Florida Friend #41. It is inconceivable that Sujarinee could have raised enough from selling whatever jewellery she was able to flee with and the proceeds from selling a house in the UK, if indeed it was actually owned by her, to support the family’s lifestyle in the US. Some one has paid for a substantial dwelling and four educations up masters degree and law degree level but it was clearly not Sujarinee. There are a number of possibilities including her ex-husband, her ex-father-in-law, Thaksin, Thai taxpayers, one or more boyfriends in the US or a combination of the above. Take your pick. What she could earn doing a minimum wage job in line with her qualifications is insignificant.
I hope the current no. 1 wife is reading this, so that she can salt some assets away and have something offshore to live when her time comes.
Reading the commentary on the ICTS11 one might be forgiven for thinking that it is the International Conference on Thai Political Studies. Those of us with interests in other areas of Thai Studies also have reason for disappointment over the content of this year’s conference. In my own fields of interest, which include health, social change, and the environment, I had hoped that Mahidol University, which has been prominent in these areas, might organize a conference that highlighted this content. I thought that perhaps issues related to Thai adolescents, such as drug use, road accidents, violence among vocational school students, and the massive destruction that is being wrought on the natural environment of Thailand and its neighbors might have merited special panels. Unfortunately, we were treated to the same old blancmange (taw hu if you prefer) that seems to have been the standard fare for the last few conferences. Do we always have to go offshore before we get an interesting ICTS?
Dr. Nitipoom Navaratna’s website refers to an incident that took place 32 years ago. At the time he called himself Nittiphum Yuphrom. He was a Thai Army cadet and in June 1979 he arrived at the RAAF School of Languages at Point Cook to begin a six-month intensive English language course prior to entering the Australian Army Officer Cadet School at Portsea. Within a month he had been withdrawn from the course and sent back home because of suspected involvement with the Communist Party of Thailand. A pity, because he was clearly capable, idealistic and determined to do well. Had he graduated from Portsea he would have been only the second Thai to do so, the other having been Thaksin’s cousin, Surajet Chinawat, in 1961. Surprisingly, he went to serve in the Thai Police.
http://www.nitipoom.com/th/about1.asp
р╕Цр╕╣р╕Бр╕кр╣Ир╕Зр╕Бр╕ер╕▒р╕Ър╕гр╕▓р╕Кр╕нр╕▓р╕Ур╕▓р╕Ир╕▒р╕Бр╕гр╣Др╕Чр╕вр╕Вр╕Ур╕░р╕Бр╕│р╕ер╕▒р╕Зр╣Ар╕гр╕╡р╕вр╕Щр╕Кр╕▒р╣Йр╕Щр╕ар╕▓р╕йр╕▓ р╕Вр╣Йр╕нр╕лр╕▓р╕Эр╕▒р╕Бр╣Гр╕Эр╣Ир╕ер╕▒р╕Чр╕Шр╕┤р╕Бр╕▓р╕гр╣Ар╕бр╕╖р╕нр╕З
A Thai student in Australia was sent back to Thailand for political reasons!
Andrew, I have two contradicting complaints. Though they are contradicting, I will tell you both anyway.
a.) Why does it take you so long time to post this? It has been three weeks since the incident. People who were there has forgotten the boring speech Surapong made and may not contribute to this discussion.
b.) As I give you an example above, that ThaiGov-funded students are vulnerable. Do you think posting here will not do them harm? I suspect that they might get into trouble because of this post.
I live outside of Chiang Mai and I prefer the local Northern food to all else. As to all of this MSG BS, it is the Chinese that overdo the MSG not the Thais. There are some here that do not even have it in their kitchens, like my wife for one, because they have heard about the health issues. Most of the farangs I know here, should not even be living here. They live in closed, gated communities, only associate with westerners, and only eat at Western restaurants. Their wives have to cook a separate meal for themselves or go down to the noodle-stand on the corner to eat Thai food
So, it is OK for foreign academics with only a superficial knowledge of Thailand and the current issues to criticize the country, it’s established systems and institutions, but it is not acceptable for a Thai national to comment on the people doing the criticizing ?
