"The Rounds" July 7, 2006

"They sleep safely in their beds because rough men stand ready in the night
to visit violence on those that would do them harm." -- George Orwell

Not a particularly pleasant thought for peaceful, genteel people to consider, but one all of them should consider, agreed? If not for such men -- and in this era, also some women -- who would deal with the barbarians at the gates?

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The annual celebration of American Independence Day was held this past Saturday, and was quite successful.

As usual since I first started attended, I was a foot soldier, making periodic rounds to collect money from various places so as to take it to a well-guarded room, where a committee member kept running totals of the income. Because I was working, I missed much of the party, but it was obvious during my rounds that everyone was having a grand time of it.

The turnout this year was surprisingly high -- 1,120 -- considering there was a fairly late change of date (originally scheduled for next Saturday) and a pretty major change of venue away from the New International School of Thailand on Sukhumvit Soi 15 (the grounds of which were simply unavailable this year during the time frame required.

The setting this year was the Bangkok Patana School on Sukhumvit Soi 105, a soi also known as Soi Lasalle -- sois here have actual names in addition to number names -- an important point, given that the street sign on the corner of Sukhumvit Road and the soi says "Soi Lasalle," not "Soi 105."

In some important ways, this venue is better than the N.I.S.T. grounds. For one thing, there is ample parking, something entirely unavailable on the grounds of N.I.S.T. For another, the grounds are far more spacious than at the previous venue. That leads to the third factor, i.e., breezes came much more often there than on Soi 15, breezes that helped cool things on that heavily overcast day. Finally, though not an open concern of attendees, the grounds at Bangkok Patana School are considerably easier to defend than those at N.I.S.T., the latter surrounded by high rises and bordering a khlong. Unfortunately, in these times, security is a major concern. That said, I wasn't in the least concerned (nor was I at N.I.S.T.) because the even is far better protected than is visible. There were no security events.

I mentioned the breezes and the overcast. Throughout the majority of the time, there were sporadic sprinkles that helped keep the edge of the heat and humidity. (Why couldn't my ancestral compatriots have signed the Declaration of Independence during the COOL season??? -- I think an Independence day on, say, December 1st would be just fine!)

There were the usual games and food offerings, the latter all traditional Fourth of July offerings. Riding back with the guy whom I assisted and some of his Thai staff from his restaurant down in Pattaya he had drafted to assist in various places for others, one said staff mildly complained there wasn't any Thai food at the event, and wondered why. Hey, I don't go to a Thai holiday involving food or a Thai village wedding expecting MacDonald's, so I reckon it's fair enough for us Yanks to settle for hot dogs, burgers, barbequed ribs, Dairy Queen ice cream, and apple pie -- not to mention American beer and soft drinks! ;-) And both I and the other American sad so.

I did get to see much of the fireworks displays, one of the better ones each year. Yes, there are others more spectacular, notably Loy Khrathong and His Majesty the King's Birthday, to name but two, the the Independence Day one is nice.

I also managed to miss one event I would have loved to have been present for: listening to U.S. Ambassador Ralph L. "Skip" Boyce sing "The Star Spangled Banner," the U.S. national anthem. Friends who did here Ambassador Boyce give his rendition all praised him highly, both for the wonderfulness of his rendition and for his beautiful voice. I have had the pleasure of meeting the Ambassador, but those of my friends who have uniformly say he's a great guy, both personally and as a diplomat -- he speaks fluent Thai, and has served here in the past in a lesser position, so no one's going to get one past him! Besides, he's a career diplomat, not, say, some business magnate appointed for political reasons. (Those political appointees really ought to be banned for such senior posts -- remember that Ambassadors serve at the pleasure of the President, with consent of the U.S. Senate. We really don't need good ol' boys and girls in such senior foreign positions.)

I did see a letter to the editor yesterday in one of the local papers I would like to address.

