ปกิณกะ ไทย
I posted about interesting items information I found, write my views on books I read, education, science and technology, Buddhism and meditation, economic and business, music, and movies, country and rural development. Articles are in English or Thai.
I have stressed my eyes too much these days. Regardless of my MBP 's screen quality, stared at the screen over 10 hr a day was bad. Few days ago, it 's time to change the bad habit of eyeballing the notebook screen a bit. I went to shop at Chulalongkorn University book center at Siam Square, to get some good books to read.
I will note down here what I have been reading in the past 2 days.
It is a Thai translation of a book in Spanish, Dejame que te cuente, by Jorge Bucay. The translation is very nice, and the text is quite enjoyable to read. The Thai title is จะเล่าให้คุณฟัง
The translator has done quite a good job and I 'd like to thank her for a good contribution for Thai readers. I would like to thank also the Butterfly Book House, a publisher in Thailand, for producing a lot of good quality translated works for Thais to enjoy. Some of the tales inside would be useful metaphors for the Thais involved in politics these days.
Here is the picture of the Thai translated softcover, first published in mid 2010.
There is a news in Thai local media that "Knowing Buddha" group will organize a campaign to rally for appropriate treatment of Buddha images and his names on June 30th.
Buddhists have been upset, although usually kept quiet, about non-Buddhists naming of bars, restaurants, merchandises, pets, etc. after Buddha, considering that as highly disrespect. Uses of his images or sculptures as mere decorative objects in various places rather than in a place of worship, are also considered unacceptable.
From his conclusion at the end, we need to control how we consume information, like we control our quality and quantity of foods. We need also to exercise. I think I personally agree and will take precaution out of his suggestion. I have felt that I have information overloads and spent too much time processing them, not enough creating new stuff in the past. That is one point I want to make.
On another aspect, I think of situation in Thailand these days, we have had too much intended public misinformations, or rather propaganda, and lies, which are equivalent to a lot of junk foods here. Future historians interested in Thailand of this era will surely have a hard time sifting through information, e.g. in reported news, to determine which one is real which one is fabrication, and what facts were left out due to self-censorships. But that is their future problems. However, the more pressing problem for the current generation of Thais is that the majority of the Thai population have been subjected in the past few years to extensive misinformation, propaganda and plain lies, and information black out for political gains from factions with various ideologies, some extreme. This is more of a concern, since most of the population has no way to know that they have been fed with junk foods laced with toxins. And this will serve as political time bomb and could break havoc on the society.
ผมเพิ่งอ่านหนังสือแปลเล่มหนึ่งจบ หลังจากซื้อหนังสือมาหลายเล่ม ช่วงสัปดาห์หนังสือแห่งชาติ เล่มนี้มีชื่อว่า "ความรุ่งเรืองของเงินตรา ประวัติศาสตร์การเงินโลก" แปลจาก The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World เขียนโดย Prof. Niall Ferguson แปลโดย อรนุช อนุศักดิ์เสถียร ผมเห็นว่าเป็นหนังสือที่ให้ความรู้มาก ผู้แปลก็แปลได้ดี อ่านแล้วทำให้ผมเกิดความเข้าใจว่า พัฒนาการของระบบการเงินของโลกที่ทำให้คนเชื้อสายยิวในยุโรปและอเมริกาเข้าครอบครองโลกและมีอิทธิพลเหนือรัฐบาลต่างๆ ของโลก ทำให้เกิดการเอาเปรียบคนส่วนใหญ่ของโลก และริบเอาทรัพยากรของโลกส่วนมากไปไว้ในกำมือ พร้อมทั้งทำลายสิ่งแวดล้อมของโลกอย่างมหาศาล มีความเป็นมาอย่างไร
During my meditation this morning, my mind remembered that 2 days ago was Vesak day, what we call วิสาขบูชา in Thai language. It is on the 15th waxing-moon night, or the full moon night of the sixth lunar calendar, usually in May of the solar calendar. Over 26 centuries ago, Prince Sidhartha was born in 80 B.B.E. , then became enlighten when he was 29 years old, and entered Parinirvana (passed away) when he was 80 years old, on this very important same lunar date but in different years. So the important date is the waxing full moon night of the 6th lunar calendar. It has been like that since I remember from my childhood.
