Saturday, December 23, 2006

In which I can't stop watching the Daily Show...

I continue to find this lovely clip profoundly cathartic...

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

In which I go on hiatus...

Sorry folks, I'm going dark for a couple of weeks. I'm home for the holidays, and some other serious stuff's come up very quickly, so I won't have much opportunity to blog. You'll hear from me (at the latest) when I go back to Thailand in three weeks.

Happy Holidays!

Sunday, December 10, 2006

In which I offer a Thailand fun fact...

Thailand is sufficiently enamoured of tourists that the government actually throws festivals to commemorate their arrival. I'm not kidding: right now, the market district of Chiang Mai is in the throes of "Chiang Mai Mardi Gras: Celebrating the Start of the Tourist Season".

This is a very unusual country.

In other news, after a night spent in a hotel room whose comfort level and price displayed no correlation whatsoever to each other (take that as you will), I made it back into my apartment Wednesday morning. I'm astonished that an apartment complex that houses closes to a thousand people has no way of accomodating someone who lost their keys after 6:30 PM. Between that and the decrepit internet access, I'm looking for a snazzier place to live.

Meanwhile, I'm thoroughly occupied this week, teaching a 1-week course into which I am apparently to condense a comprehensive education on Economics, Globalization, and Natural Resources. Ummm... the odds ain't good. But it will at the very least wreak havoc on my blogging schedule. Moreover, I'll be well and truly too busy to notice the passage of the final days before my Christmas vacation. Ye gods, I'm excited to visit home.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

In which I confess some foolishness...

Tonight you were supposed to get a bonanza post about the King of Thailand's birthday, as well as my attempts to suss out how the odd Thai calendar works.

Yet I, in my infinite wisdom, have locked myself out of my apartment, and will be spending my evening dealing with that instead. I've exiled myself from my phone, my computer, and the key to my bike lock, hobbling myself rather effectively. I can't remembered the last time I so profoundly inconvenienced myself with so little effort... I'm actually a little proud of myself. Thank Vishnu for the glory of internet cafes.

So instead of learning about the grand festival of idolatry known as the King's Birthday, you'll ponder the transpirings of the evening as I try to track down someone who can open my apartment. Leaven your terror and worry with the knowledge that I played my first full soccer game ever today. The other team was distinctly unnerved by my unorthodox yet wildly inventive strategy of scoring on my own goal, and yet more confused by my curious inattentiveness once my team tethered me to my goalposts in the curious hope that I'd do less harm as goalie. In fact, our opponents were so disoriented by my brilliantly innovative gameplay that we actually won, a victory for which I claim full credit.

OK, back to cajoling the obnoxious little man who manages my apartment. You'll hear more soon... and if I don't come back, avenge my death!

Monday, December 04, 2006

In which I promise to reutrn to Thailand-specific blogging within a few hours...

But first!

Wal-Mart has announced that it is saying "thank you" to its employees for tolerating recent wage caps, enforced graveyard shifts, and other indignities.

Chief among the new perks will be a "special polo shirt" for associates who have served Wal-Mart for more than 20 years.

On one level, this is brilliant PR by Wal-Mart. After all, it's completely immune to satire - I've been staring at the page for 10 minutes trying to think of a snarky comment that doesn't sound blindingly obvious and therefore infantile. I've thus far failed miserably, and as such I give congratulations to Wal-Mart's marketing monkeys - well done, guys!

Sunday, November 26, 2006

In which I explore another of Thailand's nifty qualities, though unfortunately through the dull eyes of an economist... (Sorry for the wonkery - you've been warned!)

One of the finer joys of living in this delightful corner of Southeast Asia is the sparkling range of options opened up by the rock-bottom cost of living. I'll talk about these in a sec, but first you'll have to either slog or scroll through some amateur financial analysis. Though comparable in wealth to Costa Rica, and a hefty notch up the GDP ladder from Botswana, I've found that Thailand is dramatically cheaper than either of them - especially dear extortionate Bots. It would take a better (and better-paid) economist than I to fully suss out the reasons for this, but my theory is something along these lines.

Botswana has such dramatic income inequality that the country is cleanly bisected into two parallel economies, predictably assigned to the haves and the have-nots (Costa Rica, much less so). The middle class is virtually non-existent: either you share a standpipe with a hundred other people, or you have a swimming pool all to yourself. Those on the bottom rungs don't starve or lack for education - a major improvement from many of Botswana's African neighbours - but they eat a diet of dirt-cheap maize meal and beef stew, and live in phenomenally modest housing. The other 15%, by contrast, live unsurprisingly comfortable lives, with precisely the price tag you'd expect. As a result, a slightly-paid intern like myself ended up paying five hundred dollars a month to share a single-level house with 4 other people, since the alternative was to pay $15 for an unlit room in an airless shack. There was no middle ground.