I would also proffer the view that Thai food goes far beyond the mere concrete physicality of, say, nutritional value or even the abstract refinements of varied tastes and aromas.
Rather, Thai food also functions as a important social glue, bonding together, as it does, disparate people. Perhaps this also reinforces social cohesivness, indeed one sense of being Thai or even ‘Thainess’ itself.
Take the lift if you will. While journeying from one floor to another at my place of work, I often observe many Thai colleagues passing comment on bags of food people are carrying, usually, a thai dessert of some kind.
Through these numerous random everyday social interactions, people have the chance to engage in small talk and other pleasantries thus reinforcing a sense of kinship and belonging to a homogenous group, the Thais.
Here is what I wrote for Rels-tlc Digest, Vol 25, Issue 38 (31 July ’11)
I was asked why I am not at the international Thai studies conference. To answer that I ask: is there any “objectivity” remaining in Thai studies? The last 5 years have shown an enormous and unbridgeable chasm which is hard to fix. People are intractably fixated in their positions even though I can see a shift past twelve months among some Thai academics and they can no longer hold
out against mounting evidence of post-coup state abuse and centre fabrication. The problem is that most academics of Thai studies etched out careers (particularly but not exclusively political scientists) bagging poor-rich Thaksin because: (a) he was rich (!) and these scholars were in any case anti-capitalist, anti-neoliberals-even partially claiming Marx without reading what he had to say, and (b) relying on intellectual partnerships with their elite Thai national yellow academic pals, so they were not happy that Thaksin who had
upset the traditional elites/aristocracy and exposed (almost by accident) their fallacy of centre network power and dominance.
So much of what we assumed of Thai history was rewritten in the blood which ran down the intersection at Rachaprasong last year. Does anyone care except a few Thai academics who had to either flee the country, or stay and put their careers on the line? (I can think of a few at Chulalongkorn U. and Thammasat University). Some people refused to see that blood or to connect it to a wider conspiracy.
These academics were (and remain) in a dilemma: Arab Spring…and Thai Summer? [where were the academic outcries post April-May ’10? even the so-called “peace-maker” Sulak Sivaraksa never once critised the blood letting of innocent protestors]. Democracy was taking shape once again as many academics, exposed to propaganda for a long time, bleatingly tried to put one foot in both camps and/or shades thereof in between. Though in fact all middle ground has been annihilated since 19 September 2006. At least that way they could remain both anti-Thaksin (and keep their academic credibility) and “pro-democracy”, shifting camps quickly (from yellow to…an invented “non-colour”), while completely ignoring an analysis of the mass movement outside. Why? because they never bothered to talk to people on the streets, in the demonstrations and villages OR LISTEN TO THEM…But still, to many academics,
much of what we assumed about modern Thai history over the past 60 years had to be rethought as it was the “angel of history” mocking back at us in order to legitimate the continued dominance of the ruling elites. And what did we do? Write about it? No, many continued to try and detract attention from the centre
summit and elite monopolistic and propagandistic interests. My reflective ethnography over 12 months into the red shirt movement, from villages outwards, those inside and outside prison, how people think, feel and act on the world around them, was roundly muted by colleagues as it ran the gauntlet of the yellow academic peer review process. (At best I was offered a spot in one journal
as “research note” for sometime next year!). It is not the right time for an academic audience with “eyes open” (taa sawaang) as contrary many academics, most small-farmers and ordinary folk have achieved that already. That’s why I am not attending the Thai studies conference. I have kept the ludicrous and ill-informed referees comments for prosperity as they indicated that (a) I sided
with the red shirts (as if that were not “good anthropology”!) and did not criticize them (I revealed separately online for instance how the arson of CW was fabricated and a state plot), (b) defended the indefensible by actually mentioning Thaksin’s grassroots policies, which led to individual and community empowerment (and if we look at the many programs and the consequences which I
did while working under the Ministry of Interior’s CDD before and after TRT, and later as academic). As a referee commented about a draft for publication at a Hamburg-based journal, where I mention the changes taking place at the grassroots between 2001-5, QUOTE “Moreover, in the whole literature on Thailand, there is hardly any reference to the Thaksin-regime as ‘embryonic
democracy’, where grassroots organizations were strengthened” (!) What? A baffling statement: So what if there is not! Because no one has been able to write about this given the yellow shirt presence on most journal editorial committees and siphoning out other voices, does not make this argument fallacious. There is clear evidence to all but the politically blind and biased that during Thaksin’s time this grassroots’ democratisation happened, the only question is whether this was intentional, or coincidental. We can argue about that. Are yellow academics so insecure that they have to protect their interests against mounting contrary evidence? Blah! Seems so; so maybe, just maybe, the many ethnographic papers written past two years will be resubmitted in a few years when academics start to become more open-minded, “taa sawaang”, and prepared to actually listen to other voices. A paradigmatic shift is needed in Thai studies as new realities emerge, and just who is going to do that?