Makapuja day is on the full moon night of the third lunar month. Asarnhapuja is in the eight lunar month.
There is only one problem for lunar calendar. Every four years, there is one leap year. And in that case, Asarnhapuja day has been moved forwarded one month, into the so called second eight lunar month. (I guess they don't want to call it the ninth month to avoid confusion of having 13 lunar months in leap year.)
But this leap year, as far as I notice is weird. All the Thai calendar move not only Asarnhapuja day, but also Makapuja day, and Visak day, one month forward as well. I don't know why "they" do it. Nor do I know who "they" are.
Many of the Buddhist monks I revered don 't change their Vesak and Makapuja dates after the schedules in this leap year calendar. They sticked to the traditional 6th lunar month for Vesak and the 3rd month for Makapuja. So I can't help but make a note here in my blog about this.
As far as I am concerned, I will stick to my master monk, who regard the Vesak as in the 6th lunar month, i.e. just 2 days ago. Others can choose next month date as they wish.
I would like to point out to a (Thai language) reprint of an interview of a Thai senior editor of books at the Butterfly Press. He gave several insights on problems concerning Thailand's Book publishing industry, state of reading by Thai population, etc.
Very good. I wish there were a Thai bookworm education minister who would read this and rectify the situation.
After almost 40 years, since the time I was ordered to go to the Thailand National Library near the Wasukri pier by one of my late high school teachers (at Suankularb), I just had free time for a visit to the same building again, this time as a grey-hair man. My old memory came back.
This time, I spent around 2 hours looking around various old reading rooms, and browse books on the shelves. It has not changed. (New building behind is just barely occupied so I did not visit.) The number of books are just marginal, although sufficient for casual browsing. No wonder I spent almost my 40 years somewhere elses, at my former universities' libraries as well as my own home library. Nevertheless, I 'll be back, for there are a number of books that I don't have in my home collection.
Back at home, I just found a copy of Thai article on the web, written for Matichon newspaper which reflect the sad situation of the Thai National Libraries. I hope the link below to the article in my blog will echo further this plight of Thai scholars with regard to the limitation of resources for the public a bit more. We talk about its holding size here. And I do not even start discussing digitization of its holding yet.
I am reading a book by Raj Patel "The Value of Nothing" (Thai translation), and like it a lot. It opens my eyes about the illusion and flaws of current market capitalism.
I just found a video "interview" of the author below.
I just found a nice repository of Thai language PDF articles, from recent academic conferences, about contemplative education, wisdoms, insights, development of intelligence. I have downloaded a number of articles for my reading in the future. Many of the articles look like the authors have adopted Buddhist philosophy, which is good in my opinion. I am now trying to study western philosophy in order to find flaws in western's thinking based on my personal background of Buddhist Metaphysics (Abhidhamma) and molecular biology studies.
I just watched this vdo clip of Ajahn Brahm 's teaching entitled "Big Bang Buddhism" and I like it a lot. I'll probably watch it again. He is a senior monk who had studied theoretical physics in his early years. Recommend.
Yesterday, I visited "Wat Phutthachai" วัดพระพุทธฉาย , which means "the temple of the Buddha's radiated picture", in Saraburi province. According to local legend and my vague memory, Lord Buddha visited this small mountain 26 centuries ago, then local people asked Lord Buddha how could people in future generations be able to see him again. So Lord Buddha was kind enough to magically created his image on the side of the mountain as a long lasting gift. This area was rediscovered in the Ayutthaya period, after monks who came back from Ceylon or Serendip (presently Sri Lanka) told a King that there was a story they heard from Ceylon about such place in the Thai kingdom so a kingdom-wide search was conducted which led to its discovery.
The image was worshipped by many Kings and Royalties in the past. It is a nice place and easier to visit, esp. now that an eastern by-pass highway was built. I drove by it several times, until I decided I had to stop to visit it this time.
