Gaccha

To me this was a no-brainer.

The most interesting place in Hong Kong was the bizarre Kowloon walled city (check wikipedia). This was a tiny patch of land with a massive population that built up because it was disputed between China and Britain. The narrow alleys had almost no light as the buildings towered into the sky. Astonishing.

But that was knocked down in the 1980s. And the nearest equivalent now (and only one block from the park that now sits in the centre of all that matters in Hong Kong and where the old walled city lay) is Chunking Mansions (check them out on Wikipedia too). They are so infamous that the BBC recently did an entire radio documentary about that one building. Download it.

Chunking Mansions is so vast that its thought you could live there without leaving the building. It is also is resident to every scum and villainly possible. It is as exciting as this sounds.

But it was recently cleared of its crime by CCTV installation and a large police presence. So you get the buzz of where it's all happening (it's thought 20% of Black Africa's mobile phones are sold through this building) without the danger.

When you choose the tonnes of hotels make sure you choose upper floor places away from the whiff of the curry houses on the 3rd floor. The rooms are extremely cheap for Hong Kong and you can book on all the famous internet travel agents. Just read the reviews.

And make sure you take a camera. Enjoy. I did.

"whereas the illegalities in Chungking Mansions are widely known, the wondrousness of the place is not."-- The Economist

Don't worry I am sure right now at the Pantip forum Thais are resolving this matter....

[takes a look at Pantip forum]

"USS Enterprise of Star Trek does not need to enter earth's orbit, right?" [the hot topic right now]

...Oh, never mind.

I saw it a couple of days ago at the same place.

There is no special configuration. I found my seat to be perfect: the cheapest seats but at the very edge to the next cost area (around row 'i', I think). Even the cheapest seats were 300 baht on a Monday morning.

.... but I definitely have a preference for being near the screen.

Check Inn 99 have a Rocky Horror Show that runs for 4 nights and their ad frequently appears in the right hand column of this forum

I did see that. And my costume would definitely fit in ....

*bump

Anyone?

Thanks for all your concern.......

but i think the odds are very slim and am willing to take my chances.

Funnily enough the same dog has been hanging around in the background at our garden......a sort of forested community of rentals.....and today he was the same slightly nervous but amiable slowly tail wagging chap who approached when I was going to feed my dog (and I still feel sorry for him may arrange for him to get food somewhere far enough away I can't be woken up).

I think the little snap he gave me was just reaction pretty typical of a nervous dog to overconfident petting.

I also noted today that from a distance of a few yards there are no obvious wounds on him where he may have himself contracted rabies.

I read that the virus is pretty fragile and susceptible to alcohol, so add to the above the washing in water then soaking in whisky I gave the two tiny and surface wounds (which bled just a few drops), and I think I can not justify the expense of shots to myself.

Again, thanks!

(holds throat, froths, and grimaces alt=w00t.gif> )

Thailand has the third highest level of rabies in the world. 0.5% of all dogs.

The shots are completely free if you have the health insurance from working here.

Get the post-exposure dosages.

Where exactly does that assertion derive from ?

Please supply evidence and links to the information.

Google is your friend. I am not your performing monkey.

Hints: 3rd highest level takes about 10 seconds to find at Wikipedia.

0.5% figure can be found at Mahidol's website under the research for the tropical diseases.

And the cost of the healthcare derives from my own experience.

And now, go and find them.

Thanks for all your concern.......

but i think the odds are very slim and am willing to take my chances.

Funnily enough the same dog has been hanging around in the background at our garden......a sort of forested community of rentals.....and today he was the same slightly nervous but amiable slowly tail wagging chap who approached when I was going to feed my dog (and I still feel sorry for him may arrange for him to get food somewhere far enough away I can't be woken up).

I think the little snap he gave me was just reaction pretty typical of a nervous dog to overconfident petting.

I also noted today that from a distance of a few yards there are no obvious wounds on him where he may have himself contracted rabies.

I read that the virus is pretty fragile and susceptible to alcohol, so add to the above the washing in water then soaking in whisky I gave the two tiny and surface wounds (which bled just a few drops), and I think I can not justify the expense of shots to myself.

Again, thanks!

(holds throat, froths, and grimaces )

Thailand has the third highest level of rabies in the world. 0.5% of all dogs.

The shots are completely free if you have the health insurance from working here.

Get the post-exposure dosages.

