The week that was in Thailand news: Howzat! Rooster celebrates 100 not out!

 

 

Today the column hits a proud milestone – it is the 100^th consecutive week of That Was The Week That Was in Thaivisa news.

 

And I am glad to report that despite suffering a bit of smog related hacking in what passes for Bangkok air at the moment Rooster is going relatively strong. Also going strong is the often crazy and invariably humorous Thai news that makes this column relatively easy to write and hopefully puts a smile on some Sunday morning faces.

 

I had already lived in Thailand three decades before I paid any serious attention to online news or social media. I just didn’t need it – if I got the Bangkok Post it was to do the crossword puzzle or the word target.

 

I had a lot of time on my hands after quitting my job as an international school teacher in 2013 – my headmaster refused to let me go abroad to represent Thailand at professional Scrabble so I got a couple of fingers out for him and ditched my 180,000 baht salary.

 

Having saved judiciously I decided to put my feet up for at least two years and raise my daughter who was not yet one. I joined Thaivisa as an ordinary poster and made about 500 posts in the next two years. To be frank, the negativity of many online about Thailand was getting to me a bit but just as I was about to delete my account I saw an advertisement for a news translator.

 

I had a strong background in Thai having been the head of the Thai department at Harrow International and I was also a trained reporter having qualified as a journalist in the UK working on South London newspapers.

 

The hierarchy at Thaivisa convinced me that bringing the Thai language news to life for the membership was something that could promote the site and the rest is now personal history.

 

Some 4,500 translations later in addition to the 170,000 words that this column has generated has brought much more Thai news to expatriate communities and Thai watchers around the world who do not have the ability to understand Thai writing.

 

For me personally it has been a journey deep into the heart of the news. Yes, it is often just translating meaning that mistakes from the Thai press are inevitable just repeated. But I endeavor to check as much as is humanly possible and also increasingly interview people in the news myself.

 

For example this week I was in touch with “The Kindest German in Thailand” and “Nong Jaen” the spirited young Thai foundation medic who tried to save a life by jumping on a heart attack victim following a fire and giving him CPR as a stretcher was transported to an ambulance.

 

It is a pleasure to speak to people like this and try to bring their stories to life. In the case of Herr Reiner Abele I was impressed by a man going about his Thai life quietly trying to help others. He respected my interest in him without engaging in self-promotion.

 

In the case of Jaen I took heart from a 20 year old who is a great example to other young people and should give everyone hope for the future of this great country. She made me want to sign up as a Ruam Katanyu medic though I don’t think my back would stand up to straddling a victim on a gurney!

 

It would probably mean two victims….

 

Despite online trolls and back-stabbers these kind folk, and many like them of widely differing ages and cultural backgrounds, are more indicative of what society is really like than what the doomsayers would have us believe.

 

Inevitably bringing more crime to an English speaking audience perhaps hitherto in the dark has had many people commenting that there is a crime explosion in Thailand. I don’t believe that to be the case – frankly, again, the country has always had its fair share of crime.

 

With my background of chasing fire engines, interviewing police and visiting the victims of crime in London in the late 1970s I had decided that the best way to learn written Thai in the mid-1980s when I settled in Bangkok was to read crime magazines.

 

“Atchayakam” and “191” with all their grisly stories and pictures became my daily reading as I accumulated a mountain of such magazines under my double bed rather in the manner teenagers of the time collected glossy publications of another kind.

 

It was clear to me at the time that this new country where I intended to make my life, and which appeared so peaceful on the surface, was in fact wracked by crime and serious accidents.

 

It never jaded me because I had always been surrounded by such things and I knew that despite all pronouncements that crime was out of control the reality was usually very different.

 

Now, in this media savvy age of instant gratification and its main purveyors – Facebook and online news – it seems things like road rage, murder, fraud and illegal activity of all kind is increasingly rampant. No, it is just that if you go online anywhere in the world you can’t avoid it.

 

For me very little has changed and being by and large a positive soul I see more improvements in the country I have called home for 35 years than opinions to the contrary.

 

This attitude is often met with chuckles by newbies and Thai bashers who prefer to believe the opposite as we are portrayed at best as rose tinted spec wearers who have gone troppo in Thailand. Or at worst as paid stooges of the junta or the TAT who would like their kingdom painted whiter than white.

 

Twaddle – anyone who has read this column knows that Rooster’s pen will not be diverted from criticizing those that should do better from the upper echelons of Thai politicians through to the bottom feeders…. Yes, the police!

 

This week the constabulary once again displayed its propensity for being in the right place at the right time especially when money is involved. The transferring of several Kanchanaburi cops in the 30 million baht “who really won the lottery” scandal was proof of that.

 

The report that will come out this next week is going to be interesting reading as we may, just may, see the heads of some rozzers roll rather than routinely receive relocation.

 

Earlier in the week a survey told us what we all know that Thais have no faith in their justice system. It is the severest indictment of that system that most Thais would rather put their faith in the summary justice and fairness that the police can offer.

 

In a related survey two thirds of Thais believed that Pornchai Karnasuta – the ItalThai mogul who shot a wildcat for lunch – would never face justice before he kind of confirmed that by not even bothering to visit the cops as requested.

