I could hazard a guess as to which academic institution this is – there’s only a handful it could be – but I won’t. And I can’t tell you how frustrating it must be for an instructor to put up with, but I can tell you how frustrating it is for a student to put with, because I attended one of these universities (which, as Michael’s comment put it, was for “rich brats”).
Imagine trying to learn with cell phones ringing and students (openly) talking on them, playing games/chatting on laptops, listening to music (not in headphones), loudling talking to each other, texting, and sexting… it’s not a conducive environment for learning, to say the least. Not that I condone the lecturer’s actions. I will, however, admit I even felt like smashing a cell phone or two on a few occassions in that same situation.
At universty level students should know have to behave, yes, but many Thai students don’t, especially at the elite schools (or rather schools for the elite). Many don’t respect their teachers or the institution itself and expect good grades in return for sub-par work or no work at all. They don’t pay the tuition; their parents do. Same goes for the car and BB. Hence, no concept of what a baht is really worth. And the sad fact is that most don’t want to be there in class, but due to school policy they have to be. (At my uni is was 4 absences and you automatically flunk. According to friends at other Thai unis, they were subject to similar policies.) So you have bored, uniterested students with expensive toys made to sit in a chair for 2 hours or more. What do expect will happen? Couple all this with “Do you who my daddy is?” syndrome and there you have it – the future Thai elite.
(Not bashing Thai academic insitutions; there are some good ones with students who actully want to learn. Nevertheless, I am thankful I only spent a year of my undergrad studies in Thailand, with the rest at a decent American university where there were no attendance policies, grades were based solely or merit/acheivement, and students turned off their cell phones during class for fear of embarassment or being thrown out of class.)
The author will love to hear that some Burmese men are still using their ancient penis balls or bells to please their women. In the prisons or in some army units on the front line it was almost a tradition to get inserted smooth round ball of glass or small glass marbles onto one’s penis by one’s close mates.
Cut a small insertion and place the glass and bandaged over the wound. No more than a couple of weeks the skin will grow over and one got a modified penis ready for action. Men even boasted about how many stones they have on their member. The more the better it seems.
Cops used it to check if a man in their custody been in the jail or the army before by thoroughly inspecting his member.
Michael, I often wonder how much of it comes from the hot-housing and extra lessons that they all have to do at school. There’s huge pressure to get into a good university. Once there the students seem to think they’ve done the hard work and now deserve a rest.
“What May and MacDonald identify as the desire of the Thai bourgeoisie to project an image of an international self is, at its roots, a desire to be on par with the West.
Yes, and there we have it, the Thai problem. If Thais were suddenly to stop pretending to be superior as a cover for feelings of profound inferiority, and allow themselves to believe that the west does not consider them to be inferior, then they might grow to adulthood as a nation.
I’ll go with Nganadeeleg on this. There should be some sort of award for teachers who can do something like this. It’s a university, & a well-funded one obviously (rich brats). By this stage, the students should know how to behave. Well, they do, of course. But they continue to do stuff like this, because with all the stupid rhetoric, they really don’t respect their teachers.
Elspeth, we’re not talking about teachers beating schoolkids here. We’re talking about arrogant yuppie youths who have no ethics, and see nothing wrong with humiliating their lecturers. Your comments are right, but they’re misplaced.
I guess this little episode sums up Thailand’s society doesn’t it?
Teacher gives a lecture and is disturbed by constant barrage of Blackberry messages and student talking on the phone. There are numerous things the instructor could do; but doesn’t, she is in fact very “patient” with the person who is doing something “naa klead” to the teaching institution and her position. So in essence she continues with her boring lecture while walking to her student and smashes his blackberry in a very violent second, and then suddenly calms down and continues teaching as though nothing happened. The student body will just giggle a little, and that’s it, life goes on. There will be no investigation as to why the student felt so bored or compelled to chat on his phone in class, or even as too why the class culture has even accepted student talking as the ‘norm’, or what can be done to make students more interested in the subject matter.
No, this teacher will be applauded because she stamped her authority on someone who should have known better.
MattB (46). Kings, and laws of succession tend, and the rhetoric of personal loyalty tend to prevent generals from seizing such absolute power as they have in Burma, and from fighting violently with one another over what they can steal from the people. In Thailand they have shared power with Bhumibhol in a barely stable system in which the King has had little choice over which generals he must share it with. It’s better than Burma, but that isn’t saying much. Between them, the generals and Bhumibol have ensured that elected representatives of the Thai people have no real say in running the country.
