Goodbye To The King of Thailand

First let me send my condolences to my friends in Thailand.  This is a day that was long expected, yet when it actually happens it is still a shock.

The King of Thailand, Bhumibol Adulyadej,  was a daily part of my life for three years, when I taught English as a Peace Corps volunteer.  His picture was in every classroom, in every restaurant, in every house, in every shop, at the end of every movie when the audience stood up to a picture of the King and the national anthem.  I guess that could be a little creepy, except that everyone* revered the King and he was constantly visiting people all over the country, often opening hospitals for the poor, or agricultural projects in hill tribe villages.

Memory is a tricky thing.  The only time I consciously remember seeing him in person was at a royal ploughing ceremony at Sanaam Luang (the open space in front of the King's palace in Bangkok).  The slides are dated June 1969, but it took several weeks for slides to come back from Australia or Hong Kong where I had to send them for developing then, so I'm guessing this was in May.

This is the only picture I know of that I took of the King.  My sense is that I was present at other times when the King was in public, but nothing specific comes to mind.  The King is in the middle watching the ceremonial oxen passing him.


Wikipedia offers some history of the ceremony:

"In Thailand, the common name of the ceremony is Raek Na Khwan (แรกนาขวัญ) which literally means the "auspicious beginning of the rice growing season". The royal ceremony is called Phra Ratcha Phithi Charot Phra Nangkhan Raek Na Khwan (พระราชพิธีจรดพระนังคัลแรกนาขวัญ) which literally means the "royal ploughing ceremony marking the auspicious beginning of the rice growing season".[2] 

This Raek Na Khwan ceremony is of Hindu origin. Thailand also observes another Buddhist ceremony called Phuetcha Mongkhon (พืชมงคล) which literally means "prosperity for plantation". The royal ceremony is called Phra Ratcha Phithi Phuetcha Mongkhon (พระราชพิธีพืชมงคล).[3] The official translation of Phuetcha Mongkhon is "Harvest Festival".[4] 

King Mongkut combined both the Buddhist and Hindu ceremonies into a single royal ceremony called Phra Ratcha Phithi Phuetcha Mongkhon Charot Phra Nangkhan Raek Na Khwan (พระราชพิธีพืชมงคลจรดพระนังคัลแรกนาขวัญ). The Buddhist part is conducted in the Grand Palace first and is followed by the Hindu part held at Sanam Luang, Bangkok.[5]"

Here are a couple more pictures from that day.

I had taught English for two years in Kamphaengphet, a wonderful quiet upcountry province.  In 1969 I was serving a third year as a primary school supervisor for English teachers.  I was living in a room at an elementary school - Wat Rakhang - across the river from the King's palace and Sanam Luang.

Here's the ferry I took to get from the Bangkok side of the river to the Thonburi side where I lived.  In those days the weekend market - now at Chatuchak - was also located at Sanam Luang.  It was a much smaller enterprise.  While much of Bangkok has been totally transformed, the area around the King's palace and right across the river in what was then Thonburi, is comparatively unchanged.

There's much to say about Thailand now and the potential turmoil that has been expected to follow the King's death - he's been living in a hospital, not far from where I lived for several years now.  The Crown Prince has had a very public playboy life while his sister has been the one who has followed in the spirit of King Bhumipol and visited villages and helped promote the well being of Thais around the Kingdom, particularly the poor.  She greeted returned Peace Corps volunteers at the 45th anniversary of Peace Corps Thailand.  The King was 88 and was the longest serving monarch in the world.  I think that title now transfers to Queen Elizabeth.

I haven't kept close watch on Thai politics, but with King Bhumibol now gone, all sorts of forces are unleashed.  Here's New Mandela's article What Now?  And here's Asian Correspondent's story on the succession, coincidently, it includes a picture of the Crown Prince at the Ploughing Ceremony last May.

Here's a link to a post I did in 2009 when I ran into a picture of the King (in a coffee shop) with Elvis Presley. 

*Not quite everyone.  In the south of Thailand the Muslim population was less enamored.  And I remember how shocked I was at the end of a movie in the south when people just walked out ignoring the national anthem.

I'd finally note that I was rather lucky finding these slides amongst the many stashed away and only vaguely sorted.  I was also able to find a little slide viewer which I used to take pictures of the slides.

Elephants Cooperate, So Do People, Which Is Why I Couldn't Tell You About This Experiment Six Years Ago

From the new* Scientific American (I can only read the intro without paying):

"At the Thai Elephant Conservation Center, tucked away in the trees near Chiang Mai, a pair of Asian elephants gazes at two bowls of corn on the other side of a net. The corn is attached to a sliding platform, through which researchers have threaded a rope. The rope's ends lie on the elephants' side of the net. If only one elephant pulls an end, the rope slides out of the contraption. To bring the food within trunk's reach, the elephants have to do something only humans and other primates were thought to do: they must cooperate. Working in synchrony, each elephant grabs its end of the rope in its trunk and pulls, drawing the platform and the treats within reach."

photo from my April 2009 post

We met Josh Plotnick, the experimenter, in Chiangmai, in 2008.  We went to visit the elephant conservation center in 2009 where we saw his elephants and the experiment he was doing.  But I could only hint back then.  Here's from my first post on the elephant sanctuary in Lampang then:

"JP is a doctoral student doing his dissertation research here at the center. We met him last year and finally got a chance to go out and visit him in the center. His research is very interesting but I was sworn to silence until his work is published."

Here's a link to the second post on the sanctuary which focused on the hospital and nursery.


*It's hard figuring out online what the date of this Scientific American is.  It says, "

The Origins of Hogwash

This cartoon in today's paper got me wondering exactly where the word 'hogwash' comes from. 

Online references are iffy, so take this with a grain of salt (useful for detecting hogwash).  But I did check a number of sites and the more legit looking ones seemed to agree on this. 


From Word Ancestry:

hogwash, n. [hawg-wosh, hŏg-wŏsh]
-Hogwash is a simple compound noun formed around the mid-15th century from the two English nouns hog 'a type of swine, a pig' and wash 'waste liquid or food refuse from a kitchen.' The wash was often put to use as food for domesticated animals, particularly as swill for pigs. By 1712, hogwash could also be used to describe cheap, poorly made liquor; by 1773, poorly written manuscripts fell under the label of hogwash. In modern English, almost anything that is badly done or ridiculous can be equated with this term for barnyard slop.

That reminded me of the Karen village we visited near Chiengmai (Thailand).  After lunch we helped wash the dishes. 







The water and bits of food left on the dishes went out the drain on the sink to a concrete trough below to the chickens.  You can see the birds below on the right waiting. 


