New Mandala

From my research (which has been a little hurried given the impending festivities) there still seems to be no sensible explanation on how Sonthi’s secret billion baht coup fund was spent. I am not an expert on the financing of military operations, but the claim that it was spent on food and drink seems absurd.
Enough [...]

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One of the issues Andrew Walker discusses in The Legend of the Golden Boat is the relationship between grocery shop owners in Chiang Khong and their Lao trader customers. This situation of cross-border business is now undergoing change with a new generation running the Chiang Khong businesses. In the Golden Boat it is personal social [...]

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From today’s Sydney Morning Herald:
The stability created by the coup did not come cheaply. General Sonthi said yesterday the coup leaders had withdrawn 1 billion baht from a secret treasury fund to pay for the operation. “Each of us came out to prevent loss of life, everyone coming out to do it must eat and [...]

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Two soldiers look out over a valley of mist. Kaysone Memorial Cave Office, Vieng Say.
In my previous posts, I mentioned Mentur, and his part in the resettlement of the Hmong in and around Vieng Say. His story raises many questions: what made a man’s search for subsistence into an illegal trespass? Why [...]

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The 200 nominees for Thailand’s Constitution Drafting Assembly (CDA) have been selected by the National People’s Assembly. The nominee gaining the most votes (55) was little known Okas Tepalakul from Chachoengsao province. His selection seems to have taken commentators by surprise and there are even allegations of voting irregularities including, god forbid, vote buying! The [...]

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For years, Matthew McDaniel’s provocatively painted pick-up truck was a common sight around Chiang Rai and Mae Sai. The truck was an instantly recognisable symbol of his Akha Heritage Foundation, an organisation that he founded in 1991 after learning of issues facing northern Thailand’s highland cultures and societies. The other prominent vehicle of [...]

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History I am sure, does not repeat itself, but some Thai scholars have a history of repeating themselves. Two articles published in the Bangkok Post recently reveal their obsession with the idea of a “Thai race”.
The first article is titled “Bones tell story of Thai origin” (Bangkok Post 5/11/06). In short, it explains that the [...]

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The November edition of Ethical Investor featured a substantial profile of the Sepon Gold & Copper Mine in eastern Savannakhet, and its parent company, the Australian Oxiana Limited (Ethical Investor, Nov 2006, Issue 61, pp.14-16). This is the most recent in a long line of publicity that has established Oxiana as the pin-up mid-sized company [...]

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Today’s The Nation carries another swooning endorsement of Bhutan’s former Crown Prince, now King, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck.  For aficionados of this new genre of Thai Royal biography, this episode’s special focus on Jigme’s time in Oxford makes it well worth a read in full.  To whet your appetite, it begins by describing “a chilly evening in 2001 [...]

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