That’s tempting fate! Christ can you imagine if the Thais felt their US vote didn’t quite go their way?
HG
I was in BKK last week, and you wouldn’t have known there was any trouble from walking around.
It was right before the elections. That #8 guys is one crazy mf.
You know you live in Chinese territory too long when you’re surprised other Asians are polite, quiet, and clean.
Although I did hear some nasty stories from the Burmese on how some Thai treat them.
Yeah the demos are pretty much isolated to the parliament building.
Candidate number 8 in the elections? This guy, Chuwit Kamolvisit?
On one hand, he’s one nasty fucker. . .
[quote]Chuwit Kamolvisit is one of Thailand’s best-known celebrities. He fills newspapers and magazines and appears on national television every day. He is charismatic and media friendly. But Chuwit is not a pop star or an actor. Chuwit is a sex king.
He is the king of the largest sex industry on the planet. For the last eight years Chuwit has owned a string of high-class massage parlors, which have made him one of Thailand’s richest men.
But the 42 year old is playing a dangerous game. Since he recently went public on how many pribes he has paid to the Bangkok authorities, he has been jailed, kidnapped, drugged and threatened. His assets have been seized. His employees have been raped and arrested for prostitution by Thai police in sting operations.
Now, after an illustrious and controversial decade in the entertainment business, Chuwit has decided to candidate in the up-coming elections for the new governor of Bangkok and to fight the country’s biggest problem – endemic corruption.
“I grew up in Bangkok. My father is a Chinese from Hong Kong and my mother is a Thai. About ten years ago, I heard that massage parlors make a lot of money. So I opened one. I started paying the police from the first month I operated.”[/quote]
On the other, he’s refreshingly (for Thailand) pragmatic . . .
Aside from punching a journalist during a TV interview the other week, he also staged this classic.
Yeah, alas the Burmese and Cambodians are sort of untermensch in the way Filipinos and Thai workers are to many Taiwanese. Thai history rabbits on endlessly about what the Burmese have done in previous invasions and given the nationalism that holds this great Thai feudal lump together, it’s every Thai’s patriotic duty to kick a down on their luck Burmese at each and every opportunity. Rightly or wrongly Thais blame an awful lot of street crime on the many itinerate illegal Cambodians and Burmese. There is probably a lot in that, as these are extremely desperate people. That’s something very much worth keeping in mind in Thailand, especially as you are, on the other hand, lulled by the smiles courtesy and soft voices.
I was down in Koh Samet with Meesus Huang earlier this year when a Burmese worker at a resort we were staying in collapsed unconscious. I raced over to check she was okay and got her loaded into a flat bed to get her to the hospital, but Meesus Huang’s first port of call was to the boss of the place to give him shit about not feeding his workers! I think there was something else going on, but I found it interesting that was Missus Huang’s first impression. A friend in Bangkok recently had to reject a live in Burmese maid sent by a Thai agency, because the one they sent was just 12 years old!
HG
The guy’s dad’s from HK. that would explain his entrepreneurial spirit in massage parlors.
But he does send a sensible message. Fighting poverty will reduce prostitution… or hey, actually enforce the laws and stop taking bribes. I don’t know the disparity wealth numbers, but it seems to me from just traveling in Thailand, the rich (and the nobility/royalty) are super rich, and the poor are super poor. and the king just owns a lot of bloody land.
Did you see his own thing about the red fire engine trucks. (they cost 10K each, but were padded to 30k after passing through layers of dirty hands. hilarious.
wonder if he will get taken out. Corruption just seems too endemic there.
Re: the Burmese.
They don’t have passports to get into Thailand (or the Thai don’t recognize them, I forget). Anyways, to find work in Thailand, they pay smugglers 10K baht to troop them thru the jungle. It sounds as bad if not worse than the Mexican human smuggling rings (or the Chinese, or the Russian, or the Israeli, etc. etc.). That’s 10K baht each way…
Well, looks like that rumour the Queen was behind the latest protests has legs. Here she is attending the funeral of a protestor killed by the police outside the parliament . . . by the royal police force, of course.
HG
My wife is from Chiang Mai, and is there now caring for her ailing father. She called me yesterday and said there is an underground movement in the north to start funneling Red supporters south, for a possible serious clash this Monday or Tuesday. I wish I were making this up. Soldiers in the north have begun, on the relative down-low, collecting addresses of people who are ‘stirring things up’ for the Red side. Police in Phayao have declared themselves on the other side of the argument, ready to oppose the army soldiers. There is a burgeoning, though still small, anti-royalist movement among the people in the northern areas between Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, and Phayao. A few of the small, out-of-the-way coffee shops and restaurants I frequent while there have taken down their framed pictures of the king and queen (finally). The Lanna-dominated northern people have long wanted their own state, which they will likely never get, but this thing is close to getting out of hand, and quickly.