The organizers of the event had set it up to have shuttle buses run from very near the Soi Onnut station of the Sky Train, the terminus of the Skytrain closest to the venue. At the Soi Onnut station, there were many signs directing one which specific exit down to take, and once at ground level, there were signs pointing one straight ahead maybe a hundred meters to a proper bus stop, from whence the shuttle buses departed. There were eight buses, so the shuttle were quite regular.

Anyway, the letter-writer complained that it took him about three hours to reach this year's site. He did not say what time he traveled, so I can't say if he hit heavy late afternoon traffic, but I can tell my own experience. I walked out of a Washington Square establishment, crossed Sukhumvit Road, stopped at a 7-Eleven to make a quick purchase, walked the 100+ meters to the Skytrain Station adjacent to The Emporium, ascended the stairs, bought my ticket, rode the train, descended at the Soi Onnut Station, walked to the bus stop, board the waiting shuttle bus, and rode to the grounds of Bangkok Patana School. Total elapsed time? Just over forty minutes. And I was on a schedule, because I was assisting.

The writer further complained about the remoteness of the venue. Well, yes, for those of us who live in the area of Sukhumvit Road near N.I.S.T., Soi 15 is more convenient than Soi 105. But I myself know several American expatriates who live in the vicinity of this year's site, and they were delighted -- as were people who came up from Pattaya-Jomtien and Hua Hin-Cha'am, for whom the site this year was far more convenient than the N.I.S.T. one.

My hat's off to the Star Spangled Coalition for yet another successful Fourth of July celebration. And my hat's off to Ambassador Boyce for his performance.

For those of you who bought raffle tickets but don't know if you won a prize, check the Independence Day website periodically.

As anyone who knows anything about Thailand knows, we're in the midst of the rainy season here. Happens every year.

Some folks seem unable to grasp the plot of just how the rainy season works, fail even after having lived here a number of years.

Folks, it can be sunny when you step out your door -- and ten minutes later visibility is reduced to maybe five meters, thanks to the heavy downpour which just moved in just now.

This happens frequently this time of year. Over the past several days, most days have been overcast as the clock moved into late afternoon, with nary a drop of water falling from the leaden skies. Then, without warning, the bottom dropped out of the clouds and great deluges of water hammered the area. And drenched those unfortunate folks caught outdoors with no cover in sight -- and no umbrella.

That people do get caught out never ceases to amaze me. The usual response they give when I ask where their umbrella: "It wasn't raining when I came out," a weak response, weakly, sometimes faintly guiltily, given.

Of course, if a person knows nothing of Thailand and has never been here before (one variant of a "Newbie"), one can understand. But I'm thinking of those folks who've lived here for years on end and still manage not to get it.

Me? I carry a shoulder bag, and one item that's in that bag every single day of the year is a small umbrella. I carry it even during the cool and hot seasons, since though rain during those seasons is rare, it does come once in awhile. There are even collapsible umbrellas that closed are short enough, closed, to shove into your hip pocket or purse.

But if you prefer to take a shower in the rain with your clothes on, by all means, have at it! ;-) [Tuesday, July 4, 2006]

Bob from the Office Bar & Grill just off Sukhumvit Soi 33 has become involved in the place across the drive from The Office, i.e., Mojo's. The latter venue is now offering live music, as Bob announced in an e-mail the other day.

I've not had a chance to listen to this band, but I've seen other performers Bob has hired, and he's really, really, really good at choosing crowd-pleasing performers, so I have complete faith that the group described below is of the usual quality Bob chooses.

MOJO'S

SUKHUMVIT SOI 33

ARE PROUD TO PRESENT

MARIA BAND

DIRECT FROM

THE HARD ROCK CAFE

PATTAYA

POP - ROCK - HARDCORE

LIVE ON STAGE

EVERY

WED - FRI - SAT

BLAST OFF 8.15 PM

COME AND ENJOY

THE TALENTS OF THIS

FANTASTIC BAND

CHEERS BOB

Though I'm not a golfer, I know a lot of folks around here are, so when a friend involved in promoting the Mission Hills Golfathon in Shenzhen, China asked me to mention it here, I readily agreed. (The link is to the Mission Hills website dedicated solely to this tournament.) Here's the poster my friend provided:

If you're an avid golfer, you might want to take a look at this tournament. I can't tell you anything to speak of about Shenzhen, other than it's the border city directly across from Hongkong. I passed through it from Hongkong by car returning from a town beyond Shenzhen. I can say crossing the border was a nightmare of hauling luggage up and down stairways (escalators? -- you have to be kidding!), waiting in length immigration lines going and coming, etc. It's possible to fly directly into Shenzhen from Bangkok; Bangkok Airways has two flights, one Fridays and Sundays with a 7:40 A.M. departure, the other Tuesdays and Thursdays with a 4:30 P.M. departure, that's the way to go in terms of convenience. (Some mainland China or Hongkong carrier may be serving the route, but if so, I'm unaware of it; check with your travel agent.) If you decide to fly into Hongkong for whatever reason, don't cross the border on foot; take a Hongkong-Shenzhen ferry, a considerably nicer way to get back and forth than crossing the border by land. In the above-mentioned sojourn to a town north of Shenzhen, I traveled from Hongkong to Shenzhen by ferry.

I'm not 100% certain of the information I'm about to pass along, but since it s been true in the past, I don't suppose matters will be any different this year.

First, Buddhist Lent, or Khao Phansa, begins Tuesday, July 11, 2006. I'm guessing bars will have to close from 6:00 P.M. Monday night right through until Wednesday morning.

Second, there are Bangkok-only elections Sunday, July 23, 2006. I think the same rule applies here -- close at 6:00 P.N. Saturday and remain closed until Monday. (This date is complicated by the ongoing political turmoil.)

Surprisingly, for the Thonglor Police District, home to venues such as Washington Square, Queen's Park Plaza, Sukhumvit Soi 33, and Soi Cowboy, has already had a notice delivered to at least one bar I know; I saw it this morning. Usually, Thonglor is infamous for waiting until the very last minute to give such notifications, meaning that when it's not clear whether a bar has to close or not, the owners often don't know in time to tell their workers not to report for work on the day in question.

There's another interesting point about these police notifications. They don't use phrasing such as "You will close . . ." or "You are ordered/directed/instructed to close . . ." The operative verb is, instead, "request." Ha-ha. More than one bar owner has discovered, to his or her cost, that a police request is no such thing at all -- it is a de facto order. (One bar owner friend tried to open at midnight at the end of the day he was "requested" to close. Shortly thereafter, a couple of police officers came in and told him to shut down. His Thai wife argued, pointing out the date specified in the notification and pointing to the calendar, emphasizing the day they had been asked to close had come and gone. Then the man told the police to hit the road. Well, they di -- only to return shortly thereafter with a bunch of riot-baton-carrying police, who told the man and his wife they were closing, whether they liked it or not.)

By the way, I know the U.S. Embassy is closed the 11th, so I'm assuming all embassies and consulates, Thai government offices, banks, public schools, etc. will also be closed. [Wednesday, July 5, 2006]

There was a relatively mild earthquake in the Beijing area a few days ago, one variously reported, initially, as having been somewhere between 5.1 and 5.3 on the Richter scale. While that's not a crust-buster such as the massive quake that hit Indonesia at the end of 2004 (and which caused a tsunami right across the Indian Ocean all the way to the east coast of Africa), nor as bad as the quake that killed tens of thousands in Pakistan last year, it's still an attention-getter, particularly with the 2008 Olympics looming.

The areas around Beijing have been fortunate not to suffer a truly major earthquake since the Tongshan Earthquake of 1976. Tongshan is a city not so far from Beijing, and the earthquake was centered there. Official death toll estimates ad,it about 250,000 dead in Tongshan alone; the almost always far more reliable street intelligence puts the death toll in the range on 1,000,000 -- most of the city's population at the time. The toll was high in other places as well; in Tianjin, the first city that I worked in 1985-86, there were about 80,000 deaths -- and Tianjin is well over a hundred kilometers from Tongshan.

