Prominent campaigns for “social order” litter the highways and byways of upper mainland Southeast Asia. I am - I must confess – a bit of a fanatic for all this roadside social policy and have a big collection of signs and ephemera that I have snapped over the years. Once upon a time, with a spare [...]
Sign-Up for Social Crusades
August 15th, 2006 by Nicholas Farrelly · 1 Comment
Tags: Burma · Snapshots · Thailand
Siamese Northern Exposure
August 15th, 2006 by Nicholas Farrelly · 6 Comments
Since my last visit to Mae Sai, a spruced up sign has been erected to mark the northern-most point of the country.
The Thai reads: “The Northernmost point of Siam(ese Territory)”. This is an interesting way of expressing a geographic claim in modern day “Thailand”. Of course, other things around here still use Siam – but this is a particularly prominent [...]
Tags: Burma · Snapshots · Thailand
The arboreal nation
August 15th, 2006 by Andrew Walker · 1 Comment
On the Queen’s birthday villages from Baan Tiam in northern Thailand assembled to plant trees to honour Her Majesty. After a short, but rather formal, opening ceremony the villagers were despatched to a selected area of forest to start planting. Some worked diligently; others gathered bamboo shoots; and some found excuses to leave early. But [...]