ratchet or two.

I think quite a few of us are here because we like it pretty much the way it is. Personally I enjoy the comparatively undeveloped feel of CR, and for that matter most of Thailand and its neighbours. And I’m glad to see that CR has won an ASEAN prize for green area management, and that the authorities are closing an illegal development on green area land (2 other current threads).

Picking up on another point raised by the OP, I met a string of westerners a year a two ago, at random and unconnected with each other, who had attempted or were considering suicide, or who were suffering from clinical depression. None of them were loners, but in every case their business problems were the root cause (at least that’s what they said).

Maybe a self help group for westerners in CR would be a useful development? At least it would be one totally within their control and power, unlike public policy and infrastructure projects.

Yes, sorry Art Bridge, spot of dyslexia, they have a charity exhibition for earthquake "victims" next month I think, with artists donating paintings; a couple of friends have done so and I'm getting this 2nd hand through them. I believe it's a raffle type of event, tickets set at 50,000 baht, which I imagine will put it out of the reach of the few remaining regulars on this forum sadly.

The upside carrot is that you might win a painting worth millions of baht from a major Thai artist. And of course it's all in a good cause.

If you haven't already done so you could check out the Bridge Art gallery, which is the main hub of the CR artworld. It's few kilos out of town on the the Mae Sai road, left hand side going north. I'm sure they must have a web presence with contact details.

Y're welcome, but dont't forget to factor in the maintenance, eg a small plot, like VF's, as he described it many months ago, may require something quite different from yours, or not. A traditional western lawnmower is unuseable in the rainy season, as is a mini-tractor affair, a whippersnapper may be a good solution, though it's noisy and not a roses-round-the-door idyll; for a small yard garden shears may be the best bet!

Depending on the depth and the breadth (as I'm sure the actress must have said to the bishop at some point in her career), I am now able to calmly, and quite accurately, distinguish anything from 2.5 to about 3.7, anything more than that (depending on the proximity) generates a visceral (gut-level) response.

Gents (and the occasional lady). According to the World Bank poverty in Thailand has been lowered from c 40% to c 9 % in the last 15 yrs. Please take TN with a pinch of salt.

They sell rolls of canvas if you want to stretch, mount and prime it yourself, so I'm assuming they make up the mounted canvas themselves, cheers.

I tried 2 varieties of seed (1 developed at CMU) and 3 varieties of sod, with varying degrees of success, though I would definitely recommend sod over seed. I can't remember the names offhand (but if you're still undecided I could look them up), but a slowgrow, growth-retarded and soft-underfoot variety has advantages. A lawn does require quite a lot of maintenance here compared to back home, at least my back home, both in the rainy and the dry seasons.

Re JM`s query, they were the older seasonal migrants.

Bill, very nice to hear from a real person, and best wishes to you and your family for the new season.

Lol, grass, ain't that an original joke.

A while ago I was leaving a 4 star hotel with

some upper class Thai friends. There were some lowlife farang slimebags sitting on the tiles as we left discussing the price of grass ( weed style) and prostitutes.

Yes there's a place near the clock tower for frame mounted canvases, Tepawan.

How can I stay more on topic, poverty was reduced from 40% to 10 % from 2000 to 2011.

Rubi, poverty in Thailand reduced from around 40% in 2000 to around 10 % in 2011, according to world bank figures.

To stay a bit more on topic: "Poor farmers still poor."

Dear Gunna, 1984 is not a year , it's a psychological turning point for fascism, as described by George Orwell, his most definitive experience was not too far from here.

Rubi, poverty in Thailand reduced from around 40% in 2000 to around 10 % in 2011, according to world bank figures.