Marty
I think a check of the facts and truthful comment would be worthwhile in relation to PPP and its right to rule. It (PPP) didn’t win the election outright and therefore doesn’t have the mandate to rule in its own right – it only came to power with the help of other minor parties. Further, buying votes is a fair election so long as it’s your team that are doing the buying – but it now seems that the courts don’t think that the election was all that fair after all- how many have been caught out and given their marching order?
As for the third hand, very obvious – but not spoken about in Thailand for good reason.
Well as the court is the law and law is open to interpretation lets say they interpreted it in their own way to get the result that was wanted. It’s no different than the Constitutional court rendering a verdict in the TRT case and using the new law retroactively. It’s hard to know if you are breaking the law if it hasn’t been written at the time you allegedly broke it. It’s no different than if they install a stop sign at the end of your street and you diligently stop every time all of a sudden you get a ticket in the mail saying you ran the stop sign a month before it was installed.
The TRT retroactive verdict was to make the TRT and it’s executives extinct, and that didn’t work too well when the election came around. The Samak verdict was used the same way. Both execution by the judiciary.
The last election was probably the fairest one yet and all the independent observers said so. There were a few instances that stood out – the EC printed way more ballots than eligible voters even though only about 60% ever votes., and in some areas the police and Army confiscated the ballots overnight so they could be “counted” in the morning. By the morning everyone knew the junta’s fix was dead having been shot down by the voters and the PPP was the winner. This then brought a rash of complaints to the EC almost exclusively against the PPP where in the real world they were no better or worse than the other parties, at least in the North where we live.
The PPP legitimately won the election over huge odds and conspiracies to have the Democrats be the winner but in the end they were only the whiners. The third hand, and I have been convinced there is one for a long time, has now backed the PAD to try and figure a way to disenfranchise the rural vote. All we that hope for a democracy in thailand can pray for is they don’t succeed.
“Languaging, on the other hand, is context shaping. Languaging both shapes and is shaped by context. It is a kind of attunement between a person and a context. Languaging can be understood as taking old texts from memory and reshaping them into present contexts…It is done at the level of particularity.”
Doesn’t the word “localised” (geographically, temporally) capture this notion without the need of coining a new word, and isn’t this rather universal phenomenon, not limited to Southeast Asia?
“Pali is a language of power”
The only reason this isn’t blatantly obvious must be due to the ahistorical way that Buddhism is studied, especially in the west, as a search for timeless universal truths, not contingent, ever-changing, localised sets of beliefs, intimately tied to secular history. Everyone knows who Martin Luther and Cardinal Richelieu were, but Parakramabahu I? (See Michael Charney’s “Powerful Learning” for the 100-year fight over robe wrapping, not actually over that at all)
Andrew Huxley’s notion of limited access to a monastic lineage’s “bookchest” captures one way ion which power was actuated.
“…a language through which power has flowed and continues to flow.”
There is also an implicit localised humanities discipline waiting to be unlocked too, that Steven Collins Pali Imaginaire work outlines. There is a whole discourse on Buddhist kingship much of it located in the Jatakas, as Collin’s chapter six makes clear.
“Pali unites, scripts divide.”
And that is a power-laden political act in itself, obliterating the local.
[…] the Jufer fiasco, in April 2008 the BBC’s Bangkok correspondent Jonathan Head has been embroiled in a lèse majesté fight of his own. He has not been charged but is the subject of ongoing […]
[…] is a weapon used to defend the perceived honour of Thailand’s royal family. According to Paul Handley, the author of an unauthorised 2006 biography of the king, “[i]n Thailand, all that truly […]
Justin’s comments about Pali and its continuing importance are well taken, and point to the ways that various groups of people have sought to place translation (and hence meaning) at the heart of how Pali has functioned (and functions) in Southeast Asia. It’s not that translation and meaning are unimportant, but they are only one part of the story of how Pali has been used over the centuries, both in its ritual use and its “languaging” use.
There are two other points that I want to make in relation to his comments. First, maybe the way to put it is that Pali is a language of power. That is, it is a language through which power has flowed and continues to flow. But not all forms of power use the language, or this language in the same way in the current moment. Thus, in order to understand the value of Pali at any given moment in any particular place, it is necessary to understand the kinds of power that it actualizes.