But here in Thailand I live at least as comfortably as I did in Botswana, for a fraction of the price. My apartment costs less than half of what it did in Bots, and I eat out constantly for a quarter of the price I paid in Africa - even at the roadside food stalls. I suppose that Thailand, vast income disparities notwithstanding, has enough of a middle class to sustain modestly priced accomodation, restaurants, and services. A proper full-spectrum economy exists, with survivable lifestyles available to everyone from the just-a-notch-above-rock-bottom poor to the unimaginably wealthy. The numberless hordes of Western budget backpackers further motivate Thailand's fiercely competitive entrepreneurs to provide modest-yet-appealing amenities.

But (and here's the thought that launched this heretofore dull post in the first place) the really interesting thing isn't living well enough for dirt cheap - it's discovering how far money can go when one is willing to splurge a little. Case in point: I could get a haircut for a dollar or two here, and probably go home no more miserable about the result than I usually am after a haircut (which, for the record, is moderately so). But at the franchised (and ludicrously overstaffed) hair joint at the corner of my street, I paid a locally exorbitant fee just to see how far my money can go - and received the most ludicrously luxurious haircut experience imaginable.

If I recall correctly (I may have blacked out somewhat) I received 3 absurdly meticulous rounds of shampooing, followed by a 20-minute scalp massage. The haircut itself took place in the world's most comfortable barber's chair, while an attendant constantly provided my choice of an immense variety of complimentary beverages and a broad selection of German-language magazines (well, hey, nothing's perfect). Afterwards, another round of shampooing and brain massage completed the hour-or-so long experience. The price tag for this little slice of haircut heaven? A sky-high seven dollars.

And this situation crops up nearly everywhere else in Thailand. Those willing to pay something closer to Western prices find unimaginable luxury. Example number two: the movie theatres here are modern and well-equipped, on a par with those at home. A standard evening ticket costs 90 baht - about $2.50 Canadian. Yet the lucky cinephile willing to pay a Canadian-style price - in this case, 14 dollars - enjoys the "Emperor Class" experience - a private viewing room with luxury recliners, an immaculate personal washroom, and hyper-attentive table service. Of course, I have yet to justify such an expense, but I'm sure as hell going to try it before I leave.

The bottom line - you can live comfortably in Thailand for peanuts, or you can live like a wayward Saudi Prince for a few dollars more. Either way, it's hard to go wrong here - and illuminates yet another reason why so many western visitors to Thailand find it hard to leave again.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

In which I muse droolingly about the foods I must eat when I land in Vancouver...

Thai food is delicious and healthy, and apparently there's a wealth of various European restaurants on offer in Chiang Mai that I have yet to sample. There's no lack of variety here if one is willing to pony up the cash, and restaurants are truly everywhere, on every street corner and hidden in every alleyway nook. I'll never starve here.

But the novelty of daily pad thai and moo ga-tiam is rapidly fading, and even the beloved khao soy curry noodle soup is wearing slightly thin. My first attempt to get an honest sit-down, non-McD's hamburger ended with me accidentally eating a live earwig (I think) and somewhat soured me on what I'm told is otherwise told is Chiang Mai's best burger joint. So I found myself idly drafting (as oft occurs when I travel) a list of foods I miss terribly, and upon which I will gorge myself within moments of my holiday return.

An honest-to-God gigantic barbecued hamburger. Even the famed burger restaurants here, high earwig content notwithstanding, are sunk by their insistence on frying burgers. Yuck.

Sushi! Of course. Chiang Mai's well inland, and I've thus dodged the seamy-looking sushi joint in the mall next door to me.

A gargantuan slab of steak. Surely available here, but not at any of the micro-budget restaurants I frequent...

Anything from Simba's. The less bloodthirsty East African spices seem like a mild daydream compared to the vicious Thai peppers.

Tacos. Definitely tacos. Apparently there's a great Mexican restaurant around here somewhere, but I have yet to find it.

A proper Reuben sandwich - smoked beef is an unheard-of concept in Northern Thailand. The simply astonishing number of New Yorkers I've met here all seem to share this hankering.

A Nanaimo bar and a Timmy's donut. Speaks for itself.

Beef shawerma from the Babylon Cafe on Robson.

Mango ice cream from Mondo Gelato - if there's a real ice cream shop here, I haven't found it.

A Caesar! Duh.

Uncle Fatih's 99 cent pizza, a Vancouver institution I only discovered days before my September departure, to my lasting shame.

My trademark panang curry. It seems odd be salivating over a Thai curry, but I haven't been able to find the stuff here, so I'll have to make it up at home. In fact, I think I'm mostly looking forward to making a meal of my own - a grievous sin forbidden in my current apartment. I've eaten out for every meal (aside from breakfast cereal) in the last three months, and a self-cooked feast is something I sincerely miss. Methinks I'll need a new apartment soon.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

In which I plead forgiveness...

Sorry, folks, school's been consuming my life since last Monday. You'll hear more, including a return to the fun and hilarity you've come to expect, at the end of the week.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

In which I offer the week's best YouTube!

