The week that was in Thailand news: Crossing the line in Thailand.

[rooster59]

The week that was in Thailand news: Crossing the line in Thailand.

 

 

Whenever I am out and about in Thailand, like all my fellow road users, I shall witness the line crossing phenomenon. The barriers are down, the train is due and the crossing chief is furiously waving his little red flag.

And yet still they come – in Bangkok bikes mostly but upcountry at less protected crossings, cars and even buses – vehicles all playing chicken with the oncoming iron horse. Sometimes to get home a few seconds earlier – sometimes to regret for all eternity.

The game at Thai level crossings has, for me, become somewhat of a metaphor for life in Thailand. Whenever I see it, it makes me think of what you can get away with in Thailand; from how far one might be able to steer clear of sanction from the authorities for mild wrong-doing to how much your missus might tolerate your naughtiness.

There is often a reckoning and for newbies to Thailand or those with little practical experience, where the line is drawn can be a daunting and frustrating experience to master.

For the train sometimes stops just yards from the crossing and at other times it piles through dragging the stalled granddad on his Scoopy-i to the next province.

In the Thai news this week we saw many lines crossed and many that were deemed not to have been traversed.

The courts decided – much to the chagrin of the PAD who I was surprised still existed – that two former PMs and two very high ranking cops had not crossed the line from reasonable force into illegality.

Some protestors in 2008 with limbs having gone AWOL were left to rely on karma for ultimate justice, but Somchai and Chavalit walked free.

A pity really, for if they had been charged with being related to Taksin or just being plain, pig ugly, both men, respectively if not respectfully, would surely have been convicted.

What with Yingluck’s impending fate, it is not a great time to be a former PM. His generalness may well mull on that fact as his spirited tenure nears its expected conclusion.

Most leave office discredited in some way – which is more British than America. While the Brits find reason to hate their past leader as much as they did when they were living, don’t those Yankees just drool over their Presidents once they are out of harm’s way!

So who did cross the line this week? There were many.

One crossed MY line – a Rooster line that has a sign on it that says “You What Mate?! For this I blame the police in Chonburi for fining the man who was armed with a sword and who attacked a fellow motorist in his car, the princely sum of 500 baht.

To say I was “Outraged of Ratchayothin” would be an understatement. Especially as it gives grist to the mill for all those annoying and misinformed posters on the forum who insist that a purple note is the standard fine for all serious misdemeanors.

Of course it is not, but the Vios driver on this occasion must have been counting his lucky daos after walking away from this well publicized violence, with a quick “wai” and a ”solly to society”

Also crossing the line when it came to doing their job were the “Beer Pretties” in Saraburi hauled in by the cops for suggesting online – in skimpy outfits too, shock horror – that people might like to turn up at their pub and have a beverage.

These honeys has crossed the line of making things just that bit too public as we were rewarded with seeing once again the two-faced attitude towards such things as drinking and smoking.

The Thais manage to be two-faced very expertly – it comes with perpetually saving face meaning they always have an extra one in reserve that may come in handy when needed.

Or as I say to the missus, if you could save money as much as face I would have retired by now.

Meanwhile, the Thai authorities decided back in May that Facebook and YouTube had crossed their lines when it came to naughty URLs appearing on both platforms.

While YouTube seem to have censored most of the court orders, the NTBC chief this week issued a scathing attack on Mr Zuckerberg’s alternative universe for only obeying the Thai requests to the paltry tune of 40%.

Of course no one mentions the URLs that lie at the center of this spat with the giants of the internet, except to insouciantly claim that they are mostly pornographic.

One who very few Thais would say had not crossed the line – even those students at Chula who would rather not “graap” on the grass –was the woman who featured in the second of two stories about child abuse in schools

This person – one can’t call her a teacher as that would infer some sense of professionalism – thought it fitting to place a student’s shoes on his head and make him kowtow repeatedly in apology while everyone watched.

Rooster, who taught Thai children about local customs and manners for the best part of twenty years, found this horrendous. By all means fine her 500 baht but please, please keep her away from children in this life and any subsequent ones.

The same must also be said of the fiend who beat 21 students over the head with a stick sending three to hospital for not wearing that day’s uniform correctly.

He crossed the line not just of the Thai law but of humanity.

Please send out a message with jail time to these vicious brutes – if not for the sake of the children then their own sakes because it won’t be too long before an angry parent goes into a school and shoots one for hurting their child.

There are, after all, more than enough guns about as was proved once again in Amnat Charoen where an airman got out his 9mm – that’s a gun – and pointed it at famous singer “Poo” because the performer would not shake hands with him while holding a microphone and strumming on his guitar….

Some forum posters still express surprise at the amount of weapons produced in public. They shouldn’t be – as far back as I can remember there was a campaign to put signs over every pub and café door that guns were forbidden.

They remain to this day but then the great majority of foreigners cannot read Thai, and the great majority of locals choose to ignore signage whenever it suits them.

My final line crosser had to be the drunkard called Fon who decided to have a bit of head slapping fun with a black bear about ten times his size at a monastery. Fon – whose auspicious tattoos didn’t save him from a bear hug that went on for 15 minutes – had gone into the enclosure to get a free wild boar for dinner, as you do.

He lived to tell the tale but it was also terrifically sad to see “Jao Kaew” carted off to some government sanctuary where, not surprisingly, a few scraps of rice were all that the voracious carnivore got for tea.

The follow-up story told us how miserable the bear was now.

I think we’d all be happy if the so called Buddhists who incarcerate these wild animals in the first place get a taste of their own medicine with some rice gruel and a few bars for company.

And so to this week’s bumper Rooster awards. There are no less than four recipients of the “Darwin Award” for services to the gene pool.

Mentioned in dispatches was the construction worker who thought he was doing his mate a real favor.

He thought his friend had suffered an electric shock so he did the most obvious thing imaginable – he buried his pal up to his neck in sand. It was an “ancient belief” that even had Rooster’s decidedly old fashioned better half confused.

The medics arrived, dug him out of the sand, administered a hopeless western tradition called CPR then gave up, it all being too late.

Also giving genes a bad name was the rag and bone man who bashed an old NGV canister on its nozzle and saw it spew gas, take off through his yard, injure his grannie and plough through a neighbor’s sitting room wall into a sofa some 100 meters away.

Let’s hope they never give him a job in bomb disposal – or on second thoughts, let’s hope they do.

The third recipient of Darwin’s Diploma goes to the council in Trat for building a road without lighting and not moving the power pole in the middle of it. Despite their contractual excuses, do these people seriously expect not to be made fun of in the age of social media?

Defamation or no defamation these dodo dunderheads defy description.

The final recipient will also be my parting shot for this week. It was the condo security guard in Pak Kret who, despite everyone telling him not to, opted to fry up some toxic toad in a tasty dish of “phat phet” for his dinner.

Not surprisingly, he croaked.

Rooster

 

 

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2017-08-06

[Rhys]

55555...keep them rolling in..

[Stargeezr]

Another great weekly rant Rooster,  Your stories provide so many of us with well needed chuckles.

  Geezer