Johpa

The whole think makes me sad, the Thais had a chance to go forward with some new faces and new idea's, but they chose the same old bunch of #&%$("£@... Vote buying is a crime in this country. Who said crime doesnt pay?

No, the Thais had a choice between one old bunch of "#&%$("£@" and another bunch of old "#&%$("£@". Changing the names of the parties and changing the titular leadership of those parties, especially in a parliamentary political system, does not make old "#&%$("£@" turn into anything other than the same old "#&%$("£@".

It's very difficult to tell from your script i.e. without hearing the actual accent used in speaking. IMO, the phrases you have posted are quite prevalent in the outer reaches and would apply in both the Isarn and Northern parts of the country.

A quick "rule of thumb" that I tend to use is that if the ร is pronounced more as a 'H' than an 'R' or an 'L' then this would indicate the speaker as being from the North. Chiang Rai for example is pronounced locally as 'Jiang Hai'. I believe that this is a throwback from the original Lanna language pronunciation too.

As others have noted, the snippets are probably not of Kham Muang (Northern Thai) speech. The articles are incorrect as is the pronunciation as indicated bythe spelling.

But the usage of /h/ in place of /r/ in Kham Muang is not a throwback, it is simply the correct form of speech in the Kham Muang language. Thus we get Chiang Hai for Chiang Rai or hawn (hot) for rawn which gives rise to my favorite English-Kham Muang couplet of "hot hawn". The word 'Chiang' can also change quite a bit ranging from Jiang to Shiang depending upon the mother tongue of the speaker, and there are lots of mother tongues up north. Too bad Kham Muang is slowly assimilating towards Central Thai, especially in the larger cities.

Can you tell me one place on earth where this "money is power" is not true?

Perhaps when the money is in the hands of a relatively modest man like Warren Buffet.

"I doubt the elections were real. if there can be fixed elections in USA then there can be in Thailand. The mistake was that the coup did not stay in place longer and ensure a real election. "

The 'elections were real', and the poor uneducated 'were bribed'.

My wife is from a Hilltribe village in the North and she just talked to family up there and was unhappy to hear that everyone in her village accepted 200b per person to vote for PPP. And people they know in the city accepted 500b per person. (Not to mention they also accepted bribes for TRT years ago).

So you married a Thai hillbilly. Welcome to the club.

But most hill people are not particularly literate in Thai. Unlike their rural Thai neighbors, many are not able to read the papers or listen to the TV news. They are also dependent more upon the local bureaucrats such as their local headman and kamnaan. Thai hill folks who are lucky enough to obtain citizenship are often in a more traditional "patron-client" relationship with the local powers than are the neighboring Thais. The political party that is in control of their district will greatly influence the minority votes more than they would influence the votes of ethnic Tai villagers. That being said, the number of minority voters is rather small and will not have much impact upon elections. Since your wife has expressed her dissatisfaction with the village vote buying, she is probably "tok doi", eh?

There are two major groups of people in Thailand, the rural poor and the residents of Bangkok. The rural poor do not, in many cases, have access to, interest in or capacity to understand the facts about a political party or its leader - "facts" as far as this group is concerned is what the most senior or most respected resident heard or knows, often it's simply a case of believing what everyone else believes. Bangkok residents on the other hand are more likely to work with or for more informed sources of information and represent a more aware group. It therefore comes as no surprise that, as always in Thai political history, Issan voters win the day and that the PPP will now form the next government. Posters should not be so surprised.

Balderdash! Rural folks are for the most part literate, read the newspapers and watch the TV news. They do discuss politics and sure, they tend to pay more heed to the more educated elders in the village (often the current and former headmen and kamnaans and now the tambon development folks) and their opinions on matters. And in fact those in Bangkok and the other cities may not be as involved in such discussions not having casual access to such debates in their urban ghettos and slums. So it is, as you suggest, not surprising that rural voters, being the majority win the day, but it is not because they do not have the capacity to understand the issues.

I am still stunned that the ordinary and quite poor people of Thailand supported the PPP, it is just beyond belief after Thaksin is almost certainly guilty of robbing these people of Thailand's inheritance of billions of Baht and ensuring their future will take many many more years before they can escape the poverty trap whilst Thaksin and his cronies just get richer and richer

I've never have understood why so many people who have lived in LOS for a couple rounds of government, thai style, cannot seem to grasp Thaksins ADMINISTRATION, was no more nor less corrupt than previous governments.

Is it that difficult? Is there a switch that just won't click? A mental block that stops all thought when this is stated? Unlike those governments he actually gave something to poor people. Yes he is corrupt, yes he is venally corrupt we all know this. I guess the point is if the other non Thaksin administrations would have been something less than as bad as Thaksins we could honestly throw brickbats at the people who voted for the PPP.