Thai is my personal favourite and I eat of lot of other Asian food as well.
Just a couple of observations on the Thai food scene here in Sydney. I’ve sampled many eateries, both here and in Thailand, where I could eat street food for everything except breakfast.
The comments from a few other posters about the sameness or limited menus in Australia do reflect what’s on offer in many restaurants, especially those outside Sydney and Melbourne, and in the suburbs, where the customers are mainly farang.
But the big thing that has changed in recent years is the steady build up of a Thai population in the two biggest Australian cities.
This has enabled the establishment of many authentic Thai restaurants – run by Thais and serving customers who are mainly, or at least partly, Thai people. Many of these customers are Thai students studying here.
In Sydney we now have an area on the southern fringes of the CBD known as ‘Thainatown’. The name is a light-hearted play on nearby Chinatown but the fantastic Thai food available makes the area anything but a joke.
The menus at the Thainatown restaurants vary, but they all go well beyond the simple choices listed by other posters, and regional dishes are well represented.
I am puzzled that posters from Sydney, who are interested in Thai food, seem unaware of what is available, so I’m going to list a few interesting and authentic places to try. These range from the basic to the more upmarket:
Spice I Am
Chat Thai
Saap Thai
Thainatown
Three Momma’s (sp?)
Chili Cha Cha
@bangkok
Let’s Eat (Marrickville)
In 2004 I was a member of an Australian Army rifle company that spent two weeks at Warin Chamrap Army Base in Ubon Province training with the Thai Army. The Thai Army provided us with meals in the mess. Authentic north-eastern Thai food, but not particularly palatable. The alternative was a restaurant next to our barracks block, run by the wife and daughter of a Thai Army master sergeant. Authentic northeastern Thai food, but with better quality ingredients, prepared by two very competetent cooks, and absolutely delicious. The Aussie diggers voted with their feet, and the restaurant made a well-deserved fortune. As I said before (Seh Fah #9), it’s not the nationality of the cuisine that matters, its the quality of the ingredients and the competence of the cook. Good (insert any nationality) food is preferable to bad (insert any nationality) food.
As we know that Thais are passionate. Why don’t we try to learn a way of understanding a globally diverse discussion (“in a free and open academic culture”)?
No matter where they got the fund from (either the govt. or the private fund), but they need to realise that what they have learnt while studying abroad. Thinking only inside the Thailand’s box is better??
Officials who will not do their duty by faithfully implementing the policies of the elected Government should be replaced. Once that happens they can say what they like. That is how democracy works.
I fail to see how my responses to these questions can affect your answers. I have no issues in answering them but do not wish to let my answers distract our debate. Please do respond to my questions first.
To answer sam deedes (28): here in Isan I find the food totally inedible. It’s full of offal and other bits of animal I hate to look at, let alone eat! Plus, it’s completely overpowered with chili which means there are no subtle flavours to be found. Oh for some decent Indian food in which you can taste many different herbs and spices.
