Showing 1 - 9 of 9
Paradise lost as evil rears its ugly head
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 05/01/2013
» In my heyday, I was at the fabled Koh Phangan's full moon parties - three times - where I practised English, Swedish, Spanish, German and Hebrew, then walked the moonlit, vomit-strewn beach, enjoyed (meaning eating) local mushrooms, lit a bonfire of international camaraderie and watched the psychochemical clouds drift like memories into the dark Gulf of Thailand.
Don’t they know it’s ‘our’ Songkran?
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 22/03/2014
» Your Honour, ladies and gentlemen of the tribunal of the International Court of Universal Justice. I’ve come to this court today to represent the Cultural Watchdog and Tourism Authority of Thailand, and I henceforth present to the esteemed tribunal the grave, scandalous, hair-raising offence committed by a group of people in Singapore (I think) against the splendid and extremely wet Siamese tradition known as Songkran.
Spare Nepal our black arts, crass barbs
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 02/05/2015
» The Kathmandu earthquakes shocked us all. Once again, we are reminded that while some disasters are unnatural, it's natural disasters that wake us from our slumber with such frightening impact. After every quake, after every aftershock, after watching television feeds and looking at pictures on Facebook, we're nudged to reflect on the insecurity of life, even the fragility of civilisation.
Film fete case shows glacial pace of reform
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 08/08/2015
» It’s about time. The case has been cold but not closed, and justice delayed is more consoling than justice abandoned. After eight years, the Office of the Attorney General finally charged Juthamas Siriwan, ex-governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), for allegedly taking 60 million baht in kickbacks from an American firm in exchange for a contract to run the ill-fated Bangkok International Film Festival between 2003 and 2007. She has 15 days to show her face at the Office of the National Anti-Corruption Commission, or face an arrest warrant.
Hanuman help us from a 'happy' ogre
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 24/09/2016
» The crusader has returned to the gate, ready to crush the infidels. I thought the new buzzword was "Thailand 4.0", whatever that means, and yet this week we're still arguing if a portrayal of a mythical ogre in a music video is blasphemy, a transgression against the high culture of Siam, the culture that stares down from a pedestal, that exists like a taxidermied animal on the altar of an abandoned temple.
When history becomes just a hazy dream
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 22/04/2017
» Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present (tada!) controls the past. In summary, the military, like quantum physicists or mad sorcerers, controls time: The past, present, future, ad infinitum.
Show must go on to save Scala cinema
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/01/2018
» Urban conservationists, architects, archivists, cinema-goers, and all-round romantics have united for one cause: Save Scala.
Prayut can't control lens of history
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 21/04/2018
» He came to drain the swamp, but the swamp has reclaimed him. He came to purge politicians, but politicians have found him. He came to rewrite history, and we wonder how history will remember him.
Will gentrification respect city's people?
Oped, Kong Rithdee, Published on 28/06/2023
» We've lived for over a century in the shadow of grandeur: near the Customs House, known to Thais as rongpasi. "We" means my maternal family and the community of Haroon Mosque. Each day before sunrise, the muezzin's sing-song call rings through the neighbourhood, carried on the river wind towards the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, the French Embassy and Assumption Cathedral.