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"The Rounds"
* * * * * * * * * * His Majesty to Leave Hospital Today Suvarnabhumi Airport's First Flights Color-Coded Cards for Imbibers? Macau on Course to Surpass Las Vegas * * * * * * * * * * Just a reminder you can sign-up for free to receive the BangkokAtoZ.com Updates (plain text) e-mail to always know when I add something new to the site or modify it in some important way. A great way to be sure YOU don't miss something of interest, best of all is that this service is absolutely FREE! * * * * * * * * * * Joy at last! It's now 9:30 A.M. Sunday; I finished this column almost exactly 48 hours ago -- and have been unable to get on the Internet since. Boy oh boy, do I have a TON of spam to eliminate! But at least this is finally going up. * * * * * * * * * * His Majesty to Leave Hospital Today I was quite pleased to get an SMS news alert from The Nation newspaper here in Bangkok announcing that His Majesty's doctors plan to release him today. For those who may have missed it, the King had an operation on his spine a week ago to correct a medical condition causing pain, a condition not uncommon in men His Majesty's age. He has recovered well, obviously, and done so with a speed that has rather surprised -- pleasantly surprised -- me. Good health and long life to you, Your Majesty! [Friday, August 4, 2006] * * * * * * * * * * Suvarnabhumi Airport's First Flights Suvarnabhumi Airport received its first commercial flights a couple weeks ago, when six domestic Thai carriers flew a total of 20 [or 21, depending on which story you read] flights into and out of the decades-in-the-making "Cobra Swamp" airport. Everything went extremely well, overall. That was a relief, especially given that the very first flight carried the Prime Minister and other luminaries from Bangkok's Don Muang Airport -- the current Bangkok International Airport -- to the new airport. There are concerns about the airport. For one thing, the International Civil Aviation Organization hasn't signed off on it -- and that's the international organization that routinely certifies airports around the world as ready for international flights. Yes, the authorities here in Thailand signed off, provisionally, prior to these inaugural flights, and even argued they had I.C.A.O. authority to do so (about which I don't know one way or the other). Concerns have been raised both domestically and internationally, largely focusing on the fact that handling fewer than two dozen high-profile flights is an entirely different kettle of fish from handling way many more flights daily; if memory serves, the new airport is scheduled to handle up to 45 million passengers a year, a few more than the several hundred who took the demo flights. The airport apparently resembles a shopping mall as much as it does an airport, and in that connection I read a complaint of one passenger that struck me as completely ludicrous: she complained, according to the report, that the airport so much resembles a shopper's paradise that a would-be air traveler might forget his or her actual purpose for being there, and hiss a flight after becoming overly engrossed in shopping! I do hope most would-be air passengers can distinguish between an airport and someplace such as The Emporium! Another concern regards discount carriers, which were apparently caught flat-footed by the government's announcement that all flights will originate and terminate at Suvarnabhumi Airport; it seems that everyone in the airline industry had thought domestic flights would still operate out of Don Muang. Actually, it seems to me only logical that all flights be out of one airport -- but transport to and from the new airport, including between it and the current airport, are problematic: there is no truly reliable mass transit in place, and there won't be for a while to come. I say "reliable" because it is possible, for instance, to travel via public bus -- but a bus, as is the case with any vehicle, is subject to the vagaries of Bangkok's notorious traffic. Yet one more cause to pause for thought is the handling of passengers in places such as Passport Control, but that's a concern I wonder about. Even at Don Muang I can't remember how many times I've gone into Passport control, both leaving and returning, only to see scads of passengers bunched up in lines in front of the precious few manned stations. Why have 40-50 booths, say -- but only a dozen officers on duty? That's a manpower concern, not an airport one, per se. That Bangkok needs a new airport is beyond dispute, if for no other reason than it's really not logical for the Air Force to have to share it's capital base with commercial airlines. Though the Kingdom has no natural enemies these days, were a military situation to arise, the authorities would be left in the uncomfortable -- and unenviable -- position of having to decide whether to curtail or even halt commercial flights so the Air Force could do its past in responding to the situation. Beyond that, Don Muang is already bursting at the seams, in terms of capacity, and given how hemmed in it is, there's little room for expansion, at least any reasonable expansion. (Costs alone would likely prove prohibitive to any substantial expansion of airport facilities there.) I was a little surprised at the Prime Minister's comments after his flight had landed, surprised because he has been doggedly optimistic the airport will open, trouble free, on September 28th this year as scheduled. According