Some of you have observed correctly: the majority of customers in Thai restaurants outside Thailand are not Thais. Unlike the Chinese, Japaneses, and the Koreans, Thais outside Thailand do not usually go out and dine in Thai restaurants. This leaves Thai restaurants competing among themselves to get the ‘farangs’ to dine at their premises. Hence, this is the reason why many Thai restaurants overseas taste differently than how Thai food usually tastes like in Thailand. This is because Thai restaurateurs in western countries care more about how their farang customers want the food to taste like, and cook according to what most farangs want.
In the country where I live, I know some Thai restaurant owners who can cook authentic Thai taste exceptionally well. Nevertheless they usually cook their meals ‘farang’ taste, telling me that most farangs ‘like it this way’, and you will be silly to remain “authentic Thai” for the farangs who ‘know the real Thai taste and actually appreciate it’, which are not many.
As to why Thai food is popular, I guess the price has a lot to do with it. Thai food is usually much cheaper than having a steak, and as many of you correctly point out, Thai food consists of many flavours. This is probably why it is popular.
And yes, I know that Pad Thai Noodles is invented by the Plaek Pibulsongkhram regime 🙂
U.S. universities should fight for professors blacklisted by China, said Columbia President Lee Bollinger. He’s discussed Nathan’s situation with Chinese officials, who promised to “think about it,” he said…
Miami established a Confucius Institute in 2007. The Hanban supplied $100,000 in start-up funds, 3,000 volumes of books, audio-visual and multimedia materials, and one or two language instructors for whom it pays salaries and expenses, according to a contract obtained by Bloomberg News through a public records request. The Hanban has provided a total of $924,785 for the institute through April 2011, according to Robin Parker, the university’s general counsel…
The Chinese government, along with philanthropy and tuition, will pay for the New York University campus slated to open in Shanghai in 2013, the school’s president, John Sexton, said.
US Universities are US Corporations in the ‘Education’ Bidness. NYU has sold a franchise operation in China, while Miami has opened a Chinese franchise in Florida. ‘Scholars’ work for their bosses and do as they’re told. Just like welders, or ‘journalists’.
Xinjiang had attracted little academic attention until the New York-based Henry Luce Foundation approved a $330,000 grant to the School of Advanced International Studies, or SAIS, at Johns Hopkins in 2000, said former foundation Vice President Terry Lautz.
S. Frederick Starr, the volume’s editor, chairs the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at SAIS, which is based in Washington. Not a Sinologist himself, Starr advised Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush on Soviet affairs. With Rudelson, deputy director of the institute from 1999-2001, Starr recruited the book’s 15 co-authors: 13 Americans, one Israeli, and one Uighur.
Contributors were paid $3,000 apiece, Rudelson said. Each tackled a different aspect of Xinjiang history and society, from the province’s economy, ecology, education and public health to Islamic identity and the Chinese military presence. Starr and 11 authors were interviewed by phone for this article.
Sounds like the SAIS set these guys up. Madeleine K. Albright, Eliot A. Cohen, William Sebastian Cohen, Francis Fukuyama, Gary J. Schmitt, Paul Dundes Wolfowitz, David Wurmser… these neo-cons are the type of ‘scholars’ you get at the SAIS.
13 * 3,000 puts 330,000 – 39,000 in S. Frederick Starr’s pocket, doesn’t it?
In an introduction to the Chinese translation, Pan Zhiping, a researcher at the academy, portrayed “Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Borderland” as a U.S. government mouthpiece. In an introduction to the Chinese translation, Pan Zhiping, a researcher at the academy, portrayed “Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Borderland” as a U.S. government mouthpiece.
Well… it’s not really inaccurate to portray SAIS as a US government mouthpiece.
Featuring “a hodgepodge of scholars, scholars in preparation, phony scholars, and shameless fabricators of political rumor,” the book by the Xinjiang 13 “provides a theoretical basis for” America “one day taking action to dismember China and separate Xinjiang,” Pan wrote.
