New Mandala

The Nation ramps up its selective attack on Thailand’s poor:
What was wrong with Thaksin’s populist policies was that they were rife with corruption and they pandered to the unprincipled wants and needs of the beneficiaries. In many instances, cheap loans, such as those under the Village Fund, aimed to encourage villagers to develop entrepreneurial [...]

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Here is a summary (circulated by email) of the presentation by Sondhi Limthongkul in Seattle. It is written by anthropologist and Thai scholar Charles Keyes.
On November 14, 2006, Khun Sondhi Limthongkul spoke on the campus of the University of Washington in Seattle about the Thai political situation. His visit was arranged by Thai students at [...]

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According to a report in The Nation, a new Khon Kaen University study has focussed on the cultural impact of “Thai-Westerner marriages“.  Briefly, it found that:
…foreign son-in-laws had caused the community-oriented Northeasterners to become the more individualistic and give less attention to social interaction
The report continues by noting (my emphasis) that:
The wives still ate somtam, [...]

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In late August 2006 I snapped this artifact of the now defunct Thaksin government.  Having not been back to Chiang Mai province since then, I am not certain that all prominent billboards associated with Thaksin’s administration have been removed by the coup-masters.  I imagine that this one, right next to Tapae Gate on one of the city’s [...]

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