Showing 1 - 10 of 10
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.
Paradise lost
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/04/2025
» In Grand Tour, Miguel Gomes' beguiling travelogue set in 1917, a British diplomat in Burma journeys across Southeast Asia, hopping from country to country, to avoid an encounter with his fiancée. Edward (Gonçalo Waddington) is a colonial officer who, struck by an inexplicable premonition or a case of cold feet, decides to flee Mandalay just before his sweetheart Molly (Crista Alfaiate) is due to arrive. He boards a ship to Singapore, then a train to Bangkok -- it derails on the way, but still makes it -- and onwards to Saigon, Manila, Osaka and Chongqing. Molly, pursuing him, would repeat a more or less similar route.
Ripley strikes quite exquisitely, again
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 12/04/2024
» Just when you thought the original book was bled dry, its last drop of smouldering homoerotic blood squeezed and sucked by multilple movie adaptations, from Rene Clement (French) and Anthony Minghella (American) to Liliana Cavani (Italian), here comes Steven Zaillian's seven-episode Netflix series bluntly titled Ripley. Dusky and exquisitely coldblooded, the latest reworking proves that the Patricia Highsmith's 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley is a living gift that continues giving after 69 years.
Coldplay across the universe
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 07/02/2024
» The latest Coldplay concert in Bangkok was a feat of photogenic spectacles designed to bedazzle, complete with light-blinking wristbands, sci-fi-warped animation on spherical screens, balloons in the shape of planets and exploding fireworks above the roof of Rajamangala National Stadium ("The football field not often used to play football on," as a Thai national squad member noted.)
A note on Thailand Biennale
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 02/01/2019
» One recent morning at Nopphrat Thara beach, the high tide flooded the lower part of a strange, interwoven structure. Rising from the blue water of the bay, it looked like an island, a new, unmapped island of Krabi visible from this popular spot where tourists visit and board tour boats to outlying islands.
PM's plan to end gridlock is pie in sky
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 18/08/2018
» In three months, the angels will return to the clogged thoroughfares of Lost-Angel-ist. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, one who's never shy of making the impossible still impossible, has set his sights on, gasp, fixing Bangkok traffic, which is like untangling the Mobius strip or finding the end of Ariadne's thread. The soundbite-ready part of the PM's order is that he wants to see "tangible results in three months", which promptly sent related authorities scurrying in all directions to make it real.
Old boyz n the Charoen Krung hood
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/08/2018
» The boys once ruled Charoen Krung Road -- the boyz from the hood, sons of Chinese merchants and Muslim roti-makers, rough-around-the-edges teen bred and drilled in the network of sois, who leapt into the Chao Phraya every evening and caught catfish when the river swelled every November, who roamed Bang Rak market when it was still sludgy with vegetable scraps and sneaked into the Prince Rama Theatre when it was still showing, err, adult movies.
Bridging times and cities
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/06/2018
» On a recent visit to Bangkok, Baron Patrick Nothomb recalled the tremors of anxiety when the Thai-Belgian bridge was about to be assembled 30 years ago.
Stop the tall tales about election dates
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 26/05/2018
» There's no way round it and there's no time for subtlety: The past four years have been a sham, a false dream stage-managed by false prophets.
Taking an axe to 'Land of Smiles'
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 24/02/2018
» By now it must be obvious: "The Land of Smiles" is a myth. The biggest myth, wrapped in a legend hidden in hogwash. In Thailand, a smile won't get us anywhere, only an axe wielded in rage does. I bet in a few days a new bumper sticker will appear: "Watch Out, Axe Lady In Car".