Showing 21 - 30 of 60
When the price isn't right
Life, Anchalee Kongrut, Published on 21/11/2016
» Regardless of the market price, khao remains a symbol of life and sustenance, of joy and sometimes pain, especially for farmers who tend to the minuscule grains. Rice is in our mouths, but given its economic and cultural importance, it also occupies a special place in Thai people's hearts.
From salt to solar
Life, Anchalee Kongrut, Published on 14/09/2016
» If this year's severe drought returns next dry season, Uncle Wai Rodtayoy and other salt farmers in tambon Koek Kharm of Samut Sakhon, known as the country's largest sea-salt-farming area, will see mounting debts.
New sugar policy has a bitter taste
News, Anchalee Kongrut, Published on 12/09/2016
» Last week, the government announced a policy to expand the sugar industry. The strategy, initially, sounds good, because it will catapult the Thai agriculture sector from a raw material supplier to a high value industry. FarmVille version 4.0, if you will.
Banana split
Life, Anchalee Kongrut, Published on 17/08/2016
» High on the list of fruits Thais cannot live without is kluai namwa, or cultivated banana, a tropical strand only grown in South and Southeast Asia. The cultivated banana has long been an affordable, ubiquitous food staple for Thais, the same way apples are for Westerners.
The world is not just for humans
Life, Anchalee Kongrut, Published on 20/07/2016
» The gecko is a creature whose presence you can probably detect around your house at night -- its multi-hued body and the staccato voice seems to be straight out of a horror movie. It is also a constant reminder that despite all the modernity and development, something wild is always among us.
A cuppa sustainability
Life, Anchalee Kongrut, Published on 25/05/2016
» For the urban cool, coffee has somehow become a form of luxurious indulgence -- not just a tonic to wake you up in the morning, or a kick to keep your eyes wide open in the yawning afternoon. But for Theerasit Amornsaensuk, managing director of Green Net SE, coffee drinking has a higher function still -- that of protecting forested mountains, while coffee-growing can provide a means for local villagers to coexist with their environment.
No rhyme, no reason
Life, Anchalee Kongrut, Published on 02/05/2016
» There's a beautiful piece of prose in a Thai poem that reads: "Kavee rue lang laeng Siam" -- (Siam never runs out of poets). Composed over 120 years ago by Prince Paramanuchit Chinoros, the verse is part of Samuta Koj Kam Chan, and it describes the golden age of Thai literary culture, in which poetry was ingrained as part of people's speech. It was a time when rhyme and stanza were infused in normal dialogue. Men wrote poems, or sang them for courtship.
Razing 'cane
Life, Anchalee Kongrut, Published on 30/03/2016
» March and April are months of haze. The white-grey smoke may be just a seasonal nuisance that exists only in the northern and southern regions in Thailand, but in a sugar plantation in Dan Chang of Suphan Buri province, haze has long been a part of the people's daily lives and of the worrisome harvesting cycle. Villagers in Dan Chang get used to dry-coughing. Smoke hangs over the roofs of their houses and seeps indoors.
Myanmar up-close and personal
Life, Anchalee Kongrut, Published on 22/03/2016
» 'Welcome to the Guesthouse. The small space is made to set you free from anxiety. But first you need to leave your old perceptions behind. You need to open your mind for new memories," says Kyaw Luck, a guide for the exhibition "Myanmar Up-Close", which opened last week at Museum Siam.
'Coffee culture' aftertaste gets far more bitter
News, Anchalee Kongrut, Published on 11/02/2016
» In the beginning, we thought coffee was just a brew to drink to keep us awake. But over the past decade, we have seen the growth of a "coffee culture" that has spread around the world, including to the Land of Smiles.