The original post, Sustainable Farming the Old Fashioned way - Karen Village, gives a good picture story of our visit and includes the pigs too.  It's well worth a visit, but then I'm biased, of course, because it takes me back to a wonderful day we had there five years ago. 

What Creates A Good Child?

Synchronicity often gets me to do a post. Today two items came my way. I strongly urge you to watch the firt one - a heartwarming short Thai (with English subtitles, though they are barely needed) video about helping others. I can't figure out how to get the embed code for this video, so you have to go to this FB link.
[I've tried to go into the code to find the embed code, but it's not working.  I'm checking other websites that tell how to do this, but the FB code is different from their examples.   Just go to the FB link.  It's worth it, really.  I'll keep trying to figure this out.]






Then later, someone sent me a NYTimes article on Raising a Moral Child.   The video places doing good over doing well.  The article says that most people want that:

"although some parents live vicariously through their children’s accomplishments, success is not the No. 1 priority for most parents. We’re much more concerned about our children becoming kind, compassionate and helpful. Surveys reveal that in the United States, parents from European, Asian, Hispanic and African ethnic groups all place far greater importance on caring than achievement. These patterns hold around the world: When people in 50 countries were asked to report their guiding principles in life, the value that mattered most was not achievement, but caring."

Maybe that's why Romney* didn't win.  For him achieving seemed to be the main point of life.

The article goes on to look at how that gets accomplished and the studies find the right behavior appears to contradict what we are taught to tell children:

"Many parents believe it’s important to compliment the behavior, not the child — that way, the child learns to repeat the behavior. Indeed, I know one couple who are careful to say, “That was such a helpful thing to do,” instead of, “You’re a helpful person.”

But is that the right approach? In a clever experiment, the researchers Joan E. Grusec and Erica Redler set out to investigate what happens when we commend generous behavior versus generous character."

It goes on to describe an experiment where some (7 and 8 year old) kids were praised for their good sharing behavior and others for their good sharing character.  The latter group was more likely to share later on according to the study.

"Praise appears to be particularly influential in the critical periods when children develop a stronger sense of identity. When the researchers Joan E. Grusec and Erica Redler praised the character of 5-year-olds, any benefits that may have emerged didn’t have a lasting impact: They may have been too young to internalize moral character as part of a stable sense of self. And by the time children turned 10, the differences between praising character and praising actions vanished: Both were effective. Tying generosity to character appears to matter most around age 8, when children may be starting to crystallize notions of identity. "

A lot of conflict resolution folks tell us NOT to admonish the character, but to admonish the behavior - in adults as well as children - on the grounds that you can't change your character, but you can change your behavior.  But admonishing undesired behavior is the opposite of praising desired behavior.  And I suspect that a study of the opposite - admonishing undesired behavior - would still show that focusing on behavior was more effective than focusing on character.

*The Romney reference is not intended to be a dig, but simply a descriptive speculation. 

NY 1st Time Book Promotion With Foreigner Swearing In Thai - AIFF Winner's New Video Goes Viral

Thanachart in Anchorage Dec 2013

Thanachart Siripatracha's The Words I Love won honorable mention at the Anchorage International Film Festival for short documentary last December.  We had the pleasure of having Benz (as he's called) stay with us for part of the festival.  His winning film was charming as is he.  He currently lives in New York where he's been studying film making.  You can see a short video of Benz talking about his first time in Alaska at this post. 

A couple of weeks ago he sent me a link to a video he did to promote his book - related to the AIFF winning film.  His book,  New York 1st Time, is in Thai about his adventures in New York.  

 

The video was a spoof of his book by talking to a farang (foreigner) about his first time in Bangkok.  In this case it was his first time being cursed by a Thai.  That doesn't happen often (a foreigner being cursed by a Thai) unless the foreigner really deserves it, as he did in this case.









Here's the viral video (it's in English and Thai):





I was going to wait to post about this until I got the book, but Benz sent me a follow up - the Bangkok post has written about this video.  Here are a couple of excerpts:

A video clip of an American retired lecturer documenting his first experience of being sworn at in Thailand has attracted more than half a million views after one day after being uploaded to YouTube. . .

Thanachart Siripatrachai uploaded the video clip of 78-year-old Nelson Howe describing his first experience of being subjected to foul language after living in Bangkok for three years. .  .

The video was made to promote a book written by Mr Thanachart about his 'first time' experience of visiting New York. Mr Thanachart, an assistant film director, said on his Facebook page that Mr Howe was a former university lecturer who he met accidentally in New York.

Mr Thanachart initially just wanted to promote his book using the clip describing Mr Howe's 'first time' experience in Thailand. But the film-maker now plans to make several more videos based on the academic's...

 By the way, as I write this, the video has 2.5 million hits. 

AIFF 2013: The Words I Love Director On Anchorage And His Film

I still have film festival video and other posts to put up.  One film maker I almost didn't record was Thanachart 'Ben'* Siripatrachai. 


The irony is that Ben stayed with us for several days of the festival and so I guess I thought I could get him any time.  Finally, I decided as we were having lunch downtown between films, I better do it.

His film The Words I Love  won honorable mention in the short docs category.  It was a film that caught my attention when I first saw the description and turned out to be a very unique film, Ben just doing seemed right to him, not following any preset rules for how to tell his story.  The audiences responded well with frequent laughs and chuckles.

Here's video we did. 






*If anyone is interested:

His nick name is 'Benz' like the car.  But in Thai, there is no final 'nz' sound, so it just becomes Ben.  So I've decided to just write in 'Ben'.  On his website he writes it in Thai (see image on top) as a final 'n.'  There really is no letter for a 'z' in Thai, though in Thai 'Benz' would  have a final 's' [เบนซ์] that wouldn't be pronounced (the squiggly line above the 's' on the end [ซ์] makes the 's' sound silent.  But in English he writes Benz.  But when he pronounced it, he said Ben.  In the image the first letter [เ] is the vowel sound 'eh'.  Then comes [บ] the 'b' sound, and finally the [น] 'n' sound. The squiggly mark on top appears to be a high tone mark [ป็], though at first I thought it was a 'Mai Dtaikhu' which shortens the vowel sound and would be found in the Thai word เป็น which is the word for 'to be.'  

So we have - เบ๊น- the way Ben spells his name in Thai.
We have -เบนซ์ -  the way Mercedes-Benz is spelled in Thai.
And - เป็น  -  the common word for the verb 'to be.'

[Update Jan 5, 2013:  I don't write Thai very often these days and I forgot a small detail.  There are two different Thai letters that represent two slightly different sounds that English uses the letter B for.  I think it's pretty easy to see the difference between ป and  บ. The first one is unvoiced and the second one is voiced.  I won't even try to explain that but if you are interested here are two sites that explain it - one in writing and one with a video. ]

 

"1 dead, four people shot at Ramkhamhaeng University after clashes"

 The headline comes from a Thai Visa post.