This is a barbaric system, and Thailand deserves something more civilised. To quote from a very famous, palace-born conservative:
“Civilisation means a society based upon the opinion of civilians. It means that violence, the rule of warriors and despotic chiefs, the condition of camps and warfare, of riot and tyranny, give place to parliaments where laws are made, and independent courts of justice in which over long periods those laws are maintained.”
— Winston Churchill
This is the dream that Pridi had for his country, and it is one that Thailand’s more civilised friends share with him.
Please check with the Bangkok Pundit or http://www.asiancorrespondent.com you will find the fact behind this cancel. In fact it was the Thai government that pressure the FCCT by denied visas to Human Rights speakers. I think this puppet government is trying desperately to do whatever it can to prevent any freedom movement, locally or abroad.
Asking him to leave the class would be the right thing to do. Though there’s a part of me that can’t help liking her response. Turning up to lectures with the intention of listening — whatever happened to that? Did it go out of fashion or what?
After reading this article, two issues come to my mind: first, the issue of “purpose”; and second, the issue of “provoke.”
1. For the issue of “purpose and analysis,” I would like to draw from Carr, who explains the difference between the physical sciences and social sciences regarding to purpose and analysis.
In the physical sciences, purpose is irrelevant to the investigation because the facts exist independently of what anyone thinks about them. In the political sciences, the purpose is not irrelevant to the investigation: it is itself one of the facts. Analysis and purpose are inextricably blended.
In my opinion, at issue here is the strategic purpose. Why the author of this political project would want Islamic law in Pattani, Narathiwat, and Yala beyond family law? What is the strategic value of Southeast Asia to the post-9/11 world politics?
2. The issue of “provoke” and the bifurcation characteristics.
The essays focus on examining the interaction between Siam and European during the height of colonial conquest in the mid-nineteenth century. It also proposes the examination of Siam/Thailand interaction with the West in the postcolonial period, meaning the interaction with the United States.
Various methods are applied to analyze Siam/Thailand, it recognizes that neither Edward Said’s notion of Orientalism or Michel Foucault’s notion of discourse is working in the bifurcation characteristics of Siam/Thailand. In other words, it fails to “provoke,” either the elites or the popular mass against the West.
My question is, “Why and who will benefit if the provoke succeed?”
The Axis power provoked “nationalism” in Southeast Asia, it resulted in the Dutch was kicked out of Indonesia, British out of Burma, and the French out of Indochina. During the Cold War, provoking “anti-communism” in Southeast Asia resulted in the Chinese was kicked out of Vietnam as boat people, mass killing of Chinese in Cambodia, large numbers of Chinese were killed in Indonesia, Chinese in Siam/Thailand fled to the jungle, and violent racial conflict against Chinese in Malaysia.
So who “the provoke” target next in Siam/Thailand?
MattB That’s the sort of linear and nuance free message I’d expect on a propaganda poster or in between coup d’etat Military Waltzes playing on the radio.
By any metric, the elephant in the room that can’t be discussed is indeed the elephant in the room.
I just noticed R.N. England’s poster (#42) and he says: “Kings, laws of succession, and all the associated ceremonial mumbo-jumbo tend to ameliorate the misery of a militaristic state. They do so by providing a focus of loyalty and stability that lessens the probability of leadership being decided by civil war. ”
R.N. England and Ralph Kramden apparently suffer from similar attention-deficit-disorder . . . they do not ‘get’ their own posters. Jeez R.N. England . . any King who could prevent a civil war deserves to be King, don’t you think so?
Chris. Lane Xang as good as Beer Lao? It is Beer Lao, with a different label. Laos has mastered the economic principle of selling one product on multiple markets through cunning manipulation of brand-names. But quality will out. Of course let us not look too far into the history of Beer Lao or we get to the whole point of recent posts on the essence of being Lao or Thai — Beer Lao was set up by Boon Wrawd (Rward?). Then Laos cut the umbilical cord with Thailand and got into bed with the Danes and Carlsberg. So, are Lao any less Lao by being Thai or Danish? Discussion is getting silly? Probably. They all do.
Was fortunate to have listened to the interview with Harris on the BFM. This is the first time I have come to know of SABM. If there have been roadshows it has not been well advertised. Harris was right in expressing that the discontent is voiced in coffee shops and generally we do practise armchair politics. Lets hope this movement would mark the turning point in our beloved country’s history. How does one accure membership and contribute towards the activities.
