[…] recent East-West Center event to honour the Thai king (previously reported on New Mandala here) has motivated an article titled “An unnecessary honor” by Tom Plate. Available […]
“We only ever interpret it based on what he says and personal bias more often than historical perspective..”
‘What he says’:
– That’s a good starting point, isn’t it?
‘Historical perspective’:
– That’s also important, and often provides clarification.
‘Personal bias’:
– I try to be objective, but I will admit that, at this point in time, I prefer the older ‘white knight’ over the contenders.
…but surely you get the point now that SE is not the best for your three beloved principles
No, if you have the patience, will you please spell out in simpler terms (for me) why, somehow, talking about 3 principles is not good for those 3 principles.
Dr Win Maung
I think nawnaw’s criticism of Ma Theingi is without any substance and most unfair. I am 74 years old medical doctor who work and live in london,England. I love and admired Ma Su for her sacrifice for the democracy for our country. I have met her husband at his home in Oxford,distributed Ma Su’s campaign videos and participated in Hyde park demonstrations.Therefore I was blacklisted by the government and couldn’t go back home when my father died. I was partially involved in the attempt towards her release in 1995. I am not a politician but I did my duty as a patriot because I believe in freedom and democracy,that’s why I supported Ma Su.That doesn’t mean I have always to agree with her. Her policy on tourists boycott and discouraging investment and encouraging sanctions are totally wrong. As president of charity organisation/NGO I have regular contact with ordinary people for the past12 years and have never met a single person who doesn’t want tourist to come. Because of sanctions and disinvestment, business declined and factories closed down with the result of families broke down, women go into prostitution and some commit suicide. Do I have to remain loyal to her blindly even after witnessing these these disastrous consequences? If you really believe in democracy try to understand between loyalty and slavery. Ma Theingi has every right to agree or disagree with Ma Su or Blair or Bush.It is her human right and I want to advice those who are unfairly accusing Ma Theingi to grow up.
There is no doubt about Ma Su’s sincerity for our country but ,though unintentionally, her action has caused a lot of pain and suffering among the poor. In Buddhism it is called bad Karma and no one can escape it’s responsibility. In Buddhist term what she is going through is due to her past deeds ( those who are responsible for her present suffering will have their turn in this life or in next life. Buddha said bad karma will follow you like a shadow). I had great expectation in Ma Su for great many years. Many people believed that government will buckle under international pressure as urged by her.
Now it is clear she lead us to war which has no chance to win but to prolong the suffering. In doing so she pushed Myanmar towards Chinese camp away from her western friends. If it were not for her Myanmar could have been as progressed as Vietnam at least and we could have had a new government earlier. I know many diehards are still sentimental about Ma Su’s high moral ground about ” Western style Democracy”,the prototype which will either not get it or not suited to us at present. So pragmatism is the reality that we have to accept .I am a Myanmar citizen and will vote for the new constitution.
By the way I have no business interest in myanmar or any serving relative in the army. I do not always agree with them I quietly tell them whenever opportunity arise. I am trying to help my country through NGO the Friends of Rainforests in Myanmar. Please visit our web-site http://www.formuk.org
Dr Win Maung
Whether or not HMK has mandated it is irrelevant. Why is it that some people will always argue the argument about the King’s intent even though we all know very well that none of us can know that intent. We only ever interpret it based on what he says and personal bias more often than historical perspective.
Again, you’re missing the point, nganadeeleg. Regardless of whether HMK should be allowed to pass comment, sufficiency theory is certainly not the best way to promote moderation, reasonableness, and immunity. In fact, I would say it has done more harm than good, again, irrespective of whether “he wanted to help” or not. (I might add that he should help by strictly sticking to his duties as constitutional monarch).
Last, “anti-monarchists” do not exist as a singular person. Most see this old man as a vulnerable fool compared to the propaganda that exists about him. Yet at the same time, how he has managed to stay on for 60 years shows the cunning of the entire Establishment and network monarchy, which is represented solely by HMK. We could debate about HMK’s “genius” later by judging his achievements and speeches, but surely you get the point now that SE is not the best for your three beloved principles.
