The thing I love about this blog is how much I learn from it. Plain and simple this blog is my biggest source of information in Thailand and I am one of the writer’s on it. So that is super cool to me that I learn more on this blog than I could probably ever hope to share in return. Just look at pmmp’s post yesterday to give u an idea of how much people are willing to share about their own experiences. The blog now has 5,404 comments as of this post - an amazing source of information. Whether you agree or not with what is said here - it is interesting and we will do our best to make sure we keep it all above board. This comment yesterday sent me off hunting for S. Botan in search of new experiences. Which I did have and I will report on soon. Cheapolay - my new hero.
Beowulf. I try to get to the movies on Sundays and troll the malls looking for hotties. I heard about the new movie Beowulf and that Central World was the only place in SE Asia with the new digital projector for the special 3D showing. After 300, this is my new favorite movie. Off the wall in both storyline and the way it is told. Add in the 3D and it is movie of the year. Amazing. Seeing Jolie naked in 3D killed me but what is funnier is watching the Thai girls try to look around the 3D objects in hopes of seeing Beowulf in his full nude body shot. This is what I love about the Thai girls. They dig sex. See it at Central World.
When I was cruising for S. Botan yesterday I happened to walk by a ton of posters advertising famous DJ’s for Club Culture. Has anyone been and have anything to say about the place? It is off the beaten path so I am assuming it is not getting the same crowd that they used to get as Club Astra on RCA but given good DJs sometimes people are willing to make the trip. It is close to a skytrain stop, so in theory easier to get to than RCA anyway. Would love a write up about this place but if there are no takers I may have to check it soon myself.
And in the I have a bridge to sell you if you thought that deal was good:
Matchima Thipataya Party leader Prachai Leophairatana promised on Monday to issued Bt1 trillion treasury bonds to finance his mega projects in order to boost the economic growth to 15 per cent from around four per cent within one year.
So let me get this straight. Thailand will spend a bunch of money on mega projects and this will magically catapult the economy past China’s growth rate? Amazing. This guy should hook up with DTR and come up with a turnaround plan for Nana Plaza.
Prachai Leophairatana is the Missy Eliot of Thai financiers.
Over the last 12 years Prachai’s deft “1-2 Steps” have saddled the good folk of Thailand with at least a billion USD in bad debt. They just call his failures something else and let him do it again. This time, however, he knows he’s got to be a political player as well in order to avoid too much exposure.
Jeezus! Who says this place was never colonized ;-? (made it myself
View all comments by thongsuk
I thought I heard him once called Mr. Megaproject. I am sure he takes a nice piece of all these proposals as well or some cronies attached to him. These Asian Tycoon book has revealed a few of the Thai players.
View all comments by smitty
“Jeezus! Who says this place was never colonized ;-?”
Hmm..the Thais do. Quite a lot. Just be careful not to mention the appeasement of the Japanese.
View all comments by Combover
On Club Culture….Was there last Saturday and it was packed with both locals and expats into electro and name DJ’s, though think the guy playing was local. Heard from a resident mate that they have had parties there for the Hi-so, model types and TV actors thrown by the owner of Emporium so guaranteed plenty of fit.
They gave you 4 drink stubs for a 600 B entrance fee that can get you 2 spirit with mixers and 2 San Miguel Beer from the Philippines, which is a nice bonus.
Good fun in general but think the Bed Club still has one over it unless you are looking to limit the cash hit.
A nice change of venue and surprisingly cheap and good drinks.
View all comments by Kalon Man
Yeah, the Thais have never been defeated by anyone because they surrender too fast to give anyone a chance to defeat them.
And if you ever start to doubt the utter passivity and complete lack of principle in which these happy smiling people have their roots, you should indeed look at the Thais behavior in World War Two: comically stumbling back and forth between sides, sometimes supporting both at the same time, desperately trying to make sure they ended up on the winning side, whatever it turned out to be.
Then, of course, if you have the heart for it, you could take a look, too, at the comprehensive support Thailand sold to the Khmer Rouge to help them slaughter two million of their fellow countrymen, the same kind of support they are still selling to the Burmese today.
