Category — Thai Life

Sure this is a travel blog and we should be ensuring you all is peachy-keen in Thailand but it just is not the case at the moment. Is any place in Thailand, less Bangkok, great to visit right now? It sure is. But I wouldn’t plan on taking in the whole Bangkok experience.

Follow the latest political developments from a foreigner’s perspective on Twitter @ http://www.twitter.com/jazzinchiangmai or @jazzinchiangmai

I don’t want to get deep into the censorship debate that shadows over Thailand nor do I wish to delve into anything negative about anything in this blog (other than the news section of course which is RSS fed direct from The Bangkok Post).  But today I witnessed a form of censorship firsthand and it just irked me enough to write this article.

To read the long and nasty article on censorship and how it relates to Thailand click here for the entire WikiPedia article.

Today on Thai Visa they emailed an alert to everyone that a gag order would be applied for by deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s children who are still in Thailand.

“IMPORTANT UPDATE FOR THAIVISA MEMBERS

The Supreme Court may issue a media gag order banning all Thai media to speculate on the judicial decision ahead of the Thaksin verdict session, scheduled for February 26.

If the gag order is approved, we may not be able to discuss or update you on current news via our forum, website or newsletter.

NOW: Be sure to follow Thaivisa on Facebook or Twitter to keep you instantly updated:

IT’s EASY:

Join us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/farang
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/georgebkk”

To me, this sounded like normal Thai politics and their ways of censoring things without ‘censoring’ things but calling it ‘other things’.  Did you follow that?  What struck me was that this gag order is apparently something quite serious as in 7 years I’ve never gotten a notification like this from Thai Visa.  They said that they may not be able to report on any speculation leading up to the court’s ruling on the seizure of Thaksin’s assets but that they will circumvent the Establishment by posting the news anyhow on Twitter and Facebook.

I’m trying to wrap my head around why it’s OK for the apparent owners of this foreign-hosted website, ThaiVisa.com, to post censored information on social networks, just not their forum.  Perhaps they don’t want to risk their asset, being www.thaivisa.com from being blacklisted by the MICT.  If that’s the case, then why slap them in the face and report the ‘forbidden information’ on another platform?  It would seem to me that directly posting ‘forbidden information’ on their site or indirectly via another platform (with their names all over it) would have the same repercussions.

What do you think?  Discuss;

If you’ve lived in Thailand for any amount of time you know that Thai people in general have a deep belief in ghosts.  This may be an Asian thing in general, but I’m speaking here on first hand experience and that is with Thais.

I’ve been warned by villagers when visiting the rice paddies of Isan (northeastern Thailand) that I was crazy for going on a midnight ride to a sala in the middle of the paddies by myself.  At first I was told because the local boys are out looking for trouble and a farang walking around in the middle of nowhere by himself is glutton for punishment.  Makes sense but I don’t see any menacing looking folks around so I went anyway.

When I returned the villagers couldn’t believe it.  They asked if I saw any ghosts.  I told them, “Of course not!”.  They looked like they had just seen a ghost themselves at my nonchalant return from the fields.  They proceeded to tell me of all the ghosts that wander the rice fields at night and I’m lucky I didn’t run into any!  Hey, everyone has their beliefs so I just smiled and moved on to a new subject.

Another example.  Our previous apartment was in a very high end building with both very affluent Thais and foreigners residing there.

One day I went down through the lobby and saw the security guards and staff hanging a string that wrapped around the entire perimeter of the building.  When I inquired what it was all about I was told it was some ghost/spirit protection for the building.  Wow.  Very well then.

My most recent experience with the Thai fascination with ghosts was on a trip to Baan Tawai in Chiang Mai.  While my wife and I walked around shopping we noticed our SUV with the back hatch opened and the driver sitting there eating.  We walked over to grab some more water and my wife pointed out a spoonful of this guy’s rice on the floor by the tree.  She asked him what it was and he told her, very seriously, that it was for the ghosts so they leave him and the vehicle alone.  Again, wow.

I felt like I had let Tupac Shakur and B.I.G. down for not pouring some water or beer onto the ground for my “homies who couldn’t be here today”.

To wrap this up while it may seem silly to people like me, it’s part of their Thai-Asian culture and it’s something to be understood if not embraced by you.  Thailand is a wonderful place to visit and live and there’s always something about their culture to experience and learn.  Ask questions, ask why about everything and you’ll soon get a deeper glimpse into the real Thailand and its people.

While driving through the little villages of North-Eastern Thailand also known as Isan, we drove down a small dark road that was a shortcut to the main road.   While it wasn’t odd to see the Thai villagers wandering around the road carelessly, my eyes couldn’t help but notice these villagers weren’t dressed in the typical Isan style, or ‘chill out at home’ clothes as we’d call them back in the West.  But these girls were dressed to impress!  Wow!  They looked like they dropped from the sky from outside a Bangkok night club.

Low and behold as we drive pass we see they are terribly made-up ladyboys!!  Their make-up was far worse than even I could have pulled off (eh hem, if I were so inclined, of course)!  All I could do was laugh, smile and shake my head.  You just can’t NOT see katoeys in Thailand.  Even in the dark dirt roads of the secluded rice paddies there’s a good chance you’ll run into them!   We went back to get a photo for this post  and they were gone.  Apparently they’d already found some suitors or their boyfriends had already picked them up.  Either way it was quite entertaining to witness and it gave us something to talk about during the long, arduous drive back to Krung Thep a.k.a. Bangkok, Thailand.

With its spacious, foliage adorned grounds and slightly worn-down classrooms, there is nothing obviously off kilter about the Kampang Secondary School. The school is located in the north eastern part of Thailand known as Isaan that is typically populated by generations of traditional Thai rice farmers.  Every morning at 8am they all gather outside to sing the national anthem and watch the flag being raised. They then are allowed time to use the bathroom before heading off to their home room classes. Kampang is proud of its restrooms. Clean, and surrounded by blossoming tropical plants.  They have even won national awards for their pristine lavatories.

But there is something different about them too. Between the girls’ toilet and the boys’, there is one sign hanging with a half-man, half-woman figure in blue and red. This is the transsexual toilet, and outside, in front of the mirrors, some decidedly girly-looking teenage boys primp their hair and apply make-up.

‘Uncomfortable’

The headmaster, Sitisak Sumontha, estimates that in any given year between 10% and 20% of his boys consider themselves to be transgendered or ladyboys – boys who believe that they were born into bodies of men and were meant to be girls.

“They used to be teased every time they used the boys’ toilets,” he said, “so they started using the girls’ toilets instead. But that made the girls feel uneasy. It made these boys unhappy, and started to affect their school work.”

So the school offered to build the ladyboys their own bathroom, and they welcomed it. Triwate Phamanee is a lanky 13-year-old who is adamant that he will one day change his gender.  “We’re not boys,” he told me, “so we don’t want to use the boys’ toilet – we want them to know we are transsexuals.” Vichai Saengsakul, 15, agrees. “People need to know that being a ladyboy is not a joke,” he says, “it’s the way we want to live our lives. That’s why we’re grateful for what the school has done.”

Story Credit to BBC.com

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We once came to Thailand for our first time also, and since then (10 years ago) we’ve learned alot, met alot of really nice people in the hospitality industry all the way from 5 star resort CEO’s down to the humble taxi or tuk-tuk drivers in all of the popular tourist destinations and even further into to great unknown parts of this wonderful Kingdom.

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Happy holidaying from all of us at Thailand Travel Depot!