streaming consciousness…

Tagged: Thailand Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

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  hardie karges 9:29 am on July 24, 2014 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Asia ( 17 ), China ( 14 ), Chinatown, currency ( 2 ), Facebook ( 17 ), Hardie Karges ( 240 ), Likes ( 2 ), social media ( 13 ), Thailand   

  #Facebook #Chinatown: Where ‘Likes’ are the New Currency 

   

  

  Like Me, Baby…

  Strolling through Facebook now is like strolling through Chinatown or along a carnival midway, complete with barkers and colored balloons, signs and advertisements now occupying every available inch of empty space, imperceptibly creeping like Capitalism into our lives and our computers and smart phones like viruses (virii?), the good kind, friendly bacteria that you can live with. In Chinatown there IS no empty space. Social media has degenerated into one big tease: “You won’t believe this!” or “You’ve got to see what happened next!” or “Don’t forget to share.” Likes are the new currency.

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  hardie karges 8:20 pm on December 29, 2013 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Aboriginals, aborigines, Hardie Karges ( 240 ), Thailand, Trang, tribes   

  Aboriginals in Southeast Asia: Back From Africa 

  

  Aboriginals in Trang, Thailand

  Unbeknownst to most casual tourists, there is an entire race of people in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia that predate the predominant Thais, Burmese, Vietnamese, Mons, Khmers, Malays, and Austronesians who now call it home, but who have been there for only 4-5000 years—or less in the latter case. Since these newcomers have been there the least amount of time in the Pacific, the kinky-haired dark-skinned aboriginal people are well-represented today by Papuans, Timorese, Philippine ‘negritos’ and mixed-race (my theory) Melanesians.

  On the mainland, though, they can be hard to find, and are something of a rural legend akin to believing in ghosts. They really exist, though, and comprise the groups such as the Mlabri in north Thailand and the Sakai and other ‘orang asli‘ down south and in Malaysia. No ‘hill-tribes’ in north or central SE Asia fall into this category. The ones I found in Trang, Thailand, were selling medicinal herbs in the market; brings tears to my eyes. I wish I had some pain to see if they work. Wait a minute…
   
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  hardie karges 6:17 pm on December 15, 2013 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Hardie Karges ( 240 ), politics ( 32 ), protests, Thailand, Yingluck   

  Thai Politics, Protests and the World’s Cutest PM: Democracy’s a B*tch 

  

  Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra

   A primer for the uninitiated: The Thai political troubles of the last six to eight years revolve around the larger-than-life presence of one billionaire-turned-politician named Thaksin Shinawatra, who was elected Premier a decade or so ago and whose only prior political experience was an appointed one in the regime of some fat-ass general whose name escapes me at the moment. After being declared innocent of some minor corruption charges he was allowed by the courts to serve.

  One of his first acts was to limit the competition for his AIS cell-phone company, worth gazillions. Another was to limit public support for the country’s flagship carrier Thai Airways (the better for his Air Asia to flourish). He also declared war on drug dealers with an infamous ‘blacklist’ and orders of ‘shoot to kill’. Unfortunately this list also included some political enemies. Oops, his bad. He also initiated many programs to benefit the poor.

  Following other questionable actions and various conflicts of interest within and around the extended family holding his wealth, discontent from the country’s better-educated city-dwellers finally led to protests, then negotiations which culminated in Thaksin’s resignation in 2006. Or so we thought. His cabinet stayed in office, though, and after a month or so of ‘rest’, Thaksin simply walked back in like nothing ever happened. The army then took over while he was at the UN on official bizniz. He returned to face corruption charges, then left again with promises to return. He lied.

  Since then the country has been divided politically between Thaksin’s ‘red-shirt’ supporters and ‘yellow-shirt’ opponents, with outbreaks of sporadic confrontation including, but not limited to, a certain noodle shop on Hollywood Boulevard. For the last few years the country has been led by Thaksin’s freely-elected ‘clone’ and sister Yingluck.

  The current problems stem from a recent bill that would have made amnesty for exiles a simple matter, including you-know-whom. Yellow-shirt protests have since been ongoing for the last month or so, even though the bill was withdrawn. Although a few people have been killed, police have mostly foregone the use of force.