Oh,fuck it. Never mind. It’s too depressing to go on…..
View all comments by Old Asia Hand
Are there any parts of the Thai power structure that are not dominated by ethnic Chinese? Colonized and nobody even noticed
View all comments by Cabby
c - great point but what I am learning from this Asian tycoon book is one - the big power players are not all ethnic chinese but sometimes it appears that way. It also mentions that most of the big players who may have the chinese genes tend to speak the local language better than chinese. They assimilate rather than stay chinese. The book spends a whole chapter on debunking the ethnic chinese myth.
View all comments by smitty
Without the Thai, the Japanese could never have reached Singapore as quickly as they did, but please don’t mention the war.
View all comments by hanuman
I think the diplomatic efforts of the Thai before, during and after the second world war were simply stunning in genuis. Apart from the few raids at the back end of the war and the initial invasion (in which fewer people got wiped out than in your average tourist season), the Country was left undamaged and came out on the side of the victors. Great achievement, considering that they invaded Burma on behalf of the Japanese.
In the first world war a team of 100 doctors and nurses contributed to Siam being listed amongst the victors at Versailles - again for a country that had extremey close relations with Germany another considerable achievement. I guess if you’re a true blue patriot, blah blah, then you’d be upset personally I think it was simply intelligent.
View all comments by Psi100th
In the end Thailand was an official enemy of the allies in the second world war. And dam right.
They only put up a couple of hours fight against the Japanese and then put in an agreeement that let Japanese cross Thailand unhindered. Complete cowards. Shame on Thailand.
View all comments by m
@M go away and read a history book. You got it dead wrong. Thailand, over the objections of the British but with the support of the US was included with the Victors. The only “damages” they had to pay was a lot of rice to starving Britain - which they never paid.
View all comments by Psi100th
I always wondered what the Victory Monument represents…
What major war did they ever win?
View all comments by Orion
@Orion - a couple against the Burmese several hundred years ago and nothing since. I think the point is that the Thai’s have a much more pragmatic approach to war than most Western countries, excluding Switzerland, and that is to avoid it at all costs.
View all comments by Psi100th
@ Combover Re: colonization. “Hmm..the Thais do. Quite a lot. Just be careful not to mention the appeasement of the Japanese.
. . . . or the “absorption” of that Swatowese, Fukienese and Toiew Chiu rice barge armanda that “pillow and matted” Thailand’s riverene entrepots beachheads 450 years ago and never left.
Elderly non-Thai speaking Yaowarat “Thais” are common. “Boardroom Thai” occasionally “slips” into Toiew Chiu.
How did we get from the Dude in fisherman’s pants stirring shrimp in a wok on that verandah (w/ a Balkan Sobrani but DEFINITELY “sans sunscreen” to endless vilification of the very color of native skin? (ample photographic proof here, I’d say )
Complex. Granted. I’d say it’s the white skin/class thing partially but it’s also very much a “colonization” thing.
The colonizer has only just recently persuaded the slave-wage locals to actually loathe the color of their own skin. They now buy expensive and not so expensive but painfully over-amped creams from this colonizer. They resort to actually burning off their pigmented epithelial layers with mercuric chloride paste. This is colonisation at its very best.
A tall white skinned hill tribe beauty with no education is seen as more beautiful than a hot Isaan /Thai Uni grad with an absolutely stunning body and demeanor.
The dumbass flat-faced squatty Yawarat gal with no butt “gets the job”. The dark-skinned hottie from Khon Khen U gets to type her letters. Complex. But the C word is definitely in play.
( No drama here.. . . on this postplant winkies where needed)
View all comments by Thongsuk
“But the C word is definitely in play.”
Combover?
View all comments by Combover
RE: “@M go away and read a history book.”
You mean this one:
—–
In the immediate aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces invaded Thailand’s territory on the morning of December 8, 1941. Only hours after the invasion, Field Marshal Phibunsongkhram, the prime minister, ordered the cessation of resistance. On December 21, 1941, a military alliance with Japan was signed. Thailand declared war on the UK and the United States of America. The Thai ambassador to the United States, Mom Rajawongse Seni Pramoj did not deliver his copy of the declaration of war, so although the British reciprocated by declaring war on Thailand and consequently considered it a hostile country, the United States did not.
