New Mandala

In the early afternoon many people at the Myitkyina Manau would go looking for shade.  Even though January is still “winter” in the Kachin State it tends to really heat up when the sun comes out.

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Readers may be keen to know that Thailand’s Royal Institute is organising a conference with the theme “National Language Policy: Language Diversity for National Unity”.  Among many other topics it hopes to include material on “Language policy and socio-economic theory (with special emphasis on the Self-Sufficiency Economic Theory of His Majesty King Bhumibol of Thailand)”.�
According [...]

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Earlier in the month I attended the Myitkyina Manau festival commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the establishment of northern Burma’s Kachin State.  Over the coming days I expect to post a range of material from the festival that will give readers a taste of this major cultural, political and economic event.

If there are specific issues that New [...]

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In recent days an individual has been sending a large number of comments to New Mandala under a number of prominent names.  Usually, I would just ignore and delete these types of outbursts.  However, the general state of politics in Thailand today means that some readers may find the content and tone of these messages [...]

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The Irrawaddy recently published a review I wrote (a long-time ago, I might add) of Ball and Mathieson’s Militia Redux: Or Sor and the Revival of Paramilitarism in Thailand.
Comments and questions from New Mandala readers are, as always, very welcome.

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This academic jamboree takes place every three years. All the usual subjects were on the agenda – Buddhism, weaving, democracy, the history of Ayutthaya, agrarian relations, and Thai arts. But there was also something new and different. Three panels were devoted to discussion of the monarchy. Another two focused on the sufficiency economy. And more [...]

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For various reasons I didn’t get to Day 3 of the Thai Studies Conference. So I will use this post to open up a general forum for comments, evaluation, critique, suggestions and reports in relation to the conference.

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Here is the full text of a Reuters report on the discussion of The King Never Smiles at the International Conference on Thai Studies.
Banned royal book stirs rare debate in Thailand
Fri Jan 11, 2008 10:19am IST
By Ed Cropley
BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thailand’s banning of a rare “warts and all” biography of revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej only stokes interest [...]

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This event at the Foreign Correspondents Club next Tuesday may be of interest to New Mandala readers in Bangkok.�
Saffron Revolution: Unfinished Business
A Buddhist Panel Discussion on
What Lies Ahead for Burma
Tuesday, January 15 at 8:00 pm
Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand
Penthouse, Maneeya Center Building
518/5 Ploenchit Road (connected to the BTS Skytrain Chitlom station)
Cover charge for non-members: 300 Baht
In [...]

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Day 2 of the International Conference on Thai Studies here in Bangkok featured the keenly anticipated panels on the Thai monarchy. The first panel discussed some of the monarchy’s key supporting institutions – the abundantly rich Crown Property Bureau, the politically influential Privy Council, and the symbolically potent cult of King Chulalongkorn. The second panel [...]

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