Look at the map of the border area between Thailand and Cambodia at Khao Praviharn area. From the contour map it can be seen where the border is, or was. Around 1962 (I recall from memory, did not look up), Thailand lost the case againt Cambodia in World court against all odds and was sentenced to surrender the tip of the Khao Praviharn, against the common sense of most laymen, any nationality. I heard that Thailand's position is that she never accept that sentence in full, pending new evidence in the future that can be used to resurrect the case again.
Now, with initiatives of Cambodia, the World court is asking both Thailand and Cambodia to withdraw troop from wider areas. I personally don't believe Cambodia would withdraw their soldiers from the peak. Nor do they plan to withdraw their civilians from the area. I think we are aware of ancient tale about a gentle horse that was squeezed out of its shelter by another hostile horse. Cambodia under the present leadership has been trying to squeeze in their soldiers (without uniforms) and their families to occupy that area, and has been aiming to expand the beach head and thus escalate the situation.
Personally I don't like to see any fighting to erupt since fighting will waste lives of good people from both sides. Soldiers and villagers from that area in both countries are mostly hereditary related and why do they have to kill each other due to a land dispute instigated by certain politician(s). (I don't want to name names, it's against my blogging principle.) We all don't have much time left for our lives. Looking back over multiple centuries of history and anyone can see that border lines usually shifted after some time, even some new countries arose along the way. Usually, it is the politicians who tried to exploit and gain benefits from situation, e.g. to improve their domestic political position while small people are casualties for their actions.
I think Thailand has been cheated of its legitimate border by the World court due to her trust in Western legal system, blindly ignored the omnipresent back-end dealings among powerful western countries, which she should not have. She had a militarily upper hand during the conflict in the 60s. People of both countries would be at perfect peace and better off now had the area was still under Thailand's jurisdiction. And now, 50 years later, some politicians in foreign countries have tried to exploit her situation further. When I drove to that area last year, I sadly could not enter the National park area in my own country their due to occupation by foreign troops. I could not admire its natural beauty in that area, let alone the civilization relics there. I think previous Thailand governments up to the Abhisit government have to accept the responsibility on their past inaction on this issue for decades.
I am about to become a Buddhist monk in the future, so that the way I look at it, and I think that is from a neutral point of view.
P.S. I can't help but recalling well the ending of the tale of the horses. We 'll see.
I just realized that there is a term to describe a personality that I might belong. From a website I found articles written by a Philosophy Professor (I suppose), there is a habit he called "Structured Procrastination". Good reading article, even from the front page. But the linked page is also good. I just realized I must have inherited my mom's Perfectionist trait. Oh, Boy, and I though I was sloppy and unorganized. In a mess, or chaos, there must be hidden ordered structure, I guess. Aha !
At this time of writing this post, I will go to cast a vote in the next few hours for a general election in Thailand. I am not excited about it. I expect a worse political situation after this election day. I expect any wining party to face protest from opposing people. I think a lot of people in Thailand are still in their learning process of democracy. Any adverse condition will be another lesson in a steep learning curve on politics for people in Thai society to learn.
I am not particularly fond of western style democracy in Thailand now. The system has been abused severely by corrupt politicians. I think a better democracy that suit Thai culture better is to integrate many Buddhist peaceful and wisdom-based doctrines into Thai politics. For example, if Thai politicians are forced to obey the 5 precept strictly or they would face impeachment, then Thailand would be free of corruption and people would be much happier.
If someone spent 100 Baht a day for his daily meals and other expenses, but had a daily income of 58 Baht, what would he do ? He would borrow money of 42 Baht each day from somewhere. Right ?
For a typical person, I feel that any lenders would have no realistic time frame as to when they 'd get their money back. They 'd only get daily interests, hopefully paid on time each day. Now what if there is a chance that he might have a problem paying his daily due ?
Now the exemplified case is not a person, but a big government, I can feel the impacts on the World's economy. I am talking about debt of a big country, not debt of a small "developing" country like "Sarakhant".
And the impact on higher oil price is getting to higher food prices, looks like in many countries. Soon there will be chaos everywhere.
