The Bangkok Post is thinking ahead when it comes to royal succession. Thanks to a regular New Mandala reader for bringing this surprising development to our attention.
Book Reviews
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Review of Ideal Man
24 May 2013 9:12 AM | No CommentsNew Mandala book review editor Michael Montesano reviews this new work on a key figure in Southeast Asian history.
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Review of Misalliance
17 May 2013 1:00 PM | 2 CommentsKeith Weller Taylor argues that this new book is thoughtful, lucid, original, analytical, and readable
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Review of Thailand’s Hidden Workforce
05 April 2013 9:15 AM | 3 CommentsInga Gruß reviews a book about the work conditions of Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand at this time of immense change.
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Review of Gender, Emotions and Labour Markets
21 February 2013 9:10 AM | 1 CommentSri Ranjani Mei Hua reviews a book dealing with experiences of women in Southeast Asia.
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Review of Authority of Influence
06 January 2013 5:31 AM | 3 CommentsScholarly treatments of gender in Myanmar, past or present, remain scarce. Jessica Harriden’s book thus fills a gap in our understanding of an important and controversial topic.
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Review of The King in Exile
04 December 2012 8:35 AM | 4 CommentsDonald M. Seekins argues that this book is the story of a dynasty that belongs truly to Burma’s past.
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Review of Buddhist Fury
13 November 2012 7:57 AM | 21 CommentsThis book explores the relationship between religion and violence in far southern Thailand, where Buddhist monks are a marginalized local minority.
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Review of Revisiting Rural Places
30 October 2012 7:54 AM | 2 CommentsRevisiting Rural Places should become an essential reference text for researchers who work on social, cultural, political and economic change in Asia.
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Review of The Institutional Imperative
16 October 2012 7:00 AM | 9 CommentsDe-agrarianisation often isn’t very pretty, but economic disparity may well be the price to be paid for pursuing it as slowly as Thailand has over the past 50 years.
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Review of Imagining Gay Paradise
09 October 2012 6:55 AM | 2 CommentsThe creation of make-shift, idiosyncratic queer paradises provides shelter, community, and belonging for many who have refused to fit into standard narratives of Southeast Asia.
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Review of The Fate of Rural Hell
12 September 2012 7:56 AM | 6 CommentsThe models of eroticism and faith in the Hell Garden have been left behind by the robust urban bourgeois consumerist culture increasingly prominent across contemporary Thai society.
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Review of Revolution Interrupted
24 July 2012 11:46 AM | 6 CommentsQuestioning received notions of revolution, this book offers a passionate and rigorous reconsideration of the period in Thailand between October 1973 and October 1976.
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Review of Land and Loyalty
17 July 2012 9:18 AM | 9 Comments
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Review of The Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical Monk
11 July 2012 3:44 PM | 9 Comments
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Review of Saying the Unsayable
19 June 2012 6:27 AM | 19 Comments
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That should be Rama VIII, there is no Rama XIII bridge and it seems likely that there will not even be a Rama X, so ‘succession planning’ as you wrongly state for a Rama XIII seems a touch optimistic.
VIII = 8
XIII = 13
New Mandala should have been able to work that out on their own. This is a very stupid post for them to make, since it was correctly reported in the rag-esque Nation. Primary school stuff.
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I was laughing when I saw it, but they have already changed it, someone’s face must be red. They must read New Mandala, Andrew, you have done a public service.
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Unfortunately this morning the article was amended and down-graded the visionary statue to merely one of Rama VIII (But the url still gives the game away). But over at the mobile site the original article is still available for all to chuckle over;
http://m.bangkokpost.com/news/296308
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postman, don’t take yourself so seriously, this was obviously posted for a laugh, loosen up, it is a good rest from the fighting going on here for the last few days on some other posts.
I think it stems from the Thai confusion between the use of v and w, the writer probably intended to hit the w key and hit the x by mistake
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Don’t be too serious Mr.Postman. This ‘succession planning’ is just a joke. You “should have been able to work that out” on your own, shouldn’t you?
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Thanks, Postman.
I agreed with the above replies that you may be too serious. However, without you I wouldn’t be able to understand what this post is about.
Originally, I thought there’s something to do with Sukhumbhand.
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Ron and Anuthee:
Perhaps I just expect a higher quality of irony from a University. This (rather stupid) error is hardly worth sniggering like school children over, much less justifies a post by New Mandala.