Second, Justin made a comment a number of years ago at a conference that I think is well worth keeping in mind when thinking about Pali and its uses by people in Southeast Asian history. Pali unites, scripts divide.
Monastery is kyaung and temple is paya in Burmese and quite separate. In Pali I guess it’s vihara for monastery and ceti or guha for temple. Just my tuppence worth as a lay person and not an academic or anyone who’s learnt Pali in any formal way.
How I pity those that sink the boot in when the guy is on the floor-I feel that the cowardice is so unbecoming it must make oneself nauseous.
Harry, no matter what your thoughts, is simply an eccentric ‘entertainer’ who publicises his feelings and thoughts through articles and in the current case in questions, books.
Wow, he sold a whole seven, yes, seven copies, such was the impact of the book. Yet, a part of a paragraph has somewhow (and we don’t know how) come back to haunt him, do you?
You say you worked with him for a year- a relatively short time in one’s long life but obviously long enough for you to make such an opinion of your colleague. I would suggest there’s some jealousy in existence, but considering only 50 copies were published and just the seven sold ( I have a sixth sense you may have been one of those seven, looking for some pointers), I can’t use that as a reason.
However, if you were in his shoes right now, I just wonder how you would feel. Tell me jon, tell me how you would feel, incarcarted in medieval and inhumane conditions, sharing a single hole in the ground for bowel movements in a cell with up to ninety others ; most far more sinister and criminal compared to Harry. I wonder,,,,,,.
If Harry had access to this site (he access to nothing other than daily beatings, depression, thoughts of suicide, air unfit to inhale, a 20 minute visit amid a room full of three other inmate’s friends/family, shouting spit and phlegm through
a grill below a window- that is his only ‘real time’ he gets), I can’t imagine what he would think of you and you offerings.
I don’t know you, so I will make no comment on your authenticity or your demeanour. But just try and think humanely, even just for a split second, and imagine, what an ex-colleague of yours is going through. He has no trial date, no idea how long he’ll be kept there, no chance of bail; the squiggly-faced paedophile is going to serve less time than him- tell me that is justice jon!!!
I would be overjoyed to relay your comments posted post-jailing about Harry, giving him no chance of reply, but I think he has already taken enough in the month he has been there than you could even contemplate doing in a day.
A man conquered by anger is in a mass of darkness.
He takes pleasure in bad deeds as if they were good,
but later, when his anger is gone,
he suffers as if burned with fire.
He is spoiled, blotted out,
like fire enveloped in smoke.
For those who can read Thai, I’ve recently come across this book. Its author is a lawyer and it supports the official findings. However, it purports to contain a complete copy of the court judgement. It seems books in English get banned in Thailand while those in Thai are left alone.
р╕Ър╕╕р╕Нр╕гр╣Ир╕зр╕б р╣Ар╕Чр╕╡р╕вр╕бр╕Ир╕▒р╕Щр╕Чр╕гр╣М [Lawb Plong Pra Chon Raw Phad]
[The Assassination of Rama XIII]
Boonruem Tiamjan
ISBN: 9749458303
1st edition: November 2006
2nd edition: February 2007 (cover states 10th printing)
THB 190
248 pp
just like I think they want to do in the land case
I wonder if Elli has got around to convincing herself that democracy is more the process of giving people the opportunity to secretly vote for who they want rather than whatever rallying, vote swaying, threats and promises that go around it
democracy exists as long as eligible voter rolls are inclusive and free of manipulaion and the voting process is reasonably verified.
I havent seen anyone make any allegations that there were any significant violations of the rolls, the secrecy or the collection and counting of votes… have you?
[…] make any difference to the outcome of the case, especially given that the butt of the joke was the Great Father. The journal was also suspended for a week and its editor forced to sign a document to guarantee […]
Professor McDaniel is to be thanked for his perceptive remarks. When we deal with two or three languages in contact, it should be wise to make some allowance for varying interpretations. What is expressed through a language at philosophical level is naturally open to means of deciphering that in the final analysis should comply with what is in practice at a particular locality. The main point is that we should wish others well in the conduct of life, so that we shall be capable of toleration of differences.
Incidentally, I like the word “monastery” better than the word “temple” in reference to “wat” р╕зр╕▒р╕Ф.