to published reports, he said he was worried prior to the flights something would go wrong -- a far cry from his solidly confident comments in the lead-up to those flights. It'll be interesting to see what happens come September 28th. [Friday, August 4, 2006] * * * * * * * * * * The political impasse gripping the country since early this year seems to be moving towards resolution, despite some shortcomings in the current constitution coming into the limelight. Perhaps most significantly, the current caretaker government has remained in power substantially longer than the constitutionally-mandated length of time after a call for new elections has been made, but it seems there's no way around that: that a country has to have a government is obvious, time limits or not. His Majesty the King has proven to be the moral pillar establishing stability and the one to push matters towards resolution. He basically told the judicial system to get it together and sort matters out -- a request various courts moved swiftly to fulfill. The widely-disgraced members of the Election Commission seen to have made a complete mess of the elections resulting from the snap call for new elections and who insisted they remain in place to organize and supervise the new election slated for this coming October are finally gone, having been convicted of criminal offenses and sentenced to prison terms of four years and loss of political rights for ten years; they sent their resignations together with their plea for bail in their final appeal to the courts. (They were initially refused but then granted bail.) The current ruling party, Thai Rak Thai, likely will emerge victorious in the upcoming election, given its formidable support in the provinces. (That gives rise to the thought that the surveys one reads in the domestic media are unreliable as indicators, for the simple reason they tend to be conducted amongst respondents only in Bangkok, or, at best, in Bangkok and environs -- thus missing the unasked-and-therefore-silent majority of voters outside the local area. Those silent ones usually differ mightily from their capital brethren.) Although observers on all sides predict a Thai Rak Thai victory, they also predict it will be with a reduced majority, perhaps a significantly reduced one, which could lead to a sea change in the overall governance of the nation. Some welcome while others dread, even fear, the possibility of such a change. Thank goodness for the King. Until he spoke out, with his 60 years of experience as monarch, everything was in turmoil, floundering -- and with no end in sight. But once he spoke, things began to become focused -- towards resolving the crisis. (I've long felt were my homeland, the U.S., to opt to change its government to a constitutional monarchy we could only hope to have monarchs even just half as good as the King of Thailand.) Now matters are in a lull. Opposition parties have agreed to participate in October's election, which will give it a feeling of legitimacy the earlier election lacked, when opposing parties boycotted that election. Protestors are off the streets (much to the relief of Bangkokians in particular, many of whose lives were seriously disrupted by the protests). Despite my being an armchair student of politics, I'm glad to see matters moving towards normalcy and stability. [Friday, August 4, 2006] * * * * * * * * * * This question arose in a discussion forum to which I subscribe, and it got me thinking, for the umpteenth time, just what it is that brings such deep objections to the use of the words "Orient" and "Oriental." One commentator in the referenced forum said he has a Thai wife who strongly objects to being called "Oriental" on the grounds there is no such place as "the Orient." Well, the Europeans who first made contact with countries in this part of the world indeed went east -- and as a noun "orient" means "east" -- so I reckon it is a place, in global terms. The venerable Oxford English Dictionary's online Compact Oxford English Dictionary defines the noun as "the countries of the East, especially east Asia." Nothing objectionable there, is there? The moderator who started the discussion thread said his research shows the term is found objectionable primarily in America; about that I have no way of knowing. As an American, I do know many people there find the term "Oriental" -- though not "the Orient" -- objectionable, but I've never understood that point of view. After all, a fair number of the people in this part of the world refer to Europeans, North Americans, and to a lesser extent, Latin Americans, not to mention Caucasians in general (so as not to leave out, for instance, Caucasian Australians and New Zealanders) as "Westerners," so why in the world should a native of this part of the world object to being called "Oriental" -- "Easterner"??? Further -- and this is the primary reason I give such objections short shrift -- it's very common for folks in this part of the world to use less-than-flattering terms to refer to Westerners. For instance, in northern China, where Mandarin holds sway as the spoken language, it's practically universal to refer to Western foreigners, especially Caucasian ones, as "foreign devils." In Cantonese-speaking areas of the mainland, the term of preference is "ghost." Yes, both dialects have other, less offensive terms -- but they're seldom heard. So how does someone who calls me a foreign devil find it objectionable if he learns I have told a friend of mine I know