  A few salient points are probably in order: (More …)

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    hardie karges 11:47 pm on May 24, 2014 Permalink | Reply

    Reblogged this on Backpackers & Flashpackers: Losing It in Laos and commented:

    This my take a half-year ago:

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  hardie karges 5:33 pm on December 31, 2012 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Hardie Karges ( 240 ), hypertravel ( 12 ), New Year ( 5 ), Thailand   

  สวัสดีปีใหม่ Happy New Year! To reflect is humane, to shine is divine… 

  Ten years ago—to the day—I was lying in a bed somewhere in northern Thailand, attached to it in fact, in a sort of makeshift traction best accomplished with metal frames and waterproof members, making up in utility what it lacked in esthetics. Ironically it’s the same bed my wife’s grandmother had just died in, the same one I’d seen her in for the year-and-a-half of my marriage, she lying there comatose, oblivious, waiting to die, I can’t remember why, though it didn’t seem to bother anyone too much, being a natural phase I guess, relatives coming in to check periodically, sometimes even cracking jokes above her head, like swatting flies mid-air that couldn’t even be seen by the one victimized, she reduced to rubble, ashes to ashes and dust to dust no more than a scarce few weeks before. So what was I now doing in that same bed, just indulging in a little macabre fun? I wished. Here’s what happened. (More …)

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    kc 8:29 pm on December 31, 2012 Permalink | Reply

    well told tale my writer friend

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    hardie karges 1:28 pm on January 18, 2013 Permalink | Reply

    thank you

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    kc 4:25 pm on August 24, 2013 Permalink | Reply

    well a happy new year to you, now at the middle of the year. yes, losing consciousness for however long is like dying a little bit. maybe dying for a short while but dying just the same is that time you spend blacked out.

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      hardie karges 9:11 am on August 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      There are some Islamic references to each night being a “little death.” If that’s the case, then what is dreaming?

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    kc 11:49 am on August 25, 2013 Permalink | Reply

    dreaming is simply a rehash of our real life and days we spend in it. i think that little death was used as an analogy to orgasm and shooting heroin

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  hardie karges 6:57 am on December 11, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: ENGLISH ( 6 ), language ( 145 ), Thailand   

  I think there’s a direct relationship between the amount of English 

  a foreign language absorbs, and the ability of that foreign culture to speak correct English. No country wants to speak English more than Thailand, no country absorbs and ‘localizes’ English more than Thailand, and ultimately no country speaks it worse. There’s got to be some causal connection, right? Certainly Thailand’s ‘fun, fun, fun’ attitude toward life creates obstacles for the serious study of any subject, including English. How can you learn anything if everything’s a joke? The average street vendor in Tijuana speaks better than the average Ph.D. in Thailand. Of course, they are at opposite ends of the linguistic spectrum, with only vague connections via the ancient Sanskrit-Greek relationship, yet still they rank lower (by their own measure) than ‘neighbor countries’, which include such basket cases as Burma, Laos, and Cambodia. They speak almost with envy of their neighbors who got lucky enough to be colonized by England or America, in the case of Philippines. They judge one another by how well that person speaks English, as if anyone were qualified to judge, and to fill a Thai sentence with English ‘buzz words’ is the ultimate in ‘cool’, whether by a politician, rock star, or TV personality, no matter whether anyone understands or not. It’s mind-boggling.

   
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  hardie karges 6:48 am on October 21, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: life ( 33 ), love ( 49 ), Thailand   

  I love my wife, though I don’t mind being gone half the time. 

  That keeps it fresh. Hunger makes the food taste real good. If I’m there all the time then it degenerates into that husband-and-wife behind-the-scenes sort of fussing-and-fighting that they never showed on Ozzie and Harriet, tending to favor smiles and sighs and bedroom eyes, while the kids become rock stars in imitation of real life. In very few species does the dad actually hang around with the wife and kids after the consummation of the marriage, so I figure I’m way ahead of the curve. Thai women are more obsessed with security than they are with finding the ultimate soul mate anyway. So Thailand works for my sci-fi style of life. Stupid me, I had to learn the language. Big Mistake. Normal Farangs live with their Thai wives in a state of eternal bliss, speaking Pidgin Shit and drinking beer. Farangs are Westerners, white ones. The term is a Thai pronunciation of the name that started off as ‘Franks’ and dates back to the Crusades era, when all white men were known as ‘Franks’ in the Middle East and Byzantium. It seems we’re on a new crusade now, and Thailand is the Promised Land that needs rescuing. Older Western guys running short on erections get to spend their remaining days with a beautiful younger Thai woman, full of smiles and spice and everything nice. Japanese and other wealthy Asians opt for the same retirement plan, and more than a few Arabs, too. There’s something for everybody.