Monday, November 13, 2006

In which I whine...

Ever have a day when having a good book to read is the only thing that keeps you sane?

Thursday, November 09, 2006

In which I recount at last the glory of Loi Krathong...

I don't think I've seen any stars in my time in Chiang Mai. The particular Thai predilection for neon and other luminous signage hides the heavens very effectively within the city, and I have yet to spend an evening outside Chiang Mai. I hadn't thought about this much since I arrived.

But I suspect this only amplified my joy and wonder on Saturday night, when I looked up from the center of the city to see the sky lit by hundreds of red and yellow stars, like newborn constellations rising slowly and shrinking into sharp points thousands of feet above my head. One of the greatest joys of Loi Krathong, the Thai Festival of light, is that countless thousands of people light crude but effective balloon lamps - huge paper bags with rings of paraffin anchored to the bottom - and set them adrift over the city. I stood at the edge of the Mae Nam Ping river, the calm eye to Loi Krathong's frenetic hurricane, and watched while pyrotechnics exploded from every corner of Chiang Mai. Individually, the lanterns are pretty - and great fun to set loose. But when viewed by the hundreds across the great sweep of the city, the effect is beyond magical. It's one of the most beautiful things I've seen.

It's also next to impossible to photograph, at least with the unimpressive alchemy of my reasonably-priced camera and my modest photographic skills. My attempts to capture the actual flying lanterns turned out underwhelming at best, so I'll keep them to myself. But by way of compensation, here's a photo of some locals cheerfully lighting their own lantern - it really is a group effort with several people holding the contraption inflated while the paraffin heats, so that it doesn't collapse on itself and immolate.

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A bit of background - cheerfully offered by the tiny, effervescent woman from whom I bought my krathong. Loi Krathong is takes place on the weekend nearest the full moon of the twelfth lunar month, usually in early November. People purchase wondrously decorated banana leaf rafts called krathongs - about eight inches across and festooned with flowers, candles, and incense - and float them down the river, ideally along with their sins and misfortune. The effect it to fill much of the massive, leisurely river with thousands drifting stars, mirroring the glorious canopy of lanterns above.

This is a ritual of apology to the river goddess Khongkha, and it has been incorporated into the near-universal Theraveda Buddhist rites observed in Thailand.
Naturally, though of indeterminate spirituality myself, I suppose everyone can do with a little expunging of sins from time to time. So here I hoist my krathong - which is truly much nicer than most of the other kratongs, particularly according to the lady who sold it to me.

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And, here's the same krathong (far left) enjoying its journey down the Mae Nam Ping...

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Loi Krathong has three nights, by the way, Saturday through Monday. Saturday was the glorious yet occasionally tranquil celebration of fire and good cheer I mention above. I sat with new friends (some NGO workers, and some people I met on the songthaew) in the delightful Riverside Restaurant for several hours, indulging in curious food and plentiful cocktails, enjoying the fine conversation and the omnipresent pyrotechnics. In fact, here's an unexceptionable but rather attractive (dont'cha think?) photo of me in that very milieu:

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Sunday, the festival's centrepiece was a city-wide epileptic fit of bad manners and worse judgment - particularly as regards appropriate places to fling military-grade firecrackers. But there's still much fun to be had. I lit a lantern of my own, for example, and after a long and worrisome pause it finally took hesitant flight (photo to come soon). I set free the above-described krathong, and I witnessed the fascinating and somewhat oddly-textured parade that wends through east Chiang Mai in the final nights. Witness, for example, a robotic elephant:

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Followed shortly by someone apparently associated with the Royal Family:

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Try as I did, I couldn't find a unifying theme to this parade - except of course, Thai-ness. In fact, that Thai-ness was the most fascinating thing about the festival. The Thais, their habit of applauding military coups notwithstanding, love their country and culture with a pride bordering on jingoism. It's not abrasive (not yet, anyway), just interesting to watch, and it seems to have bestowed a curious sort of cultural resilience to Thailand. Foreign tourists are everywhere, and Loi Krathong was particularly clogged with them (us?), but somehow the festival, for all its noise and pomp and commerce, still struck me as remarkably, authentically Thai. There was no denying that Loi Krathong was for the Thais, and we farang, for all the fun we had, were just welcome visitors - the festival wasn't held for our benefit at all. This may sound mundane, but if you've seen the gravitational effect that heavy tourist traffic tends to have on local rites around the world, it's remarkable. Usually, through no deliberate effort on anyone's part, the locus of major events shifts to tourists, simply because that's where the money is.

Yet while there was no shortage of merchants hawking unidentified goods in fractured English, I didn't sense even a hint of pandering in the entire event. Thailand is large enough, populous enough, wealthy enough and has a rich enough tradition to support its own complete culture without necessary resort to foreign influence - a luxury few developing countries are able (or willing) to afford. It's a refreshing thing, and I'm beginning to expect (cautiously) that this integrity across Thailand (with the likely exception of the backpacker oases of the far south). I look forward to finding out.