I’d have thought the focus on persons and the personality cult is normal in Asia. The age of celebrity in the western world however goes hand in hand with the dumbing down of politics, and marks “the end of ideology” as policy issues deal with micromanagement rather than long term programmes and vision. Public and working life is being increasingly regulated by the state in the name of security, cost effectiveness and competition in the globalised world. And it hasn’t stopped them from deriding the “nanny state” when it comes to regulating the bosses and looking after the weak.
Class is now a four-letter word as is socialism and, surprise, surprise, the demise of the boom bust cycle has been greatly exaggerated. We continue to see the time honoured capitalist principle of profits accruing to individuals and losses being socialised; they’ve always had it both ways – a win win strategy.
Character assassination and scandals go with the territory the world over. Actual assassinations, the US has a few under its belt. Is Obama likely to be next should he get elected as the first black US president, the same fate perhaps awaiting him as befell the first Catholic president promising some real change?
Everyday Burmese is impossible without Pali words or Pali derivatives, definitely more so than it is in the case of English without French and Latin words. It is however not widely used or learned as a language in its own right, chanting Suttas and Mantras notwithstanding, since only learned monks can converse in it. Burmese universities have had students majoring in Pali though I’m not sure if it’s still the case.
On the other hand the Buddhist Canon as we know it in Burma is entirely in Pali though the script is Burmese as inscribed on parabeik kammavaca and on marble at Kuthodaw Pagoda in Mandalay. You study it together with anet, the Burmese translation.
OK guys. We’ve exercised a very light hand so far on this increasingly repetitive discussion. We will now be taking a firmer moderating approach to comments which just toss the same old points back and forward.
I am extremely doubtful about small holder rubber in non traditional rubber producing areas.
8 Years ago we have bought 33 Rai of land in Phitsanulok province to build a small farm. At the time very few people have planted rubber there. The ones who have planted rubber at the time, have mostly been unsuccessful. Bad saplings, lack of knowledge and the wrong plots of land have resulted in the trees still not being able to produce.
We have refused the social pressure to plant rubber, and instead have planted as cash crops first maize, and now tapioca, in addition to rice for consumption, veggies and fruit. And one brief excursion into sunflowers where we were duped into by one GM-crop company (which we learned too late that it was), but their representatives had to leave very quickly because people got rather pissed off with them when their crops failed…) .
We have done very well with this strategy of staying with what we know.
In those 8 years many newcomers from South Thailand have bought up most available land, driving land prices up almost threefold, and planting rubber. They appear to be a bit more successful. But it is suspected that many of them are just place holders for larger entrepreneurs.
They have though the necessary cash, which the original inhabitants do not have.
There are also slight tensions developing – some rubber plantations were burned down. And one Southerner was murdered over a conflict with an original inhabitant.
On the other hand they do provide much needed possibilities for additional day labor to locals for very good wages.
I do not see the state taking full responsibility over the rubber experiments here, or being able to. At best, this would mean 7 years of cost for fertilizer, a price guarantee for the produce (how can that be done here where we don’t know how the government looks like next month?), and the necessary training courses for local farmers.
One problem i see is also educational standards of many small scale farmers. Such a rubber venture needs very good skills in budgeting.
The global rubber market has highly fluctuating prices. Demand is driven by China and India (as far as i understand), but China has also started to increasingly plant rubber.
All in all, i feel that rubber is a high risk venture. Small scale farmers that survive here on very little profits cannot take such risks without the state guaranteeing to cover possible losses. And i just can’t see most states in the region being able to do that.
That is why we will continue staying away from rubber, and plant the crops my wife’s family is competent to plant, able to budget for, and which are not a high risk.
“All right Jon. If you can’t fight them, join them.”
Join them? I fled Burma, just like many Burmese I know. I was actually supporting a family in Yangon, but my livelihood, like so many other people I knew there, got wiped out, and I had to start over.
It’s the poor Burmese who cannot leave the country and who will probably be stuck there for the next 20 years with an oppressive government and economic sanctions that stifle their economy that I really feel for, and with the collapse of the US financial sector in the last week, I can’t see how things are going to get better.
I refuse to worship at the Church of Aung San Suu Kyi because that is all the western media talks about when they deign to look at the country for a split fraction of a second. The fact is there are 50 million people suffering in that country and Aung Suu Kyi is only one of them, and they suffer because their country is the economic hermit kingdom, made even worse by economic sanctions.
