Thai Society/Culture
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Quick update
I’ve basically dropped off the edge of the world trying to get over this cold. I think I’ll be back full swing tomorrow. In the meantime, I caught this article at the Nation’s website about a graduate of our uni who’s stirring up some things in education over in Buri Ram: The school that sets its own course
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A Visa Crawl
Long-term foreign residents of Thailand not fortunate (unfortunate?) enough to have a permanent residency or Thailand Elite card must apply for visa extensions, usually every year. It’s pretty much expected to be a long and drawn-out process. This year proved to be no exception. We left Mahasarakham at 6:15 AM and arrived at Mukdahan immigration shortly after 9. Because the idiots in our personnel department couldn’t get our documents together, our trip had been delayed until one of the busiest days of the year – just a couple days before many people’s contracts (and hence visas) end. The whole day was long and tiring; I spent most of it standing…
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Pink Water Buffalo Photos!!
A few weeks ago, Nam wanted to buy some more maternity clothes so we got in the car and headed off to Non Kuan Chang (sp?), a nearby village with the best silk shop in the region. The shop is run by my coworker’s mother-in-law, with several looms and weaving machines on an elevated bamboo work area outside and an extension of their big house used to hold/display finished products. I took photos there the first time I visited Sarakham seven or eight years ago and need to do so again; today I’m not writing about silk though. Max had fallen asleep in the car on the way, and since…
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Wherein I confront craziness
In the interest of getting everything on the record, we decided to confront the crazy bitch, at her request, at the police station last Thursday, dependant on a couple of things. We first called in a favor and asked about the officer in charge and got back the answer that he had a reputation for being straight, and a good cop. That was a good sign, because a chance you take when going to the cops here in an unclear case like this one is that the cops are either sided with your opponents for whatever reason, or the cops themselves want something. So I wired myself with a cellphone…
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No work accomplished today
I wanted to get some midterm grading done the past five hours, but I ended up entertaining Max instead. He wouldn’t go to sleep and Nam was busy putting together slides for a presentation in Bangkok at some lexicographical conference in ten days – it takes precedence over my work so I had to watch the baby (of course, pretty soon he will be the toddler and there will be a new baby). I really need to get as much grading done as I can in chunks because with 11 classes (7 different courses; 3 which I’ve done before but am improving and 4 new ones), a few hundred students,…
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Where do stolen Japanese bikes go? ????????????????
Well, many of them end up in Thailand: One of two bicycle stores in town selling only stolen bikes from Japan that we visited this week (we’re looking for a Japanese-style child seat). This shop is the bigger one and has perhaps 50 bikes in stock. They park the merch on the dirt in front of the shop (a townhouse across from Big C Mahasarakham) during the day. Anybody in Japan want to call Mr. Makino and tell him where his mountain bike is? He can have it back for 3,500 Baht plus shipping. I should get an award from the police or something for doing their jobs. It’s been…
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Thai funerals are chill
I went to a funeral over the weekend; a coworker lost her father. I always find it remarkable at funerals here because they’re such pleasant affairs. Is this a Theravada thing, or a uniquely Thai thing? I suspect Laos is much the same but I’m not sure about Cambodia, Myanmar, or Sri Lanka… At a typical Thai funeral (I’ve actually been to around fifteen and driven by hundreds), blue canvas pavilions are rented and placed in the street in front of the house for guests to sit under. Monks come from a local temple and their amplified chants fill the streets for all to hear. This is one social occasion…
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Plagiarism in Thai Universities
I stumbled upon an excellent article on plagiarism over at Inside Higher Ed: LINK Plagiarism is such a deeply rooted and widespread problem in Thailand, I think it deserves its own course for first year students. Most students understand that it’s bad for some reason, but their attitude is basically that they can’t do the work without plagiarizing. Interestingly enough, most Thai students will immediately admit to plagiarizing if confronted, and the same goes for copying homework or cheating on a test. There’s definitely some good Asian moral richness blended into their transgressions. /////////////////////// As a side note, when Nam and I were studying at Tenri University, we had a…
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Our New Thai House Part 5 – The Blessing Way
The end of 2007 coincided with the milestone of 98% or so of the basic house being completed, so we decided to move in on New Years Day. We invited some monks for a blessing ceremony and they did us up well. It was the first time we were living in a new house. This coupled with the fact that we were one of the very first houses up in the neighborhood and hence kind of solitary made for a strange but very relaxing time coming home after work every day. I mean, in front of the house was our pond and around us was future house plots and rice…
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Working Around Planned Obsolescence
All of the PCs I’m using at home are ones I brought over from Japan in 2006 so they are all either very well-used or broken now. My main laptop is a Latitude x300 which was manufactured about 150 computer years ago*, and the screen hinge broke so it’s held open with a bent metal ruler I jam in the gap between the large-sized battery and the main body every time I use it. All 3 desktop PCs failed in some way or another so I broke them down into parts to create a super franken PC which would have kicked serious ass about five years ago but is now…