Loi Krathong, of course, made a stunning place to start. I've decided, my ongoing adventures with Photoshop notwithstanding, that it's perhaps not meant to be photographed. Like Victoria Falls, which I found similarly confounds photography, it can only really be understood in person. If you want to know what I mean, you know where to find out. I promise you, it'll be worth the trip.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

In which I'm in awe...

Bottle rockets are detonating outside my window, the smallest audible sign of the astonishing, heartbreakingly beautiful Loy Krathong Festival of Light underway in Chiang Mai. I've spent the last two nights there, and I've seen some of the most gorgeous sights imaginable.

Not sure what I'm talking about? Worry not, all will be discussed in detail tomorrow. By virtue of being a nighttime light festival, Luy Krathong is virtually unphotographeable, at least with my camera, but I'll see if I can learn how to use Photoshop to massage some underexposed frames into coherence.

Much more detail to come... but I've got to go to bed. My eyes are a touch bleary from staring skyward for the last two days... oh, but what fun it's been.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

In which I wish all a Happy Hallowe'en

The day came and went with little fanfare here, save for a modest but quite entertaining party for my students. Oh, how I do look forward to my next full-blown Hallowe'en... next year, perhaps.

Anybody get up to anything really exciting?

Monday, October 30, 2006

In which I revert briefly to my wonkish academic self...

Here's a great article from the New York Times Magazine on the progressive weakening of Islamic legal standards prohibiting the killing of noncombatants, and the implications thereof for an Iranian nuclear bomb. It combines two of my great academic loves, terrorism and nuclear non-proliferation, so it surely holds more fascination for me than for most others. But if it's your cup of cocoa, I highly recommend giving it a read.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

In which I offer a minor cultural tidbit...

In most Southeast Asian languages, polite speaking requires that you put an honorific at the end of many phrases, which depends only on the sex of the speaker. For example, in Thai, a man would say "Thank you, krep" and a woman "Thank you, kaa" - regardless of who's listening.

Now that they're learning English, my most scrupulously polite students have carried this habit with them into their new language. As a result, many male students are refering to everyone as "Sir" - both male and female. The female students, predictably, are calling everyone "Ma'am" with a similar disregard for the sex of the listener.

It is proving very difficult to break them of this habit.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

In which I celebrate...

I got a 92 on my thesis! Joy!

Now I am the proud owner of a Master of Arts (with "Distinction") in International Peace Studies. Yay me!

I have successfully completed the UPeace chapter of my life - now make a go of the Thailand chapter.

Moreover, now I must see if I can chisel my thesis into publishable (and comprehensible) portions. I'm fairly certain that the fine oflks in my department gave me the grade at last because they couldn't stand to read the damn thing again...

Sunday, October 22, 2006

In which I respond to emails both concerned and curious...

Fear not, all my bits are still attached. After my menacing post a few days back - which I feel adequately conveyed my then-foul mood at Thai traffic - several kindly folks feared that something worse than ill temper had befallen me, and emailed inquiries of worry. All's well - in fact, I have yet to so much as skin a knee in Thailand, despite the abundant foolishness of buying a bicycle rather than add to the ubiquitous throng of motor scooters.

Yet my good health is no thanks to Thai drivers (expect undue generalizations to follow), whose contagious friendliness and impeccable manners elsewhere in life is not carried with them onto the pavement. Mistake me not, Thailand has far from the worst traffic I've seen. It's certainly a step up from Egypt, where the rules of the road were mere formalities except when (literally) clarified by the barrel of an AK47. It's thankfully not Botswana, where the generally sparse traffic was made occasional nightmare by the fact that many locals considered drunk driving a legitimate competitive sport. And the modern, well-maintained road surface is a world away from the disintegrating asphalt that rattled my skull in Costa Rica or (shudder) Mozambique.

By these measures, this seething stew of cars, trucks, scooters, tuk-tuks and the damnable song-taew minibuses seems almost... civilized. In fact, Chiang Mai drivers actually obey stoplights and even use their turn signals from time to time - treasured luxuries for a jaded developing-world pedestrian such as myself. Nor are their technical skills sub-par. Thai drivers display preternatural reflexes and a surgical talent for threading their varied vehicles through whatever minute pore has opened in the motorized pandemonium.

But they marry these individually laudable traits to a white-knuckled appetite for relativistic speeds and all the high regard for personal space you'd expect from an ecstasy-popping labrador retriever. The result is a weaving, careening body vehicular in which lane boundaries frequently disappear and scooters are ever shrieking through the capillary-like spaces between the cars. No inch of roadspace is wasted. In the midst of all this, for a half hour each morning and each afternoon, is wee me on my silly farang bicycle.