A guy on the street pulled down his baso and showed me the stitches from having his appendix removed, once. Why? He was begging to exchange his worthless kyat for US dollars so he could buy some crappy medicine so he couldn’t die.
Pali as a ritual or, more precise, religious language is truly well and alive in today Burma as it has been for a thousand of years. Only problem is, save the learned monks, most Burmese lay people do not really understand the meaning of most words in Pali except for a few main words. So how do they use it as an effective religious language?
They solve that by interspersing Pali with closely translated Burmese. In any religious sermon the Pali word or sentence or verse is immediately followed by an equivalent Burmese word or sentence or verse, respectively. Following is a typical example from “Dha-ra-nah Parate”, a common prayer in Burma for one’s protection from various dangers.
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The Thai circus continues
Marty
I think a check of the facts and truthful comment would be worthwhile in relation to PPP and its right to rule. It (PPP) didn’t win the election outright and therefore doesn’t have the mandate to rule in its own right – it only came to power with the help of other minor parties. Further, buying votes is a fair election so long as it’s your team that are doing the buying – but it now seems that the courts don’t think that the election was all that fair after all- how many have been caught out and given their marching order?
As for the third hand, very obvious – but not spoken about in Thailand for good reason.
The Thai circus continues
Well as the court is the law and law is open to interpretation lets say they interpreted it in their own way to get the result that was wanted. It’s no different than the Constitutional court rendering a verdict in the TRT case and using the new law retroactively. It’s hard to know if you are breaking the law if it hasn’t been written at the time you allegedly broke it. It’s no different than if they install a stop sign at the end of your street and you diligently stop every time all of a sudden you get a ticket in the mail saying you ran the stop sign a month before it was installed.
The TRT retroactive verdict was to make the TRT and it’s executives extinct, and that didn’t work too well when the election came around. The Samak verdict was used the same way. Both execution by the judiciary.
The last election was probably the fairest one yet and all the independent observers said so. There were a few instances that stood out – the EC printed way more ballots than eligible voters even though only about 60% ever votes., and in some areas the police and Army confiscated the ballots overnight so they could be “counted” in the morning. By the morning everyone knew the junta’s fix was dead having been shot down by the voters and the PPP was the winner. This then brought a rash of complaints to the EC almost exclusively against the PPP where in the real world they were no better or worse than the other parties, at least in the North where we live.
The PPP legitimately won the election over huge odds and conspiracies to have the Democrats be the winner but in the end they were only the whiners. The third hand, and I have been convinced there is one for a long time, has now backed the PAD to try and figure a way to disenfranchise the rural vote. All we that hope for a democracy in thailand can pray for is they don’t succeed.
Pali
“Languaging, on the other hand, is context shaping. Languaging both shapes and is shaped by context. It is a kind of attunement between a person and a context. Languaging can be understood as taking old texts from memory and reshaping them into present contexts…It is done at the level of particularity.”
Doesn’t the word “localised” (geographically, temporally) capture this notion without the need of coining a new word, and isn’t this rather universal phenomenon, not limited to Southeast Asia?
“Pali is a language of power”
The only reason this isn’t blatantly obvious must be due to the ahistorical way that Buddhism is studied, especially in the west, as a search for timeless universal truths, not contingent, ever-changing, localised sets of beliefs, intimately tied to secular history. Everyone knows who Martin Luther and Cardinal Richelieu were, but Parakramabahu I? (See Michael Charney’s “Powerful Learning” for the 100-year fight over robe wrapping, not actually over that at all)
Andrew Huxley’s notion of limited access to a monastic lineage’s “bookchest” captures one way ion which power was actuated.
“…a language through which power has flowed and continues to flow.”
There is also an implicit localised humanities discipline waiting to be unlocked too, that Steven Collins Pali Imaginaire work outlines. There is a whole discourse on Buddhist kingship much of it located in the Jatakas, as Collin’s chapter six makes clear.
“Pali unites, scripts divide.”
And that is a power-laden political act in itself, obliterating the local.