I'm looking for halloween nights at bars and discos (but not hotels) that are not on Halloween Night. My plan is to make a week of it, but this year I can't find any places with events NOT on halloween (unlike last year where they were scattered through the week....).

They can be Thai-aimed discos or farang bars or anything else,,,, but not a hotel night.

Cheers. Any suggestions please. Please be specific. I've (witch) hunted around night event schedules but found nothing. So no zombie-like vague suggestions to just turn up somewhere. My situation is now ghouslishly desperate....

Example of a good night (but this is on Halloween....)

... or am I just going to hear ghostly silence. Thanks.

They had a canal boat service on the west side of the river running down Bangkok noi but it was cancelled around 2009.

I know there is a functioning other service on the west side of the river that heads from Chao praya river up one of the canals west but I can't find out abything about its stops... anyone know?

Religion in Human Evolution From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age

Robert Bellah

This is an enormous book but it certainly is worth it. The blurb on the backcover says:

This book is the opus magnum of the greatest living sociologist of religion. Nobody since Max Weber has produced such an erudite and systematic comparative world history of religion in its earlier phases. Robert Bellah opens new vistas for the interdisciplinary study of religion and for global inter-religious dialogue.

--Hans Joas, The University of Chicago and the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg

It asks how the thinking that developed what we now neatly separate away from society through the term 'religion' brought about the thinking stages of mankind. It starts with primitive play, then to ritual, then to mytho-speculation, and then finally to theory. For the rare moments when civilizations turned to 'theory', each moment is analysed to death. Ancient Greece, Israel, India, China are the four places where it happened.

What's interesting is the parallel developmen of India and Ancient Greece. Almost at the same time, Plato was busy changing all western thinking ('Western philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato'), while Buddha was challenging the particularism of Vedic religion.

The author passed away a couple of months back so this proved to be his final triumph. There are a load of interviews of his to read around the Internent. The book will need to be ordered and is in hardback only. Around 1,200 baht.

Aministration: Should be read with a Kamikaze cocktail and Turkish figs.

And this hits it right on the head, personal body servants is the role most men all over the planet want from women. Why do women do it? Please stop !!

IMO Thai women are in it for economics, that makes them gold diggers, which most western men look down on while at home.

I'll try to not judge it with my western standards, and even have sympathy as they are getting the dregs. Besides, I'd sell out my values too, for a slave.

Come on, all you adonis like fat men know that you will eventually meet a young woman in Thailand. Because they are there and available.

A woman in the West would not even look at you, let alone sleep with you. You think you are gods, and those poor women do too. What western woman in her right mind would cut someones toe nails and feel good about it?

You put us down because we speak back. And stand up for ourselves. And we are not all bad. Myself - 1.75 and 48 kilos. Not a fat old bitch who dropped 6 kids in 6 years and lives on a housing estate.

Look in the mirror. We all age and i feel good and actually do get flirted with occasionally. Going to be 50 next month.

Many Thai ladies offer to cut their men's toenails, they don't consider it demeaning.

They also like to pluck your nasal hair, clean out your ear wax, shower you and wipe your bum (if you let them).

Why shouldn't they feel good about fulfilling their traditional duties?

Why shouldn't we (men) let them do it?

As for 'speaking back', you are totally wrong. Thai ladies not only speak back but often back their argument with a carving knife. I can understand your mistaken belief that it doesn't happen, as Thais generally keep their arguments private.

Miss MacChine is the product of 20 years of radical feminist indoctrination. Throughout the 1980s there was a civil war within feminism against women, and radical feminism won and all women lost.

Miss MacChine, who rather inevitably-- judging from her avatar-- is the owner of cats, perceives the relationship of men and women as that akin to ownership of a slave. What her, and many others like her have failed to see, is that her vision of 'love' is a figment of her imagination from techniques of control and disciplining devices in society. There is no simple, abstraction of love. Love is the tortious and tortuous product of the eliding of material goals ("gold-digging") with the male's need to find a partner for fornication. It is precisely that which she rejects. And in her never-ending quest for unicorns and rainbows she has signally failed to observe that the greatest happiness is to be found in giving yourself over to another, and that includes cutting their toe nails and cleaning their ears. But no, on she goes in seeing marriage as a bitter, contract of forced union and yet simultaneously and in complete contradiction the ultimate expression of love.