 

Biggest “drama” of the week was something as simple as a woman parking illegally outside a family’s home. Two aunties took a spade and an axe to the offending pick-up as it emerged there was much, much more to the story.

 

It involved illegal markets, countless injunctions from the courts and inactivity by the BMA in protecting the rights of people who live next to commercial properties.

 

I found myself condemning the actions of the aunties at first then warming to their plight and accepting that I would probably have done the same thing after being pushed so far.

 

A couple of years ago factory in my neighborhood was making an unholy noise for several days in a row. Rather than expecting the juristic person office to do anything on my behalf I got on my bike and went round there.

 

Ignoring the pleas of the security guard to stop I walked straight into the manager’s office, wai-ed, sat down and told him politely in Thai that the noise was driving me crazy and asked him what he would do about it.

 

He called his foreman and I was taken to view an improperly secured vent that was repaired that very day. I went round again to thank him for his prompt action and apologize for storming in.

 

This, unlike my initial, frustrated behavior that was Chapter One in the book of grumpy farang, was the Thai way….both have their place in getting your rightful way in Thailand, however, despite what some guidebooks say!

 

The aunties of Prawes know what they are doing. They set up a press conference on the sidewalk and governor Aswin quickly got involved as the media circus swung into full throttle.

 

On a lesser scale the social media shaming of the authorities in QUOTES – the Queen Of The Eastern Seaboard -  led to action on the “Leaning Power Pole of Pattaya”.

 

Though the pole was fast becoming a tourist attraction – rather in the manner of pole dancing - the authorities seemed sufficiently abashed to erect a new one.

 

Similarly even less keen on publicity but for different reasons was the Michelin starred grannie Jay Fai whose life is now a misery as “the curse of the star” has brought wealth but charges that she is blocking the pavement at her Bangkok stand and might not be paying all the tax she should on those supposedly yummy but overpriced crab omelets.

 

You would have to pay me 1,000 baht to eat there. The lady round the corner in Ratchayothin does a perfectly acceptable and wholesome “hoi thort” for 45 baht and having gone there for the best part of 15 years and never once having a tummy upset, why would I change?

 

The same could not be said of the Aiyara Grand Hotel in Pratumnak, it appears. In one of the Schadenfreudianly (my word) funny stories of the week several dozen Public Health Officials at a conference came down with Bangkok Belly on the East Seaboard after sampling the lunch buffet.

 

Causing belly laughs rather than aches are the junta who are the worthy recipients of both my Rooster awards this week. Firstly they take the “Actually We Mean the Opposite” award after their hurried statement that they are not concerned by Thaksin’s Asian tour.

 

Bless! They must be beside themselves with fury especially as both the fugitive ex PMs were in law abiding Singapore virtually within touching distance but in reality so far away.

 

Secondly the increasingly hapless generals surely deserve the “Laughing Stock” prize for apparently trying to silence an astrologer who has been annoying them for his predictions of doom and gloom related to startling things like the death of a pigeon at government house.

 

It made me think what would be the fate of, say, a UK politician who complained about a horoscope prediction. The press would get their teeth in and the MP would be ruined as sure as a sex scandal.

 

Like sex, the Thais behave somewhat differently when it comes to superstition, of course, but even so the people are not stupid. A straight fight between the Shinawatra family, or at least their proxies, and this brigade fresh out of khaki may result in something not altogether to the military’s liking come election day.

 

Finally, a big thank you to the kind posters who make Rooster’s own day by remarking that the TWTWTW column puts a smile on their faces.

 

Hopefully, no matter what the future holds, the column will continue for another century.

 

And we can all start bashing democracy!

 

Rooster

 

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2018-02-24

False advertising - I followed the LINE link to read a story about a 100 year old Rooster and was sadly disappointed

 

Congrats BTW :)

Edited February 25, 20188 yr by lordblackader
typo

Always great reading. Thank you Rooster for your excellent Sunday morning wrap (rap?). May there be many more.

Edited February 25, 20188 yr by Tradewind777
Added word

It was a great pleasure to meet you in that ‘transition’ period after finishing teaching and before starting with TV. Now I can happily use the old cliche

“who would ever have thought” as we sat around the table, you helping me with my dreadful Thai language skills, that 2 years later I would be writing this !!....?well congratulations on your century . Let’s hope there will be many more!

Where can we find the previous 99 TWTW's?

Congratulations Rooster !
As always an interesting summary of the weeks events that never fails to bring a smile to my face !

Congratulations on "turning" 100...or should that be "typing"...keep up the good work...

Nice one Rooster keep it coming.

Rooster,  sabai jai ! You always put a smile on my face, thank you.  Always something to crow about ?

 

 

 

 

 

congradulation rooster always look first on thai visa to read your news translation best start to sunday with a chuckle,look forwardvto the next 100,thankyou

I think you must be the new Bernard Trink !

On 2/25/2018 at 11:48 AM, chickenslegs said:

Where can we find the previous 99 TWTW's?

Click on the blue box that says "The week that was", directly under the title at the top. 

1 hour ago, lamyai3 said:

Click on the blue box that says "The week that was", directly under the title at the top. 

Thanks. Now I can catch up on the ones I missed.