Jon: Here is a link to the list of journals on economics that you might access if you are a member at NIDA. Not sure whether the journals you need are included, but the list seems long to me.
…but can you conclusively say that your interpretation is the correct one?
I’ve argued all along that moderation, reasonableness, and immunity are good principles to live by, and therefore don’t think they need to wrapped up in royalist (or Buddhist) propaganda .
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I do not recall HMK saying it had to be mandated as government policy (nor should it be).
You agree that the principles are good ones to live by, so what’s the problem?
Are you really trying to say HMK should never offer any commentary on how peoples lives could be improved, or give people the benefit of his accumulated wisdom?
Has it ever occurred to you that he might be trying to help?
(I concede he might be going about it the wrong way, as he is, after all, mainly a product of his upbringing, surroundings & circumstances)
According to the anti-monarchists, he is a rambling fool and yet at the same time he is also so manipulating that he has formulated a theory to justify and maintain the status quo. Which is it – you cannot have it both ways?
Sufficiency economy seems to be like an ideological monster of Loch Ness — many claim to have seen it, but nobody can provide proof that it really exists. Why not just separate it from the king altogether and categorize it as one of the many varieties of alternative development ideas, or perhaps even as one sub–idea of the mainstream idea of sustainable development? Including the king in all this only serves to obscure things.
There now even is a foreign PhD student working at Thammasat on a thesis concerning sufficiency economy. Will take some more years time, I guess.
There is also a new book on the theme: “Sufficiency Economy: A New Philosophy in the Global World. 100 Interviews with Business Professionals.” Oh sure, these people will know… , and even the title doesn’t conform to the principle of moderation!
The bigger point is, hobby, not about whether the theory is good or not. As I have said, moderation, reasonableness, and immunity are good principles to live by, but can you conclusively say that your interpretation is the correct one?
This is where the vagueness of the theory weakens it. Its ambiguity is exploited for propaganda purposes as a one-size-fits-all solution for the country, with some undesirable results as I have mentioned above.
So, as I have asked above, would it be better to promote moderation, reasonableness, and immunity as desirable values on its own (via the teachings of Buddha for a quick example) or would it be better to promote them shrouded in a vague mist of royalist propaganda that also promotes the elite’s status quo and whose only explicit example of practical application was a one-size-fits-all farm (there was a previous NM post that discussed this wasn’t there?).
What’s more, what about values such as justice, rule of law, or income equality? To me, these are much too important to miss out on in an economic theory of such great importance or at least they tell me its such.
Teth: IMO it’s a good theory, and I don’t really care whether it is new and original, or not.
Just look at the elites using sufficiency economy as a justification for the status quo!
I agree that is a problem, but it still does not mean the theory is wrong.
Our friend, Dr Thaksin, is somehow seen by many on this site as the man to change the status quo, but I fail to see how his example is any better than that of the old elite.
Extra judicial killings, Corruption, Tax avoidance (evasion?), interference in Media, Judicial, Military & Police matters etc etc.
I don’t see a change, just more sophistication at playing the same old game!
I agree that there are resource limitations, especially for information hungry foreign scholars. Re the places, I look at Bangkok as a unit, which includes at least Thammasat, Chulalongkorn, and NIDA. JSEAS is also at Chula Pol Scie. If you are a member at Thammasat, you can download almost every article (I was told a few days ago). The situation now is incomparatively better to what we had, say, 20 years ago. Specialized researches might be more difficult. But how many Thais do such research? For the great majority of students and lecturers, there is plenty of material available. The problem is that most of them are not research-oriented readers, not the lack of resources.
Hobby, moderation, reasonableness, and immunity is not wrong. But the above piece of propaganda is quite misleading. Furthermore, is moderation, reasonableness, and immunity really something new that it should be enshrined as a theory by a genius?
Not only that, but are those three values really what you can derive from that man’s rambling speeches?
If you are really fond of moderation, reasonableness, and immunity, promote such things instead of promoting a vague “new” economic theory that is really more useful as a propaganda tool and was probably intended as such. For instance, start advocating a purer form of Buddhism, a religion which already enshrines those values you speak of in much clearer, purer terms than that “new” theory. Just look at the elites using sufficiency economy as a justification for the status quo!