   
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  hardie karges 5:32 am on October 19, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: life ( 33 ), Thailand   

  Tang makes supper in the kitchen, 

  mostly oblivious to my musings and misgivings, consciousness largely applied to a given task rather than set loose to run wild with imagination and self-reflection. Thailand is a womb warm welcome and waiting to soothe the frayed nerves of the semi-erect hominid westerner, ego bruised from the constant duals with self, reflected in an endless stream of strategically placed mirrors creating the illusion of reality for those in need of such. Thailand will survive where others fail because of her willingness to marry up, take the name of her new spouse, and enjoy the honeymoon of the future, should there indeed be one.

   
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  hardie karges 9:28 am on October 2, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Peru ( 5 ), Thailand   

  Now I just need a parallel reality, 

  
  and that never the twain meet. Half a world away, a full 180 degrees, lies another world ready and waiting, a tablet upon which to write, Peru, the flip side, the mirror image. Thailand is great for people with low self-esteem, but ultimately may be a dead end. Thais themselves tend to have low personal self-esteem for which they tend to over-compensate with a national superiority complex, notwithstanding their generally low ranking in many of the world’s important statistics, such as education, research, and development, etc. Peru seems to be the South American equivalent of Thailand, slightly bonkers, a relatively open society, and nice-looking women. Obviously I want both worlds, single and married, East and West. Maybe that’s one thing one can do in Thailand, as long as one defines the situation carefully. My ancestors followed cows across continents. So can I.

   
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  hardie karges 7:49 am on August 21, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Madagascar, Thailand   

  Thailand is the last resort for the Space Age tourist. 

  
  This is where you end up when the trip is drawing to a close. This is where you get those Social Security checks sent. I’m not ready for that. Actually, where I’d really like to go is Madagascar. The idea of Asian forebears on the African coast, speaking an Austronesian language without a clue as to why or wherefore, sounds pretty exotic to me. Maybe they’re the ones who brought the bananas that revolutionized African agriculture that allowed a Bantu expansion that ultimately passed them by and hemmed them in. They weren’t the only ones. The Dutch reached Southernmost Africa before the Bantu speakers, as did the Khoisan speakers, but were eventually overwhelmed by them. The Malagasy have had Bantu and Arab admixtures onto their racial origins, but without losing their traditional culture. On the contrary, from what may have been no more than a single maiden voyage, Malagasy culture has diversified into several distinct lineages and languages, while never losing its mutual inter-connections. It is also a laboratory for biology as well as culture, rivaling the Galapagos Islands for the uniqueness of its species.

   
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  hardie karges 8:13 am on August 20, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: culture ( 21 ), neoteny ( 2 ), Thailand   

  Thailand is in a cultural drift toward neoteny. 

  
  The language is pretty, if vague, and some female TV personalities speak something close to baby talk to make it even prettier. Suffering fools gladly is a way of life here. English is the language of last resorts. Speak slowly and with multiple convictions. English is the language of aggression for use with outsiders. The use of Thai dictates a different level of politeness. Know that silly song you can’t get out of your head? Thais like that silly song, and can mouth most of the words along with the singer. They’ll even clap as the song starts rather than before the song ends to show their approval, since no respectable singer would change the song. Thais worship their kids, especially the males. Their mothers essentially work for them. It goes to their heads, of course, and many never really grow up. Thai male kids are spoiled rotten, indulged to the limit of a family’s resources. As long as the resources are limited, then they turn out okay. When a family’s lot improves and they just shower the extra on their kids, then the kids quickly become accustomed to the new standards and do their best to do as little as possible for most of their lives. Thailand is a nation held together by mutual fears and sticky rice. Fear of ghosts is common, so many Thais sleep with the light on. They are puppies in puppy love, sweet nothings without fire nor fiber, ready to marry up the food chain to further the cause of evolution. Blue-eyed lightning grounds itself in brown-eyed earth, and the rest is history.