The week that was in Thailand news: When it’s hard to click on the news.

[rooster59]

The week that was in Thailand news: When it’s hard to click on the news.

 

 

Rooster is no chicken when it comes to the realities of the darker side of human existence but there are times when it takes a monumental effort to even click on a news story.

A case in point this week was the Facebook live murder of an eleven month baby girl by, for the want of a better word, her father, who afterwards committed suicide.

The very idea of watching such a thing on social media is abhorrent – even though thousands did before it was taken down. Though I felt I had to inform myself of the details of the story as a chronicler of the news it was not something I cared to do.

Having an eleven month old daughter myself sleeping in the next room only served to intensify the feelings of revulsion and abject sadness.

In the subsequent days it seemed to me that people were shifting their anger to Facebook, a kind of ghoulish version of shooting the messenger. It struck me that we may have to get used to what social media has done to us.

Facebook has become like an omnipotent fourth dimension. It’s all very well for some to say they won’t use it but that’s a bit like ignoring one’s nasty neighbors and expected them to move away as a result.

Facebook – and its like and likes – is here to stay and such is its tentacle like reach into so many aspects of our lives that I have a feeling of great foreboding as bad as any hellish musings on the unpleasant vagaries of human nature that many of its stories inspire.

Like it or lump it references to Facebook make up at least a part of somewhere between a quarter to a half of all stories on a forum like Thaivisa. I am afraid it is here to stay, a kind of byproduct of what even Orwellian imaginations failed to predict.

Not only is Big Brother watching us but seething humanity is falling over itself to return the compliment and watch him.

The other truly horrible story of the week was not played out online but in a Suphanburi field where a Brazilian visitor was raped by a taxi driver after having been picked up at Don Muang airport. It reminded me of the rape murder of a Japanese couple in the 1980s.

Then it was the issue of “black cabs”; now the airport authority was blaming the victim for not using the rank – so little seems to have changed in the last three decades especially when it comes down to accountability. There really is almost none.

Sickeningly the cab firm were fined a paltry 3,000 for offences that effectively gave a double rapist more opportunity to attack female victims in taxis. Surely it is time for a whole swathe of insufficient fines and penalties to be reviewed.

Some penalties need to come down but many, so many need to go up to stop this mockery of victims that is becoming nothing short of a national disgrace.

Fortunately, the news this week once again threw up a wealth of quirky amusement and if only for my own sanity it may be best to concentrate on that before Rooster acts out his own Facebook live moment of fame.

Forum hackles went up big time when it was announced that a Brit had gone to GoFundMe to pay to sit on Thailand’s beaches for half a year while the “emerging trend” of “Beg-packers”, those who come without money and beg or barter their way around the kingdom, was featured on VoiceTV.

Many Thais and forum posters slammed the young people taking busking to a whole new level but Rooster, who pulled a few money saving stunts in his time, really sees little harm in it. If you are gullible enough to give, then fair play to them.

Rooster has paid his taxes in Thailand but I’m thankfully not too old to remember the days when doing things on the cheap probably meant more fun and richer experiences than even money can buy.

Thais have a mental block when it comes to travelling on the cheap like this though many would think nothing of borrowing on the never-never from all and sundry much closer to home.

Still, I imagine the thought of such travel must have given tourism minister Khun Kobkarn a few palpitations with maybe an internal memo to do something to nip it in the bud before it blooms into another reason for a crackdown!

Following last week’s shenanigans in the on-again off-again street food ban it was also amusing to see that the Michelin Guide is now gearing up to unleash its stars on the nation’s gourmet restaurants.

According to the story two “street-hawker” establishments in Singapore have already been named in the guide so who knows what might happen.

Certainly the Michelin men – do they wear puffy white ringed trousers I wonder – would do well to have dinner in some of the Bangkok restaurants that have cars double and triple parked outside. That’s always a good sign that something tasty is going on inside.

Though I will be promoting “Pa Ruay” in my soi – Aunty Rich as I affectionately call her does the best four chili Som Tam Thai this side of the Chao Phraya.

Returning to the misery for a moment – and more of that reluctance to click on Facebook videos – we had the sickening beating handed down to a security guard in Bang Saen who was left helpless following the crippling effects of polio.

His own “crime” was to forbid some yobs the right to urinate outside where he was guarding. The number of attackers always reminds me of the starting price of leading contenders in the Grand National – usually at least 10-1.

It was all grist to the mill for the “keyboard warriors” of Thaivisa forum criticized for displaying a pack mentality in the “Midweek Rant” when ganging up on the downtrodden, a post that was roundly condemned rather proving the point of the writer.

Hopefully, the men in the seaside video will do some serious jail time, assuming as always that they are not genetically linked in a direct hereditary capacity to the rancid rozzers.

One such relationship was all too obvious as a karaoke bar owner in Chonburi complained that she had been shut down by police for seven days for the trumped-up charge of “offering poor service”.

You had to admire the lady’s pluck for using such a euphemism that left one or two forum posters – newbies to Thailand I guess – rather nonplussed.

Let me spell it out for you – a policeman’s son went to the karaoke, didn’t get his end away with one of the girls, lost face in front of his mates and thought he shouldn’t have to pay a single baht for his drinks because pater pulls punches at plod HQ.

The only saving grace for this story is that it ended in mere corruption rather than yet another needless shooting.

