New Mandala

I must admit that I had mixed feelings when I see pictures of bomb shells in Laos. A feeling of a guilty person, for up until my mid 30s I never knew what happened in part of my mother’s land. How ignorant is that? And yet a feeling of at last I have opened [...]

[Read more →]

In my last post I discussed the decline of Chiang Khong’s Wat Luang port and the Wat Luang Boat Operators’ Association. How can we understand such change in the context of the subregional development of river trade? First, the large long-distance Lao cargo boats that cross the river to load at Chiang Khong do [...]

[Read more →]

This is not an image from Phuket’s famous Simon Caberet. In fact, it is from an exciting Lao story uncovered, after diligent research, by regular New Mandala reader and contributor, Jakkrit:
Keochinda Keosuliya, 21 triumphed at the First Miss Apone Lao Beauty pageant, held on Saturday, causing quite a stir among those who had been following [...]

[Read more →]

Echoing many previous Australian reports on the issue (one of which won a recent journalism prize), today’s Australian carries an article headlined Students turn away from Asia. 
In today’s report, a number of distinguished Australian scholars of Asia are quoted responding to former World Bank president James Wolfensohn’s assertion that ”our young people are really not putting the effort in to [...]

[Read more →]

Bhutan’s Crown Prince Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck - the subject of a newly composed song titled “Precious Prince of Hearts” - has been awarded an honorary doctorate by Rangsit University.  Back in August, I briefly discussed the ongoing cultural currency of this Bhutanese Crown Prince in the Thai scene.  His iconic status is something that I still feel is worthy of [...]

[Read more →]

Thanks, again, to Patiwat, for drawing our attention to a key political statement, this time from “respected intellectual” Prawase Wasi. The Nation carries a summary of Prawase’s manifesto for what I like to call “sufficiency democracy“:
The new constitution should reduce the power and number of MPs and help bureaucrats be independent from politicians, respected intellectual [...]

[Read more →]

In The Legend of the Golden Boat, Andrew Walker spends a whole chapter talking about the significance of a small local port in Chiang Khong district of Chiang Rai (Thailand) in relation to its local authority in the Lao long-distance river trading regime. Standing at the Wat Luang port, Walker revealed the active role of [...]

[Read more →]

Tonight, University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Thongchai Winichakul will be lecturing in London on the topic, “Thailand’s Coup: A Step Forward in a Dangerous Direction“.  The talk will be held at the Royal Asiatic Society, 14 Stephenson Way, London NW1 2HD , from 5-7pm.
For the benefit of readers who can’t make it along, New Mandala will carry coverage [...]

[Read more →]

It is often hard for urban Thai perceptions of the rural to strike an appropriate middle ground. On the one hand there is the romantic imagery of honest and hard working agriculturalists living simple and sufficient lives, in harmony with the environment and each other. On the other hand there are images of a money [...]

[Read more →]

Over the last three years, northern Laos has been seized by a rubber fever unknown in the agricultural history of the country. Rubber, initially introduced by Lao farmers from China through a well-knit trans-border network of kin and friends, has been promoted by the Lao government as a miraculous antidote that will rescue thousand of [...]

[Read more →]