Showing 1 - 5 of 5
Living in Thailand's age of impunity
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 17/01/2026
» There's no place like Thailand. Joyscrolling TikTok and Reels reveals dozens of clips made by international visitors lamenting having to leave our lovely country and return to dreary Europe or joyless America. "Nobody talks about how hard it is to go from this" -- insert a cut of a wonderful beach in Krabi -- "to this"--cut to a drab, damp suburban street somewhere in the West. Add a crying-face emoji. "I want to move here!" the traveller announces. True, everybody loves Thailand.
Where the struggle begins
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/11/2025
» Annemarie Jacir's Palestine 36 reminds us that the question of Palestine didn't begin two years ago but generations before that. Showing at the Tokyo International Film Festival, the film is set in the aftermath of World War I as the European powers carve up the Middle East like a spoiled child slicing his birthday cake: gleefully, arbitrarily, jabbing their fingers on a map with no regard of history or the need of local inhabitants.
Cool Pattani
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/09/2019
» Last weekend, along an old street in Pattani, skater boys and Lambretta riders were hanging out with poets and activists. As the rain let up and the night cooled, jazz musicians hummed and strummed, while a DJ was spinning upbeat music next to a digitally-mapped, fashionably-faded brick wall.
The many interpretations of bliss
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 08/10/2018
» With the monsoon comes the art. With the wind and bluster come the artists. Here it is, finally, after a year of fanfare and preparation. The first Bangkok Art Biennale 2018 (BAB 2018) will open on Oct 18 and run until next February in a city-wide surfeit of artistic affairs, from exhibitions to talks, workshops to pool parties (which is, of course, art!). The programme will keep Bangkokians and visitors busy for months starting from next week.
Mahathir's win shows voting works
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 12/05/2018
» This week all my friends went to vote. In Malaysia, of course.