Thai opinion: One not-so-fine retirement day

[webfact]

STOPPAGE TIME
One not-so-fine retirement day
Tulsathit Taptim

BANGKOK: -- The moment Uncle Camry arrived at the parking lot, he knew that whoever received his birthday wish had flushed it down the toilet. They all were there - the Mini Scum, Chevy the Menace, Jazzy and a few others - eager in varying degrees to tear him apart with their cruel jokes. His friends they may have been, but they wouldn't ignore a great opportunity to get payback.

Thanks to those Bangkok police clowns, this was going to be his worst birthday ever. If their silly idea had been enforced today, he would have been banished to Buri Ram or Surin or, worse, sent across the border into Cambodia. His executive passengers, whom he was so proud of, would have to buy a new vehicle. They would shake him off like an old pair of shoes.

That it remained just an idea didn't matter. The taunting and teasing had begun. "Hey, Pop," a young car yelled at him on his way to the office. "One lane or the other, will ya?"

Uncle Camry just gritted his teeth and bore it. That little creep would get old one day, and a soda can like him - made popular because of some ridiculous tax deduction policy - would go straight to the junkyard, not even Aranyaprathet.

Mini Scum didn't waste time either. "Happy Retirement Day, Grandpa. Where's your clutch?" he said. Chevy the Menace, whose posters still adorned roadsides, chuckled. "Come on, give the old man a break. We should envy him, after all. I heard the weather is nice at Khao Yai."

This is so unfair, Uncle Camry thought. Look at Jazzy. She was five years old but surely in worse condition than him. Those Bangkok police gave too much credit to "new" cars and overlooked the possibility that old ones like him could still function if well maintained. Uncle Camry prayed that the metropolitan police commissioner would end up in a daycare home for his gross oversight.

A sympathetic glance made Uncle Camry turn instinctively. It was a Ford Escape, still shiny but with a sad look. "How old are you, pal?" Uncle Camry asked, his curiosity winning over the urge to kill the subject. "That's the thing," the stranger sighed. "I was born in 2004 but spent two years in a used-car tent. How old do you think I technically am?"

A Honda Civic, obviously another tent car, stepped in. "I'm having the same problem," she said. "And I think this kind of problem will give a lot of room for corruption if the government is insane enough to embrace the police's crazy idea. If I was more cynical, I'd think the police were proposing this in order to institutionalise bribery."

As if it wasn't all too common already, Uncle Camry thought. But she had a point. Between 30 and 40 per cent of registered cars in Bangkok were as old as him, or even older. The number was a corruption gold mine. You bribe the tent. The tent bribes the police. The police bribe whoever they need to. What a messy, unholy chain of graft that would be.

And on the "traffic jam" claim, give me a break. The government made new cars dirt cheap and the police are blaming old cars for worsening the bumper-to-bumper situation? It's not me, Uncle Camry reflected furiously. It's those soda cans that are pouring onto the streets every single day. And what good would it do to the Bangkok traffic if the police had to block, chase or capture "old" cars every rush hour?

Someone asked what the police should do about the buses. Good point again, Uncle Camry thought. If he was old, many of the buses, mini-buses, taxi vans or taxis were corpses. But these corpses belonged to influential agencies or influential people, or poor people who might yet be politically influential in the eyes of the government. To get all old cars off Bangkok's roads would enrage both rich and poor alike.

Uncle Camry wondered if Bangkok Police Chief Kamronwit Thoopkrajang had been slapped already by the man whose picture he hung in absolute reverence in his office. And that would be the least the Bangkok police chief deserved. The old-car idea turned out to be a dream come true for people who loved ridiculing the government led by the sister of the man in the picture.

An "antique" vehicle smirked 20 metres from the group. "Aren't you worried, Dude?" Jazzy shouted at him. "You make Uncle Camry look like a teenage heart-throb. How old are you, fifty … sixty?"

"The point is not how old I am, lady," the mysterious antique said smugly. "The point is who owns me."


-- The Nation 2013-10-16

[Thai at Heart]

2nd nut job article from tulsathit in 2 weeks.

[ChrisY1]

Different mentality isn't it......!!

[jaltsc]

Total waste of space and the reader's time. Even if the reader didn't get past the second sentence after realizing the article was nothing but drivel.

Edited October 16, 2013 by jaltsc

[NongKhaiKid]

Different mentality isn't it......!!

Yes and it's a heavy price we pay for being foreigners and not understanding Thainess.

Unfortunately for the author Crap is Crap in any language or culture.

[lemonjelly]

Next week... Thomat the Tank Engine is worried about the High Speed Rail Link and the Fat Controller buys a new Merc....

[doremifasol]

Couldn't get past the second sentence.

Never mind though.

[Pib]

The writer of this article had too much Dr. Seuss read to him as kid.

[worgeordie]

Please nominate him for a Pulitzer prize,not

regards Worgeordie

[Garry]

I got to the fifth paragraph and then bailed

[Dr Robert]

OK Ok so its no literary masterpiece but its a whole lot more creative and interesting than some of the hoarse bleating in here -I certainly wouldnt shave with a blade as sharp as your wits without a lot of blotting paper boys. Seems like the short concentration that comes with years of substance abuse spills into reading ability too. The moral twist in the tale isnt too bad if you persevere and get the point.

Try writing something yourself and let us critique your attempts-go on I dare you!

...thought not.

[how241]

I got to the fifth paragraph and then bailed

+1....too much.

[Maybole]

I enjoyed it , does nobody get the sarcasm?

[Thai at Heart]

OK Ok so its no literary masterpiece but its a whole lot more creative and interesting than some of the hoarse bleating in here -I certainly wouldnt shave with a blade as sharp as your wits without a lot of blotting paper boys. Seems like the short concentration that comes with years of substance abuse spills into reading ability too. The moral twist in the tale isnt too bad if you persevere and get the point.

Try writing something yourself and let us critique your attempts-go on I dare you!

...thought not.

Obviously Tul has just been given a subscription to Private Eye.