I've been vaguely paying attention to the latest round of demonstrations in Thailand, but the headline above caught my attention.  In 2006 I taught a class for a month at Ramkhamhaeng University.  It's an open University with lots of students who wouldn't have a chance getting into more elite universities.

The image is from a Youtube videos that begins on the street in front of the University.  There's a by-pass road above and lots of shops on one side of the street and the University on the other.

It's hard keeping things in Thailand straight these days as you can see if you go to these links New Mandala and Bangkok Pundit that I've had up on the blog several years now. It's not even clear that the man killed was at the University from what I'm reading. 

This is also a reminder of where things can end up when people split on ideological lines and see only their differences and not what they have in common. 

[Feedburner note:  Basically it's been working, but 11 hours after this one was posted, it's still not showing up on blogrolls.  When it didn't go up right away, I pinged it, but that didn't help.]]

Visiting A Well-To-Do Thai Home - 1919

No, I didn't take this movie, I'm not THAT old. Even my mom hadn't been born yet. This was posted at Thai-Visa [not sure if you need an id to get in there, probably just to comment] and I thought it worth sharing. When I was in Thailand in the 60s some of this was still going on. I don't remember women wearing this sort of sarong except for classical Thai dancing. Eating betel nut was still popular, but only by the older men and women - these women would have been in their 60s or 70s by then. I'm guessing the hostess must have been someone pretty high on the social scale (maybe royalty?) based on how low these women prostrate themselves when they 'wai'. Though when you are already sitting on the floor, the others have to get down pretty low to show proper respect. While I often was in situations where we were all on the floor like that, I wasn't with people that elegant.









Writing this post made me remember a short video of a breakfast on the floor with farmers in Chiang Mai in 2008.  That would have been 89 years later.  And a much less elegant, but more comfortable setting.  You can see that video here  just for a comparison.  They're speaking Northern Thai dialect.   I'm not sure why the photos have vanished.  

Blog That Reprints My Complete Posts Verbatim

I discovered a blog today that is reposting my blog's posts verbatim.  I'm not going to link there, but  here's what it looks like (just the two most recent posts with the website name removed):

 

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

What Do I Know?

What Do I Know?

---

More On Our Hero Worship of the Military Posted: 27 May 2013 08:43 PM PDT "They mash in close, push and shove, grab at his arms and talk too loud, and sometimes they break wind, so propulsive is their stress.  After two solid weeks of public events Billy continues to be amazed at the public response, the raw wavering voices and frenzied speech patterns, the gibberish spilled from the mouths of seemingly well-adjusted citizens.  We appreciate, they say, their voices throbbing like a lovers." (p. 37) Billy, the title character of the novel Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is with the rest of  Bravo squad ("though technically, there's no such thing as  Bravo squad.  They are Bravo Company, second platoon, first squad, said squad being comprised of teams alpha and bravo, but the Fox embed christened them Bravo squad and thus they were presented to the world." (p. 4)) at a Dallas Cowboys pregame.  Not too far into the book, I know there was some brave rescue the squad made and now they are on a two week victory lap around the US getting maximum publicity for themselves, the war, and President Bush.  There's even a movie deal being worked during this chilly afternoon in Dallas. In the opening quote, they are sitting in their seats when their names are flashed on the Jumbotron.  People come up to them to connect with the soldiers before they go back to complete the last 11 months of their deployment in Iraq. "No one spits, no one calls him baby-killer.  On the contrary, people could not be more supportive or kindlier disposed, yet Billy finds these encounters weird and frightening all the same.  There's something harsh in his fellow Americans, avid , ecstatic, a burning that comes of the deepest need.  That's his sense of it, they all need something from him, this pack of half-rich lawyers, dentists, soccer moms, and corporate VPs, they're all gnashing for a piece of a barely grown grunt making $14,000 a year.  For these adult, affluent people he is mere petty cash in their personal accounting, yet they lose it when they enter his personal space.  They tremble.  They breathe in fitful stinky huffs.  Their eyes skitz and quiver with the force of the moment, because here, finally, up close and personal, is the war made flesh, an actual point of contact after all the months and years of reading about the war, watching the war on TV, hearing the war flogged and flacked on talk radio.  It's been hard times in America - how did we get this way?"  (p. 38) It seemed like an appropriate quote for Memorial Day, the day we honor the war dead, the idea of war and of sending soldiers around the world to protect democracy at home. Ben Fountain's novel, which looks like it's all going to take place at the football game, is starting to paint a different picture of that adoration.  As the afternoon  progresses, we get flashbacks to Iraq and the incident that made them heroes and gave them this two week reprieve from living on the edge of death.  (Two of their squad didn't make it home alive already.) So far this book explores Americans' need to see these soldiers as heroes, their own need to fill some void in their own lives.  And to fill that need, they see the soldiers into their own narrative of American greatness protected from the evil outside world by these brave soldiers. A narrative that is clearly different from the one playing in Billy's head.  Here's a New York Times review - which I haven't read because I want to finish the book first - to get another take on this book.

Getting Some Vitamin Z on Seattle Stop Posted: 27 May 2013 05:32 PM PDT We're in LA visiting my mom, before the PATNet conference in San Francisco.  When we were here in March we arranged for a caregiver to stay with her and we were very lucky to get someone she likes.  It's good to see how nicely they work together. Z On the way we were able to get a four hour layover in Seattle and my daughter and four month old granddaughter picked us up for lunch at the IKEA which is close to the airport.  So I got a wonderful dose of Vitamin Z.  Except for being strapped up in the car seat, she was alert and smiley the whole time. I did manage to stop the car seat crying by rocking the car seat.  And Z and I got to have our inter-generational conversation through intense eye contact, touching, babbling, rocking,  and just talking, with lots of smiles and some mischievous grandfatherly advice that her mom didn't seem to appreciate.  But that's between me and Z.  It was very hard to say goodbye.

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Posted byXXXXXX at 3:21 AM No comments:

That led me to google "report abuse to blogspot"  which got me a page explaining how to complain and I linked to 'legal issues' which got me a form to fill out. 

That didn't take long.  And I quickly got the email confirmation they received my complaint. 

Hi,

Thanks for reaching out to us!

We have received your legal request. We receive many such complaints each 
day; your message is in our queue, and we'll get to it as quickly as our 
workload permits.

Due to the large volume of requests that we experience, please note that we 
will only be able to provide you with a response if we determine your 
request may be a valid and actionable legal complaint, and we may respond 
with questions or requests for clarification.  For more information on 
Google's Terms of Service, please visit http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS

We appreciate your patience as we investigate your request.