Applied linguistics, also a social science, I personally participated in a Thai university programme of 30+ people, we could have and should have been doing research, but no journals to review the literature on research topics and no research mentors to guide one, JSTOR which is making its way into some universities helps, but old style paper journals could be used by low budget Rajaphat students and other people in society who need the background, government and journalists, for instance. JSTOR is attached to enrollment.
Are those who are unable to control themselves the supporters of the war on drugs? If so what do you mean by unable to control themselves?
I mean both sides are not able to control themselves. I believe violent reaction is an equally extreme behavior as using substances and therefore, not a particularly progressive situation. By submitting to the actions of drug traffickers and drug users, supporters of the war give credit to the aforementioned for being such a threat to the regular way of life that they must be violent in response. That violence is seemingly the only option, I believe, does not reflect a strong character for those war on drugs supporters and is equally weak as those either selling or defecting into a comatose state because the prime motivator is fear. Fear is not strength, and therefore not control.
I think that this promotes interesting questions on how violence is viewed culturally. In my limited scope, I believe that when violence is justified, it is really the justification of cowardice. From what other emotional position allows a justification of violent behavior? Are there other monastic or ascetic positions and perspectives?
“Most books and articles in the social sciences are not difficult to get in Thailand.”
In the humanities they definitely are difficult, probably because so much publishing takes place in obscure ways like tiny low run edited volumes of papers or try to get the Indian Journal of Philosophy or the Buddhist Studies Review or even the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (one place that I know of: Thammasat Political Science Library). Pali Text Society and Journal of the Burma Research Society only at the Siam Society which has had its journals closed off for more than a year. Research in the humanities such as history or religious studies is difficult because access to the sources is difficult. There is pretty good general coverage, but the nature of research is usually that you absolutely need a few works or important papers that your paper amplifies on and you absolutely need to have that, and for some of the subjects most important to Thailand like “Theravadan” lineages of Buddhism, it really is very difficult to get the sources. Bechert’s “Pali Niti Literature of Burma” has apparently disappeared from the one library that had it. Will have to ask a friend for that. Or take economics which I have two degrees in and is a social science, I challenge you to find the full set of leading journals that define the field in all of Thailand, much less a single university.
“…the Drug War has been unpopular with people who support the rule of law”
Government officials make up black lists, people on those lists show up systematically dead. No one officially knows how, but knowing how things work at the unreported and untransparent local rural level can well guess how.
Then inquiries and headlines ask whether anyone was killed who shouldn’t have been, because if this is true, then it was ok after all, which misses the whole point of judicial inquiries in the first place, as opposed to local lynch mobs or vigilante justice or extra-judcial cops out of uniform or mob justice. In the end, they just prune the twigs or level functionaries in the drug distribution network, and democratic or at least very popular bloodlust sentiment is satisfied, and the big guys really in control just replace those low level functionaries, i.e. BS.
LOL. Wonderful find! I follow garlic in Taiwan on my Taiwan blog. Taiwan imports lots of garlic from China — there’s an illegal garlic trade going back to the early 90s, run by gangsters. The same claims about local garlic are made here in Taiwan — just switch the two nation’s names. Here’s an article:
“Following a tip-off, police seized the haul in several warehouses in Yunlin, west Taiwan, and arrested several smugglers who will be charged for violating Taiwan’s ban on trading with China, several TV channels reported.
The businessmen bought the garlic at one yuan (20 US cents) per kilogram in China, and shipped them to Taiwan via North Korea.
As locally-grown garlic is in short supply ahead of Chinese New Year, with demand high as lots of garlic is used in cooking during the week-long festival, the smuggling ring hoped to reap profits by selling the Chinese garlic at 80 Taiwan dollars ($2.5) per kilo.
Taiwanese also like eating raw garlic when they eat noodles, dumplings or other dishes.
New Year’s Eve is on February 6.
The smugglers could also be charged with fraud because they planned to pass off the Chinese garlic as Taiwanese, although Taiwan garlic is considered of better quality than Chinese garlic.