—–
Thailand was an AXIS power (Germany etc.) as oppossed to an ALLIED power (England etc.)
They weren’t even passive - letting Japan shred across them in their shameful surrender - they went active with attack on Burma. Which was British empire.
They officialy declared war on Britain and USA. Britian declared war back. ie. they certainly AXIS. They were the enemy.
However, after the war they got off lightly as USA intervened and let them off punishments of AXIS:
———-
fter the war, U.S. influence prevented Thailand from being treated as an Axis country, but the UK demanded three million tons of rice as reparations and the return of areas annexed from the British colony of Malaya during the war and invasion.
———–
View all comments by m
@M - man you’re dumb. You said it yourself, “U.S. influence prevented Thailand from being treated as an Axis country, but the UK demanded three million tons of rice as reparations.”
… and by the way they didn’t give the rice.
View all comments by Psi100th
@M I am sorry M I should have thought deeper - of course you don’t know what diplomacy means, so for your education.
What Is Diplomacy?
n.
The art or practice of conducting international relations, as in negotiating alliances, treaties, and agreements.
Tact and skill in dealing with people. See synonyms at tact.
I realize that these are foreign concepts for you but keep at the good work and one day when you’ve reached a mental age larger than a shoe size, I’m sure you’ll understand that viewing things from the myopic viewpoint of being a dick isn’t conducive to good debate.
View all comments by Psi100th
AFTER THE WAR “U.S. influence prevented Thailand from being treated as an Axis country”
DURING THE WAR - OUT AND OUT AXIS POWER.
Look up axis power on wikipedia - there you will see Thailand screaming at you from the list.
Thailand were an official enemy in the second world war. That they got off light after the war doesnt change this.
View all comments by m
there was a sort of brilliance in their strategy, although i’m not sure it was actually intended - by having the ambassador not actually deliver the declaration of war they essentially hedged their bet. the tradition continues today with murky laws and regulations.
View all comments by go go groupie
editor’s note: folks, comments with “name calling” will be deleted. Please try and just make your point without the name calling. Thx.
View all comments by pmmp
psi100 - if the Victory Monument is there to represent victory over the Burmese then why do the soldier statues have WWII rifles and uniforms?
View all comments by Orion
Because psi100 is wrong again.
Victory monument:
It is a victory against the french to gain little pieces of french indochina. Very small victory around the time of the second world war. And the thais had to give it back to the french after the second world war.
View all comments by m
@Orion - Didn’t say that VM represented those wars. You asked what major wars did they win - I told you. Having said that when did the Thais ever let reality get in the way of a good bit of PR.
View all comments by Psi100th
Thailand cannot be aligned to switzerland. switzerland is a rock. every man is a member of the army. and the country is ripe geographically to defend. attack switzerland and you will be dealt a bloody nose. attack thailand and you will be waved on in with no fight whatsoever.
View all comments by m
@M - I know Thailand was regarded as AXIS in the war - that was my whole point regarding the genuis of not suffering the consequences of those actions through clever diplomacy. Read carefully.
View all comments by Psi100th
I think you misunderstood my first post. So we not in disagreement. Thailand - enemy during the latter part of war.
View all comments by m
so which teletubby is your favorite?
View all comments by Orion
None, they are all gay.
View all comments by hanuman
No man, only Tinky Winky is gay…
View all comments by Orion
Italy just stayed on the winning team too. Learning a lot in this thread hey.
View all comments by Young Royal
re Swan 5,
not to bad at current, they got a good amount of girls in there and I recently found out when I inquired about taking a girl out and was told that I could just take her upstairs to the rooms they have available if I want to. Nice addded feature for sure.Room was nice size also,clean, soap ,towels ect. the bar fine is still 500 either way ( take out or upstairs ) room for short time was 300.
View all comments by Jboy.bkk