I've long since imprinted to the drive-on-the-left customs of Thai traffic. I hug the outer left edge of the road whenever vaguely possible, and I've gotten quite adept at spotting the viable gaps in traffic for that bewildering odyssey known as crossing a street. But no amount of road sense could adequately prepare me for drivers who think a thumbs-breadth is adequate clearance when they zip by at 100 km/h. Much less was I ready for the ultimate traffic nightmare - scooter and tuk-tuk drivers who hurtle directly at me in the wrong direction while I naively cling to belief that as long as I remain in my left-hand scooter lane, no harm can befall me. With only a "what the hell is your problem" stare betraying their intentions, these drivers, a dozen a day at least, prefer to pass a block or five the wrong way to the (admitted) conundrum of crossing the street and driving the non-insane way.

The end result? I've been run off the road (though thankfully never off my bike) a handful of times in the last week, and never once has it brightened my day. I'm glad I ignored CUSO's absurd penny-pinching strictures and bought a $400 bike that can handle being occasionally thrust over broken pavement or outright grassland. I'm sure that decision has saved me much heartbreak.

And how now do I cope? Mainly (and counterintuitively) by going faster and riding far more aggressively than I would have dared back home. If I can keep up with the scooters, I seem to earn their grudging respect, and I can apparently outwit the cars by more boldly (yet carefully - don't worry, Mom!) exploiting the gaps therebetween. I spent the day riding this way through the worst of downtown Chiang Mai, and felt safer than I have all week. I'll get the hang of this yet... and, with any luck, I'll still have all my fingers when I'm done!

PS - Chiang Mai, though lovely and welcoming, is surely the most pedestrian-unfriendly city I've ever seen... more on that to come.

Friday, October 20, 2006

In which I follow up...

... on something other than the traffic.

Looks Like the North Korean nuke was the real thing... though I'm astonished that they managed such a minute yield yet still had a nuclear detonation. Usually if a plutonium bomb fizzles, the surrounding explosive triggers blast it to smithereens before any criticality occurs (as I recall, anyhow).

Whatever the technical details, this is by far the very best take on it I've seen.

(Seems almost too easy to link to The Onion - as though I should feel guilty for discovering such wit and wisdom online with so little effort).

More to come on the bicycle life here...

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Paul's number one rule about riding a bike in Thailand:

Don't.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

In which my brain hurts...

Writing a necessary (and necessarily unpleasant) presentation on fascism for my students tomorrow has proven surpringly emotionally corrosive. Now I'm miserable from looking at pictures of Hitler, and I still have a ton of work to do. Oh well, that presentation's wrapped up - maybe two hours of writing about theocracy and anarchism will lift my spirits.

Monday, October 16, 2006

In which I give notice...

My job, which I can't ever write about online, is consuming my life completely this week. Posts will resume after Friday.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

In which I cheerfully await this afternoon's class...

... namely because my students are hung over. Last night, they and I and the rest of the staff of my to-remain-unnamed organization tromped out to the Chiang Mai German Microbrewery. If that sounds eclectic, you should imagine to cognitive dissonance provoked by eating tom kha gai, pork schnitzel, seafood fried rice, and German sausage, all the while dousing it with generous quantities of brewed-on-the-premises German lager.

Very generous quantities, in fact. Unaccustomed to the strength of Bavarian brews, and moreover quite eager to partake voluminously since they spend most of their days tucked away on our tiny compound, several of the students indulged waaaay past their limits. Grudging smiles and unfocused stares seem to be the order of the day today.

And I rather doubt they finished the homework I gave them yesterday...

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

In which I don't know what to think...

So did it work or not?

Reliable sources are saying that the explosion detonated in North Korea had a force of about half a kiloton - the explosive power of 500 tons of TNT, set off simultaneously. That's awfully small for a nuclear test, but much too large for an outright dud. And here's a peculiar fact: building ultra-low-yield nuclear bombs is actually technically much harder than crafting their larger siblings.

So if those yield estimates are right, that leaves two options. Either North Korea's nuclear weapons scientists are actually much, much better at their jobs than anybody suspected (not bloody likely), or North Korea blew up a thousand tons of conventional high explosive underground in an attempt to fakea nuclear test (entirely in keeping with the character of the textbook Stalinist regime). North Korea has been awfully insistent that no radiation was leaked - a coverup, perhaps? Either way, the detection (or not) of bomb-produced radioactive isotopes will be the key to understanding what went on.

C'mon, I wanna know. If this was a fake, then much of what I said yesterrday is moot. Except the part about Bush having driven the world off a cliff - tht part still stands.

Monday, October 09, 2006

In which I'm dismayed...

Well, this is just no good at all.

The news that North Korea has tested a nuclear bomb is, at some level, no surprise at all. But it's a startling reminder of how much more uncertain the world has become under six years of Bush's stewardship. Yet another harrowing failure to add to the long litany...

I did my honours thesis, way back in 2003 on North Korea's nuclear program, so don't get me wrong - North Korea was almost certainly already a nuclear power, and has been since the early nineties. But in those comforting days, they had only one or (at most) two bombs - not enough to test one, and certainly too few to put any on the open market. That they were actively seeking the means to make more became clear in 2002, when it became clear that Kim Jong Il was testing the limits of the porous restrictions he accepted from the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1994.

