Category: Around Mahasarakham

Bar No More

Mina went to an “English Camp” event at the Khon Kaen hotel a couple months ago. Nam’s family used to own the blue and beige buildings across the street from the hotel, but they sold them a few years back. It had been a bar or cowboy saloon of sorts for many years, then had sat in a state of disrepair for a while, an obvious eyesore in the neighborhood. It was good to see that the new owners fixed it up.

The blue banner with faded lettering has been there as long as I can remember (~20 years?) and it advertises NATENIGHT BAZAAR – but I can’t remember ever seeing the actual bazaar. I’ll have to ask Nam’s mom about it.

Stargazy

The girls alerted me to a meteor shower happening a couple months ago, so we drove to a nearby empty parking lot (MALIN PLAZA) and proceeded to take mediocre night photos with our phones.

The blue space invaders looking thingy above the white gas station sign (with the red/blue droplet logo) was a reflection from an unknown source that showed up in all my photos there — thanks, light pollution!

Tokyo Sasumata Incident

One of my YouTube vids from six years ago shows police in Maha Sarakham using a sasumata (a nonlethal man-catching staff of samurai-era design) to subdue a knife-wielding suspect at our local bus station. I posted about it at the time and there are a couple links (amazingly still live) about other incidents down at the bottom.

Weapons similar to the sasumata have a long history in many cultures. They were known as “man-catchers” in Europe and used until the 18th century, although their non-lethality may be up for some debate:

The flanges on the top of that are spring-loaded and were designed to open up after it was thrust around someone’s neck!

The Chinese had a similarly-shaped traditional implement called a “monk’s spade,” or “Shaolin spade” that was apparently used as a burial tool (hence “spade”) as well as a weapon. There are several types still sold today.

During the pandemic, a clamping man-catcher shaped like a sasumata was used in Nepal to enforce social distancing.

This inspired police in India to try their own homebrewed clamping device, which they apparently had trouble naming, eventually settling on “social distancing clamp” or a “lockdown-breaker catcher,” although NPR just gave up and just called them “giant tongs.”

In the latest news, an employee at a jewelry shop in Tokyo is being hailed a hero after thwarting an attempted robbery and giving chase with a sasumata after the three suspects fled. There is some cool video of it:

Two of the three suspects have already surrendered to the police.

I love how they instantly deflate when met with resistance. After their scooters are toppled and the mountain smacks it, the weapon in his hands must have looked like: