The week that was in Thailand news: Living in Thailand – a Right Royal learning curve!

 

 

While much of Britain – and probably most of the rest of the world – was tuning into the Royal Nuptials in England yesterday Rooster was having a well-deserved snooze. Waiting for the Cup Final.

 

How well I recall that historic day in 1981 when Prince Harry’s dad was marrying his mum.

 

And I went to Goodwood races….

 

Yes, Rooster is not what you might call a Rabid Royalist – in fact whenever I wear red white and blue it is far less likely that I will be attending a street party for the Royal Family of my birth than celebrating something like an Olympic boxing gold medal for the country I prefer to call home.

 

It’s not that I want to see the British royals abolished – far from it. I’m one of those people who feel quite sorry for them and certainly see their value in promoting tourism in their Blighty homeland and trade deals around the globe.

 

And I have to admit that I absolutely adore the Netflix series The Crown that is so brilliantly written and equally wonderfully acted.

 

Like those old ladies in England who wait all night by the roadside for a glimpse of Her Majesty and who profess that she looks “absolutely luvverly” I eagerly wait for the next ten episodes and will watch them in one glorious sitting with a box of Maltesers by my side.

 

I suppose that might make me a closet – or at least a cupboard Royalist.

 

Like most British people who grew up in an era when our own royals seemingly got divorced more times than they married and appeared on shows like “It’s a Knockout” in failed attempts to court public favor, coming to Thailand was a bit of an eye opener.

 

I soon realized that it was much better – indeed legally required – to adopt a rather more, shall we say, positive countenance towards the Thai Royal Family.

 

That was not hard given the adoration felt by the overwhelming majority of Thais for their then monarch.

 

And for Rooster it was a pleasure to “appear for royalty”. On two occasions I had a royal audience with His Majesty’s granddaughter doing a Scrabble exhibition game on a giant board at shopping centers in Bangkok.

 

This foreign subject and my Thai opponent were told that under no circumstances were we to play rude words as the lady-in-waiting would be translating our weird vocabulary for the watching and seated princess. When I got the letters AERS on my rack I hurriedly rearranged them in an acceptable order.

 

Moments later the nerves of this occasion in front of thousands of shoppers caused an unfortunate stirring below. It was everything I could do to concentrate on the triple score squares and finish with a deep bow before scurrying off with my British tail between my legs to evacuate several pounds more than the Royal We.

 

In the second exhibition I managed to play the nickname of my Thai wife on the triple and leave the letters QUIT on my rack at the end as I was thrashed by 200 points. That made Her kindly Majesty laugh.

 

Later on a day in 2006 that I count as the proudest moment of my near four decades in Thailand, the princess presented me with an award for educating Thai children. My smile went from ear to ear and half way round Central Bang Na!

 

Thailand has been good to me but like everyone it has not always been a smooth journey and mistakes have been made aplenty – financial, personal and at especially at work!

 

The fight this week after a Rocket Festival stabbing reminded me of my own love affair with the north east and Bun Bang Fai.

 

I was Head of Thai Language and Culture at Harrow International School and I was determined to bring the culture and daily life of Isaan into the curriculum for the children of Bangkok hiso’s who I felt needed a broader education about their own country!

 

So I arranged a school trip by bus to the biggest Rocket Festival in the north-east at Yasothorn where I had already been several times.

 

In 1998 – as luck would have it we had left just moments before – a huge gunpowder-packed home- made rocket turned on the crowd and instantly killed four villagers as hundreds more ran for their lives.

 

Blissfully unaware that an accident had occurred after we left, we all headed back to Bangkok as parents who had heard of the tragedy panicked. To make matters worse the bus broke down and we had to stay in Korat for the night.

 

We were a day late back to school and I had some awkward questions to answer – after I told my British headmaster that that would be the last student trip to the rocket festival!

 

He smiled when I said next time I’d take the teachers…..a threat that I followed through on in the mid-naughties even managing to lose one of the ajarns.

 

Yes, for every time I got something right in Thailand there have been two occasions when I didn’t!

 

The week on Thaivisa was littered with both Thais and foreigners similarly learning about the do’s and don’ts of the Kingdom and making the mistakes that forum curmudgeons never seem to have done.

 

How many of them are like that annoying character of Harry Enfield who always says: “Oh, you don’t wanna do that?”

 

The week started predictably enough with the beach at Bang Saray, Sattahip covered in black ooze after the authorities left the taps on. Though a poster who said they lived nearby showed a picture of it looking idyllic just moments later…..

 

We should remember that all is not what it might appear in online news!

 

The same was also true after what looked like a road rage video between two furious Thai drivers ended with what surely must be violence as both men got out to confront each other – only for scissors, paper rock to be used to settle their amusing differences!

 

While the slapstick humor of Thailand leaves me cold I have always thought that Thais have a brilliant sense of humor and a wicked fun streak. Many award winning TV ads illustrate that.

 

This streak was superbly evident in a prank at a bus stop perpetrated by the guys at “DOMteamwork” who showed us that while not all Thai women are gold diggers, some like you to cross their palm with a little silver.

 

The prank saw a “poor” Thai man rejected by the dolly bird at the bus stop then miraculously accepted once his Benz arrived.

 

Rooster once bought a Jaguar thinking that should be a magnet – unfortunately all it did was make me so poor with the repairs that I had to resort to a 250cc Honda for the next few years….