And in response to this news, Bush and his cabal neocon thugs did... nothing. They offered only rhetoric as Pyongyang acknowledged and then, with growing bellicosity, accelerated its nuclear programs. The DPRK took the wraps off its then-sealed plutonium production facilities and openly resumed the construction of new plants. The current best guess is that the bomb detonated today was built with plutonium from just those facilities - facilities that might still be decommissioned if the US had shown genuine global leadership. But instead Bush launched a war of choice against another backwards power that had no WMDs whatsoever, while comprehensively ignoring a grave strategic threat in North Korea.

Could this have been prevented? Maybe not - the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (I still chuckle at that name), more isolated and fearful than any state on Earth, had compelling strategic motives to seek nuclear weapons. It's possible that they might not have been dissuaded by any threats or temptations - perhaps not even the diplomatic recognition and security guarantees that they so desperately crave from the US. But what can reasonably ascertain is that the path Bush took - a toothless, provocative combination of belligerent rhetoric and diplomatic neglect - was the one formula absolutely guaranteed to facilitate Pyongyang's nuclear program.

Why does this matter so much? Isn't North Korea too isolated, too purposeless and frightened to ever use its bombs? Perhaps, but there are other consequences almost too nightmarish to contemplate. First and most ominous is that North Korea sells every thing it can get its hands on - rockets, nuclear technology, small arms, drugs, and so much more. The hundreds of millions of dollars that a nuclear weapon would fetch on the market will seem mighty tempting to one of the world's poorest countries - particularly as their new reactors at Taechon and Yongbyon come online, enabling North Korea to build dozens of nuclear bombs every year. And the DPRK is not known for its discretion in selecting customers - a terrorist group's money is just as good as, say, Iran's. Anybody think this is alaramist fantasy? Think again.

It's no less disturbing to think that this could provoke an arms race in East Asia. China's already armed to the teeth, but the governments Japan and even South Korea are certainly reappraising their non-nuclear status today. If you share my opinion that every new nuclear power results in a substantially more frightening world, then you'll be as distressed as I was by an unsettlingly middle-of-the-road assessment of how long it would take Japan to build its first nuclear bomb if it so choose. 48 hours. That's not even the lowest estimate.

This has also left the world without feasible strategic options for disarming North Korea. If Kim's paranoid regime has enough bombs to test one, then they surely have enough to build a credible strategic deterrent - at least half a dozen. Any military action against North Korea would surely be reciprocated with a fission explosion in Tokyo Harbour. The world's diplomatic leverage has been similarly neutered, consigning the North's long-suffering 23 million people to another eon of poverty and repression. And I'm dreading, without a touch of facetiousness, the not-far-off day that the Republicans begin to argue that a nuclear North Korea only demonstrates the need for airstrikes against Iran. We're going to be decades repairing the damage that the Republican Party has done to the world.


P.S. On the plus side, I've just taught my first class in Government and Politics - I'll write more about that tomorrow, by which time I should have stopped scowling at today's news.

P.P.S. This is a fine reference on North Korea's nukes.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

In which food remains the center of my life...

Warning: minute details of eating in Thailand follow - none too fascinating unless you're as food-obsessed as I.

Thailand is a culinary mecca, with an endless variety of hyper-local cuisines and edible oddities to terrify the traveler. But I’m nothing if not a slave to ritual, so in keeping with my personal travel tradition, I went to McDonalds for lunch on my first day here. I do this foolish thing not because I so desperately crave their cardboard burgers, but because it always seems to tell me two things: one, a McD’s cheeseburger changes not one whit anywhere on Earth, and second, that the peripheral menu items give a surprisingly accurate picture of the culinary tastes of each new home. In Japan I found the teriyaki burger (delicious!) and the au gratin burger (which I never tried, to my boundless shame). In Costa Rica, the Mac Shack had a rice-and-beans Gallo Pinto breakfast and unappealing fried chicken drumlets. Here in Thailand I was aghast at their hot pie flavours – no apple or cherry to be found here. Instead they’ve filled that fine pastry with your choice of pineapple, corn, and taro root (a potato-lke starch, for the uninitiated). I know I have to eat one of those latter two at some point, but I choose to procrastination until I’ve had a short stretch to acclimatize myself to the Thai palate.

Going to McD’s on my first day serves another purpose – it provides a not-too-intimidating stepping-stone into the frightening world of foreign-language commerce. I’m not a very good traveler in a couple of really important ways. The foremost in my mind right now is that I’m terrified of speaking to people in another language unless I’ve got a reasonable certainty that I’ll be understand. Whereas other travelers are quite content to wildly gesticulate and spit out a charmless yet functional approximation of the local phrase for “green curry noodle soup”, I tend to freeze up and avoid conversation altogether. More problematic, I tend to get hungry since I don’t have any idea how to order food. In my first few months in Japan I ate half my meals from the local 7-Eleven rather than stumble through a conversation without functional Japanese. This mistake I refuse to repeat.