The MFA says the government “has a long-standing position of not allowing organizations and/or persons to use Thailand as a place to conduct activities detrimental to other countries.”
Unless it’s U.S. bombing runs over Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia, which made the Thai military literally rich. Or, more recently, Cambodia-bashing. Neighbor-bashing (or bombing) is okay if it furthers the interests of the government of the day.
When President Bush was in Bangkok two years ago he delivered a speech bashing the Burmese junta. I think it was no coincidence that Bush was snubbed on that visit by HMK (who is on record as opposing criticism of the Burmese generals).
A timely op-ed in the New York Times recalls South Africa’s suppression of speech during apartheid more than 20 years ago. It could have been written about Thailand under the “Democrat” party in 2010:
One of my novels had the dubious distinction of being the first book in Afrikaans to be banned under apartheid. As I learned, censorship involved much more than the removal of books from the shelves. When a book was prohibited, it was entered into The Government Gazette, the public record of government activities, and into the notorious Jacobsen’s Index, a record of banned literature that at one point included more than 20,000 titles. Once in the index, a book drew the attention of the brutal Security Police – particularly if it was banned for endangering the “security of the state.”
Such attention meant the author could expect a visit from the Special Branch, which policed internal security threats, to be interrogated and have his books and manuscripts and typewriters confiscated; if the author was black, he ran the risk of immediate arrest. He might be detained without official explanation. He might simply disappear.
Brink says suppression of speech is returning to South Africa, though the country is now governed by the formerly suppressed. One bill, “the Protection of Information bill, would give the government excessively broad powers to classify information in the ‘national interest’ …. How a government that owes its very existence to its faith in the indivisibility of freedom can now so easily betray that faith is beyond belief. It is not just an act of foolishness, but of apocalyptic arrogance.” Sound familiar?
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Teaching tips – how to keep students engaged
I could hazard a guess as to which academic institution this is – there’s only a handful it could be – but I won’t. And I can’t tell you how frustrating it must be for an instructor to put up with, but I can tell you how frustrating it is for a student to put with, because I attended one of these universities (which, as Michael’s comment put it, was for “rich brats”).
Imagine trying to learn with cell phones ringing and students (openly) talking on them, playing games/chatting on laptops, listening to music (not in headphones), loudling talking to each other, texting, and sexting… it’s not a conducive environment for learning, to say the least. Not that I condone the lecturer’s actions. I will, however, admit I even felt like smashing a cell phone or two on a few occassions in that same situation.
At universty level students should know have to behave, yes, but many Thai students don’t, especially at the elite schools (or rather schools for the elite). Many don’t respect their teachers or the institution itself and expect good grades in return for sub-par work or no work at all. They don’t pay the tuition; their parents do. Same goes for the car and BB. Hence, no concept of what a baht is really worth. And the sad fact is that most don’t want to be there in class, but due to school policy they have to be. (At my uni is was 4 absences and you automatically flunk. According to friends at other Thai unis, they were subject to similar policies.) So you have bored, uniterested students with expensive toys made to sit in a chair for 2 hours or more. What do expect will happen? Couple all this with “Do you who my daddy is?” syndrome and there you have it – the future Thai elite.
(Not bashing Thai academic insitutions; there are some good ones with students who actully want to learn. Nevertheless, I am thankful I only spent a year of my undergrad studies in Thailand, with the rest at a decent American university where there were no attendance policies, grades were based solely or merit/acheivement, and students turned off their cell phones during class for fear of embarassment or being thrown out of class.)
-Ricardo
Linga bell, linga bell, jingle all the way
What an insightful story about Burmese sexuality?
The author will love to hear that some Burmese men are still using their ancient penis balls or bells to please their women. In the prisons or in some army units on the front line it was almost a tradition to get inserted smooth round ball of glass or small glass marbles onto one’s penis by one’s close mates.
Cut a small insertion and place the glass and bandaged over the wound. No more than a couple of weeks the skin will grow over and one got a modified penis ready for action. Men even boasted about how many stones they have on their member. The more the better it seems.
Cops used it to check if a man in their custody been in the jail or the army before by thoroughly inspecting his member.
Teaching tips – how to keep students engaged
Michael, I often wonder how much of it comes from the hot-housing and extra lessons that they all have to do at school. There’s huge pressure to get into a good university. Once there the students seem to think they’ve done the hard work and now deserve a rest.