It is a credit to society in general that the women of Thailand reject this absurd fringe feminism and prefer the old-fashioned feminism of the West. What other country has has 5 women as the deputy governor of the national bank at the same time?

I can assure you Miss MacChine your values are not the standard of Western values. You would do well to read the works of some more impressive feminists who did not get bogged down in misandry and despair. Take a look at the superbn writing of Emma Goldman and go on from there. But for goodness sake throw away the pseudo-intellectual verbiage of Judith Butler and her fake Althusserian arguments.

I see it's not mentioned so here goes:

P.G. Tips is sold in all Topps. No 'flavours', just the real thing.

A lady was looking to buy tea and I saw her eyes scanning my teabags. She was holding a Japanese green tea. "Is it good?", she asked. Well, it's a completely different tea.. that is Japanese tea. She immediately grabbed the last box of PG with a smile on her face. The World can always rely on an Englishman to mark out a good tea.

Wow! I did an example article of how I would like to see the perfect language tool for the 'Women learning Thai' website... and it looked awfully similar to the articles on your website. Just fantastic.

Gaccha, would you be willing to donate those files (and any others) to Thai Text Reader? We already have donated files from Self Study Thai: http://thaitextreader.com/index.php/downloads/self-study-thai/

We do point people to external resources but they then have to prepare the files for FLTR (strip them down to Thai script only, separate into manageable chunks, save as txt files). That means many hands doing the same job over again.

Note: When I get the time I'll go through all of the donated files to make sure all words are in our Thai dictionary, then parse them, ready for upload.

Here is the Word version (I think). I assume this is better than the PDF version, right? And I can only be 90% sure it is the complete version. I last modified the file in 2010.

On a related front. I'm hoping my Pulp Fiction Advanced listening on YouTube will also one day be like the standard for listening practice for movies and the like.

Red shirts are coming Desi file .doc

Wow! I did an example article of how I would like to see the perfect language tool for the 'Women learning Thai' website... and it looked awfully similar to the articles on your website. Just fantastic.

I have been trying to translate 2 awesome Japanese-Thai language books to English but was blocked by the publishers. They cannot do it themselves or let me do it as it breaches their charity's constitution. Oh well. Great to see things are improving...

Crashing through old houses...

It amazes me that at the part pointed out on the map for the MRT extension line (above ground at that point). They have opted to bulldoze their way through houses and anything else rather that what they seem to have done everywhere else, which is to simply follow the roads.

Are there any other examples of this?

The Grand Inquisitor-- Fyodor Dostoevsky

This is Book 5, Section 5 of The Brothers Karamazov. It dwells on human nature and the Inquisitor's need to turn the Church to be the disciples of the devil as Jesus has failed to understand human nature and condemned millions to suffering.

The Inquisitor arrests Jesus after he returns (again) to Spain during the great Spanish Inquisitions. His arguments and their ambiguous resolution makes the section truly beautiful. Even as an atheist I was rather moved by it.

In general, the actual book (The Brothers Karamazov) follows Dostoevsky's tedious style of drawn out dialogues but this section is perfectly rendered.

There is a John Gielgud version viewable on YouTube.

Administration: Drink a Jack Daniels and Coke/ listen to Bibi Tanga/ Read section. Should take no more than 45 minutes.

Side-effects: >10% profound sense of understanding of human nature

Rare side-effects: <1% conversion to Devil worship

Enjoy.

With some afterthought, I come back to the too short lived debate I had on this thread with Sheryl about "maturity" and my post:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/658886-why-is-it-so-hard-to-find-a-good-man-in-bangkok-as-a-female-farang/page-7#entry6719299

I am more and more convinced that farang men find (apparently) good matches in some Thai women because they don't require the men to be have a mature bahavior.

Looking at Thai society, a lot of Thai men appear totally immature in their behavior and so do many Thai women.

That may be the key.

Cui bono? (who benefits)

One must always ask when the narrative of maturation is attached to somebody's behaviour: which party is set to benefit for this. Can it be more than a coincidence that a man suffering from the tedium of the docile, lawn-mowing, automatron life of a Western man imprisoned in the life of the West just happens to be termed as mature in the narrative. A life without interests, passions, excitement is mature, but a life well lived is immature....

Women are the gatekeepers to sex, and men are the gatekeepers to relationships. If the woman wants a relationship she'll have to offer something for it.

Using a disciplining narrative of demanind maturation ("man-up!") in order for the woman to get her own way ( a man who mows her lawn) will not work when men have alternative pursuits available.