When police raided the warehouses, the smugglers claimed the garlic came from North Korea.
“Chinese garlic is not as spicy and tasty as Taiwan garlic. So the experts knew right away it was Chinese garlic,” a police officer said.
Police have destroyed the 27 tons of Chinese garlic.”
‘…translations into Thai will make it a little harder for Thai academics to **ignore** works that were originally published in English…”
At least in the area that I do research in, it **isn’t intentional**, the western publishing system is and has been set up such that it is almost impossible to gain access to relevant texts here in Southeast Asia.
Like Brill’s handbooks which cost 170 US dollars and which they reputably burn any remaining copies of after they make some lucrative sales to western university libraries. Some university presses in the US also make little effort to get their books distributed in Southeast Asia, the result being that people simply don’t know about these books and they don’t make their way on to university library shelves.
The book that completely changed the way I look at early Burmese sources was Steven Collins “Nirvana and other Buddhist Felicities” and the idea of a “Pali imaginaire” that is embedded in the Tipitaka and also Burmese literature. Since this is maybe the most important book on Pali literature in several years one would think it would be fairly widely distributed. One copy at Chiang Mai University!
Probably translation software from Thai into English, let’s say, would be really important. I’m slowly familiarizing myself with what an important German work has to say by using a combination of OCR and Google translate. Handcuffs for me?
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East-West Center to host Thai royal visit
[…] recent East-West Center event to honour the Thai king (previously reported on New Mandala here) has motivated an article titled “An unnecessary honor” by Tom Plate. Available […]
Sufficiency going forward, diversity going backward
“We only ever interpret it based on what he says and personal bias more often than historical perspective..”
‘What he says’:
– That’s a good starting point, isn’t it?
‘Historical perspective’:
– That’s also important, and often provides clarification.
‘Personal bias’:
– I try to be objective, but I will admit that, at this point in time, I prefer the older ‘white knight’ over the contenders.
…but surely you get the point now that SE is not the best for your three beloved principles
No, if you have the patience, will you please spell out in simpler terms (for me) why, somehow, talking about 3 principles is not good for those 3 principles.
Interview with Burma’s Ma Thanegi
Dr Win Maung
I think nawnaw’s criticism of Ma Theingi is without any substance and most unfair. I am 74 years old medical doctor who work and live in london,England. I love and admired Ma Su for her sacrifice for the democracy for our country. I have met her husband at his home in Oxford,distributed Ma Su’s campaign videos and participated in Hyde park demonstrations.Therefore I was blacklisted by the government and couldn’t go back home when my father died. I was partially involved in the attempt towards her release in 1995. I am not a politician but I did my duty as a patriot because I believe in freedom and democracy,that’s why I supported Ma Su.That doesn’t mean I have always to agree with her. Her policy on tourists boycott and discouraging investment and encouraging sanctions are totally wrong. As president of charity organisation/NGO I have regular contact with ordinary people for the past12 years and have never met a single person who doesn’t want tourist to come. Because of sanctions and disinvestment, business declined and factories closed down with the result of families broke down, women go into prostitution and some commit suicide. Do I have to remain loyal to her blindly even after witnessing these these disastrous consequences? If you really believe in democracy try to understand between loyalty and slavery. Ma Theingi has every right to agree or disagree with Ma Su or Blair or Bush.It is her human right and I want to advice those who are unfairly accusing Ma Theingi to grow up.
There is no doubt about Ma Su’s sincerity for our country but ,though unintentionally, her action has caused a lot of pain and suffering among the poor. In Buddhism it is called bad Karma and no one can escape it’s responsibility. In Buddhist term what she is going through is due to her past deeds ( those who are responsible for her present suffering will have their turn in this life or in next life. Buddha said bad karma will follow you like a shadow). I had great expectation in Ma Su for great many years. Many people believed that government will buckle under international pressure as urged by her.