It seems the tectonic plates are really acting up over the last year or two. It wasn't that long ago a volcano in Indonesia had everyone on the edge of their chairs, though in the event, no tragedy occurred. (Thank goodness for that; another major natural disaster is just about the last thing Indonesia needs.)

Te area encompassing Beijing is a somewhat active seismic area. It's possible when you are in that region you may detect a faint tremor, as I did one Saturday morning in Tianjin. Faint tremors are fine with me -- as I understand it, small tremors are signs of the safety valve releasing pressure before The Big One.

In this most recent Beijing quake, there were no reports of any significant property damage nor of any injuries or deaths. Still, we have to accept we live adjacent to the Ring of Fire that encircles the Pacific Ocean.

If you have plans to go to Beijing or the areas around it, I would urge you to go ahead. Yes, it's possible a truly major earthquake could strike, but the Chinese are pretty darned good about reading the warning signs. My ex-wife, a native of Beijing, was 12 years old at the time of the Tongshan Earthquake, and she always told me her parents followed government suggestions to the letter -- and they suffered no loss or injury. [Friday, July 7, 2006]

What a mess this is, one that has dragged on for months, and ell could drag on for months more. Media reports say the economy has taken something of a hit as foreign investors pause, apparently waiting to see what sort of resolution comes of of matters.

Various parties are involved in the fray -- I don't mean just political parties, but different groups and individuals as well, each seemingly intent on outmaneuvering the rest.

Not least of concern is the legality of some group's functioning. For instance, the media claims a quorum for the Election Commission is four, yet that agency is said to be operating on three members' say. Are the decisions of less-than-a-quorum binding?

The opposition to the Thaksin government is beginning to wear thin on some folks' nerves. Some Thais feel that opposition political parties were themselves undemocratic in boycotting the now-voided April 2nd polls.

While openly acknowledging I'm hardly an expert on Thai politics, it does seem to me that most of the parties involved are taking a "I-win-all/You-lose-everything" approach, an approach hardly calculated to lead to calm, reasoned compromise. For that matter, given the bitterness all around, I have to wonder if compromise is entirely beyond the pale.

It was reassuring today to read in a newspaper that a senior military figure has said the military is not interested in coming out of the barracks and launching a coup. He reportedly said that in fact, the troops badly want to stay in the barracks -- and off the streets.

It appears that during the past week the ante has gone up rather drastically. The Prime Minister is said -- let me stress "is said" to have told senior government officials Thursday of last week that a charismatic figure was seeking the overthrow of his government by extra-constitutional means. Many apparently thought he meant the widely respected former prime minister, elder statesman, and current President of the Privy Council, General Prem. In Thaksin's defense, he gave absolutely no clue as to the identity of the person, so to assume it was General Prem is something of a risky stance. Since that came out, some have even said he was obliquely referring to His Majesty the King, but I personally feel that's complete nonsense. The opposition certainly didn't help its cause by saying it's on the side of the King and asking people to declare their stance. There can be no doubt that everyone on every side of the dispute love, admire, and support His Majesty.

A few people have e-mailed me to tell me I shouldn't worry about the domestic political situation since it isn't, in their view, any of my concern.

I live here, and the citizens of Thailand are my hosts. Of course I care about their well-being, happiness, and satisfaction -- care if for no other reason than unmitigated self-interest. If my hosts aren't happy with their home situation, they likely aren't going to waste any time trying to make me feel welcome and comfortable. But self-interest is far from the only reason I do care. I cared even as a child in Mexico. I cared the times I lived in mainland China. I cared when I lived in Macau. And I still care, in particular, about those places, though I no longer live in them.

I don't fear a coup; even were one to come about, it almost certainly wouldn't affect me very much so long as I minded my ways.

I increasingly fear street violence as the sides become increasingly and hostilely polarized. I don't mean fear for myself; I would avoid trouble spots. Again, I mean I care for the Thais' sake.

Don't look for a rapid resolution; it's almost certainly not coming anytime in the immediate term. [Friday, July 7, 2006]

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