I think the type of links you want are at BritishPathe.

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/military-parade-in-bangkok/query/Siam

Or, LIEUTENANT-GENERAL DEMPSEY ARRIVES IN BANGKOK (commander Allied Land Forces South East Asia (ALFSEA), arrives in Bangkok, capital of Siam (Thailand)). Dempsey steps down from an RAF Douglas Dakota transport aircraft and is greeted by Major-General Evans, commander of 7th Indian Division. He is introduced to senior officers. He is saluted by a guard of honour of 89th Indian Infantry Brigade, which appears to be mostly Gurkhas.

Or British troops of 1st Battalion Queen's Royal Regiment go sightseeing in Bangkok, capital of Siam (Thailand 1946).

Or. http://www.britishpathe.com/video/garden-party-in-bangkok

Or. (http://www.queensroyalsurreys.org.uk/ww2/burma/012.html) and other units in the Bangkok area the first major event was a formal ceremony having great symbolic significance for both sides: a surrender parade at which senior Japanese officers were required to hand over their swords.

Thanks for that.

THere seems to be no link for "British troops of 1st Battalion Queen's Royal Regiment go sightseeing in Bangkok, capital of Siam". And I've looked and can only find a blank Imperial War Museum blog with that title.

I like how one film shows Mountbatten with Democracy Monument right behind him...

For Khun Molly, human being, seeking love and meaning in the pilgrimage of life: warm regards, and my sincere hope she finds a relationship that offers her as much of what she "needs" (to catalyze, and nurture, her reaching her full human potential), as it offers her what she "wants."

At least in the reportage, here, it is not absolutely clear whether the author is talking about finding a "quality male" independent of whether they are Thai, or Farang.

"an ex-gogo dancer who doesn’t own a phone, a guy who lives with his long term girlfriend and another guy who keeps trying to spring surprise threesomes on you? I think you need more options.”

This statement by the author could be interpreted as indicating the author has a preference for, seeks, a Thai male, but are we absolutely sure the author means that ? I do admit to not having ever met, in my twelve years in-country, a farang male ex-gogo dancer without a phone, but, that could just be an artifact of my own male-hetero way-the-genes'-cookie-crumbled psyche, lifestyle, and experience. Or, I don't have the right mobile phone ?

The author, at least as reported here, never defines what, for her, is a "quality male," and what she is really seeking. There are suggestions her quest includes certain (preliminary ?) behaviors by a male candidate, like "romantic dating," western style; or, certain long-term "outcomes:" possibly marriage, children ... at the least a "long-term" relationship ?

Does the author speak Thai, well; has the author studied, participated-in, tried to some extent "live inside" Thai culture: does the author have a sense of the profound cultural differences in the meaning of, and actuality of, "the relationship" as a social construct, and reality, between her western socialization, and acculturation, and contemporary Thais ? Or, as for any culture, nation, ethnic group, etc., the variations in "relatonships" between, and within, social classes, and different social strata, and different socio-economic groups, or groups defined in terms of age, employment, religion, regional heritage, etc. ?

Has the author ever done volunteer-work with Thais, worked alongside them, found enduring Thai friendships with either sex where she has experienced emotional intimacy (I don't mean sex) ? Does the author have some aspect of Thai culture, religion, or arts, that she actively participates in (Muay Thai, dance, Vipassana, etc. ... ?), where she has real experience being with Thais as a "peer" in shared roles, where she's "absorbed" in the activity; where her focus is enacting her role, and external, not just "on herself" ?

For me, knowing information like that would be essential to evaluate what the author's current goals for relationships: are. And, I would say exactly the same words, if I were responding to a similar article written by a farang male.

I find the comments on this thread about what people "can offer" kind of puzzling: I've never met anyone who did not "have something to offer;" except, at times, my own human self (the orangutan self I co-habit with always has more on offer than I could ever accept ... if I could accept it).

I won't mention my dim understanding, my innate intuition, that "relationships" are like rare transient flowers that appear, and bloom, in ways we cannot consciously predict, or choose (choose at the level of our normal limited ego-bound consciousness), and that, like all blossoms, they must wither ... in order to bear seed.