Now it is clear she lead us to war which has no chance to win but to prolong the suffering. In doing so she pushed Myanmar towards Chinese camp away from her western friends. If it were not for her Myanmar could have been as progressed as Vietnam at least and we could have had a new government earlier. I know many diehards are still sentimental about Ma Su’s high moral ground about ” Western style Democracy”,the prototype which will either not get it or not suited to us at present. So pragmatism is the reality that we have to accept .I am a Myanmar citizen and will vote for the new constitution.
By the way I have no business interest in myanmar or any serving relative in the army. I do not always agree with them I quietly tell them whenever opportunity arise. I am trying to help my country through NGO the Friends of Rainforests in Myanmar. Please visit our web-site http://www.formuk.org
Dr Win Maung
Sufficiency going forward, diversity going backward
Whether or not HMK has mandated it is irrelevant. Why is it that some people will always argue the argument about the King’s intent even though we all know very well that none of us can know that intent. We only ever interpret it based on what he says and personal bias more often than historical perspective.
Again, you’re missing the point, nganadeeleg. Regardless of whether HMK should be allowed to pass comment, sufficiency theory is certainly not the best way to promote moderation, reasonableness, and immunity. In fact, I would say it has done more harm than good, again, irrespective of whether “he wanted to help” or not. (I might add that he should help by strictly sticking to his duties as constitutional monarch).
Last, “anti-monarchists” do not exist as a singular person. Most see this old man as a vulnerable fool compared to the propaganda that exists about him. Yet at the same time, how he has managed to stay on for 60 years shows the cunning of the entire Establishment and network monarchy, which is represented solely by HMK. We could debate about HMK’s “genius” later by judging his achievements and speeches, but surely you get the point now that SE is not the best for your three beloved principles.
A Thai studies warlord
Jon: Here is a link to the list of journals on economics that you might access if you are a member at NIDA. Not sure whether the journals you need are included, but the list seems long to me.
http://library2.nida.ac.th/serial/englishjournal/j-econ2004.htm
Sufficiency going forward, diversity going backward
…but can you conclusively say that your interpretation is the correct one?
I’ve argued all along that moderation, reasonableness, and immunity are good principles to live by, and therefore don’t think they need to wrapped up in royalist (or Buddhist) propaganda .
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I do not recall HMK saying it had to be mandated as government policy (nor should it be).
You agree that the principles are good ones to live by, so what’s the problem?
Are you really trying to say HMK should never offer any commentary on how peoples lives could be improved, or give people the benefit of his accumulated wisdom?
Has it ever occurred to you that he might be trying to help?
(I concede he might be going about it the wrong way, as he is, after all, mainly a product of his upbringing, surroundings & circumstances)
According to the anti-monarchists, he is a rambling fool and yet at the same time he is also so manipulating that he has formulated a theory to justify and maintain the status quo. Which is it – you cannot have it both ways?
Sufficiency going forward, diversity going backward
Sufficiency economy seems to be like an ideological monster of Loch Ness — many claim to have seen it, but nobody can provide proof that it really exists. Why not just separate it from the king altogether and categorize it as one of the many varieties of alternative development ideas, or perhaps even as one sub–idea of the mainstream idea of sustainable development? Including the king in all this only serves to obscure things.
There now even is a foreign PhD student working at Thammasat on a thesis concerning sufficiency economy. Will take some more years time, I guess.
There is also a new book on the theme: “Sufficiency Economy: A New Philosophy in the Global World. 100 Interviews with Business Professionals.” Oh sure, these people will know… , and even the title doesn’t conform to the principle of moderation!
Sufficiency going forward, diversity going backward
The bigger point is, hobby, not about whether the theory is good or not. As I have said, moderation, reasonableness, and immunity are good principles to live by, but can you conclusively say that your interpretation is the correct one?
This is where the vagueness of the theory weakens it. Its ambiguity is exploited for propaganda purposes as a one-size-fits-all solution for the country, with some undesirable results as I have mentioned above.
So, as I have asked above, would it be better to promote moderation, reasonableness, and immunity as desirable values on its own (via the teachings of Buddha for a quick example) or would it be better to promote them shrouded in a vague mist of royalist propaganda that also promotes the elite’s status quo and whose only explicit example of practical application was a one-size-fits-all farm (there was a previous NM post that discussed this wasn’t there?).