Regards,

After I pasted what it looks like above, I saw that there was a name for the blogger posted.  It looks like a kid in Thailand, so I'm going to email him too.  He has a bunch of blogs listed. It doesn't look like somebody trying to rip off stuff.  Not sure what his motivation is.   Life is full of new stuff that might be fun to follow up on, except I don't really have time for all this.  Here's the email:

XXXXXX,

I learned today that you are posting all my blog posts on your blog XXXXXXX.  This is illegal - even in Thailand.  I have reported this to Google.

Please remove the blog immediately.

ถา ให่มเข้เใจผาษาอัง่ดรืษฤ ตอบผาษาไทย.

Steve

Shell Could Learn From This Kulik - Four Russians Make It Around the World In Inflatable Catamaran

While Shell Oil has had a lot of trouble with its oil rig the Kulluk, four Russians on the Kulik expedition have managed to navigate around the world an inflatable craft of their own design.

The Phuket News reports they arrived back in Phuket after five years.

The team, under skipper Anatoly Kulik,59, left Phuket in February 2008. They sailed some 60,000 kilometres, made landfall in 38 countries and spent a total of 13 months at sea.

Kulik himself, a master of boat-borne water sports, a “Distinguished Traveler of Russia” (an award from the Russian Sports Federation), and a member of the Russian Geographical Society (RGS). Responsibilities on the expedition: team leader, ship’s captain and cook;

Evgeny Kovalevsky, 56, twice Russian champion and silver prize-winner in boat-borne water sports, also a Distinguished Travelerand member of the RGS, the crew’s “chief diplomat” (responsible for establishing rapport with local authorities and the community), interpreter, videographer and photographer;

Evgeny Tashkin, another champion in boat-borne water sports, acting as video and camera operator, chronicler of the voyage and in charge of Internet connectivity; and

Stanislav Beryozkin, Russian champion in long-distance sailing, the expedition’s navigator and communications chief. . .

Stanislav Beryozkin, Russian champion in long-distance sailing, the expedition’s navigator and communications chief.
- See more at: http://www.thephuketnews.com/foursome-back-in-phuket-after-record-odyssey-38258.php#sthash.suilP5S1.dpuf

Comfort was never at a premium. Accommodation was in a 12-square-metre tent-like structure erected above the hulls, which also served as a miniature kitchen, and a warehouse for boxes of supplies, drinking water tanks, communication equipment and everything necessary for a long voyage.

Read the whole article here.

The video is short and in Russian, but some things transcend language. 

The Skinny on Pad Thai

My son sent me a link to a long history of Pad Thai from The Morning News:
It begins:

by Pitchaya Sudbanthad

Pad Thai is the most misunderstood noodle. Its best incarnations are difficult to find outside of Thailand, even as the basic ingredients are now readily available abroad. I think back to the Pad Thais of my childhood, freshly made at a Bangkok street stall and packaged to go in banana leaves and a newspaper outer layer. A good Pad Thai slowly reveals itself: sweetness with bursts of salty and tart, depending on what is being bitten—preserved radishes, dried prawns, and bits of peanut or omelet. Here in the U.S., Pad Thai usually arrives a pile of noodles plated in a puddle of oil. Many taste as sweet as a lollipop and come stained red by ketchup. . .

Banana leaves were the styrofoam of Thailand.  That is, they were what food was 'packed' in to go.  When I was teaching in Thailand in the late 60's it was the transition period between banana leaves and the beginning of plastic.  With banana leaves, you could just toss your packaging on the ground and very quickly the ants would have eaten whatever food was left on them, and the leaves would compost.

The biggest food use of plastic bags was for drinks.  A little baggy would be filled with the drink, a straw put in, and then it would all be tied up with a rubber band and often hung on bicycle handlebars, or just letting them dangle from your fingers.  I can still see the baggies bobbing up and down on the rubber band. 

And many Thais treated the plastic bag like they did the banana leaf - they tossed it.  It was what they'd always done with banana leaves and other biodegradable wrapping.  It was the natural thing to do.  Except that plastic bags aren't natural.

Anyway, the whole Pad Thai piece is interesting.  Here's a bit from later in the piece.

". . . And this is what I believe puts Pad Thai squarely in the realm of all things Thai: the balance of absorbed influences. The ideal Pad Thai sits in tenuous equilibrium between the forces of sweet, salty, and sour in its components; none can dominate any of the other. This very instinct of absorption and balance—so foundational to Thai thinking and, by natural extension, Thai food—allowed old Siam to escape formal colonial rule by yielding just enough privileges to the imperial powers of the time—England, France, Japan, and the U.S.—so that each had an interest in keeping Siam independent of the others’ ambitions. . ."

I think I've written this before, but it bears repeating.  Thais eat two basic kinds of hot food:  1)  "with rice"  and 2) noodles.  "With rice" are meals you eat with rice - curries and stir fries and fish.  In Thailand, these are eaten with a spoon and fork.  The fork is used to push the food onto the spoon.  Noodle dishes and little snack food are eaten with chop sticks. 

Thai King's Birthday Message Good For Us All To Heed

King Bumiphol's 85th birthday today (Dec. 5) is a holiday in Thailand.  The king is not well and there are many questions about what will happen when the world's longest reigning monarch is gone. 

But today he made a public appearance and offered these words to the Thai people - facing considerable political conflict - which is also applicable to many other parts of the world:

"I always believe that your compassion and good wishes to one another will be a significant factor in creating a unifying force in any group and also in the country," His Majesty said.

"If Thais truly hold these values in their hearts, they can be assured that the country will be safe and will survive regardless of what situation the country is in. Dharma will protect you from all harms,'' he said in his brief address from the balcony at the Ananta Samakhom Throne Hall.

As the country is struggling with a deep political division, the King mercifully granted the general public a rare audience and graciously offered his sage advice for all Thais to live in harmony while expressing gratitude for their unwavering faithfulness.

"The wishes and oaths of allegiance that you have taken are so evident. I thank you and all Thais who have come here en masse.

"The compassion, good will and unity that you have demonstrated today make me happy. You have greatly boosted my spirits,'' the King said before the huge gathering of his loyal subjects at the Royal Plaza. [From The Nation]

Elephant Beggars Follow Up

Elephant and mahout coming to beg at Chiang Mai restaurant 2008

Four years ago, I posted about elephant beggars in Chiang Mai, Thailand.  Today I got this email:

"I typed a response to your post about elephants begging in Chiang Mai, but when I clicked the preview button the post disappeared. That is why I am emailing you now."

[I get complaints now and then about how hard it is to leave comments.  I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but enough spam messages get through with the Blogspot obstacles, that I'm not ready to turn them off.  I trust my readers to be persistent enough to stick with it until their comment gets through, or, as Tim did, just send me an email.]