From the news, task forces from Royal Thai Navy were sent to rescue stranded tourists on islands (such as Koh Tai and Koh Samui) in the gulf of Thailand, and islands in the Andaman sea. See link above.
I have been to Northern Laos by car recently and it has a serene atmosphere which I enjoyed. So after I heard the news about the high speed railway project from China to Lao, and then to continue to Bangkok in the next few years, I was interested in how the model would fit into the rugged mountainous area of Northern Laos.
I have a nagging feeling that there might be an uncertainty on the construction of the high speed train in Thailand. Thai politicians in the past have shown their capability of delay things. Prime example is Suvarnabhumi airport, which was eventually built some 40 years after its land redemption law was passed.
I think, on one aspect, this is a positive sign for improved regional communication and trade between Southeast Asia and south China after 2016. On the other hand, however, I can't avoid worry about adversed impacts on small Thai agricultural farms and Thai small industries. I think they will be struggling with the flood of lower cost products from China that will come with the train. And Thailand will surely experience more trade deficits with China.
Thailand has opened its first solar electricity generating farm, currently the largest in Asean countries. The "Solar Farm Korat 1", located in Tambon Don Chompoo, Amphor Nonsoong, Nakhon Ratchasima Province in northeast Thailand has around 30,000 solar panels installed in an area of more than 100 Rais (>40 acres). Solar Power Co., Ltd, has invested over 700 million Baht for this farm. It plans to invest up to 2.4 billion Bahts for a total of 34 solar farms in 9 provinces in the noreast by the year B.E. 2556 (2013). For this particular farm, it has a capacity of 6 Megawatts, and is expected to generate income around 430,000 Baht per day by feeding electricity into the provincial grid of the Electrical Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT). The feeding has been started since April B.E. 2553 (2010). Additional farms are in Sakon Nakhon and Nakhon Panom and have been started generating electricity last month and this month as well.
I found a link (above) to this 2007 writing of Ajahn Brahm in a Sri Lankan newspaper from Wikipedia. The article entitied "Buddhism, the only real science". I like the article and would recommend anyone to read it.
In the past few years, I have started to feel uneasy about Loy Kratong festival in Thailand. The latest figure in the news confirmed my gut feeling. This year, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration officials have harvested almost a million Kratong floats from river and canals in Bangkok: 946,838 floats as of 3 a.m. today to be exact. (I am amazed that how exact they could have counted those ! I 'll ignore a possibility that they did not miscount a few.) And about 12 % of those are made of styrofoam which is not bio-degradable.
For hundreds of year in Thailand, Loy Kratong festival is a beautiful festival on a December 's full-moon night when people, few thousands I guess, would bring their small floats made of banana leaf, with flowers, lit candle, and incensed stick to beg pardon from angle of the river. It 's a rare traditional good chance for boys to meet girls at night. Nowadays, however, people attending the festival are in the tune of a million, or 3 fold order of magnitude (1000 x) more. So this the the amount of float garbage is now a big environmental burden to the river and needs to be cleaned up by the city within hours after people went home. I often sighed in my thought at this ceremony around this time of the year.
Despite the complain above about it, I have not started complaining of my dislike of another more dangerous floating (into the air) festival yet, called Yipeng floating.
This is memorable calculator for me, 33 years old Casio FX-110 Scientific calculator.
The price I paid in 1977 was 580 Baht. It has 10 blue-color digits and needs AA-size batteries to operate. I remember well that when I used it in an examination room, such as in a Physical Chemistry class, I needed to have spare batteries to replace otherwise it would not last the entire 3 hr exam session. This one was great gadget, because few years earlier students were still using slide rules.
Around that time, I was still a sophomore student and my mom did not have money but I did not know. I told her I badly needed a calculator to use in exams and she had to get money for me somehow. I appreciate her motherly love, just an example of it, and much more now that she long passed away.
For the benefit of English speakers, I 'd like to add some information here about the content of this original blog.
Cuckoo clock repair shop in Bangkok:-
This is the only shop I know and the mechanic is an authorized technician who has been trained in Germany. His main shop is Black Forest shop, is in Summakorn village project 2, Soi Ramkamhaeng 112, Bangkok.