What’s more, what about values such as justice, rule of law, or income equality? To me, these are much too important to miss out on in an economic theory of such great importance or at least they tell me its such.
Sufficiency going forward, diversity going backward
Teth: IMO it’s a good theory, and I don’t really care whether it is new and original, or not.
Just look at the elites using sufficiency economy as a justification for the status quo!
I agree that is a problem, but it still does not mean the theory is wrong.
Our friend, Dr Thaksin, is somehow seen by many on this site as the man to change the status quo, but I fail to see how his example is any better than that of the old elite.
Extra judicial killings, Corruption, Tax avoidance (evasion?), interference in Media, Judicial, Military & Police matters etc etc.
I don’t see a change, just more sophistication at playing the same old game!
A Thai studies warlord
I agree that there are resource limitations, especially for information hungry foreign scholars. Re the places, I look at Bangkok as a unit, which includes at least Thammasat, Chulalongkorn, and NIDA. JSEAS is also at Chula Pol Scie. If you are a member at Thammasat, you can download almost every article (I was told a few days ago). The situation now is incomparatively better to what we had, say, 20 years ago. Specialized researches might be more difficult. But how many Thais do such research? For the great majority of students and lecturers, there is plenty of material available. The problem is that most of them are not research-oriented readers, not the lack of resources.
Sufficiency going forward, diversity going backward
Hobby, moderation, reasonableness, and immunity is not wrong. But the above piece of propaganda is quite misleading. Furthermore, is moderation, reasonableness, and immunity really something new that it should be enshrined as a theory by a genius?
Not only that, but are those three values really what you can derive from that man’s rambling speeches?
If you are really fond of moderation, reasonableness, and immunity, promote such things instead of promoting a vague “new” economic theory that is really more useful as a propaganda tool and was probably intended as such. For instance, start advocating a purer form of Buddhism, a religion which already enshrines those values you speak of in much clearer, purer terms than that “new” theory. Just look at the elites using sufficiency economy as a justification for the status quo!
A Thai studies warlord
Applied linguistics, also a social science, I personally participated in a Thai university programme of 30+ people, we could have and should have been doing research, but no journals to review the literature on research topics and no research mentors to guide one, JSTOR which is making its way into some universities helps, but old style paper journals could be used by low budget Rajaphat students and other people in society who need the background, government and journalists, for instance. JSTOR is attached to enrollment.
Anthropology goes to war
ladyboy,
Are those who are unable to control themselves the supporters of the war on drugs? If so what do you mean by unable to control themselves?
I mean both sides are not able to control themselves. I believe violent reaction is an equally extreme behavior as using substances and therefore, not a particularly progressive situation. By submitting to the actions of drug traffickers and drug users, supporters of the war give credit to the aforementioned for being such a threat to the regular way of life that they must be violent in response. That violence is seemingly the only option, I believe, does not reflect a strong character for those war on drugs supporters and is equally weak as those either selling or defecting into a comatose state because the prime motivator is fear. Fear is not strength, and therefore not control.
I think that this promotes interesting questions on how violence is viewed culturally. In my limited scope, I believe that when violence is justified, it is really the justification of cowardice. From what other emotional position allows a justification of violent behavior? Are there other monastic or ascetic positions and perspectives?
*steps down from the lectern*
A Thai studies warlord
“Most books and articles in the social sciences are not difficult to get in Thailand.”
In the humanities they definitely are difficult, probably because so much publishing takes place in obscure ways like tiny low run edited volumes of papers or try to get the Indian Journal of Philosophy or the Buddhist Studies Review or even the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (one place that I know of: Thammasat Political Science Library). Pali Text Society and Journal of the Burma Research Society only at the Siam Society which has had its journals closed off for more than a year. Research in the humanities such as history or religious studies is difficult because access to the sources is difficult. There is pretty good general coverage, but the nature of research is usually that you absolutely need a few works or important papers that your paper amplifies on and you absolutely need to have that, and for some of the subjects most important to Thailand like “Theravadan” lineages of Buddhism, it really is very difficult to get the sources. Bechert’s “Pali Niti Literature of Burma” has apparently disappeared from the one library that had it. Will have to ask a friend for that. Or take economics which I have two degrees in and is a social science, I challenge you to find the full set of leading journals that define the field in all of Thailand, much less a single university.