 

Never mind; living in Thailand – or just living - has been a Right Royal learning curve at times!

 

Learning - something that people such as politicians and newspaper editors would be well advised to realize - “never stops”.

 

On Monday Watana Muangsook of Pheu Thai fame had a massive dig at the military saying that in the four years since the coup they had presided over “severe damage to the country and wasted a lot of state budget”.

 

To be fair to the generals they were only continuing the good work of virtually every government in Thai history but Khun Watana added menacingly that it was all: “inefficient management by retired military officers who want to have power but lack intelligence”.

 

He may have been advised to wait until saying such things is legal and as a veteran politician in Thailand realize that when having a dig it is far better to do it with humor and a smile on your chops than a sneering grimace.

 

That point was made by the translator of the story lambasting the lazy Thai police who in future should “graft” much more. A clear case of a double entendre being better than a double digit prison sentence.

 

Editor – now former editor – of the Bangkok Post Umesh Pandey was at the center of a controversy following his sacking by the board. The Guardian in the UK - whose agenda is about as pathetic as The Daily Mail – said it was all over junta censorship and Pandey himself played up to that assertion.

 

But Khaosod, to their credit, showed what real journalism can be by talking to many disgruntled editorial staff who painted a picture of gaffes and a highly “toxic environment” at the Post that had led to the editor’s downfall.

 

Sure, the sacking came just days before junta cronies of the paper were due to the 72nd Anniversary bash and the hierarchy could have done without embarrassment. But on this occasion Rooster could see the side of the Post.

 

They haven’t been bad in recent months especially in hard hitting words and features on a Sunday making Rooster feel that there are some pals out there in journo-land.

 

Things were quieter in the Rooster household this week as the blessed start of the school term began after what seemed like a millennium worth of Songkran breaks. Little THFC trundled off to kindergarten and at the end of the first day said how much she liked the new “Khun Khru”.

 

Clearly more than the 16 year old in Surat Thani who, when told that he would have to stay behind for a detention, showed his teacher what he thought of that by producing a knife and stabbing her twice in the abdomen front of the class.

 

Thailand has possibly yet to face the horror of a shooting such as what Texas experienced this week but there is something equally hideous and personal about knife crime. Though only sixteen, ten years of proper detention in a suitable place might be in order for this hoodlum.

 

In thirty years of teaching no student ever raised their hand to Rooster – which is just as well because I would probably have never been able to answer their question…..let alone fight them off!

 

One teacher who found that the school rules might have changed was the foreigner who found himself at the Thai consulate in Penang needing to get a criminal background check from both his home country and Thailand.

 

Such checks were not universally required years ago in Thailand though they should have been. The teaching profession as much as the priesthood attracts all sorts of nasties whose real aim is not education or enlightenment but something more sinister.

 

I should know – I worked in a school in Bangkok where the British deputy head of primary was – unbeknown to the management – wanted for sexual abuse in Adelaide. When he was exposed he took himself to Tripoli of all places where he was subsequently murdered.

 

And at the same school a swimming coach and kindergarten teacher was later shown to be a pedophile wanted in his home country after offences committed at a holiday camp for young boys. He thought the US authorities had forgotten about him and went home to Kentucky for a holiday thankfully never to return to Thailand.

 

Despite the carnage on the roads that remains a national disgrace, Thailand is a safer place than ever these days. Sure, the videos we see of road rage and street violence seem to belie that claim but the reality is that CCTV and phone cameras have put everything unavoidably in the public eye.

 

Talking of which it was various types of public – and almost pubic – eye candy that featured in two Thaivisa stories this week that gave the forum curmudgeons and assorted wags a chance to criticize and pun to their hearts content.

 

The first featured the “Pretty Caddies” who go for “5,000 baht a round”; these babes, we were told, were not a bit of “rough” and “eagle-eyed” golfers wouldn’t dream of taking them “off course” for the “19th Hole”.

 

Why is golf so good for puns especially when talking about the birdies?

 

In the second story a Thai model flaunting herself at McDonald’s came in for the Rooster treatment after her upskirt “fast food frolics” revealed some nice buns and a double dose of supersized milkshakes.

 

Mrs Rooster says in Thai that I am nothing more than a juvenile delinquent – she knows me too well.

 

But FCW (Forum Chief Wag) Darcula said it best in the story about the Thai man who was rushed to hospital after cutting his nether regions while watching porn.

 

Darcula said it felt like: “Watching that Oscar winner – Shaving Ryan’s Privates.”

 

No offence but I think he must be as juvenile as me!

 

Finally, Thaivisa made its own news of sorts this week when “Dan About Thailand” revealed that more than 50% of all foreigners in Thailand have either sampled a lady boy or would not be averse to a bit of meat and two veg if it was delivered their way unexpectedly.

 

And 80% thought that lady boys in Thailand were really hot stuff.

 

Propriety, and marriage, forbids Rooster from saying too much on the issue; suffice to say that I prefer to refer to the Bill Clinton School of Political Correctness and say that while I have met some stunning lady boys in my time….

 

I have never inhaled.

 

Rooster

 

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2018-05-19

good read as always, cheers. you need a proof reader though. 

15 hours ago, Happy enough said:

good read as always, cheers. you need a proof reader though. 

So do you! You are supposed to start a sentence with a capital letter, and in the instance above  - the letter 'A"!