If some found that story confusing, then they would have been similarly flummoxed by the top drugs cop on an inspection visit to a police station who “came over all queer” after passing the cells and insisted on conducting a water pouring merit making ceremony for the souls of those who had died in custody.

The chief asked the reporters not to report this aspect of his visit because he might be seen as gullible then couldn’t resist going into every possible detail about all his creepy experiences at stations around the country.

A deputy at the station in question stepped in to back up his boss’s claims as if that were needed – when telling a ghost story in Thailand it is never necessary to convince the listener of the veracity of your claims, that is a given.

Far more temporal than having anything to do with the spiritual was the story that gave us the picture of the week – a saffron robed member of the monkhood who had taken out his mate’s sports car – an orange one no less – for a spin and drove it straight from his temple into a roadside tree.

The look on the young man’s hapless face was priceless while the translator couldn’t resist a little mockery about the apparent lack of adequate amulets in the car!

Which brings me rather nicely to this week’s Rooster Awards and I would like to present the prize for comment of the week to “onemorechang” who, when referring to the story about the Cheap Charlie “beg-packers” railed: “Kick them out now! They give the honest, sex tourists a bad name”.

While the “Right on Cue” award – appropriate for a week when the World Snooker Championships have provided such a welcome distraction for many of us Brits – goes to the Thaivisa editors who attempted to balance the horror of the taxi driver rape on the Brazilian model with the standard “cabbie returns handbag with 70K inside to Indian tourist” story.

Unlike some posters, I believe these feel good stories – I’d just be happier if I never read another story about a taxi driver again in my life – good or bad.

While the picture prize already went to the monk in the motor I would also like to mention in dispatches the border guards down at Sadao for having the guts to appear with a serious haul of despicable contraband – no, not a ton of heroin this week – but ten cardboard boxes full of chocolaty and highly illicit…..Milo.

I wonder what Nestle thought of the free advertising….

Finally, some Thai wag in Chiang Mai came up with a lovely phony app called “UBAR” that purported to be useful in calling one of the city’s red “song thaews”.

Having just got over the shock of a witty Thai effectively employing irony, I then saw an equally bewildering story on the BBC that suggested UBER were going to begin trials of a “flying car” service possibly as early as 2023.

What an incredible boon that would be for Thailand.

We might finally see an end to the carnage on the roads…..

Rooster

 

 

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2017-04-30

[bheard]

Entertainment plus, as usual. Thank you Rooster.
A short comment: Thais conducting flying cars, in the air! The mind boggles.
15 hours of instruction required to get the ground licence, how many for the air licence? Ohhh, another 15 should be enough, surely!

[Moti24]

2 hours ago, bheard said:

Entertainment plus, as usual. Thank you Rooster.
A short comment: Thais conducting flying cars, in the air! The mind boggles.
15 hours of instruction required to get the ground licence, how many for the air licence? Ohhh, another 15 should be enough, surely!

If the flying cars are being driven/flown by Thais, it'll be raining body parts from all the mid-air collisions.

[williamgeorgeallen]

1 hour ago, Moti24 said:

If the flying cars are being driven/flown by Thais, it'll be raining body parts from all the mid-air collisions.

by the time cars are flying they wont need anyone to drive/fly them.  it sounds like it will be happening in my lifetime with dubai 2020 expo having working prototypes in the air. many of us will look back and laugh about how cars used to cause congested roads and deaths.

[williamgeorgeallen]

who would watch a video of a baby being killed? no one should watch sh!t like that then it would be pointless posting it.

 

[elgordo38]

16 hours ago, rooster59 said:

It struck me that we may have to get used to what social media has done to us.

Yes rooster a truer statement has never been made. 

[elgordo38]

16 hours ago, rooster59 said:

Unlike some posters, I believe these feel good stories – I’d just be happier if I never read another story about a taxi driver again in my life – good or bad.

Be careful Rooster this feeling could spread to other areas and your creativity which I enjoy so much could go into a permanent shut down stage. Your read this week was exceptionally good. 

Edited April 30, 2017 by elgordo38

[elgordo38]

46 minutes ago, williamgeorgeallen said:

who would watch a video of a baby being killed? no one should watch sh!t like that then it would be pointless posting it.

 

Look around you william the weirdo's do walk among us. We are sadly constantly being primed to view the more ghoulish side of life. Its sadly an extension of man's constant curiosity. 

[elgordo38]

16 hours ago, rooster59 said:

We might finally see an end to the carnage on the roads

Great read this week Rooster I can just picture Thai's in flying cars. At last a vehicle in which they can roar around at random with no street lights or signs to impede them.  The flying cops no doubt would have to buy nets on long poles to collect their "fines" If maintenance holds true they would be falling from the sky like flies. I can just imagine them queuing up for petrol. 

[Stargeezr]

Thanks Rooster for your insight, it is refreshing. I got warned not to call another member challenged in anyway,

and the non politically correct old word ret*rded is forbidden as well.  There was an article about face masks, and

a scarf is worn over the head to cover the hair and not the face, and a veil or something like a balaclava covers

part or most of the face and can be dangerous in some situations. Anyway I apologize if I made another member

feel slighted by my comments of a couple days ago.  Keep up your great articles, they are greatly

appreciated.

Geezer

[HooHaa]

What overwrought nonsense.