Review of Ambiguous Allure of the West
“What May and MacDonald identify as the desire of the Thai bourgeoisie to project an image of an international self is, at its roots, a desire to be on par with the West.
Yes, and there we have it, the Thai problem. If Thais were suddenly to stop pretending to be superior as a cover for feelings of profound inferiority, and allow themselves to believe that the west does not consider them to be inferior, then they might grow to adulthood as a nation.
But there’s a long way to go yet.
Teaching tips – how to keep students engaged
steve – Yes, I’ve been teaching in Thailand for about five years now. Bill
Teaching tips – how to keep students engaged
Bill – have you ever taught in Thailand?
Teaching tips – how to keep students engaged
I’ll go with Nganadeeleg on this. There should be some sort of award for teachers who can do something like this. It’s a university, & a well-funded one obviously (rich brats). By this stage, the students should know how to behave. Well, they do, of course. But they continue to do stuff like this, because with all the stupid rhetoric, they really don’t respect their teachers.
Elspeth, we’re not talking about teachers beating schoolkids here. We’re talking about arrogant yuppie youths who have no ethics, and see nothing wrong with humiliating their lecturers. Your comments are right, but they’re misplaced.
Teaching tips – how to keep students engaged
I guess this little episode sums up Thailand’s society doesn’t it?
Teacher gives a lecture and is disturbed by constant barrage of Blackberry messages and student talking on the phone. There are numerous things the instructor could do; but doesn’t, she is in fact very “patient” with the person who is doing something “naa klead” to the teaching institution and her position. So in essence she continues with her boring lecture while walking to her student and smashes his blackberry in a very violent second, and then suddenly calms down and continues teaching as though nothing happened. The student body will just giggle a little, and that’s it, life goes on. There will be no investigation as to why the student felt so bored or compelled to chat on his phone in class, or even as too why the class culture has even accepted student talking as the ‘norm’, or what can be done to make students more interested in the subject matter.
No, this teacher will be applauded because she stamped her authority on someone who should have known better.
🙂
Abhisit and Thailand’s bad men
MattB (46). Kings, and laws of succession tend, and the rhetoric of personal loyalty tend to prevent generals from seizing such absolute power as they have in Burma, and from fighting violently with one another over what they can steal from the people. In Thailand they have shared power with Bhumibhol in a barely stable system in which the King has had little choice over which generals he must share it with. It’s better than Burma, but that isn’t saying much. Between them, the generals and Bhumibol have ensured that elected representatives of the Thai people have no real say in running the country.
This is a barbaric system, and Thailand deserves something more civilised. To quote from a very famous, palace-born conservative:
“Civilisation means a society based upon the opinion of civilians. It means that violence, the rule of warriors and despotic chiefs, the condition of camps and warfare, of riot and tyranny, give place to parliaments where laws are made, and independent courts of justice in which over long periods those laws are maintained.”
— Winston Churchill
This is the dream that Pridi had for his country, and it is one that Thailand’s more civilised friends share with him.
Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia
Hi there M.R.
You can contact the following people:
1. Marcus Tan in Canberra, [email protected]
2. John Khoo in Sydney, [email protected]
Best
FCCT under pressure to cancel press conference
Please check with the Bangkok Pundit or http://www.asiancorrespondent.com you will find the fact behind this cancel. In fact it was the Thai government that pressure the FCCT by denied visas to Human Rights speakers. I think this puppet government is trying desperately to do whatever it can to prevent any freedom movement, locally or abroad.
Teaching tips – how to keep students engaged
Asking him to leave the class would be the right thing to do. Though there’s a part of me that can’t help liking her response. Turning up to lectures with the intention of listening — whatever happened to that? Did it go out of fashion or what?
Review of Ambiguous Allure of the West
After reading this article, two issues come to my mind: first, the issue of “purpose”; and second, the issue of “provoke.”
1. For the issue of “purpose and analysis,” I would like to draw from Carr, who explains the difference between the physical sciences and social sciences regarding to purpose and analysis.
In the physical sciences, purpose is irrelevant to the investigation because the facts exist independently of what anyone thinks about them. In the political sciences, the purpose is not irrelevant to the investigation: it is itself one of the facts. Analysis and purpose are inextricably blended.
In my opinion, at issue here is the strategic purpose. Why the author of this political project would want Islamic law in Pattani, Narathiwat, and Yala beyond family law? What is the strategic value of Southeast Asia to the post-9/11 world politics?