Like another poster here, I was in Bangkok last week, and saw no hint of trouble, until my wife and I, coincidentally clad in red shirts for no reason other than clean, available laundry after a week on the hike, were confronted at a bus station by several yellow-shirted senior citizens who called my wife a traitor, essentially. She is not a shy, demure Thai (I’ve succeeded in turning her into a placard-carrying, motto-screaming, American-style, conservo-feminist-issue-oriented-l’agent provocateur, and I often rue the day I threw the switch on that Frankenstein…), and I had to half-drag her to a taxi just to get her out of there.
This could be an interesting week in recent Thailand history.
Wow! I was wondering why the north seemed so quiet about PAD.
I was speaking to someone in Bangkok the other day who says he expects a clash when the two sides hold separate demos on the same day. I thought it was this weekend.
Meanwhile, the military have pretty much told Somchai to leave. That source of mine interprets the TV “coup” as a warning to Somchai that should any more violence occur, they will step in.
HG
The owner of the hair salon next door to my wife’s home closed up shop, handed the keys to the place to my mother-in-law, and headed south yesterday. I have no idea how many northerners might actually roll southward – it’s easy to talk and spread rumors of revolution, another thing altogether to pull it off in the streets once the armed soldiers come a-marching – but people, asfar as I can tell, are becoming far less reserved about speaking out, which is something that never used to happen in Thailand. For the first time since I met her, my wife turned to me last week and mused, “If the king cared about the whole country, why wouldn’t he just tell everyone to stop this and calm down?” I’ve never heard her, out loud, so openly doubt the king.
Once, in Chiang Mai, I picked up a brochure in a hotel lobby and read the propagandist claims of the king’s ‘scientific genius,’ words obviously written by a palace underling. My wife scolded me for laughing and tossing the brochure in the trash can. I can’t imagine her scolding me if the same happened today. For many Thais, there has been a real eye-opening in regards to where the royal family’s sympathies really lie.
Hopefully, that trend will continue regardless of how this all plays out.
You’re clearly having way more success on the monarchy front than me! I mentioned your post to the missus last night, specifically removing the portraits in the north, and she wanted me to send it to her to post on a Thai forum. I declined. Still, it’s terrifying imagining what’s likely to happen once the King drops off the stage. The division between the cops and the military is the scariest fault line.
HG
I thought you said your wife was black.
Wankers blockaded the airport last night, shutting down flights overnight, and there were at least four grenades tossed and several shots fired near where the PM has a temporary bolthole out at the old airport in Don Muang.
HG
Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport is still closed, with PAD idiots having stormed the control tower. The government tried to open the old Don Muang, but PAD shut that down too.
What country allows protestors to shutdown it’s main airport? Well, apart from terminally tragic Thailand, of course.
HG
I think the DPP shut down CKS before too.
Live updates here:
guardian.co.uk/global/2008/nov/26/thailand
I was planning on flying over to Bangkok tomorrow, guess I’ll have to postpone it…as the fascists have taken the airport.
Last reports were that the airports are still closed. Meanwhile, the army is getting antsy and the PM Somchai is refusing to step down, and why should he? He was elected with a very clear majority. Looks like the army will step in fairly soon in any case. Sigh.
HG
Not good. Not good at all. Looks like I might be staying in Taiwan for CNY.
Probably all over by then.
HG
Probably as EVA only cancelled BKK flights for two days so far 26th and 27th. Wonder whats gonna happen when flights start up again and since BKK to London is pretty full, it will be hard for those with seats on those two days to get another seat? Maybe EVA will shunt them over to other airlines, whoever is flying or upgrade a bunch of people. Must be a mess. I noticed that theres not enough passengers from TPE to London that it warrants a stop over in Spore instead, they simply cancel the flight. Their biz seems to be TPE BKK and BKK LON . Sorry a bit off topic 
Yeah, it’ll probably be over, but the gf is still worried. If I were going alone I’d be there in a flash to photograph the protests, even if it meant flying into Phnom Penh or KL and going overland.
The situation in Thailand is very serious right now. There are two key upcoming events which will to some extent shape the future. These are the King’s Birthday on 5 December and the ASEAN Summit in Chiang Mai in mid-December. More immediately though, how the occupation of the airports is resolved is the key. Things could get very bloody.
I wouldn’t cancel CNY plans yet. Wait a few more weeks to see what happens.