Obviously we cannot

It is not that difficult to understand this neo-sahib mindset. Look, many of those living in Thailand are living the colonial good life, a life they could never imagine back in their homelands, or could but only at far, far greater expense. They must maintain some sort of pretense that they are somehow contributing to an improvement in the lives of those who provide them with this gifted lifestyle. Thaksin took away some of the veneer of respectability with his blatant corruption, which they prefer not to be blatant, and of course the neo-sahibs were quite bothered by Thaksin's violent war on the meth epidemic. I mean it was not particularly comely to write home that you are living the good life in a country whose government is out shooting low level drug dealers in the streets. No matter that the peoples whose lives had been negatively impacted by the drug epidemic were grateful for getting the drug dealers out of their children's schools and were supportive of these draconian measures. So the neo-sahib has this need to imagine that the issue is simply that of an errant individual and not an issue of the larger socio-political system in order to rationalize their good fortunes without tinges of guilt.

folks are dreaming if they think you can run a country like thialand with some form of coruption, or any other country for that matter

Apart from a very few tolerated socialist Scandinavian countries, tolerated by the corporate global empire because they are white Caucasian, non-Catholic Christian, and somewhat unimportant (that is fairly low population) on a global scale, it would appear to me that few of the nation-states that predominate the political landscape today, are run without massive forms of corruption at their heart. So the question is whether you can "run" a country like Thailand without turning to a socialist model a la Norway. So I would ask you not what are you dreaming but rather what are you smoking?

One in two people want Abhisit as prime minister

Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva is the people's choice for the position of prime minister and People Power Party leader Samak Sundaravej is the runner up inspite of his party's election victory, Ramkhamhaeng University Poll said on Tuesday.

The Nation

And it seems that Abhisit is indeed much more of the REAL people's choice than people here are realizing. It ain't over yet, folks. This is reminding me a little bit of Bush vs. Gore; maybe the good guy will win in this one?

Crikey! When are you going to understand that there are NO good guys in this story.

i dare say that one of the MAIN reasons why the political parties dont give a rats ass is because they dont have to. they KNOW they can just buy the votes or spout off some useless propaganda and the unsophisticated will believe.

being able to read is one thing; being able to scrutinize and read between the lines is an entirely different skill-set. america has the same problem. the uneducated there, too, are unable to see through the charade that is politics. im still in shock that people actually voted for bush in '04. just shocking, that was.

in the end, your main point may in fact render all this debate useless. for neither party will do anything to help the less fortunate unless its existence depends upon it. and that day is long in coming in thailand.

All Thai politcal parties have been buying votes for decades. I still remember an election back in the early 1980s where the local bank ran out of 10 baat notes. Thaksin not only bought votes but threw the poor some bones as well, ranging from modest health care to village loans (not always a well managed program) to, in one village I know well, bought all the children bicycles so that they would not have to walk in the rain along dirt roads to schools, a brilliant marketing scheme to win the hearts and minds of an entire moo baan for very little money. Thaksin understood that it does not take that much to win those hearts and minds, but it takes more than just vote buying.

Education must have nothing to do with this as many well educated Americans voted for Bush and well educated Thais still vote for the leaders foisted upon them. Clearly the skill set you and I are looking for amongst the electorates world wide is not a function of classic education nor a function of literacy.

If the opposition parties were to take note that they too should incorporate some "populist" policies then they might give out more to the poor. But I agree that as long as the new middle class of Thailand continues to identify with the elite then nothing will change. But on the next economic downturn those same people might begin to realize that they might be better off aligning with the poor instead of chasing their pipe dream of joining the economic elite. That is what happened in Venezuela in 1998 that enabled Hugo Chavez to win the presidential election. With the inevitable vacuum occurring in the not too distant future, I am not so sure that such a day is so long in coming, perhaps not around the corner, but hopefully not too long in coming.

Some good points Farangderthal - but I think you misunderstand Thaksin and those 'personal qualities' that got him (and the country) into the situation it is presently now in.

His avarice - ruthlessness - authoritarianism - was without exception -

In short - he was a greedy and ruthless dictator.

You, like many others posting here, must be relatively new on the Thai political scene. Thaksin's avarice, his ruthlessness, and his greediness were all par for the course and nothing out of the ordinary for Thai politicians. His downfall was that he failed to share his spoils sufficiently with his peers, all of whom are equally greedy, ruthless, and rapacious as the next as demonstrated by the coup.

...and yet another example of why democracy DOES NOT work, especially in a vastly uneducated society. it doesnt work in the US (citing last election) because people are too blind (uneducated) to actually vote about issues rather than sentiments (faith, nice guy status, etc.). the results in bkk are the PROPER results for this election. they are the common sense final cause of everything that has happened the past 2 years here. but your never question authority/short-term-gratification votes of Isaan have destroyed the mandate of the people. imo, this election shows the mandate of the thai people to be GIVE ME A BOTTLE OF MEKONG rather than GIVE ME A RULING PARTY THAT GIVES A SHIT. so sad.

