CNY 2nd Day

What do Thais do on the second day of the Chinese Lunar New Year? Chinatown some say. For a good lunch and all the festivities. Lion dance procession in the middle of road without regards to traffic. See…. Thailand is a place where you can do anything you want, anywhere and anytime you want. It was like Chingay plus mob rolled into one.


And in the night, all relevance to the Chinese tradition would have been disconnected. Its Coyote time. In fact, its Coyote time all the time for some. Who says beware the recession coming? Look at them party and splurge on alcohol. Gong Xi Fatt Chai.

Do Thais Celebrate Chinese New Year?

On the eve of CNY, I received a bunch of promotional SMS from a bunch of night clubs. Yes Thais do celebrate. It is just another occasion to get drunk. Drown yourselves in alcohol and have your faces engulfed in the no bra cheongsam chests of this beautiful Kingdom. Yipeee…..




Well, that’s what most will be up to. But for a large handful of scattered Chinese who have not lost traditions, altars will be set up for prayers. The Chinese came some centuries ago to work the land into economic upturn. Most started off as coolies working hard in construction or as laborers in factories and such. Without the Chinese women imported from their land, they paired up with the natives and cross marriages transpire from then till present. The Chinese then promoted their own social statuses by working hard and exercising their business mind. Soon, they were big owners of successful corporations and businesses such as large scale rice mills which are still now family oriented and handed down from one generation to the other.




The Chinese traditions had been handed down as well but many of the current generation had conveniently forgotten the practices. Ask some Chinese Thai and then you will see they no longer know what steps to be taken, how many joss sticks to burn, how many times to pray and which direction for prayer (actually, I have forgotten too). Sounds like a dying culture ain’t it? But as one walks the streets of Bangkok, the hidden scatters of Chinese practices will be revealed one street after another. Give another fifty years or so when all the Teochew speaking old folks are gone, will the loud continuous bangs of fire crackers still be around to mark the turn of the Chinese Lunar Calendar? Maybe yes, maybe no, yes and maybe but could be no. It is the auspicious first day of the New Year today, it is just another day. We are working in the office now.

Happy Plan?

I had this shoved to me in SCB bank one day. For one that don’ read Thai, I really don’t see how can one be happy when one knocks people down, or one gets knocked down riding a bike and have the life crushed out of one’s body. If Thais wanna sell insurance to foreigners, I suggest they change their tactics. Have English for Buddha’s sake.

Thailand wants to correct Wikipedia – What a Joke

Recently spotted on The Nation. I think the writer meant this as a joke or either as a sarcastic report for the tourism authority and TOT. What’s there to correct? It’s all the truth there, especially the nightlife featuring beautiful and available women part.

End of Season Marker

The end of cold season has always been marked by a rather strange phenomenon here in Bangkok. How do I know the winter is over? Every year, the last burst of cold will be felt in January which will be followed by a few days of fogy mornings. After this climatic event, it will be warm to extremely hot season for the next few months. Fog, mist from water vapor or smog from car exhaust? Sometimes I can never tell.

Last Cold Spell?

It is January, meaning the winter months should be over. The searing heat of April will approach to welcome the next big long Songkran holiday that every Thai is looking forward to (Thais love long long holidays, me too). The past weekend had Bangkok experience night temperatures of 16 degrees. Me in Khao Kho, without any wooly clothes and totally unprepared in only polo shirts and shorts, was a frozen block at 8 degrees.




Just look the thermometer I snapped in the morning. 10 to 11 depress. As I walked around, the wind chill was even worst. Newspaper reported some areas in the north had frozen dew in the morning, and temperature is expected to drop to 0 on some nights there. Amazing.

Thais tell me, it is like that before winter is over. This could be the last cold spell, last burst of chillness before the cycle repeats. The heat will arrive then rain on in May and cold again as November draws closer. The land of three seasons.

Guide - How many Thai Girlfriends can you have?

A Thai man told me, 3 is the magic number. Normally, 1 is enough for men. But for Thai men, 1 is a number too small, so must have more. If have 2, you will get headaches because eventually both will discover each other through some careless acts for sure and they will cat fight everyday. You get 2 headaches with 2 Thai girlfriends.

So add 1 more to make 3 they said. With 3, 2 original ones will gang up and fight number 3 (this actually really happened). So in your pie of Thai girlfriends, 2 will be happy and 1 will not be. 2 happiness overrides 1 headache. With 4, they will pair up into groups of 2. 2 will fight 2, which mean you have 2 groups of happiness canceled out by 2 headaches. 0 happy.

What about 5? If four gang up to override one headache, it is fine, but this will be unlikely to happen. You may get 2 in a group and 3 in the other, so again 2 happiness group and 2 headaches equals 0 happy. Or they will split into 5 individuals which equals 5 headaches, or 3 groups of 2, 2 and 1 equal 3 headaches which happiness of 2 by the 2 groups cannot override. Try 7 or 10 and working the formula itself will give you a migraine.

Thai men (gig scientist) had methodically researched the myriad of possibilities factoring in complex scientific quantum mechanical formulas combined with Newton's Third Law to come out with the magical number 3. Trust them.

Fiery Start to Two O O Nine

Two Singaporeans died so far. And I was not even aware of the story until Ant called from Singapore on New Year’s Day. The thing about Thailand is that, 99% of pubs are death traps. Does a pub need to be inspected and scrutinized by safety authorities like in Singapore before opening? Yes and no and no one really knows. Do we have great big fire exits like in Zouk? So far, I don’t see any. Then fire how? Down the Chivas all in one and get drunk before you feel the agony of suffocation and fire which kills you.

Any shows in Singapore especially involving pyrotechnics will have to be strictly studied before endorsement. But here, we can do crazy things like setting of fireworks indoors and go – the Roof, the Roof, the Roof is on fire, we don’t need no water let the moxxxxfxxker burn! Burn moxxxxfxxker, BURN!!! Well it really happened. Like the many engineering work and planning I encountered, this again exhibits the short sightness so deeply inbreed into the Thai culture.

No worries and lets get by so far as nothing happens. And if something happens, worry for five minutes then no need to worry anymore because it already happened, so no point crying over spilled milk. Such is the attitude we must accept. Just look at your Bangkok office, I bet you only have one stairwell, one exit and no emergency escape route. Fire how? We BBQ. Look at the street vendors that lined the streets out your office. A hundred people can die from contaminated food and the hospitals will trace the case to the vendor. But by then with no registration or license to sell food of any sort to locate the owner how? Nothing. There ain’t any effective measures against anything here in Thailand. We live at our own risk us foreigners. Sue someone? I doubt it works. You sue, they say no money and give you their daughters instead.

Contingency planning is not a priority in most aspect of everything Thai here. Maintenance is considered a luxury that not many Thai businesses bother. Professional skill set and conduct are considered unnecessary by the majority workinghood of the Kingdom. Such a mess thus many ask what I am doing here. In chaos, the opportunist will find the order.