"In late 2010, a mahout, using as a weapon his metal-tipped wooden mahout stick, severely beat a couple of Australian tourists, who'd attempted to lecture the mahouts on the ethical treatment of animals. The mahout, and several others who'd been with him at the time of the beating, were arrested. The mahout was charged with some minor offense. All were released the following morning and were back with their elephants on the street within twenty-four hours of the attack. The Australians required hospitalization. The fallout of this awful event was such that the local Thai authorities decided it was time to rid Chiang Mai of the mahouts and their elephants. To that end, the police and the mahouts had a little meeting, which resulted in the mahouts and their elephants being shipped back from whence they came, a province along the Cambodia border. The mahouts, having successfully argued that they must beg in order to feed their elephants, are now subsidized. Or so the story goes. I was living in Chiang Mai at the time, and still am, but was away from Thailand when all this transpired. I've read the seder guest's comment about the elephants being owned by wealthy Thais. That makes this story even more interesting. Living in Alaska is a life-long fantasy of mine. Someday I'll get there. Best wishes, Tim"

I emailed back to Tim to get permission to post his email and found out he's a musician living in Chiang Mai but working in other Asian countries.  He also sent a Bangkok Post article on the attack.

I did some check up on this, including contacting Josh Plotnik who'd we met in Chiang Mai when he was doing his doctoral dissertation studying elephant behavior at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang.  Josh is now doing post-doctoral studies at Cambridge University, though he's spending most of his time in Northern Thailand where he's set up an organization called Think Elephant International.  The website explains the reasons behind of Think Elephant:

Why We Think Elephants

The loss of natural habitat, poaching for ivory, and human-elephant conflict are serious threats to the sustainability of elephants in the wild. Put simply, we will be without elephants, and many other species in the wild, in less than 50 years. Although conservation and wildlife management are not new ideas, clearly new approaches are needed. Think Elephants International is a non-profit focused on practicing science in the field, and teaching it in classrooms. Through research on elephant (and other animal) intelligence, we hope to better inform conservation practice in the wild by helping to formulate action plans that along with focusing on the needs of local human populations, take advantage of what we know about the animal's needs as well. Our research focuses on how elephants "see" their natural world – through smell and sound – and how they navigate this world – through problem solving and cooperation. Equipped with a better understanding of how these animals live, we hope to better help protect them in the wild.

Think Elephants is something else as well – an organization focused on conservation through education. But we don't just teach kids about the conservation battle, we bring the battle to them by bringing the elephants into their classrooms.

Josh confirmed Tim's report:

"The begging elephants situation is extremely complex -- yes, most of the eles were removed from the streets of Bangkok, and went home to Surin. In Surin, the government does subsidize the elephants and thus the mahouts get to stay home for 7,500THB [$240] a month (approximately). Unfortunately, I hear the eles are slowly making their way back to the streets in outlying provinces."

He also sent me to John Roberts' blog for the Golden Asian Triangle Elephant Foundation
(GTEAF*).  Their website describes (in part) their work:

"Yet, despite the strong bond between Thai people and their nation’s most genteel species, there are still a worrying number of elephants forced to walk the city streets to make their mahout a miserly living by begging from tourists.

In an ideal world all elephants would live in the wild and there would be no need to discuss elephants' work.  But until that point is reached, the GTAEF also aims to create and promote ethical work for the elephants and mahouts that are capable, whilst providing care for those that are unable."

Roberts, who is the Director of Elephants at Anantara Golden Triangle’s on-site Elephant Camp, wrote in a blog post just over a year ago (again, in part):

. . .You see, I believe (& I do have some idea which elephants are out there and what their history is) that there exists a perfectly reasonable (and improving) alternative back in the home town of these mahouts, an alternative provided by the Government (& improved for as many as possible by The Surin Project).
Not only is a viable alternative provided it has been very strongly explained to the mahouts that the penalties for being on the streets will be enforced.  “Go back home”, the authorities say, “we may not be able to make you rich there but we’ll keep you & your elephant there in the bosom of your family and, what’s more, if you come back out it’s ‘no more mister nice guy’, powerful people have noticed you, we’ll have to make your life a misery”
To me, that the message has hit home and so many elephants are still in Ban Ta Klang (in previous times when this approach was tried the elephants would stay until their existence became untenable: the food ran out or the money ran dry) means that this time, this IS a viable alternative.
So, I believe that the mahouts out there on the streets now, at least the ones I know about, have few excuses left (...a tendency toward an itinerant lifestyle?  ...a nagging wife?) - it is my belief that they are there for financial gain.  Believe it or not, the natural graze out on the streets may, at times, be better than can be found back at home but I believe the decision to go back out (most came home then went out again) was a purely financial one and has very little justification in ‘traditional lifestyle’ or ‘elephant welfare’ terms and none at all in the ‘no alternative’ terms. . .

You can follow Roberts' blog, Elephant Tails , here.  The most recent post is about selling coffee beans that have been processed by having elephants eat them before they are roasted.  Come on now, it's not that strange.  After all earlier this year I did a post about acacia trees whose seeds had to go through a giraffe's digestive system before they could germinate. 

Clearly there is a lively 'elephant world' out there that I've only glimpsed into. 

This post is long and convoluted enough.  I'll try to do another one on elephants soon though.

*GTAEF, from what I can tell, is a project of Anantara, a luxury hotel chain, that caters to the wealthy (I checked on a room in their hotel by the elephant camp and it started at over $1000 per night.  We stayed a night once in nearby Chiang Rai, in what we thought was a pretty fancy hotel for $35 per night.  That was an internet discount, but they weren't losing money on that price.)  This could be a great example of what's known as social entrepreneurship - using the market to support important non-profit causes.  Or it could be using green issues as a marketing ploy.  I just don't know enough about the organization to evaluate. 

Medals for Killing, Discharged for Loving and Other Randomly Related Thoughts

People sometimes think bloggers are on the cutting edge, but let me tell you, this blogger feels like the edge is cutting me.  I'm still trying to figure out how to get the most out of Facebook.  There are a couple of long lost students and others who found me through FB, and there are some people I can find often in chat if I need to talk to them.  But I wasn't pleased when my FB picture and link showed up on a comment on a totally unrelated blog.  On the other hand, Skype makes sense to me, but maybe that's because it's relatively limited in scope.  Tweet?  I don't get it.  Is that a blog for people with short attention spans?  And then there's Tumbler - which seems to be for people to blog in pictures.  And they tend not to be their own pictures.  Photographers seem to have no control at all over the pictures any more.  It's fine if you just want to spread a message or like knowing so many people have seen your picture - even if they don't know you took it.  But what about photographers who make a living taking pictures?