this really nice Oriental? Yet I've had that happen. Some argue "Asian" is neutral, but the problem there is the question of just where we mean when we say "Asia." CNN's weather map, for instance, includes everything on the Eurasian land mass east of what is commonly called "the Mideast." Yet how many of us think of, say, St. Petersburg as being an "Oriental" city? For that matter, how many of us think of Vladivostok as such a city -- when it most assuredly fits the Compact OED's definition. Political correctness is boring. That's not to say that common courtesy is; it isn't. There are many terms that are objectionable in some contexts, but not other contexts. I had a -- what's the politically correct term these days? -- Afro-American (in my younger days) roommate in university; he affectionately would introduce me to his like-colored friends as "my honky roommate" -- and it was crystal-clear there was no ill-will in the term "honky," not in that context. Maybe we ought to turn this business about "the Orient" on its head. People from North America tend to come to this part of the world traveling east to west, while people from this neck of the woods tend to travel west to east -- so maybe we North Americans should think of ourselves as Orientals and the folks here as Westerners! Hey -- maybe this is an idea whose time has come! (Hm -- maybe not.) [Friday, August 4, 2006] * * * * * * * * * * Color-Coded Cards for Imbibers? Now here's an idea whose time really may have come in this football-crazy country: yellow and red cards for those overindulging in alcoholic beverages. (For my vocabulary-impaired -- is that the politically-correct term??? ;-) -- fellow U.S. citizens, "football" is what we -- alone -- are pleased to insist on calling "soccer.") I just read a story in the Asian edition of CNN online about a few bars in New Zealand using just such a system. Start to get tipsy, and the bartender gives you a yellow card. Go over the top and get red-carded, which means in the barkeep's judgment, not only do you need any more booze but also need to depart the premises. Easing the humiliation of being red-carded is the "prize" that comes with El Toro's least-favorite color: the card can be redeemed -- at least the next day, at the soonest -- for a free drink. (Good thing for the bars' finances a customer can't get more than one red card per day!) Seriously, this might be an idea for here, at least in some bars, in some cases. Bars with a sports theme might fight it logical to use such a system. On the other hand, even if a bar is entirely devoted to football (the world variety), it might not be wise for a barkeep to be expected to give a complete stranger even just a yellow card. Maybe neighborhood bars, whatever their theme, might be the ideal candidates, since those bars tend to draw regulars. Bar personnel and owners in New Zealand face the same unpleasant consequences as their fellows in numerous other countries do if they don't keep an eye on their patrons' alcoholic intake. In the case of that antipodal country, there are the possibilities of fines and loss of a liquor license if the rules aren't followed. The card system is said to be injecting some light-heartedness into what otherwise might be an unpleasant situation. And getting a colored card is a sight more pleasant than the system used in bars in the Old West: in those days, the bartender would simply pull a great, big shotgun from under the bar to calm an overly-festive patron down. (Have you ever stared down the barrel of any gun? Heck, a .22 pistol looks like a 155mm howitzer artillery cannon -- when it's pointed at your precious self!) Good on our Kiwi friends for what's potentially a great idea. [Friday, August 4, 2006] * * * * * * * * * * Macau on Course to Surpass Las Vegas A report in today's Bangkok Post headlined "Bet on Macau to be bigger than Vegas" reports that total legal gambling revenues to go up in 2007 to around 8 billion U.S. dollars from an estimated take this year of around US$ 6.8 billion -- a rather astonishing 18% increase year on year. If this comes to pass, Macau will surpass Las Vegas, in terms of gambling income, as the world's premier gambling destination. The report also say there are 25 hotels and casinos planned to be built over the next five years. Macau is changing at an incredible rate, as is the entire Pearl River Delta, a triangle roughly anchored by Guangzhou, Macau, and Hongkong. When I went there in 1999 for the first time since leaving nearly 5½ years earlier, I was stunned by the degree of change. And when I was last there, this past Christmas, it had changed even more. It's no longer a sleepy little backwater worthy of nothing more than a day trip from Hongkong, its far larger and still more glamorous neighbor -- more glamorous in world travelers' eyes, at least for now. At a guess I would say that when the famous Sands opened in Macau, it turned a lot of heads among investors who previously might have dismissed the notion of making a major investment of that sort in the enclave. Macau is easy to reach these days, boasting its own airport -- built on reclaimed land -- making landing and taking off there remind one of the long-gone Kai Tak Airport in Hongkong. And if you fly into Hongkong, there's a Macau Ferry Terminal right there, making it convenient to take a jetfoil to the city. (The cruise takes about an hour.) * * * * * * * * * * Enough for one go . . . Until next time -- Mekhong Kurt
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