Anthropology goes to war
“…the Drug War has been unpopular with people who support the rule of law”
Government officials make up black lists, people on those lists show up systematically dead. No one officially knows how, but knowing how things work at the unreported and untransparent local rural level can well guess how.
Then inquiries and headlines ask whether anyone was killed who shouldn’t have been, because if this is true, then it was ok after all, which misses the whole point of judicial inquiries in the first place, as opposed to local lynch mobs or vigilante justice or extra-judcial cops out of uniform or mob justice. In the end, they just prune the twigs or level functionaries in the drug distribution network, and democratic or at least very popular bloodlust sentiment is satisfied, and the big guys really in control just replace those low level functionaries, i.e. BS.
Communist garlic threatens Thai culture
LOL. Wonderful find! I follow garlic in Taiwan on my Taiwan blog. Taiwan imports lots of garlic from China — there’s an illegal garlic trade going back to the early 90s, run by gangsters. The same claims about local garlic are made here in Taiwan — just switch the two nation’s names. Here’s an article:
“Following a tip-off, police seized the haul in several warehouses in Yunlin, west Taiwan, and arrested several smugglers who will be charged for violating Taiwan’s ban on trading with China, several TV channels reported.
The businessmen bought the garlic at one yuan (20 US cents) per kilogram in China, and shipped them to Taiwan via North Korea.
As locally-grown garlic is in short supply ahead of Chinese New Year, with demand high as lots of garlic is used in cooking during the week-long festival, the smuggling ring hoped to reap profits by selling the Chinese garlic at 80 Taiwan dollars ($2.5) per kilo.
Taiwanese also like eating raw garlic when they eat noodles, dumplings or other dishes.
New Year’s Eve is on February 6.
The smugglers could also be charged with fraud because they planned to pass off the Chinese garlic as Taiwanese, although Taiwan garlic is considered of better quality than Chinese garlic.
When police raided the warehouses, the smugglers claimed the garlic came from North Korea.
“Chinese garlic is not as spicy and tasty as Taiwan garlic. So the experts knew right away it was Chinese garlic,” a police officer said.
Police have destroyed the 27 tons of Chinese garlic.”
Sufficiency going forward, diversity going backward
Teth: Your comment #17 where you ‘play the man’ instead of ‘play the ball’ is fairly typical of those who attack the ‘Sufficiency Economy’ theory.
I will ask again:
– What’s wrong with moderation, reasonableness & immunity?
A Thai studies warlord
As a German: Yes, handcuffs, definitely (eyeshades as well)!
Most books and articles in the social sciences are not difficult to get in Thailand. This is not the main problem.
A Thai studies warlord
‘…translations into Thai will make it a little harder for Thai academics to **ignore** works that were originally published in English…”
At least in the area that I do research in, it **isn’t intentional**, the western publishing system is and has been set up such that it is almost impossible to gain access to relevant texts here in Southeast Asia.
Like Brill’s handbooks which cost 170 US dollars and which they reputably burn any remaining copies of after they make some lucrative sales to western university libraries. Some university presses in the US also make little effort to get their books distributed in Southeast Asia, the result being that people simply don’t know about these books and they don’t make their way on to university library shelves.
The book that completely changed the way I look at early Burmese sources was Steven Collins “Nirvana and other Buddhist Felicities” and the idea of a “Pali imaginaire” that is embedded in the Tipitaka and also Burmese literature. Since this is maybe the most important book on Pali literature in several years one would think it would be fairly widely distributed. One copy at Chiang Mai University!
Probably translation software from Thai into English, let’s say, would be really important. I’m slowly familiarizing myself with what an important German work has to say by using a combination of OCR and Google translate. Handcuffs for me?
Sufficiency going forward, diversity going backward
Lovely piece of propaganda. Thanks for your nuanced contribution to the debate.
A brilliant demonstration of your critical thinking skills.