Mark Myers who seems to have changed the title of his blog from A Genius So To Speak For Sauntering, to Mark Myers Photography: Photo Blog and one of the most thoughtful Alaskan bloggers mused on the future of professional photographers two weeks ago.   Another Alaskan photographer whose work I ran into after he left a short comment on one of my posts - Stephen Cysewski - has great pictures of 1970s Anchorage and more recent shots of Bangkok and Sukhothai - all places close to my heart. (My Peace Corps home was in the southern border town of the Sukhotai kingdom and so the Buddhas are the same style.)  But how does one find him without being pointed there?

All that is lead-in to a couple of  pictures I saw on tumbler yesterday.  To be precise, this one is from Obsessive Cumpulsive Disaster:

"They gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one"

If this were a perfect picture, I wouldn't have to write the words of the T-shirt in the caption.  But it's pretty powerful nevertheless.  What more perfect commentary can there be on the world today?  Technologically in the 21st Century, emotionally still in the dark ages.

And this one is from Come On Home:

I think the issue is that we all now have so many different tools - whether programs on our computer which are constantly changing, phones, cameras, sound systems, microwaves - that all come with (or even worse don't) extensive instructions manuals.  It's impossible to just sit on your old technology, because soon it won't work with the new versions and so you have to update.  And all your routines are thrown out the window because they work differently now. And dollars change hands too. Considering that humans went centuries with relatively minor systemic changes (no I'm not asking to go back, many were locked into grinding poverty and oppression) I'm not sure we are wired for this rapid change.  It may be a reason so many people can't cope and drop out and/or turn to alcohol, drugs, or Fox News to inure them to such rapid change.  Maybe the guy hanging on to the balloons is hoping to escape the modern world. 

When I read in the history books about the changes of the industrial revolution, I didn't dwell on the disruptions in people's lives that we've all eventually become the beneficiaries of.  But now that we are going through that again, I think about whether there are ways to do this without as much social upheaval.  Which, is nothing compared to the upheaval we're part of in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Think I'm wandering a bit?  Everything is related. 

Translation Problems - Thailand's Flood "Holidays"

Translation from one language to another is complicated. Many words don't translate exactly.

• A word in one language may not exist in another language.  In German, for instance,  there is a formal and informal word for "you"  (Sie and Du.)  You address people close to you with Du, and use Sie for others.  If you use 'you' in a translation, English language readers won't immediately catch the nature of the relationship the way a German would.  (Germans today are more casual about using Du than they were in the past.)
• A word in one language may have a totally different implication because the cultural context is so different.  "Dan wei" is usually translated from Mandarin into English as "Work unit." When I spent some time in China in the early 90s a "dan wei" was not merely a place where you worked, but a place that pretty much defined your whole life - where you lived, where your kids went to school, how you got your food and other goods, and even whether you could get permission to get married.  Translating that as 'work unit' into English simply didn't carry all that meaning for readers unfamiliar with the cultural context.   
• And words often have overlapping meanings;  if you look up a foreign word in the dictionary and there are several choices in your language, you may pick the wrong word.  That seems to have happened in this headline below.

The headline at ThaiVisa was:

Thailand declares holidays to cope with flood crisis

BANGKOK, October 25, 2011 (AFP) - Thailand on Tuesday declared a three-day holiday in Bangkok and other flood-affected areas as high tides are forecast to flow up the city's main river and worsen floods creeping into the city.

ThaiVisa is a website for ex-pats living in Thailand.  Some of those commenting responded to the word 'holidays' by making snide comments about the Thai government:

"Only in thailand do they call disaster a holiday,,,land of smiles"

"a 5 day holiday is just what the people need
No food on the store shelves
No money in the bank machines" 

"Holidays?????
Companies and the economy is falling to pieces as we struggle to keep things going despite the chaos around us
Maybe Yingluck needs a holiday! The rest of us have to work to fix the mess they make... "

It's easy to be smug and put down others.  Often it reflects more on the speaker than on the object of derision. [So, one might ask, am I putting down those commenters?  Perhaps one could read it that way, though my intent is to give an example of translation problems and where they can lead. But perhaps I'm not completely innocent here myself.]
The word the Thai government probably used was วันหยุด (wan yut.) This means, literally, 'day' + 'stop'.   It's commonly used to mean a day off, a day when you don't work.  One might say, "Let's go out Tuesday because it is 'wan yut.'"   It could be a holiday, it could be a day after exams and there are no classes, or it could be an emergency.  A day off.


It's an appropriate word to use in Thai for this instance.  They were stopping business as usual. If they explicitly wanted to say holiday or festival day they could have used วันฉลอง (wan chalaawng) which means, literally, 'day' + 'festival'. (I double checked my Thai at ThaiLanguage.com)


Meanwhile, Friends of Thailand, a returned Peace Corps Volunteer group, is accepting donations that will go to the Thai Red Cross for flood victims.  If you'd like to help out, go to the Friends of Thailand website and in the lower left is a donate button.  Carolyn who runs the group asks that after you donate

". . . you send me an E-Mail message saying you have made a donation to Thai Flood Relief. The E-Mail address is: email carolynnickels[AT]earthlink.net" ;
3. As I receive notice of your donations from Google and your messages, I will send you a thank you letter you can use for your 2011 Federal, State and Local tax returns
4. At the end of two weeks, I will send the full amount the FoT Community has donated to the Thai Embassy with a list of donor names
5. The Embassy will immediately send the funds to Thailand via diplomatic pouch as they have been doing since the crisis began
6. Upon arrival in Bangkok, they will immediately transfer the money to the Thai Red Cross, which they have been doing with donations since the crisis began"

 Nothing is guaranteed perfect when you donate, but this is probably as reliable as you will find for this.

Meanwhile, here's a video (which I found at Bangkok Pundit) explaining the flood situation in Thailand.  It's in Thai, but it has English subtitles, though it's pretty fast.  But it's an interesting example of explaining a disaster to the public and what they should do.  There are more at Rusuflood's Youtube page. 

 

Libyan Rebel Leader Says He Was Victim of CIA Torture in Bangkok's Don Muang Airport 2004

I don't have a lot of time for this, but did want to at least link to this piece which comes from documents found in Gadaffi's stash which adds information to what we know about the CIA torture activities in Thailand.  It comes from journalist Richard S. Ehrlich.  It's at what appears to be a New Zealand website Scoop:

Mr. Belhaj -- known by his nom de guerre, Abdullah al-Sadiq -- was named in at least two of the tens of thousands of documents recently discovered in Mr. Gadhafi's External Security buildings, in the Libyan capital, after rebels took over Tripoli.

As the article itself says at the bottom, a CIA interrogation site had been mentioned in the past.