The lèse majesté plot thickens
[…] the Jufer fiasco, in April 2008 the BBC’s Bangkok correspondent Jonathan Head has been embroiled in a lèse majesté fight of his own. He has not been charged but is the subject of ongoing […]
Interview with Paul Handley
[…] is a weapon used to defend the perceived honour of Thailand’s royal family. According to Paul Handley, the author of an unauthorised 2006 biography of the king, “[i]n Thailand, all that truly […]
Poetic injustice
Reminds me of the late Ludu Daw Amar’s words in an interview for the Irrawaddy:
http://www.irrawaddymedia.com/article.php?art_id=2739&page=3
“For those of us who don’t dance to the tune of the authorities we must be creative in what we write to get the message across. It is very difficult.”
Pali
Justin’s comments about Pali and its continuing importance are well taken, and point to the ways that various groups of people have sought to place translation (and hence meaning) at the heart of how Pali has functioned (and functions) in Southeast Asia. It’s not that translation and meaning are unimportant, but they are only one part of the story of how Pali has been used over the centuries, both in its ritual use and its “languaging” use.
There are two other points that I want to make in relation to his comments. First, maybe the way to put it is that Pali is a language of power. That is, it is a language through which power has flowed and continues to flow. But not all forms of power use the language, or this language in the same way in the current moment. Thus, in order to understand the value of Pali at any given moment in any particular place, it is necessary to understand the kinds of power that it actualizes.
Second, Justin made a comment a number of years ago at a conference that I think is well worth keeping in mind when thinking about Pali and its uses by people in Southeast Asian history. Pali unites, scripts divide.
Pali
Monastery is kyaung and temple is paya in Burmese and quite separate. In Pali I guess it’s vihara for monastery and ceti or guha for temple. Just my tuppence worth as a lay person and not an academic or anyone who’s learnt Pali in any formal way.
Australia and the current Thai crisis
jonfern,
How I pity those that sink the boot in when the guy is on the floor-I feel that the cowardice is so unbecoming it must make oneself nauseous.
Harry, no matter what your thoughts, is simply an eccentric ‘entertainer’ who publicises his feelings and thoughts through articles and in the current case in questions, books.
Wow, he sold a whole seven, yes, seven copies, such was the impact of the book. Yet, a part of a paragraph has somewhow (and we don’t know how) come back to haunt him, do you?
You say you worked with him for a year- a relatively short time in one’s long life but obviously long enough for you to make such an opinion of your colleague. I would suggest there’s some jealousy in existence, but considering only 50 copies were published and just the seven sold ( I have a sixth sense you may have been one of those seven, looking for some pointers), I can’t use that as a reason.
However, if you were in his shoes right now, I just wonder how you would feel. Tell me jon, tell me how you would feel, incarcarted in medieval and inhumane conditions, sharing a single hole in the ground for bowel movements in a cell with up to ninety others ; most far more sinister and criminal compared to Harry. I wonder,,,,,,.
If Harry had access to this site (he access to nothing other than daily beatings, depression, thoughts of suicide, air unfit to inhale, a 20 minute visit amid a room full of three other inmate’s friends/family, shouting spit and phlegm through
a grill below a window- that is his only ‘real time’ he gets), I can’t imagine what he would think of you and you offerings.
I don’t know you, so I will make no comment on your authenticity or your demeanour. But just try and think humanely, even just for a split second, and imagine, what an ex-colleague of yours is going through. He has no trial date, no idea how long he’ll be kept there, no chance of bail; the squiggly-faced paedophile is going to serve less time than him- tell me that is justice jon!!!
I would be overjoyed to relay your comments posted post-jailing about Harry, giving him no chance of reply, but I think he has already taken enough in the month he has been there than you could even contemplate doing in a day.
Scott
Pali
This sort of topic is very interesting. Please write more.
Burmese historical chronicles like U Kala’s Mahayazawingyi borrow
heavily from Pali literature.
Especially the early Indian kings (Nandas, Susunaga, Chandragupta,
Asoka) taken from sources such as the Mahavamsa Tika and
Lokapannatti cosmology and Rajaniti [aphorisms of royal
advice]. I am working on this:
http://jonfernquest.googlepages.com/IndianKingsUKala.pdf
My favorite passage that I came across recently:
Andhatamaс╣Г tad─Б hoti, yaс╣Г kodho sahate naraс╣Г.
‘‘Yaс╣Г kuddho uparodheti, sukaraс╣Г viya dukkaraс╣Г;
Pacch─Б so vigate kodhe, aggidaс╕Нс╕Нhova tappati.
