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Escapes me why people get excited about strange religious practices, though I recognize that they are a never-ending source of anthropological PhDs and articles.

That is exact concept of the description in that “Brief History of Time” by the wheelchair guy.

That Hindoo woman in the back of crowd explaining to -let’s say Bertrand Russel- of the globe raised by four elephants standing on the turtle which is standing on a turtle and turtle all the way down is exactly knowledgeable as those smart sparks construing the universe is expending and expending to eh… where?

Seems it was the idea of some brown-noser in Siam Cement (owned largely by the Crown Property Bureau).

All to do about nothing other than Asian version of cultural base ” conspicuous consumption “.

Having all westerners fawning, and tripping over “superstition”.

No wonder Prayuth is having his way just as the ‘white elephant thingy and the SPDC.

Little knowledge with lack of understanding or rather blinded by the pretend understanding are again glaring in this case.

Interesting but the trend has dropped recently in Thailand..Found many of them left at temple…

Wonderful tribute by Professor Milner.

No doubt Vietnam and the Philippines, the nations who have already had injuries and deaths courtesy of the new Chinese diplomacy in the East Sea, would have preferred stronger words but would they have got consensus from ASEAN? Probably not. Should Obama have taken Prayuth out in back of the woodshed for a good talking to or maybe worse? That would definitely not have been constructive.
While your intentions are undoubtedly good, you are expecting too much in regard to a single meeting of political leaders I think? Continuing dialogue is the way of diplomacy and when you are dealing with individuals with very strong personal opinions and motives just sitting down and talking can be a chore some days. ASEAN is a very strange can of worms and you must know that this collection of nations are still shooting at each other on occasions! The best you can hope for is warm handshakes and smiling faces at these official meetings. When they get past these formal events one can only hope they will continue talking and in the long term gain some mutual respect for their fellow member nations.

Dear Evan Rees; Thought-stimulating this article has been indeed. Makes one go back to the very definition of “region” which is a concept from geography that has apparently already passed its nadir as Wikipedia “regional geography” notes, perhaps because it tries to bite off too much and assign too much importance to one delimited area. A shared climate and rice cultivation in SEAsia or a name for people outside of the region to point to on a map seem to be one basis for SEAsia, but the definition of “region” (“A region is a unit on the earth’s surface that has unifying characteristics such as climate or industry. These characteristics may be human, physical, or cultural. Not only do geographers study characteristics, but they also study how regions around the world may change over time. Different types of physical regions are deserts, mountains, grasslands, and rain forests”) implies multiple overlapping regions including BTW every local watershed before the advent of roads and modern transportation, which can be modeled in a GIS system 🙂

Was there ever a Chinese Lewis & Clark-like expedition that bridged the gap between Yunnan and coastal SEAsia? Or an expedition down the Mekong?

Did the first Chinese attempts at a map of the world render the geographical expanse between Yunnan and coastal SEAsia accurately? So many questions. 🙂

Thank you, all!! I so appreciate the New Mandala community’s responsiveness to this research. Looking forward to sharing results in the future!