Has Prayut been reprimanded?
Are there changes afoot in Thailand? I myself am not well versed in Thai politics and my main sources of information are Thailandblog and Bangkok Post, so I cannot answer the question myself. But something has happened in the past few months that surprised me.
Sweet revenge for the Chocolate Man
Leo, a Surinamese man from Amsterdam, had been told that Thais can be very racist and he was a bit concerned about this because he was black. During his first visit to Thailand, he found Bangkok a disappointment. He thought it was a filthy city with a lot of traffic, air pollution and the Thai ladies didn't pay attention to him.
Men are lucky
Let's be honest, you guys are really lucky, aren't they? You must have been born as a woman and have to experience that annoying hassle every month. Or just sit alone at a bar somewhere and let men spy on you. Men immediately think that they can glue you with a wet finger and after offering you a drink they can seduce you.
Reflections on a fresh green wall…
The outside wall separating the patio from the kitchen has been freshly painted – 'finally' Mrs Lung Jan would say. Heavily brushed, puttyed according to the rules of the art with a firm hand and then sanded smooth and taped here and there, where necessary.
On a beautiful Pentecost day
This morning I heard on the radio the moving song by Annie MG Schmidt: “On a beautiful Pentecost day”, sung by Leen Jongewaard and André van den Heuvel, to music by Harry Bannink. Hell yes, today is Pentecost, how many people would still know the meaning of that?
Pentecost in Thailand
Well, this can be a short piece, because Pentecost is an unknown concept in Thailand. If some (commercial) attention is devoted to the Christian holidays Christmas and Easter, Pentecost passes unnoticed in Thailand.
Good old days in Thailand
Those "good old days" is a well-known lamentation, which sometimes does not apply. Looking back, the corona pandemic has only been going on worldwide for 5 months, from the end of January.
About Tenglish, Dunglish and other coal English
We Dutch are quite convinced that we speak excellent English and laugh hard at the Tenglish of Thai. However, the coal English, which we usually speak, is also far from correct. With our Louis van Gaal as an exponent of this as a shining example.
Column: 'Fear of dying, from a normal flu….'
Dying is no fun. It's never really fun. It is perhaps one of the most prominent fears that a human being carries. I think so too. I'm still very much alive and I certainly don't intend to prematurely greet the Grim Reaper. The readers, except for some, would not be happy with that either, because it would also mean the end of Thailandblog.
Two viruses meet in Bangkok
Corona, a virus floating in the heat of Bangkok, sees a different kind of virus resting in the front yard of a beautiful house. So he floats over to greet him.
A little irritable?
You can't get out and are too much on each other's lips and that can degenerate into squabbles with each other; that's how I read. After a week in quarantine I'm starting to get a little bit of it too. Can't leave the house and trapped in my girlfriend's house.
The word Corona will always have a bad aftertaste
On television, in newspapers and on all kinds of websites, reports, reports, reflections, columns and other ways rightly pay a lot of attention to that damned Coronavirus crisis. I'm slowly starting to hate the word corona.
The gardener and death
Of course I read all the stories and messages about those thousands of people, including Dutch people, who are stranded abroad and want to go home. When I read a message this morning about the last flight from Singapore to Bangkok for the time being, in which a Thai said: “If I have to die, then in my own country” I couldn't help thinking of an old Dutch poem De Tuinman en de Dood. That went like this:
Need teaches prayer
Need teaches prayer is an old saying that made me think back to World War II and, at the moment, also to the terrible outbreak of the corona virus.
It was already apparent in Asia and Italy, and now Dutch statistics also show it: the corona disease covid-19 mainly claims the lives of the oldest and the weakened. Is lung disease a condition that, like the flu, gives the dying a final push?
Crouching in Thailand
Luxury can be stolen from me. However, there are two things I do like some kind of civilisation: sleeping and going to the toilet.
Thoughts on the aftermath of the Korat massacre
The drama that unfolded last weekend in Nakhon Ratchsasima (Korat) with many dead and injured may have come to an end, but the events haunt me. You will wonder, like me, how it could have happened, what was the motive, how did the man get weapons, why was he not stopped sooner. Is there victim support and many other questions.