Showing 31 - 40 of 55
Going S44 cold turkey is going to hurt
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 27/08/2016
» There's a Thai phrase, fon lai chang, the rain that chases out the elephant. But the heavy rain on Wednesday night managed to chase out something bigger than an elephant: the Bangkok governor. I hear people popping champagne corks.
Serving up cruelty, a taste of 'Thainess'
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/08/2016
» The debate on the meaning of "Thainess" always fills me with patriotism and stomach ache. After last week's bombings, the army chief warned us to look out for people who wore hats, glasses and carried backpacks, because "Thais don't do that". The general meant well -- that we should watch out for suspicious agents of terror -- but the way he framed it was a crass, militaristic way of monopolising the definition of something that is shifting, malleable, even undefinable.
Breaking into song on the big vote day
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/08/2016
» Tomorrow is the day. Are you ready? Really, are you ready?Keep calm, get dressed, put on your Sunday smile, and head out to … No, not the referendum booth, or maybe later. First you really must go to the Scala Theatre in Siam Square, where for the first time in Thailand in decades, The Sound of Music will play on the big cinema screen with its historic overflowing of saccharine -- and with one of the strangest anti-dictatorship sentiments ever shown on film.
Clowning around is no joke anymore
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 30/04/2016
» When humour is outlawed, what's left? When humorists, satirists and clowns are not safe from dictatorial fury, who is? Mockers jailed, jokers scolded, caricaturists threatened, sometimes by words, sometimes by pre-dawn commando raids, without warrants, as if they were hunting armed terrorists. That's how 10 people were carried off by uniformed officers on Wednesday, a few of them guilty of running a satirical Facebook page spoofing the PM. Yesterday, the military court denied them bail.
'No' drama being played out in real life
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 23/04/2016
» In October 1988 there was a national referendum. A military dictator, under pressure from the international community after years in power, years of human rights violation, abductions and forced disappearances, held a plebiscite where citizens could go to the poll and tick "yes" or "no".
Giving us a bit of hope would be a real coup
Kong Rithdee, Published on 02/04/2016
» The military is riding red-hot TV ratings, proving once and for all that uniformed men are truly desirable. No, not the Thai military — sunburnt, humourless and eternally puzzled. I mean the South Korean military pretty boys, unblemished by war, unperturbed by earthquakes and other calamities — those military men in Descendants of the Sun, our Dear Leader Prayut Chan-o-cha's favourite show.
Overhauling our Newspeak vocabulary
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/03/2016
» Since we’ll be stuck with the regime for another 20 months or so (a conservative guesstimate) it’s time to update our glossary of post-coup Newspeak. From “mafia” to “public broadcaster” and “Patriotic pop culture”, almost every day we see an exciting addition to the dictionary of surreal meanings in our life under the marvellous junta.
Our state of indefinite transition
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 27/02/2016
» We feel like Tom Hanks in The Terminal, a man stuck in a long transit, and not just any long transit but a perpetual transit in a storm-whipped airport, our boarding pass torn to shreds and our destination — is this destiny? — marked with the sign “indefinite delay”.
Of military, monks and an unholy mess
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/02/2016
» It was a match made in heaven, if heaven had a wrestling match. A few hundred monks from the Sangha Buddhist Alliance faced off with 150 soldiers on Monday at Phutthamonthon park, saffron vs green, tonsured vs crew-cut, as a mini brawl broke out between the two sides over the contested supreme patriarch nomination. Choice photos show a monk head-lock a soldier, jujitsu-style, while soldiers were blocking the angry brethren from entering the park. It was an unholy mess. I thought we were watching news from Myanmar, only that Myanmar seems peaceful these days.
The premier and our age so full of fury
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/02/2016
» ‘Angry people are not always wise,” Jane Austen wrote in Pride and Prejudice.