Lonely Planet redeemed itself once more for it oft out-of-date info, by directing me to another ideal stepping stone for lunch the next day: the immense MBK Food Centre in Bangkok. This cavernous, wondrous creation occupies a substantial portion of the seventh floor of one of the capital's major malls with stall after stall of food vendors of every conceivable variety. Lest mall food be seen as cultural heresy, Lonely Planet accurately described the MBK as having all the roadside food stalls in the city crammed into one place, with the glorious addition of English signage and without Bangkok's foul street-level air. All I had to do was exchange 200 Baht (about 6 dollars) into stall coupons, and had one of the happiest afternoons in recent memory. Though overjoyed to see that Indian, Arab, and various Western cuisines were available, I piously dedicated myself to Thai food with a slavish rite newly designed to maximize my culinary joy. I ate a meal, wandered the mall until marginally hungry again, ordered anew, and repeated the process. This availed me of wonderful servings of pad thai (fried rice noodles and a notoriously popular farang dish), tom yam gung (citrus seafood soup), a huge steaming bowl of pork leg stew, and an indescribable, unrelatable, untransliterateable noodle soup piled high with fried balls of ground fish.

I tried to phase it out with a bowl of durian and sticky rice for dessert, but cultural incompatibilities reared their foul heads. Durian is a peculiar fruit beloved by Thais and many elsewhere in East Asia. Having never tried it, I gamely dug in and learnt the first real lesson of my tme in Thailand: never eat durian, no matter the circumstance or reward. It reeks of ammonia, imparts a curious texture I imagine to match a mouthful of talcum powder, and tastes powerfully of pure evil. Unwilling to end on a low note, I ate around the remaining deathfruit and returned for a bowl of always-reliable sticky rice with mango, which did not disappoint. Four delicious lunches + two desserts - six dollars = one day very well spent.

Now that I'm in Chiang Mai, my Thai hasn't improved but my willingness to order food surely has. Thailand caters far more frequently to foreign tourists than Japan, and in a major city like Chiang Mai, many restaurants have English menus. I'm also suppressing my urge to clam up when talking to Thai speakers, and so have nt yet starved. I've taken to eating most of my lunches at a tiny hole-in-the-wall a few kilometres from the school where I work, and the place lacks menus in any language, so I've been ordering delightful Pad Thai and Pad Kapow (KAPOW!! It's like a Batman episode!) in mangled but comprehensible Thai. I've discovered, as well, that smaller though fully functional food courts like the MBK centre are scattered around the city. One sits a few seconds walk from my new apartment (the subject of a near-future post), and provides a large chunk of my daily sustenance.

The cuisine of Chiang Mai, 800 kilometres north of Bangkok, sports a number of regional peculiarities, some very charming, and some less so. I've become absolutely infatuated with Khao Soy, a coconut-curry soup served with tender chunks of chicken, soft egg noodles, and a joyful handful of crunchy fried noodles and shallots on top. It's the finest addition to my core diet since I discovered Hon's hot and sour soup a few years back. I fear terribly that, like the engawa-zushi I so prized in Japan, it will vanish forever from my life when I return to Vancouver.

Other local specialties will not be missed, nor even attempted. At one of the night markets near my home (also the subject of a future post) countless food stall appear between dusk and 10PM every Friday and Saturday. One of these sports a dozen dictionary-sized baskets, each heaped high with a different multi-legged delicacy. Grasshoppers, cockroaches, silkworms, spiders - all the things you never wanted to eat are here. I like to consider myself pretty flexible as regards new foods, but I draw the line at insects - and somehow I feel like a lesser traveler as a result.

I'll have content myself with bowl after bowl of khao soy, pad thai, and whatever non-crawling food gets put in front of me. Pretty healthy stuff all around too - despite eating four meals or so every day, I've lost 10 pounds since I arrived (thanks in no small part to my bike, the riding of which will amusy and terrify in a future post). Great food, good health, and rock-bottom prices... all told, a damn fine foundation on which to build a good year.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

In which I excuse myself...

I'll be in Bangkok for the next couple of days for a meeting with CUSO, hopefully filling my spare time eating khao soy and perusing the electronics supermalls. See you in a few days!

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Disbelief ensues...

Today Thailand's ruling military junta announced the new interim Prime Minister, the respected ex-general Surayud Chulanont. This keeps the schedule the junta enacted during the takeover less than two weeks ago, and I suppose that Mr Surayud ex-military status might qualify him as the "civilian" leader the army promised. The Council for Democratic Reform under Constitutional Monarchy (CDRM) (the junta's unwieldy public name) is proceeding with extensive investigations into allegations of corruption and vote-rigging under the prior regime. Other new agencies have been set up to ensure economic and political stability in the next year leading up to the free elections the government has pledged. The coup, in short, is going as smoothly as could possibly have been hoped for.