Testimony by U.S. officials and other investigations earlier confirmed the CIA secretly waterboarded other suspects in Thailand in 2002, two years before Mr. Belhaj's ordeal in Bangkok.
At that time, the CIA secretly waterboarded suspected al-Qaeda facilitator Abu Zubaydah, and USS Cole bombing plotter Abd al-Nashiri in Thailand, but the location has not been made public.
In 2005, the CIA's former head Porter Gross, and his top aide, reportedly agreed to destroy videotapes kept in Bangkok documenting harsh interrogation, according to internal CIA e-mails.

He apparently was fingered by Gadaffi and caught and tortured at Don Muang - Bangkok's main airport until a few years ago.

London's Guardian newspaper reported on Sept. 5, however, that Britain's M16 intelligence agency helped the CIA in March 2004 arrest Mr. Belhaj, who is now a powerful commander in Tripoli for the anti-Moammar Gadhafi transitional government.

"Belhaj was detained by the CIA in Thailand in 2004 following an MI6 tip-off, allegedly tortured, then flown to Tripoli, where he says he suffered years of abuse in one of Muammar Gaddafi's prisons," the Guardian reported.
"MI6 had been able to tell the CIA of his whereabouts, after his associates informed British diplomats in Malaysia that he wished to claim asylum in the UK.

"Belhaj was then allowed to board a flight for London and abducted when the plane called at Bangkok," the Guardian reported.
In 2004, all international flights in and out of Bangkok -- including Mr. Belhaj's supposed British Airways flight -- used only Don Muang International Airport.
In Malaysia, he had bought "a ticket to London via Bangkok," the paper said.
"I got on the plane," Mr. Belhaj said, believing the flight would stopover for refueling in Bangkok and that he would be welcomed in London and given political asylum.

"Belhaj was captured by CIA officers, in co-operation with Thai authorities, inside Bangkok airport.

"He says he was tortured at a site in the airport grounds," the Guardian said.
"I was injected with something, hung from a wall by my arms and legs and put in a container surrounded by ice," he told the Guardian on Sept. 5, describing his alleged treatment at Bangkok's international airport by two people he described as CIA agents.

"They did not let me sleep, and there was noise all the time. And then they sent me to my enemy," Mr. Belhaj said, referring to his secret rendition flight by the CIA from Thailand to Libya.

 The whole piece is at Scoop.

Here's what it says about the author:

Richard S Ehrlich is a Bangkok-based journalist who has reported news from Asia since 1978. He is co-author of "Hello My Big Big Honey!", a non-fiction book of investigative journalism. His web page is http://www.asia-correspondent.110mb.com.

 

Wikileaks Based Story

There's a June Foreign Policy article on the Thailand based on wikileaks documents.  That's as much as I want to say here, but for anyone who wants to understand the politics of Thailand, this (actually the much more detailed "extensive article" linked in the quote below) is must read stuff.  Here's a snippet on the background:

A few months ago, through my work as a senior Reuters editor, I gained access to the "Cablegate" database of U.S. diplomatic communications believed to have been leaked by U.S. soldier Bradley Manning. The cables revolutionize the understanding of 21st-century Thailand because unlike almost all journalistic and academic coverage of the country, they do not mince words when it comes to the monarchy. As I began work on an extensive article about the cables, I realized that because it represented an epic breach of the lèse-majesté law, it could never be published by Reuters, and I would be unable to visit Thailand again for many years. I took the decision to publish the article anyway, and resigned from Reuters on June 3 to do so. That I had to leave my job and become a criminal in Thailand just to report on the cables says all that needs to be said about the lack of freedom of information that is stifling important debate on Thailand's future.

Thai Gender Stories in the News

From Thai Visa, a website mainly aimed at ex-pats living in Thailand, I get regular reports of what's happening in Thailand.  There were a couple of gender-related stories - one showing progress and one showing some regression.   Below are excerpts and the headlines link to the rest of the stories.

Monks teach maleness to Thai 'ladyboys'
Feature - by Janesara Fugal

CHIANG KHONG, July 16, 2011 (AFP) - The 15-year-old aspiring "ladyboy" delicately applied a puff of talcum powder to his nose -- an act of rebellion at the Thai Buddhist temple where he is learning to "be a man".

"They have rules here that novice monks cannot use powder, make-up, or perfume, cannot run around and be girlish," said Pipop Thanajindawong, who was sent to Wat Kreung Tai Wittaya, in Chiang Khong on the Thai-Laos border, to tame his more feminine traits.

But the monks running the temple's programme to teach masculinity to boys who are "katoeys", the Thai term for transsexuals or ladyboys, have their controversial work cut out.

"Sometimes we give them money to buy snacks but he saved it up to buy mascara," headteacher Phra Pitsanu Witcharato said of Pipop. . .

. . . [Phra Pitsanu] told AFP that he hopes the teaching methods will be rolled out to other temple schools to "solve the deviant behavior in novices".

It is an attitude that enrages gay rights and diversity campaigner Natee Teerarojanapong, who said trying to alter the boys' sense of gender and sexuality was "extremely dangerous".

"These kids will become self-hating because they have been taught by respected monks that being gay is bad. That is terrible for them. They will never live happily," he told AFP.

Gay and katoey culture is visible and widely tolerated in Thailand, which has one of the largest transsexual populations in the world, and Natee said the temple's programme is "very out of date".  .  .

Female bodyguards for Thailand's next prime minister
By Budsarakham Sinlapalavan
Peeradej Tanruangporn
The Nation
 

When Yingluck Shinawatra takes up her post as leader of the new government, Thailand won't just have a female prime minister. Her bodyguards, too, are likely to be drawn from the fairer sex.

"Female bodyguards are able to remain closer to female VIPs," said Pol Lt-Colonel Korakarn Arunplod, who is among the first generation of female bodyguards in Thailand.

Korakarn started her career as a bodyguard in 1995. Among the VIPs she has taken care of are Hillary Rodham Clinton, Empress Michiko of Japan and members of the Thai Royal Family.

She suggested that PM-elect Yingluck should have both male and female bodyguards. Beyond issues of security, having bodyguards of both sexes would create the best image.

And there are more practical concerns: "It is not appropriate for male bodyguards to enter private spaces such as women's bathrooms." She added that women were better at coordinating than men, though men were generally stronger. . .


  . . . To become a bodyguard, the officers of the BPPB must be trained to protect very important persons (VIPs), he said. In addition to the usual police training, which includes guns, driving and parachuting, VIP protection training also teaches crowd-control tactics and techniques for remaining close and attending to the VIP.

Because the task is very physically demanding, requiring the person to be constantly vigilant and sometimes miss sleep, the team consists only of women aged 20 to 35, Prayoon said . .  .