The owner and technician name is Mr. Apichart, his phone is 087 936 1911. You can try phone him during day time, including weekends.
From today 's Thai news, a criminal court fined a poor Bangkok garbage collection worker, who scavenged from the garbage piles and sold recovered old CDs on a footpath, over 100,000 Bahts for violating the Movie and VDO Act of B.E. 2551. Since he does not have money he would be imprisoned to pay for fine. (Note: Perhaps at a rate of few hundred Baht daily credit of imprisonment he would be jailed for about a year.) The family of the guy would try to borrow money to bail him out and appeal the sentencing. His family member said he did not know that selling old CDs was against such a law.
Thai people around the web expressed their great sympathy for the unfortunate guy, mentioning any irony that rampant selling of illegal copies of software and multimedia exist in the country and real pirates of CDs & DVDs often don't get caught, but poor innocent ones got caught and punished instead.
I wish the appeal court would re-sentence the guy in a more lenient way.
This Hindi song sounds familiar to Buddhists Worldwide. I have heard it since the 1960s after an Indian movie, Angulimal, which was based on a true story in Tipitaka, was shown in Bangkok. Today I just found that someone has uploaded a new version of this song to Youtube. Anumodhami. If you are Buddhists you might like to listen to it and find it mind soothing.
Thai translation of the song lyric I have copied from somewhere is pasted below :-
At Ranong, there is a news reporting that the sea level has increased up to 3 meters and there was flood in many islands and in the areas along sea side. I beleive that this is likely another sign of global warming.
What happened if thousands of skilled workers who worked for decades for an international company were unfairly laid off ? They would feel bitter and fight back ? What if they lost ? Well, some of them might start their own cooperative venture in order to help feed their families. That is how a new local brand of Thai quality lingerie for females, Try Arm, started. The logo of this brand is a raised fist showing their strong determination to fight their destiny and survive. You can guess by yourself from the rhyme of their brand whom they were working for and which company mistreated them.
If you want to support them, please go ahead. Their merchandises are cheap but the quality should be about the same as those of the international brand. (Unfortunately, I can only give them moral support by writing this blog for I can not use their products.)
Above link is toward a Thai article in a Thai magazine, Sarakadee, featuring a prominent conservationists known countrywide for his passion of old stories about Thai art & culture, folk history, people of former generations. Anek Navikamoon, is an author of over 148 books (non-fiction), based entirely on his decades of his detective-like investigations, interviews old people, and photographing in order to record on old stories. He has established a small private museum, House of museums. I admire him. This magazine covered him 20 years ago, and now again 20 years later, with an outstanding award given to him.
If Thailand had more people with exertive passion for worthy things like him, our country would be in much better shape.
Today news from BusinessWeek wrote about the Thai malpractice bill under draft (link given above), with incomplete information, flawed Westerners' viewpoints and far from familiarization with Thai generosity-centric cultural background. To my chagrin, the writer of that news' piece seems to be a Thai. Of course, American readers are that magazine's prime audience, not Thais on the other side of the globe.
I am not a medical practitioner but I have recently heard some of my doctor friends personally voicing their serious disagreement to the current draft under a westerners' model. They said they are being sued already in civil courts once in a while for allegedly giving insufficient care to some demanding patients without this draft law in effect yet. This draft law would make them quit their jobs for they are already fed up with some of those greedy people.
From what I read in Thai newspapers, I don't like the current draft version which will open up a much bigger pandora box of American style law suits against doctors, nurses, assistant medical staff, emergency aid-workers, any passer-by who helped accident victims, etc.
I agree that there should be a law to help some people. But a new version of the bill must make it less likely to be exploited by some bad persons who will likely exploits loopholes on the system for personal financial gains and wreak havoc on the kindness of Thai society. Thai health workers often give free medical assistants, or just for 30 Baht (< $1 USD) a visit charge for a government hospital treatment of any diseases including AIDS (i.e. expensive drugs), they could be naively sued for anything if patients are not satisfied. A non-technical committee proposed in the draft to look into the claims will have no medical experience to deal with those claims. In the current draft bill, doctors, aid-workers and emergency help volunteers will be practically treated as guilty unless proven otherwise later. The system may pay to the claimants upfront, regardless of the validity of the claims. The claimants can still sue in a civil court on top of their getting compensation from this new system. So it will be double whammy for any claimants.