I am surprised at how many people here equate being from a rural Thai background and of being ethnic Lao/Isaan with being uneducated; in reality, I am surprised at how many of you have assimilated the elite racism of the Bangkok (Sino) Thai elite.

Even the more remote areas of Thailand have a fairly high degree of literacy. I have spent my years in-country living amongst the rural populace and although they might be conservative and they might not be urbane, they, the Thai rural poor, are most certainly not uneducated. What they see, and what all you fellow Farangs with your fancy college degrees and you neo-sahib lifestyles aren't able to see is that none of the Thai political parties give a rat's derrière about the lives of the vast majority of the citizenry. So please tell me what is wrong with giving your vote to the political party that does toss you a bone as opposed to the party that does not toss you a bone? Is it not rational to give your vote to the party that even for a brief moment acknowledges your existence on the planet in hopes, almost a millenarian hope, that in the future other parties will follow suit in more substantial ways?

A new angle on the story. : Is the U.S. trying to manage Thailand’s elections?

http://facthai.wordpress.com/2007/12/21/ju...%99s-elections/

Readers familiar with the workings of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency might attribute this timing to dozens of prior U.S. attempts to destabilise countries and their economies and interfere with legitimate elections. Is the U.S. trying to manage Thailand’s elections to the benefit of its military?

Possible. Google these words. "Economic hit men"

An old U.S. way of fixing things up their way until today.

Better yet, read the book and the follow up book by John Perkins. Bottom line is that as along as the Thai elite returns most of their profits (legal, gray market, and illegal activities) into western banks while allowing a small amount to be kept in Thailand as houses and jewelry, nobody is going to complain too loud. As to why this relatively trivial matter has become a legal issue is indeed an interesting subject for speculation.

There are some families who indeed see marriage as a financial opportunity. But those same families still often adhere to the ethnic Tai tradition of the youngest daughter staying at home to take care of the parents in their senior years. In earlier times this would have also included inheriting the house and land, but in modern times it is often, at best, a very small plot for the house with no associated padi or orchard land.

i live on a quiet upscale soi and will often be walking home late at night and I don't know what to do when I pass these guys. Should I acknowledge that I see them and nod my head? What would a Thai do in this situation? If it is not proper to nod my head at them, they might think I am mocking them because I am rich and live on this soi and they are working at a different life pace. If I pretend that I never see them, then they might think I am some kind of snob or they might think that I think I am better then them. The street is quiet enough so that whenever anyone walks by it attracts their attention.

If you pass the same people on a regular basis and begin to recognize the individuals then why not nod or say hello or ask how things are going? It might help with the therapy of getting off that high horse of yours.

Of course many Bangkok Thais who are deluded enough to think of themselves as "rich" would of course not be walking but would be driving or, more likely, chauffeured past someone like yourself and they would hope that you would appreciate that they consider themselves better than you and that you, as a lower economic life form, would know your proper station in life as they most pretentiously ignore your existence on this planet.

I would also strongly consider voting for Bloomberg. His appeal truly runs across the spectrum, left, right, middle.

Pardon me, but I have been on the left for many decades and rest assured Bloomberg has absolutely no appeal for me. Of course nor do most of the other candidates apart from Kucinich have any appeal for me either.

3 posts trashing Hilary have been wiped out. I need to research these candidates before I decide. I want a candidate who is the least pro Israel as that is the #1 thing that causes us to be hated worldwide

A wonderful example of the simplistic thinking on both the left and right side of the American political spectrum, or what masquerades as a political spectrum in the US, that leads to the election of like minded simpletons. Not that I disagree totally with some of the noted sentiment, but the one-dimensionality of thought expressed I find offensive.

I hope your letter wasn't used for toilet paper.

I can't think of any better use for the letter. As a fellow Ahmerican, all I can say relative to the OP is what an embarrassment.

By the way, not having been to the Consulate in decades, are the security guards still hired from "GUTS" security?

yes i love watching my 30 year old daughter walk around the garden with my 26 year old girl friend.

I LOVE this post....terrific!!! Oh dear, yes yes yes!!!

Yea, I enjoy thinking about what the daughter really thinks about her father and what she actually tells the old codger to his face to further amuse him.

one sounds english and the other russian

???

Macloff is a Russian Jewish name. For future reference, anything with an ending of off often has a Russian connection.

no it is not!! Machloff is a typical Morocan jewsih name or a north African jewish name.

I could have sworn it was a name from the Eastern branch of the Black Irish.

It's got nothing to do with race at all; a caucasian with a Thai passport is just as eligible to the lower fees as someone of the "Thai" race. Call it nationalistic or xenophobic if you must, but realise that it is simply incorrect to call the policy "racist".