2. The issue of “provoke” and the bifurcation characteristics.
The essays focus on examining the interaction between Siam and European during the height of colonial conquest in the mid-nineteenth century. It also proposes the examination of Siam/Thailand interaction with the West in the postcolonial period, meaning the interaction with the United States.
Various methods are applied to analyze Siam/Thailand, it recognizes that neither Edward Said’s notion of Orientalism or Michel Foucault’s notion of discourse is working in the bifurcation characteristics of Siam/Thailand. In other words, it fails to “provoke,” either the elites or the popular mass against the West.
My question is, “Why and who will benefit if the provoke succeed?”
The Axis power provoked “nationalism” in Southeast Asia, it resulted in the Dutch was kicked out of Indonesia, British out of Burma, and the French out of Indochina. During the Cold War, provoking “anti-communism” in Southeast Asia resulted in the Chinese was kicked out of Vietnam as boat people, mass killing of Chinese in Cambodia, large numbers of Chinese were killed in Indonesia, Chinese in Siam/Thailand fled to the jungle, and violent racial conflict against Chinese in Malaysia.
So who “the provoke” target next in Siam/Thailand?
Abhisit and Thailand’s bad men
MattB That’s the sort of linear and nuance free message I’d expect on a propaganda poster or in between coup d’etat Military Waltzes playing on the radio.
By any metric, the elephant in the room that can’t be discussed is indeed the elephant in the room.
Abhisit and Thailand’s bad men
I just noticed R.N. England’s poster (#42) and he says: “Kings, laws of succession, and all the associated ceremonial mumbo-jumbo tend to ameliorate the misery of a militaristic state. They do so by providing a focus of loyalty and stability that lessens the probability of leadership being decided by civil war. ”
R.N. England and Ralph Kramden apparently suffer from similar attention-deficit-disorder . . . they do not ‘get’ their own posters. Jeez R.N. England . . any King who could prevent a civil war deserves to be King, don’t you think so?
National celebrations and historiography in Laos
Chris. Lane Xang as good as Beer Lao? It is Beer Lao, with a different label. Laos has mastered the economic principle of selling one product on multiple markets through cunning manipulation of brand-names. But quality will out. Of course let us not look too far into the history of Beer Lao or we get to the whole point of recent posts on the essence of being Lao or Thai — Beer Lao was set up by Boon Wrawd (Rward?). Then Laos cut the umbilical cord with Thailand and got into bed with the Danes and Carlsberg. So, are Lao any less Lao by being Thai or Danish? Discussion is getting silly? Probably. They all do.
Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia
M.R
Was fortunate to have listened to the interview with Harris on the BFM. This is the first time I have come to know of SABM. If there have been roadshows it has not been well advertised. Harris was right in expressing that the discontent is voiced in coffee shops and generally we do practise armchair politics. Lets hope this movement would mark the turning point in our beloved country’s history. How does one accure membership and contribute towards the activities.
FCCT under pressure to cancel press conference
The MFA says the government “has a long-standing position of not allowing organizations and/or persons to use Thailand as a place to conduct activities detrimental to other countries.”
Unless it’s U.S. bombing runs over Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia, which made the Thai military literally rich. Or, more recently, Cambodia-bashing. Neighbor-bashing (or bombing) is okay if it furthers the interests of the government of the day.
When President Bush was in Bangkok two years ago he delivered a speech bashing the Burmese junta. I think it was no coincidence that Bush was snubbed on that visit by HMK (who is on record as opposing criticism of the Burmese generals).
FCCT under pressure to cancel press conference
A timely op-ed in the New York Times recalls South Africa’s suppression of speech during apartheid more than 20 years ago. It could have been written about Thailand under the “Democrat” party in 2010:
“A Long Way From Mandela’s Kitchen,” by André Brink. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/opinion/12brink.html?_r=1
Brink says suppression of speech is returning to South Africa, though the country is now governed by the formerly suppressed. One bill, “the Protection of Information bill, would give the government excessively broad powers to classify information in the ‘national interest’ …. How a government that owes its very existence to its faith in the indivisibility of freedom can now so easily betray that faith is beyond belief. It is not just an act of foolishness, but of apocalyptic arrogance.” Sound familiar?
Teaching tips – how to keep students engaged
She didn’t miss a beat and carried on as if nothing happened – A very skillful teacher 🙂