Not addressing the qualifications of the 13, China’s fantasies about US aims are not wholly unjustified. The neo-cons are ready, willing…. and able?.. to spend America’s last dime on their wars… and China!.. real men foment color-revolutions in China! after they’ve conquered Tehran.
“My understanding of what they’ve done is essentially self- criticism, which is the order of the day in China for years: ‘Yes, I regret what I did,’” he said. “I would not have considered that a palatable way to go back.”
Good for Gardner Bovington. Leaves one with less than a totally unclean feeling after reading this article on American universities… in a business rag, where it belongs, I suppose.
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Letter to Thailand
Florida Friend #41. It is inconceivable that Sujarinee could have raised enough from selling whatever jewellery she was able to flee with and the proceeds from selling a house in the UK, if indeed it was actually owned by her, to support the family’s lifestyle in the US. Some one has paid for a substantial dwelling and four educations up masters degree and law degree level but it was clearly not Sujarinee. There are a number of possibilities including her ex-husband, her ex-father-in-law, Thaksin, Thai taxpayers, one or more boyfriends in the US or a combination of the above. Take your pick. What she could earn doing a minimum wage job in line with her qualifications is insignificant.
I hope the current no. 1 wife is reading this, so that she can salt some assets away and have something offshore to live when her time comes.
Surapong Jayanama down under
> “Surapong, who was formally ambassador to Germany”
Are we supposed to read this as ‘formerly’ or are you referring to the capacity in which he attended the event?
No passion at ICTS11
Reading the commentary on the ICTS11 one might be forgiven for thinking that it is the International Conference on Thai Political Studies. Those of us with interests in other areas of Thai Studies also have reason for disappointment over the content of this year’s conference. In my own fields of interest, which include health, social change, and the environment, I had hoped that Mahidol University, which has been prominent in these areas, might organize a conference that highlighted this content. I thought that perhaps issues related to Thai adolescents, such as drug use, road accidents, violence among vocational school students, and the massive destruction that is being wrought on the natural environment of Thailand and its neighbors might have merited special panels. Unfortunately, we were treated to the same old blancmange (taw hu if you prefer) that seems to have been the standard fare for the last few conferences. Do we always have to go offshore before we get an interesting ICTS?
Surapong Jayanama down under
Dr. Nitipoom Navaratna’s website refers to an incident that took place 32 years ago. At the time he called himself Nittiphum Yuphrom. He was a Thai Army cadet and in June 1979 he arrived at the RAAF School of Languages at Point Cook to begin a six-month intensive English language course prior to entering the Australian Army Officer Cadet School at Portsea. Within a month he had been withdrawn from the course and sent back home because of suspected involvement with the Communist Party of Thailand. A pity, because he was clearly capable, idealistic and determined to do well. Had he graduated from Portsea he would have been only the second Thai to do so, the other having been Thaksin’s cousin, Surajet Chinawat, in 1961. Surprisingly, he went to serve in the Thai Police.
Surapong Jayanama down under
FYI:
http://www.nitipoom.com/th/about1.asp
р╕Цр╕╣р╕Бр╕кр╣Ир╕Зр╕Бр╕ер╕▒р╕Ър╕гр╕▓р╕Кр╕нр╕▓р╕Ур╕▓р╕Ир╕▒р╕Бр╕гр╣Др╕Чр╕вр╕Вр╕Ур╕░р╕Бр╕│р╕ер╕▒р╕Зр╣Ар╕гр╕╡р╕вр╕Щр╕Кр╕▒р╣Йр╕Щр╕ар╕▓р╕йр╕▓ р╕Вр╣Йр╕нр╕лр╕▓р╕Эр╕▒р╕Бр╣Гр╕Эр╣Ир╕ер╕▒р╕Чр╕Шр╕┤р╕Бр╕▓р╕гр╣Ар╕бр╕╖р╕нр╕З
A Thai student in Australia was sent back to Thailand for political reasons!