First, the number of Caucasians with Thai passports is infinitesimal and thus totally irrelevant. In the past, a carload of people would approach a toll booth into a Thai National Park and the person at the toll gate would look into the car and decide, based upon race, what the entry fee would be. As long as the driver was Thai and the passengers were Asian and remained quiet, they would be charged the Thai entry fee. If the driver was Thai yet the passengers were Caucasian, they would be charged the "foreigner fee". The implementation of the dual pricing was always based upon race. That a few Farang expats with tax ID cards or Thai drivers license who spoke Thai could argue their way past the toll takers is also irrelevant. Besides, having such documents did not qualify any Caucasian to enter at Thai pricing according to the letter of the law. But again the letter of the law and the implementation of the law are two different things. Since the implementation of this and other dual prcing situations did not often effect other Southeast Asian (regionals) nor Chinese, it was clearly neither nationalistic nor xenophobic, but racist.

Mafia is overused in this country.

Gang is probably more appropriate. There have been stories of a mixed Israeli/other nationality gang coming to the Full Moon Party on Hadrin to sell drugs every month. I suspect it will be a much quieter FMP this month

This may be difficult to accept, but the general term for organized crime groups based in the former Soviet Union is,..drum roll please...., the Russian Mafia. Decades ago the Soviet government sent many lower level criminal activists to Israel as emmigrants, some were of Jewish descent, some of minimal Jewish descent, and some were falsely presented as having Jewish descent. All had their criminal records cleansed, and they were sent to be absorbed by Israel. Thus Israel became a defacto colony of the Russian Mafia.

There have been Israelis selling drugs, and really controlling a large part of the sales, down on Samui and especially on Koh Phangan since my last visits to the islands back in the early 1990s. I doubt this drug bust will have any impact on the islands, things will continue as always.

A bibliography of books on the subject of "อักษรและอักขรวิธีไท" ["Tai Alphabet and Orthography"] can be found at http://www.human.cmu.ac.th/~thai/sompong/Tai_Alphabet.htm

Anyone know if the author of the link above, Sompong, is still at CMU and perhaps an e-mail address as I think that he may be a long lost friend of mine.

That being said, there are many Karens up around MHS and many are Catholic. It was about 10 years ago that the first Karen men were ordained at the main Catholic church in Chiang Mai.

That recently? I always thought many Karen were Catholic for a couple generations at least?

There have been Karen Catholics around for a few generations, but the first ordination of Thai Karen men into the priesthood, at least to the best of my knowledge, occurred about 10 years ago in Chiang Mai. One of the men was a former student of me missus so we went down to attend the ceremony at the big church in Chiang Mai. I have never seen so many Karen in one place.

At the moment oil is priced in dollars worldwide (Venesuela is an exeption).

The US went to war with Iraq because they decided to price oil in Euros.

Then Iran announced they would switch to Euros - and surprise now the US doesnt like Iran.

If the other Arab countries switch to Euros, the Dollar will crash. Now is the most sensitive time for the Dollar and if these countries decide together to switch to Euros this may be the end of America as we know it - and even world war 3 as america attempts to invade and control the supply of oil in producing countries (to force them to sell in Dollars). We can expect to see huge hyperinflation, depreciation of the dollar etc. On the contrary we will see the Euro sky rocket.

At present the USA never pays for any oil, they just print dollars which countries around the world use to stockpile and purchase oil. In return they receive plenty of oil (so they can cap their own wells for future use). If they switch to Euros all these dollars will be changed to Euros, and we will see the end of USA and Japan as we know it (Japan is owed a lot of dollars).

Bloody anything could happen in the next few years....

Just the other week there was a leak of a OPEC meeting where there was serious discussion of OPEC pricing oil using a basket of currencies as opposed to the current status of pricing in dollars. This proposal was rejected by the Sauds, the dominant OPEC member and the one middle eastern clan dependent upon Texans for their personal security. As usual, little of this was noted in the US press. The end of the monopoly of the petrol dollar is near. (The US did not get free oil, only heavily subsidized oil which kept prices well below world retail averages) The CP group wants to get as much profit out of Thailand while they can before the inevitable collapse while the Baat is strong as the dollar remains in the basket of currencies that determine the value of the Baat. Similarly, the spokesperson of another family at the same level of influence as the Chearavanont family recently noted the need to make significant purchases now for their primary constituents. Unless of course you believe that transportation costs reflect 30% of that little package of junk food you buy at a 7-11.

Very few Buddhists in Mae Hong Son are converted to being Christians. Poor people of various local beliefs (called animist by some) are the main soul hunting grounds.

But indeed there should be no shortage of churches in Mae Hong Son.

I would argue that most Thais are animist at heart and only superficially Buddhist. That being said, there are many Karens up around MHS and many are Catholic. It was about 10 years ago that the first Karen men were ordained at the main Catholic church in Chiang Mai.