This present draft is discouraging for medical workers in Thailand. In the end, everyone in Thailand will suffer. Helps of good heart will be gone from the Thai society, only financial gains will be the essence. Everyone will sue for their right to get paid. I for one, will not stop my car by to help any accident victims on the road.
Thai people smart enough have been fed up with too many free items given by Thai governments to buy votes for their parties already:- e.g. some free-bus, free-train, free-eletricity (to a level), free water supple (to a level), cheap free medical healthcares. (We also shoulder over 1 million illegal immigrant workers and war-refugees on their medical costs). We are already using our children's money to pay for our "extravaganza" today.
Bangkok has a new public "garden", Buddhadhasa Archive, also known as Suan Mokh of Bangkok, locating at the Railways Garden, near Chatuchak Park. It 's aimed to be a place where people can come to meditate, study works of Buddhadharsa Bhikku. This place was made possible by volunteers and public donations. There will also be weekly Yoga course and music shows from Mahidol University College of Music as well. In addition to Buddhists, people of all faiths are welcomed.
Once a year, our high school class would organize a luncheon with our former teachers at different exotic places in and around Bangkok. This year we set the venue at Dusit Thani hotel, on the top floor restaurant. It 's a nice atmosphere and feeling. Many of my teachers were anxiously waiting for this luncheon, for at their age, it 's not often that they would go out of their homes for social activity. Some of our former teaches who had came to our luncheon in the previous years can not come anymore, for ever. I believe it is a show of good spirit of our alumni who wanted to share our energetic appreciation to our teachers in their post-retirement life. Our teachers also showed their loving care to us with their concern and inquiry about our health, or family. The event reminded us of old fond memories almost 40 years ago.
During the luncheon, our class also invited a very famous Thai singer, Mr. Suthep, over to give his genuine 60s - 70s vocal. His voice is still very good. Comparing his natural and charming style to the current style sung by teenage singers we commonly encounter nowadays, I feel the latter style quite unnaturally over-pretending and too much exertion, trying to westernize their vocal of Thai song, and I don't like that.
This is an unusual men 's restroom on the 22nd floor of Dusit Thani Hotel in Bangkok. Four decades ago, this was on the top floor of the tallest building in Bangkok. It looks funny, giving a strange airy feeling for users. Some people said they did not feel like using it. I also discovered that a familiar Bangkok skyline view of Sukhumvit road from Lumbini park I had seen were likely taken from a window from this location.
In this VDO, dated February 2010, a famous Thai scientist, Dr. Arj-Ong Jumsai Na Ayutthaya, suggested that the Thai capital be moved, to escape from encroaching sea level that will cause future problem for the city's clean water supply. A good location for the new capital should be on a plateau of at least 100 meters above a mean sea level and has no geological fault line in the area. He urged that the city be moved within 10 years. He cited a location in North East, perhaps in an area near Korat as an example.
I think so far politicians have not heard his advise yet.
Now it is raining daily in Thailand and I found that I prefer to exercise by biking in my home office rather than getting wet outside. While doing so, I used to listen to iPod (Dhamma talks more frequently than classical music), or reading non-fiction books. Now I switched over to watched VDOs from my MacbookPro via Miro open-source and free software. Miro is a great software, esp. some of the links given are good.
I like to watch one series in particular, weekly English excerpt of Euromaxx, a German series about culture, designs, music, arts, lifestyle. I think this program opened my eyes a lot. There are over a hundred downloadable episodes, so far, I think I have watched only half of them. But each episode gave me useful ideas. If I were younger, or just a college kid, I would rather grow up wanting to be a designer, or an architect or an artist, and life might be less boring than this. I wish some Thai kids watched this program for they would have more creativity in their heads after they grow up.