Andrew, I have two contradicting complaints. Though they are contradicting, I will tell you both anyway.
a.) Why does it take you so long time to post this? It has been three weeks since the incident. People who were there has forgotten the boring speech Surapong made and may not contribute to this discussion.
b.) As I give you an example above, that ThaiGov-funded students are vulnerable. Do you think posting here will not do them harm? I suspect that they might get into trouble because of this post.
Surapong Jayanama down under
I think the photo was taken on the occasion of the crown prince’s birthday in 1975, his last year as a Duntroon cadet.
Surapong Jayanama down under
Soonuk Dum, why didn’t Surapong invite the academics he criticised to his talk? Cowardice?
Thai food: Universally delicious?
I live outside of Chiang Mai and I prefer the local Northern food to all else. As to all of this MSG BS, it is the Chinese that overdo the MSG not the Thais. There are some here that do not even have it in their kitchens, like my wife for one, because they have heard about the health issues. Most of the farangs I know here, should not even be living here. They live in closed, gated communities, only associate with westerners, and only eat at Western restaurants. Their wives have to cook a separate meal for themselves or go down to the noodle-stand on the corner to eat Thai food
Surapong Jayanama down under
So, it is OK for foreign academics with only a superficial knowledge of Thailand and the current issues to criticize the country, it’s established systems and institutions, but it is not acceptable for a Thai national to comment on the people doing the criticizing ?
Is this what is termed “Double standards”?
Thai food: Universally delicious?
I would also proffer the view that Thai food goes far beyond the mere concrete physicality of, say, nutritional value or even the abstract refinements of varied tastes and aromas.
Rather, Thai food also functions as a important social glue, bonding together, as it does, disparate people. Perhaps this also reinforces social cohesivness, indeed one sense of being Thai or even ‘Thainess’ itself.
Take the lift if you will. While journeying from one floor to another at my place of work, I often observe many Thai colleagues passing comment on bags of food people are carrying, usually, a thai dessert of some kind.
Through these numerous random everyday social interactions, people have the chance to engage in small talk and other pleasantries thus reinforcing a sense of kinship and belonging to a homogenous group, the Thais.
Aroi, mai ka/ khrub?
No passion at ICTS11
Here is what I wrote for Rels-tlc Digest, Vol 25, Issue 38 (31 July ’11)
I was asked why I am not at the international Thai studies conference. To answer that I ask: is there any “objectivity” remaining in Thai studies? The last 5 years have shown an enormous and unbridgeable chasm which is hard to fix. People are intractably fixated in their positions even though I can see a shift past twelve months among some Thai academics and they can no longer hold
out against mounting evidence of post-coup state abuse and centre fabrication. The problem is that most academics of Thai studies etched out careers (particularly but not exclusively political scientists) bagging poor-rich Thaksin because: (a) he was rich (!) and these scholars were in any case anti-capitalist, anti-neoliberals-even partially claiming Marx without reading what he had to say, and (b) relying on intellectual partnerships with their elite Thai national yellow academic pals, so they were not happy that Thaksin who had
upset the traditional elites/aristocracy and exposed (almost by accident) their fallacy of centre network power and dominance.
So much of what we assumed of Thai history was rewritten in the blood which ran down the intersection at Rachaprasong last year. Does anyone care except a few Thai academics who had to either flee the country, or stay and put their careers on the line? (I can think of a few at Chulalongkorn U. and Thammasat University). Some people refused to see that blood or to connect it to a wider conspiracy.