Exit Polls Predict Big Red Shirt Win in Thai Election - English Interview with Yingluck Shinawatra

From an AFP news story posted at Thai Visa:

Thaksin allies in Thai election landslide: exit polls
by Daniel Rook

BANGKOK, July 3, 2011 (AFP) - Opposition allies of Thai fugitive ex-leader Thaksin Shinawatra scored a landslide election win, exit polls showed Sunday, marking a stunning comeback after years of turmoil sparked by a military coup.

The poll was the first major electoral test for the elite-backed government since mass protests by Thaksin's "Red Shirt" supporters last year paralysed Bangkok and unleashed the worst political violence in decades.

Thaksin's Puea Thai Party is set to win 313 seats out of 500, against 152 for Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's Democrats, according to a projection by Suan Dusit University. Other exit polls painted a similar picture. . .

. . .Toppled by the military in 2006 and now living in self-imposed exile in Dubai to avoid a jail term for corruption, Thaksin nevertheless dominated the election, after tapping his youngest sister to run in his place.

Yingluck Shinawatra, a telegenic businesswoman who is now set to become Thailand's first ever female prime minister, is a 44-year-old political novice described by Thaksin as his "clone".

You can hear an English language interview, sent by a friend in Thailand, with Yingluck Shinawatra below.




What does this mean? Hard for me to tell, but the educated Bangkok elite were trounced by the rural voters and working class. The NGO I volunteered with in Chiangmai were not red shirts and I'm sure they are unhappy with this turn of events.

Red Shirts Back in Bangkok - What's Happening?

With so many countries around the world, it is hard to keep the various political parties and leaders straight.  Things have been heating up in Thailand for several years now.  While the Thai king has been revered in most of the country (in the far south where there is a larger Muslim population in this mostly Buddhist country, he's less respected), he is the longest reigning monarch in the world and his health has become a question.  While there is a Princess who has followed her father's footsteps and tirelessly worked to help poor Thais, she is not in line for succession and her brother is not held in the high esteem as their father.  When the moral power of the current monarchy is gone, there is no telling what will happen.

That is the backdrop of the clash between the yellow shirts and the red shirts.  It's tempting  to equate unknown foreign situations to better known home situations, but it's also misleading.  You have to take things for what they are and not fill in the blanks with what you are familiar with.  It's hard to leave the blanks blank.  But you're going to be more accurate if you leave the ?????? there than if you fill the blanks in with your own cultural fillers.

Basically there is a clash between the 'yellow shirts' who are the better educated, more urban, more middle class and elite Thais, with power centered in Bangkok and the less educated, more working class and rural Thais, whose power is centered in Chiang Mai.  The yellow represent the traditionally more politically powerful, but a smaller portion of the population. 

The current prime minister, Abhbisit, born in UK and with bachelors, masters, and doctorate all from Oxford, represents a more 'rational' legal, and elite Western perspective.  He came to power when the military deposed former Prime Minister Thaksin.  Thaksin also has a Western education.

Master's degree in Criminal Justice at Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, Kentucky in 1974 and a PhD in Criminal Justice at Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas in 1978. .  [Bangkok Post]

Thaksin, a media industry billionaire, is more populist,  He's also been convicted on corruption charges and would be arrested if he returned to Thailand.  That probably would set off riots even greater than what we've seen already.

You can read about both Abhisit and Thaksin in far more detail at Wikipedia.

Here's the beginning of an on-the-ground guest blogger post on New Mandela:

Most commentators appear to be trying to figure out the end game of the next few day’s red shirt rally in Bangkok and speculating about the possibility that violence will break out, but there are few who pay much attention to ordinary red shirt supporters. This has been a persistent pattern among both journalists and academics, though it is refreshing to note that some recent Bangkok Post reports include some references to ordinary red shirt people and their motivation in traveling to Bangkok for the demonstration of 14 March 2010, in marked contrast to its reporting a year ago. Nonetheless, the main focus of the [primarily state-run] TV media has been the prospect of violence, as with the local Thai and English-language press. I offer this descriptive cameo account simply to put some flesh on the bones of the leeched accounts of the red shirts and to give readers a sense of immediacy in the current events as they are unfolding. It is made as preliminary to what I’m sure will be a compelling and dynamic portrait of evolving events from the intrepid Nick Nostitz, who is pounding these Bangkok streets as I write, having myself returned from the blazing heat of the rally site to the comfort of my air-conditioned room in Sukhumvit. . .  [The rest is here.]

Bangkok Pundit is monitoring the coverage of the red shirt march on Bangkok.

BP: Are the reds going away?
BBC on Abhisit's response to the red shirts:

Flanked by ministers and coalition allies, Mr Abhisit said on national television, from the barracks: "The protesters have demanded that I dissolve the house before midday (0500 GMT) today, but the coalition parties agree the demand cannot be met."
"Elections must be held under common rules and genuine calm. We have to listen to other people's voices, not just the protesters," he said.

BP: If the coalition parties don't budge, then what for the red shirts?
btw, BP can't live blog, but check out Nirmal Ghosh of the Straits Times' blog with hourly updates so far. Key quote:

1115hrs Bangkok time: Probably about 500 soldiers with riot shields and communication equipment deployed about 20m inside wrought iron fence at 11th Infantry HQ. Main gate protected by coils of razor wire. A thicket of razor wire also lines the inside of the fence. Clearly anyone trying to get over risks severe lacerations.

There are around 5,000 reds here and growing. Road outside clogged with their vehicles. Two pedestrian overhead bridges clogged with reds. They are jeering and shouting abuse at the soldiers. A mood of excitement is in the air not one of aggressiveness.

Siam Report also has a live blog post with plenty of updates:

Thai Rath: เมื่อ เวลาประมาณ 09.50 น. วันที่ 15 มี.ค. นายอภิสิทธิ์ เวชชาชีวะ นายกรัฐมนตรี พร้อมแกนนำพรรคร่วมรัฐบาล อาทิ นายวรรณรัตน์ ชาญนุกูล หัวหน้าพรรครวมใจไทยชาติพัฒนา นายชาญชัย ชัยรุ่งเรือง หัวหน้าพรรคเพื่อแผ่นดิน นายชุมพล ศิลปอาชา หัวหน้าพรรคชาติไทยพัฒนา นายโสภณ ซารัมย์

Sophan Sorlam BJT commm. & transport minister was there for government announcement that there won't be a House dissoution. I guess Thanong will have to find some new sources or change the story a bit.

Thailand has a history of compromise which kept the nation uncolonized as all its neighbors became either French or British colonies.  In WW II it was able to maintain its pro Allied connections through a government abroad, while the country was taken over by the Japanese.  I'm just not close enough to what is happening to really be able to interpret the current years of turmoil with too much confidence.  But the two blogs I've linked here and in the column on the right - Mandela and Pundit - do give useful reports.