We are degenerating just like Venice did in the 18th century: Thai opinion

[Morakot]

I doubt if 99% of the population even knows where Venice is.

Isn't Venice a theme park near Hua Hin?

[HooHaa]

No one disagreed with his premise; it's just that his supporting arguments were specious. How stupid, obtuse or radically biased are you not to understand that?

oh really, is that is whats happening here?

I WILL TELL IT AS IT IS>

To compare BKK to Venice is an obscenity.

Only a person who does not know the difference between

a sea and a swamp

a palace and a dump

a cake and noodles

a Renaissance and Illiteracy

a gondola and a tuk-tuk

a Saint Marco and a VAT Crematorium

could make such a sacrilegious comparison.

I have seen and heard many things in many years of living in Thailand.

Some were beautiful, many were ugly, altogether it is a life, - especially when one keeps a healthy sense of humour.

This time I am really angry.

Before BKK 'degenerates' like Venice it has to generate something.

Sorry, but it really was too much...

Fire away!

+1

How disgusting for the writer to make such a comparison. But, I'm quite sure many Thais would believe it's an appropriate one. You have to compliment them on their ability to ignore all their flaws.

[PaullyW]

Pauline Kanchanalak

http://capitalismmagazine.com/2001/04/pauline-kanchanalak-poster-girl-for-the-futility-of-the-mccain-feingold-bill/

A perfect example of shameless Thainess.

What's going on there?

Edited May 1, 2014 by PaullyW

[aTomsLife]

No one disagreed with his premise; it's just that his supporting arguments were specious. How stupid, obtuse or radically biased are you not to understand that?

oh really, is that is whats happening here?

I WILL TELL IT AS IT IS>

To compare BKK to Venice is an obscenity.

Only a person who does not know the difference between

a sea and a swamp

a palace and a dump

a cake and noodles

a Renaissance and Illiteracy

a gondola and a tuk-tuk

a Saint Marco and a VAT Crematorium

could make such a sacrilegious comparison.

I have seen and heard many things in many years of living in Thailand.

Some were beautiful, many were ugly, altogether it is a life, - especially when one keeps a healthy sense of humour.

This time I am really angry.

Before BKK 'degenerates' like Venice it has to generate something.

Sorry, but it really was too much...

Fire away!

+1

How disgusting for the writer to make such a comparison. But, I'm quite sure many Thais would believe it's an appropriate one. You have to compliment them on their ability to ignore all their flaws.

Perhaps a touch indelicate, but ultimately true. It's a ridiculous comparison.

But still, like I said, her premise that Thai society is degenerating is entirely plausible.

Edited May 1, 2014 by aTomsLife

[rickirs]

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Wait your average Thai knows about 18th century Venice? Most Thai's I know of don't even know WW2 happened let alone this.

No doubt most Thais don't know that in WW2 Thailand joined the Axis powers of Japan, Germany, and Italy. That put it in conflict with the Allied powers of UK, USA, and Russia; albeit with a wink and nod, Thailand gave nuetrality access to the Allied air forces.

[Hachi]

VENICE.

One of the first cities in Italy to engage in international commerce after the devastations of the early Middle Ages.

Venice established a maritime empire by 1300 and a territorial empire from the early 1400s.

Adapting to changing circumstances, its economy remained vibrant into the seventeenth century. It experienced little social turmoil, while its literary and artistic achievements were rivaled only by those of Florence and Rome.

For most of its thousand years of existence, Venice was free and independent.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Venice.aspx

[tomyummer]

What a meek attempt to compare Thailand to Venice - 300 years late.

When Venice was at the height of its power in the 17th century, people in what was then Siam were walking around in loin cloths, sat on the ground eating from the same bowl and waged wars with sticks.

Venice may have been decadent in its later years, but its ultimate decline has to be attributed to the loss of its many trading posts and colonies (including Crete, for example) in the Eastern Mediterranean to the Ottomans in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Venetians didn't search for lucky lottery numbers on sacred trees and basically every given object deemed holy. Venetians didn't marry foreigners to financially support their entire families. Venetians didn't vote politicians into power because they were paid a pittance for their vote. Venetians didn't demand their purchase of a single Coke be put in a tiny plastic bag, which they later throw away. Venetians didn't pull a gun on everybody over a perceived "lost face". Venetians didn't let suspected killers walk free for a ridiculous amount of bail to subsequently flee the country. Venetians didn't see themselves as a superior master race dominating the rest of Europe. Venetians didn't hang out most of the day stone drunk complaining how tough their life was because they couldn't financially support their multiple minor wives. Venetians didn't go out on the day they received their salaries and blew it all on wine, women and song. Venetians didn't blame their own shortcomings on everybody else and rejected any responsibility for their faults. Venetians didn't rip off foreign visitors through ingeniously designed schemes and certainly didn't charge foreigners double or triple prices. And perhaps most importantly: Venetians weren't governed by a criminal fugitive from some 5,000 kilometers away in self-imposed exile.

The decadence currently prevailing in Thailand is entirely her own mess. Venice has got nothing to do with it.

I think the OP is comparing the degeneration of society in general rather than the actual cultures.

Then the OP should've compared it to the gorillas in the Congo.

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa app

[Dogmatix]

Sounds more like Sodom and Gomorrah than Venice. Sure there used to be canals in Bangkok but where is the culture and civilisation, the Titians, the Tintorettos, the Canalettos, the Piazza San Marco, the world trade dominance etc, etc?

Thailand is a cesspool of corruption, slowly sinking in her own ordure.

Edited May 1, 2014 by Dogmatix

[Krataiboy]

Bit of an odd comparison. Venice was an outward-looking world superpower.

Thailand is an insular, navel-gazing dot on the map which most people couldn't even point to.

It took more than a thousand years for Venice to degenerate into decadence, a feat Thailand has managed to achieve in a few score.

Congratulations, LoS.

[Krataiboy]

Bit of an odd comparison. Venice was an outward-looking world superpower.

Thailand is an insular, navel-gazing dot on the map which most people couldn't even point to.

It took more than a thousand years for Venice to degenerate into decadence, a feat Thailand has managed to achieve in a few score.

Congratulations, LoS.