These academics were (and remain) in a dilemma: Arab Spring…and Thai Summer? [where were the academic outcries post April-May ’10? even the so-called “peace-maker” Sulak Sivaraksa never once critised the blood letting of innocent protestors]. Democracy was taking shape once again as many academics, exposed to propaganda for a long time, bleatingly tried to put one foot in both camps and/or shades thereof in between. Though in fact all middle ground has been annihilated since 19 September 2006. At least that way they could remain both anti-Thaksin (and keep their academic credibility) and “pro-democracy”, shifting camps quickly (from yellow to…an invented “non-colour”), while completely ignoring an analysis of the mass movement outside. Why? because they never bothered to talk to people on the streets, in the demonstrations and villages OR LISTEN TO THEM…But still, to many academics,
much of what we assumed about modern Thai history over the past 60 years had to be rethought as it was the “angel of history” mocking back at us in order to legitimate the continued dominance of the ruling elites. And what did we do? Write about it? No, many continued to try and detract attention from the centre
summit and elite monopolistic and propagandistic interests. My reflective ethnography over 12 months into the red shirt movement, from villages outwards, those inside and outside prison, how people think, feel and act on the world around them, was roundly muted by colleagues as it ran the gauntlet of the yellow academic peer review process. (At best I was offered a spot in one journal
as “research note” for sometime next year!). It is not the right time for an academic audience with “eyes open” (taa sawaang) as contrary many academics, most small-farmers and ordinary folk have achieved that already. That’s why I am not attending the Thai studies conference. I have kept the ludicrous and ill-informed referees comments for prosperity as they indicated that (a) I sided
with the red shirts (as if that were not “good anthropology”!) and did not criticize them (I revealed separately online for instance how the arson of CW was fabricated and a state plot), (b) defended the indefensible by actually mentioning Thaksin’s grassroots policies, which led to individual and community empowerment (and if we look at the many programs and the consequences which I
did while working under the Ministry of Interior’s CDD before and after TRT, and later as academic). As a referee commented about a draft for publication at a Hamburg-based journal, where I mention the changes taking place at the grassroots between 2001-5, QUOTE “Moreover, in the whole literature on Thailand, there is hardly any reference to the Thaksin-regime as ‘embryonic
democracy’, where grassroots organizations were strengthened” (!) What? A baffling statement: So what if there is not! Because no one has been able to write about this given the yellow shirt presence on most journal editorial committees and siphoning out other voices, does not make this argument fallacious. There is clear evidence to all but the politically blind and biased that during Thaksin’s time this grassroots’ democratisation happened, the only question is whether this was intentional, or coincidental. We can argue about that. Are yellow academics so insecure that they have to protect their interests against mounting contrary evidence? Blah! Seems so; so maybe, just maybe, the many ethnographic papers written past two years will be resubmitted in a few years when academics start to become more open-minded, “taa sawaang”, and prepared to actually listen to other voices. A paradigmatic shift is needed in Thai studies as new realities emerge, and just who is going to do that?
Thai food: Universally delicious?
Thai is my personal favourite and I eat of lot of other Asian food as well.
Just a couple of observations on the Thai food scene here in Sydney. I’ve sampled many eateries, both here and in Thailand, where I could eat street food for everything except breakfast.
The comments from a few other posters about the sameness or limited menus in Australia do reflect what’s on offer in many restaurants, especially those outside Sydney and Melbourne, and in the suburbs, where the customers are mainly farang.
But the big thing that has changed in recent years is the steady build up of a Thai population in the two biggest Australian cities.
This has enabled the establishment of many authentic Thai restaurants – run by Thais and serving customers who are mainly, or at least partly, Thai people. Many of these customers are Thai students studying here.
In Sydney we now have an area on the southern fringes of the CBD known as ‘Thainatown’. The name is a light-hearted play on nearby Chinatown but the fantastic Thai food available makes the area anything but a joke.
The menus at the Thainatown restaurants vary, but they all go well beyond the simple choices listed by other posters, and regional dishes are well represented.
I am puzzled that posters from Sydney, who are interested in Thai food, seem unaware of what is available, so I’m going to list a few interesting and authentic places to try. These range from the basic to the more upmarket:
Spice I Am
Chat Thai
Saap Thai
Thainatown
Three Momma’s (sp?)
Chili Cha Cha
@bangkok
Let’s Eat (Marrickville)
Aroi maak!
Thai food: Universally delicious?