I would like to be optimistic about "love," simply because I think life is happier, more wonderful, the miracle of the ordinary more salient, by acting as if "love" exists, that if you don't have it, it can be "found;" that when you do "have it" it's eternal. Yes, that means I really did "mainline introject" the western romantic tradition, and probably will never "get over it," in spite of experience; that's possibly part of what "being" a poet, child, and grand-child, of poets, and story-tellers ... is

But, I also find great meaning, personally, in the great poem by Kabir:

"Where there is a garden, the flowers will come." ("rahi gulzar to phool, khilenge")

If my own life is not "the garden," if I am not as "innerly complete" as possible, realizing to the full extent possible, every aspect of my self, including those characterized (variously in different cultures, and groups) as "masculine," and "feminine;" if I avoid fully experiencing the loneliness I feel is an innate part of the human condition; if I avoid taking the risk of being vulnerable by really opening my heart ... if I "run away" from what I believe is the inevitable grief that is part of life, using other people for temporary substitutes for deeper intimacy (to just "get by") without real involvement, and commitment (what I call the "tear-off and wipe" pattern of serial pseudo-relationships) ...

Well, then: I think the flowers I dream of blooming ... will remain ... dreams.

And, the memories of the flowers/relationships that actually bloomed in this life, most often defying and confounding all my expectations, transforming me in "spite of myself:" surely, if I am not a garden, soil fertilized by both tears and laughter, humility, and awe: those memories will ... fade. And, what a profound loss, if those memories become ... just ... mundane; or, psychically mutated into "sacred relics" that are, ritually, "hollow."

~o:37;

And with this post, Orang wins the 'Most useful and profound post of the year'.

It has a lovely style; initially, A Derridian edge of deconstruction, a moment of flowering into the Bergerian social fabrication of lov--, its extraordinary dominance in western thinking and its trite centering on the man-woman angle in contrast to Chinese notions of love-- and then onto an Evolian transcendental message noting the need to experience the human and yet also remain at a distance.

The only post that needs to be read by the author of the Coconuts article.

Books to read:

The Social Construction of Reality

The Sacred Canopy

The Presentation of Self

The Doctrine of Awakening

My thoughts on dogs

I think the dogs can sense when you're ready for them. On the times they acted aggressively there were pretty cautious when they might otherwise have charged and surrounded me. I was also lucky. A couple of sleeping dogs could have trapped my route and forced an unpleasant showdown.

I had a 5 course rabies course recently after a bite. I would recommend the 3 jabs pre-bite course to anyone since you don't need the extremely hard-to-find medicine for that course. Since Thailand has the 3rd highest rate of rabies in the World and going into these small sois makes you a threat in the dogs eyes since is a pretty necessary caution.

On further points to adventure

(1) That block of streets surrounded by Phet Kasem PhraNok (now renamed Wanglang Street), Charansanitwong and ArunAmarin is the best adventure zone. But it's not the only zone. I strongly recommended as an entry-level adventure the block to the right side of Pinklao Bridge as you cross the river in Bangkok Noi.

(2) There is also an aztonishingly beautiful path along Bangkok Noi canal that is tough to spot. The west entrance is impossible to spot so you'll have to go from the east side. Enter at Arun Amarin Bridge in a tiny path snucked away near the stairs on the west side of the north face of the bridge. Once you enter you feel like you've just entered a nature reserve. If I can find pictures I'll post them. It leads to Charansanitwong Road through a winding path including a hidden village with old-style open houses.

(3) The other slum ("congested community" in the administrative lexicon) is the district where the Royal barges museum is located. Every street there is located on a canal. The community is made up of Muslims that were relocated after the creation of the Thonburi train station (that has since then moved 1km inland) on the river front. The locals have expressed fear of the Muslims near the mosque but I found them amiable enough.

Dangerous life you have...

I have travelled to many war zones, and I definitely fear dog attack more than an AK-47...

I have an intense craving for Malcolm Arnold's symphonies....

Are any getting a performance at any point in Thailand...? (I admit this is not likely....)

I find playing his 7th and 3rd after listening to King Crimson gives me a serious endorphine rush.

I want a Thai sub version of The Hormones Series on GMM. It's all Thais are talking about.

There are so many Thais offering up English subtitles but they all seem unwilling to do Thai subtitles... (i've asked them).

Has anyone got images of allied soldiers marching around or preening for the cameras in post-war Bangkok?

Does anyone have photos of anti-allied anti-aircraft batteries that were set up at the West end of Pra Nok road. I know of this because that crossroad today is called the big lights crossroad.

Thanks!