As for the ‘chill’ advice – thanks for that but my comment stands, it was a juvenile post to make. New Mandala would be better off making serious posts about the multitude of travesties of democracy in Thailand rather than making stupid jokes about the Bangkok Post and their almost legendary illiteracy in the English language.
As for an alleged confusion between ‘w’ and ‘v’, I’m not sure that Rama WIII entirely makes sense either – unless of course it is more high-level irony beyond my ken. Personally I suspect they’re just sub-standard, writing, sub-editing, editing and proof-reading.
They are Thais after all.
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Oh Mr Postman, here’s a link to help you
http://bit.ly/JK7gdu
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In the land of the…even this oversight, obviously inadvertent, is prosecutable, based on allegations filed by complete nincompoops.
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I agree with Postman! Postman is correct. He is a very serious genius. Postman is legendarily literate in the English language. This NM site is silly, and is only made better with Postman making comments such as ‘They are Thais after all’, because that’s not juvenile or sub-standard. It’s a highly accurate description. Thank you Postman.
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Frank, I had not thought about that, now a Thai needs to file a complaint and show this lm circus for what it is.
Some people are just trying to be totally intellectual and not able to enjoy a brief bit of humor, even if it is an “academic forum”. after some of the last few posts with a whole lot of arguing and personal insults, I think that most regular readers appreciate a little joke at the expense of the BP writers.
Pete S, Great link!
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Now we know that the staff of the two English newspapers read/check NM regularly so they should be forgiven if they also read this article below:
https://thaipoliticalprisoners.wordpress.com/2012/06/03/bangkok-post-exonerates-democrat-party-thugs/
I still keep the Post’s hard-copy edition on Sunday the 3rd of June (page three, right-hand side) to show and alert friends but I doubt if anyone will be prosecuted under 112.
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@ Sabai Sabai #10
Yes, you’ll forgive me I’m sure. For someone not brought up on a diet of screaming pre-menstrual and highly cantankerous (as well as rather dim) starlets, then having to live in 3rd-world Thailand for 8 years where the pinnacle in humour is still dwarf-throwing and men wearing a woman’s frock or having their hair standing on end and falling down, I didn’t really fully appreciate the transcendent humour and wit of someone being so stupid as to substitute the roman numerals for 13 for those representing 8. Neither did I fully appreciate the intellectual achievement of running off to report that to a university blog in Australia, nor even the wit and wisdom of some clod at said university who thought it was so funny he thought it would be a terrific wheeze to post it to the blog.
Please forgive me for these and diverse other failings. I, in return will forgive you for being just another dim-witted Thai.
Good grief, it must be like explaining quantum mechanics to my dog. You’d like my dog, I call him ‘Sir Dog’ and make everyone bury their face in the area of carpet where his ass had just been sat. I must write a stupid and condescending book about him one day so that Thais will know how they should behave.
Nothing else was there? Good, you can go now. Peace be upon you and your tom yum goong.
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Postman – for the 12th, or 13th time ! (posts) – you are pulling our legs. And deserve leg-irons for such !
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Pete S #3:
Thanks for the mobile site link. As for the URL,…
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/296308/you-can-write-anything-here
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By the way, majorities of proofreaders at Bangkok Post are Australians. Surprisingly ? Not !
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Ron Torrence 11
But who has been insulted? Rama XIII or Rama WIII or Rama himself?
Is he the blue one in the Avatar movie?
I’m getting really confused now.
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Try as one might, hard to stay straight-faced as an onlooker.
Ed Norton’s argument in Peoples vs Larry Flint: The very idea of Rev. Jerry Falwell making out with his mother in the outhouse is so ludicrous that it cannot possibly constitute as a libel.
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Charles, 17. If we weren’t all confused we would not be making all of these sarcastic comments to a sarcastic blog
) . I for one, cannot understand why Roman Numerals are still used, I am confused by them, and had difficulty remembering what the proper number should be, I have trouble over 12, which is on many clocks…that I will never buy. I won’t even start about Thai numerals
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@Postman #13
I’ve lived in Thailand since 2001 but still found the BP mistake (and the fact that someone alerted NM to it) very funny…or were you saying that living here for many years degenerates one’s mind so that one’s humor is low enough to find the mistake funny? Either way, my mind’s confused by the manner in which you made your point about finding the mistake funny. Either I was already a moron before I moved here, or living here so long has made me a moron, or whatever, but for frack’s sake, considering all of the self-concious fawning and bending over backwards throughout the Kingdom to avoid anything discernible as an LM offence, THAT MISTAKE WAS BLOODY FUNNY.
I’m going off now to eat some som tam.
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