Chris B #31
In 2004 I was a member of an Australian Army rifle company that spent two weeks at Warin Chamrap Army Base in Ubon Province training with the Thai Army. The Thai Army provided us with meals in the mess. Authentic north-eastern Thai food, but not particularly palatable. The alternative was a restaurant next to our barracks block, run by the wife and daughter of a Thai Army master sergeant. Authentic northeastern Thai food, but with better quality ingredients, prepared by two very competetent cooks, and absolutely delicious. The Aussie diggers voted with their feet, and the restaurant made a well-deserved fortune. As I said before (Seh Fah #9), it’s not the nationality of the cuisine that matters, its the quality of the ingredients and the competence of the cook. Good (insert any nationality) food is preferable to bad (insert any nationality) food.
Surapong Jayanama down under
As we know that Thais are passionate. Why don’t we try to learn a way of understanding a globally diverse discussion (“in a free and open academic culture”)?
No matter where they got the fund from (either the govt. or the private fund), but they need to realise that what they have learnt while studying abroad. Thinking only inside the Thailand’s box is better??
Surapong Jayanama down under
Andrew, you sound surprised.
Surapong Jayanama down under
Officials who will not do their duty by faithfully implementing the policies of the elected Government should be replaced. Once that happens they can say what they like. That is how democracy works.
Najib still an asset?
Dear Greg
I fail to see how my responses to these questions can affect your answers. I have no issues in answering them but do not wish to let my answers distract our debate. Please do respond to my questions first.
Thai food: Universally delicious?
To answer sam deedes (28): here in Isan I find the food totally inedible. It’s full of offal and other bits of animal I hate to look at, let alone eat! Plus, it’s completely overpowered with chili which means there are no subtle flavours to be found. Oh for some decent Indian food in which you can taste many different herbs and spices.
Thai food: Universally delicious?
Some of you have observed correctly: the majority of customers in Thai restaurants outside Thailand are not Thais. Unlike the Chinese, Japaneses, and the Koreans, Thais outside Thailand do not usually go out and dine in Thai restaurants. This leaves Thai restaurants competing among themselves to get the ‘farangs’ to dine at their premises. Hence, this is the reason why many Thai restaurants overseas taste differently than how Thai food usually tastes like in Thailand. This is because Thai restaurateurs in western countries care more about how their farang customers want the food to taste like, and cook according to what most farangs want.
In the country where I live, I know some Thai restaurant owners who can cook authentic Thai taste exceptionally well. Nevertheless they usually cook their meals ‘farang’ taste, telling me that most farangs ‘like it this way’, and you will be silly to remain “authentic Thai” for the farangs who ‘know the real Thai taste and actually appreciate it’, which are not many.
As to why Thai food is popular, I guess the price has a lot to do with it. Thai food is usually much cheaper than having a steak, and as many of you correctly point out, Thai food consists of many flavours. This is probably why it is popular.
And yes, I know that Pad Thai Noodles is invented by the Plaek Pibulsongkhram regime 🙂
Academics banned from China
US Universities are US Corporations in the ‘Education’ Bidness. NYU has sold a franchise operation in China, while Miami has opened a Chinese franchise in Florida. ‘Scholars’ work for their bosses and do as they’re told. Just like welders, or ‘journalists’.
Sounds like the SAIS set these guys up. Madeleine K. Albright, Eliot A. Cohen, William Sebastian Cohen, Francis Fukuyama, Gary J. Schmitt, Paul Dundes Wolfowitz, David Wurmser… these neo-cons are the type of ‘scholars’ you get at the SAIS.
13 * 3,000 puts 330,000 – 39,000 in S. Frederick Starr’s pocket, doesn’t it?
Well… it’s not really inaccurate to portray SAIS as a US government mouthpiece.
Not addressing the qualifications of the 13, China’s fantasies about US aims are not wholly unjustified. The neo-cons are ready, willing…. and able?.. to spend America’s last dime on their wars… and China!.. real men foment color-revolutions in China! after they’ve conquered Tehran.
Good for Gardner Bovington. Leaves one with less than a totally unclean feeling after reading this article on American universities… in a business rag, where it belongs, I suppose.