Category: Around Mahasarakham

Sunset Cast

Sometimes I miss lugging around a DSLR.

We visited a nearby reservoir, Kaeng Loeng Chan (they really need to simplify the official English spelling), on the weekend. They were holding a work rally to cover the newly-created Health Park with grass sod and quite a few people showed up to volunteer (or as a Thai would say, to make merit).

We got bored of the manual labor after less than an hour and walked around the banks of the reservoir instead, taking photos and looking at dead crabs. The water seems too murky and oxygen-depleted to support fish close too shore, but they must be out there somewhere. Maybe I’ll take the kids fishing out there sometime.

Sunday Hoops

A three day weekend is something special, but especially so when you’re a little kid. Mommy was off at graduation practice for her uni, so the kids and I got in the Crown and cruised around lazy Sunday style, picked up some fries at Mickey D’s, and went to some shaded outdoor courts across from their school for a picnic and some basketball.

These days, Max is trying out all kinds of sports to see what he likes. He was into football only for a couple years, but has gotten into ping pong more recently. He’s expressed interested interest in starting up muay thai again, so we will start on that at Nam’s uni next week if we can. Just the past couple of days he’s been dribbling around a basketball, so today was the day to find out if he could get the ball up to the basket yet:

A photo of Max in his pre-basket days.

Max in his full post-basket glory. Be proud son, not everyone has a snapshot of such an important moment.

This was his very first unassisted basket, and there was much celebration. All in all, he got in three baskets today and wore the hell out of his arms. As I remember, this is an important growth marker for kids – playing until you’re worn out, then playing some more on top of that. So I pushed him some more for good measure.

As we were leaving, some high school girls came around to play in their green team uniforms and we watched them start practicing. Max asked if I could dunk, and I said no, but he should ask the girls if they could.

He asked why, and I told him it might be a good pick up line. He asked what a pick up line was, and when I explained, he got pretty annoyed with me and asked why I wanted him to have such an old (!) girlfriend. I told him it would make all the little girls in his class jealous, after which Max got angry and stopped talking to me for a while. But we listened to trap on the way home, and even Gucci agreed with me.

Monkey Atlantis

Maha Sarakham’s premier tourist attraction is under water!

The monkey forest park in the nearby town of Kosum Pisai (AKA Monkeytown) is now completely flooded. The river running through it is usually quite wide and only about a meter deep; it’s a great spot to relax under the trees and watch fishermen throwing cast nets as a fresh breeze blows through and monkeys steal food from cars and incessantly mount each other.

Now, it’s under several meters of floodwater because the Ubonrat Dam upriver was opened after the heavy rains.

Pushed out of their home in the forest, the monkeys are now living up the street at the school and the temple, and even cruising the streets around town.

Hopefully, the monkeys can go home again soon so that order is restored in Monkeytown.

Maha Sarakham Police Using Sasumata

This is an interesting video I found on FB, purportedly from this article in the Nation, although I can’t find it there. It’s interesting mainly because the nonlethal weapon sasumata (known as a “man-catcher” in English) was adapted from an an ancient and very deadly samurai weapon of the same name (in Japanese, the English translation of which is “spear-fork”).

Ancient Sasumata (spear-fork)

Modern Sasumata (man-catcher)

 

Text from the Nation article:

Muang Maha Sarakham police demonstrate how to use sticks to subdue a suspect on Tuesday.

A video of Maha Sarakham police using Y-shaped and hooked sticks to subdue a frantic drunken man, which went viral on Monday, was part of a wider strategy, it was revealed.

It is part of Provincial Police Region 4 training to reduce injuries to suspects and arresting police when attempting to subdue knife-wielding or agitated people, said Muang Maha Sarakham precinct superintendent Colonel Chairoj Nakharaj. He said that once a week since last year, each precinct under Provincial Police Region 4 has had a team of four officers trained in how to use three Y-shaped and one hook-shaped stick to subdue suspects. The hook stick is used to pull a suspect off their feet and the Y-shaped sticks are used to hold them down.
Chairoj said the method is used only when deemed appropriate. The incident in the video, which went viral after its was posted on the precinct’s Facebook page, took place on Saturday after police were alerted to a drunken man wielding an object that looked like a long knife wrapped in a cloth at the Maha Sarakham Bus Station.
He was arrested for creating a public disturbance.

Related links:
Sasumata demonstration video at Japanese school (YouTube)
Teachers pin down knife-wielding man with two-pronged ‘man catcher’ (JapanToday article)