‘‘Dummaс╣Еkuyaс╣Г padasseti [sadasseti (s─л.), paс╣нhamaс╣Г dasseti
(sy─Б.)], dh┼лmaс╣Г dh┼лm─лva p─Бvako;
A man conquered by anger is in a mass of darkness.
He takes pleasure in bad deeds as if they were good,
but later, when his anger is gone,
he suffers as if burned with fire.
He is spoiled, blotted out,
like fire enveloped in smoke.
The Devil’s Discus – in Thai
For those who can read Thai, I’ve recently come across this book. Its author is a lawyer and it supports the official findings. However, it purports to contain a complete copy of the court judgement. It seems books in English get banned in Thailand while those in Thai are left alone.
р╕Ър╕╕р╕Нр╕гр╣Ир╕зр╕б р╣Ар╕Чр╕╡р╕вр╕бр╕Ир╕▒р╕Щр╕Чр╕гр╣М [Lawb Plong Pra Chon Raw Phad]
[The Assassination of Rama XIII]
Boonruem Tiamjan
ISBN: 9749458303
1st edition: November 2006
2nd edition: February 2007 (cover states 10th printing)
THB 190
248 pp
http://animategroup.com/asite_up/viewbooks.php?b_id=293
[email protected]
The Thai circus continues
thanks Marty for that bit on the courts…
so the court bent the law…
just like I think they want to do in the land case
I wonder if Elli has got around to convincing herself that democracy is more the process of giving people the opportunity to secretly vote for who they want rather than whatever rallying, vote swaying, threats and promises that go around it
democracy exists as long as eligible voter rolls are inclusive and free of manipulaion and the voting process is reasonably verified.
I havent seen anyone make any allegations that there were any significant violations of the rolls, the secrecy or the collection and counting of votes… have you?
therefore its democratic… accept it!
Does Than Shwe have anything to fear from international law?
[…] make any difference to the outcome of the case, especially given that the butt of the joke was the Great Father. The journal was also suspended for a week and its editor forced to sign a document to guarantee […]
Pali
Professor McDaniel is to be thanked for his perceptive remarks. When we deal with two or three languages in contact, it should be wise to make some allowance for varying interpretations. What is expressed through a language at philosophical level is naturally open to means of deciphering that in the final analysis should comply with what is in practice at a particular locality. The main point is that we should wish others well in the conduct of life, so that we shall be capable of toleration of differences.
Incidentally, I like the word “monastery” better than the word “temple” in reference to “wat” р╕зр╕▒р╕Ф.
Weird times
I’d have thought the focus on persons and the personality cult is normal in Asia. The age of celebrity in the western world however goes hand in hand with the dumbing down of politics, and marks “the end of ideology” as policy issues deal with micromanagement rather than long term programmes and vision. Public and working life is being increasingly regulated by the state in the name of security, cost effectiveness and competition in the globalised world. And it hasn’t stopped them from deriding the “nanny state” when it comes to regulating the bosses and looking after the weak.
Class is now a four-letter word as is socialism and, surprise, surprise, the demise of the boom bust cycle has been greatly exaggerated. We continue to see the time honoured capitalist principle of profits accruing to individuals and losses being socialised; they’ve always had it both ways – a win win strategy.
Character assassination and scandals go with the territory the world over. Actual assassinations, the US has a few under its belt. Is Obama likely to be next should he get elected as the first black US president, the same fate perhaps awaiting him as befell the first Catholic president promising some real change?
Pali
Everyday Burmese is impossible without Pali words or Pali derivatives, definitely more so than it is in the case of English without French and Latin words. It is however not widely used or learned as a language in its own right, chanting Suttas and Mantras notwithstanding, since only learned monks can converse in it. Burmese universities have had students majoring in Pali though I’m not sure if it’s still the case.
On the other hand the Buddhist Canon as we know it in Burma is entirely in Pali though the script is Burmese as inscribed on parabeik kammavaca and on marble at Kuthodaw Pagoda in Mandalay. You study it together with anet, the Burmese translation.
“From Dictatorship to Democracy”, Burma and all the rest
OK guys. We’ve exercised a very light hand so far on this increasingly repetitive discussion. We will now be taking a firmer moderating approach to comments which just toss the same old points back and forward.
Smallholder rubber profits
I am extremely doubtful about small holder rubber in non traditional rubber producing areas.
8 Years ago we have bought 33 Rai of land in Phitsanulok province to build a small farm. At the time very few people have planted rubber there. The ones who have planted rubber at the time, have mostly been unsuccessful. Bad saplings, lack of knowledge and the wrong plots of land have resulted in the trees still not being able to produce.
We have refused the social pressure to plant rubber, and instead have planted as cash crops first maize, and now tapioca, in addition to rice for consumption, veggies and fruit. And one brief excursion into sunflowers where we were duped into by one GM-crop company (which we learned too late that it was), but their representatives had to leave very quickly because people got rather pissed off with them when their crops failed…) .
We have done very well with this strategy of staying with what we know.
In those 8 years many newcomers from South Thailand have bought up most available land, driving land prices up almost threefold, and planting rubber. They appear to be a bit more successful. But it is suspected that many of them are just place holders for larger entrepreneurs.
They have though the necessary cash, which the original inhabitants do not have.
There are also slight tensions developing – some rubber plantations were burned down. And one Southerner was murdered over a conflict with an original inhabitant.
On the other hand they do provide much needed possibilities for additional day labor to locals for very good wages.
I do not see the state taking full responsibility over the rubber experiments here, or being able to. At best, this would mean 7 years of cost for fertilizer, a price guarantee for the produce (how can that be done here where we don’t know how the government looks like next month?), and the necessary training courses for local farmers.
One problem i see is also educational standards of many small scale farmers. Such a rubber venture needs very good skills in budgeting.
The global rubber market has highly fluctuating prices. Demand is driven by China and India (as far as i understand), but China has also started to increasingly plant rubber.
All in all, i feel that rubber is a high risk venture. Small scale farmers that survive here on very little profits cannot take such risks without the state guaranteeing to cover possible losses. And i just can’t see most states in the region being able to do that.
That is why we will continue staying away from rubber, and plant the crops my wife’s family is competent to plant, able to budget for, and which are not a high risk.
“From Dictatorship to Democracy”, Burma and all the rest
“All right Jon. If you can’t fight them, join them.”
Join them? I fled Burma, just like many Burmese I know. I was actually supporting a family in Yangon, but my livelihood, like so many other people I knew there, got wiped out, and I had to start over.
It’s the poor Burmese who cannot leave the country and who will probably be stuck there for the next 20 years with an oppressive government and economic sanctions that stifle their economy that I really feel for, and with the collapse of the US financial sector in the last week, I can’t see how things are going to get better.
I refuse to worship at the Church of Aung San Suu Kyi because that is all the western media talks about when they deign to look at the country for a split fraction of a second. The fact is there are 50 million people suffering in that country and Aung Suu Kyi is only one of them, and they suffer because their country is the economic hermit kingdom, made even worse by economic sanctions.
A guy on the street pulled down his baso and showed me the stitches from having his appendix removed, once. Why? He was begging to exchange his worthless kyat for US dollars so he could buy some crappy medicine so he couldn’t die.
Pali
Pali as a ritual or, more precise, religious language is truly well and alive in today Burma as it has been for a thousand of years. Only problem is, save the learned monks, most Burmese lay people do not really understand the meaning of most words in Pali except for a few main words. So how do they use it as an effective religious language?
They solve that by interspersing Pali with closely translated Burmese. In any religious sermon the Pali word or sentence or verse is immediately followed by an equivalent Burmese word or sentence or verse, respectively. Following is a typical example from “Dha-ra-nah Parate”, a common prayer in Burma for one’s protection from various dangers.
Buddha-nan, Gautama Buddha’s
Zee-wi-ta-tha, life’s
Andra-yaw, Dangers.
Kay-na-si, Someone
Kar-tone, can
Na-thakka, not bring upon.
Ta-htar, As well
May, I shall be
Haw-tuu, free from dangers.
Here is another example from “Ah-bain-na Thote”, a common prayer for reminding the impermanence of one’s life.
Ah-han, I am
Zaya-da-maw, going to be old
Ah-mhi, it is.
Za-yan, that old age
Ah-nah-tee-taw, I cannot prevent.
Egg-Ti, So
Ah-bain-nan, every day and night
Pis-sa-way-kheet-ta-ban, think of it.
(Please forgive me if my English approximation of Pali words are not correct.)