So why am I more uneasy about Thailand's future than when the coup first occured?

Several reasons, methinks, all of which are painfully rooted in a thousand historical examples. The first: the CDRM has been quietly issuing a series of pronouncements restricting unauthorized political activities: public protests, grassroots meetings, and other foundations of functional democracy. Though last week's media blackout has inevitably ended - the junta couldn't have perpetuated it even if they'd tried - and no troops have (to my knowledge) been enforcing the new restrictions, I am not reassured. I can't shake the feeling that these pronouncements are meant to create a sort of semi-legal "Hey, we warned you!" foundation for a future crackdown. If the junta were truly dedicated to (re)building a civilian democracy, shouldn't they be encouraging a noisy public debate right now? I've seen no word of expiration date, so there's no way to know when these restrictions will be lifted. Moreover, the army promises to "assist" the new government and ensure its smooth and clean function, a menacing proclamation they apparently consider reassuring. Protests and politics will come - they always do - and these measures put the lie to the CDRM's stated determination to return their power to the people of Thailand.

The second ill portent is the foul feeling I get every time I read the newspaper's opinion and letters section. One writer to yesterday's Bangkok Post argues that "General Sonthi and his troops [the coup's leaders, naturally] should be commended for a job well done", while another proclaims the coup "a wonderful opportunity... to achieve a better democratic climate for the entire nation" and decries the disheartening "global condemnation coming from world leaders". The opinion pieces are, with few exceptions, similarly glowing, as they have been for weeks. More than eighty percent of polled Thais profess approval for the coup, and even the most thoughtful criticism has been muted and damn hard to find.

Shouldn't I be reassured, since the Thais have a far better grasp of their country's politics than I do? You'd think so, but I keep coming back to one of history's ugliest lessons: democracies become tyrannies with the full consent of the governed. From the Roman Republic to Nazi Germany to Bush's America we see the same pattern - the public, riven by fear and frustration, welcomes new overlords who promise security and stability. Even George Bloody Lucas had it right in Star Wars Episode III (obligatory nerd reference) "So this is how liberty dies... to thunderous applause." In this I'm appalled by the Thais' terrible grasp of history - especially their own history. Thailand has seen twenty-three coups in the last 80 years, none of which restored democracy or devolved power to the people. The Economist informs me that during the last coup, in 1991, the public responded much as they have this time - by welcoming the troops in the streets and thanking them for overthrowing a corrupt and unpopular government. As time wore on and the military clutched the reins long past their due, the public mood soured, leading to a wave of unrest that culminated in the slaughter of hundreds of Bangkok protesters. Yet no one in Thailand seems to be drawing much attention to those ugly days.

Which brings me, after a very lengthy post, to my third and final point. Men who take power by force do not willingly relinquish it. I know that, as a good political scientist, I shouldn't make such generalizations, and there are a handful of marginal examples that prove me wrong. But there have been thousands of coups and other military takeovers throughout history, and vanishingly few have returned the power back to civilians without a fight. This is precisely why the line between civilian and military power must be so rigid, and the military always under civilian control. Thaksin, the ousted Prime Minister, was a foul and corrupt leader despite his few good policies, and he deserved to be turfed from office. But the political wheels were turning, however slowly, and there was little to justify crossing the line into outright military control. It's immensely disheartening to see that the Thai public seems not to have learned this critical lesson, and each new fragment of press coverage diminishes my hopes for a peaceful outcome.

Will there be bloodshed? I think so. It's no sure thing - depending immensely on how the junta conducts itself in coming weeks - and it won't happen now or next month, but it's getting increasingly hard to see how this will end without violence. It's a very sobering thought.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

In celebration of my new apartment (and internet access)...

...I'm hereby starting to blog about my little-discussed two days in Bangkok.

September 16th.

I don't wanna go to dinky little Chiang Mai. I'm told it's beautiful beyond compare, but I'm so enraptured with Bangkok that I could happily sequester myself here for months. The central core of Bangkok is a vast honeycomb of superhighways and skytrains, food courts and streetside markets and immense malls. The hum of commerce is the background noise of the city, imbuing Bangkok with an astonishing vitality that I don't think I've seen anywhere else. Food vendors plying noodle soup and stewed chicken feet and everything in between line every street and alley. Taxi and tuk-tuk drivers shriek "Where you go?" at me at every irritating opportunity. Shopping malls plusher (and pricier) than anything I've seen in Canada stretch straight into the cloud, and the vast electronics plazas like the legendary Panthip beckon to me. And at every step the core is thick with crowds - Thais, Chinese, and more Westerners than I had ever anticipated, an ample chunk of the capital's ten million residents. I can see why many visitors, Thai and Farang (westerners) alike, quickly exile themselves from the metropolitan hubbub, but to me it's damn near paradise. Huge, energetic cities fascinate me, and there's a stunning kinetic quality to Bangkok that could keep my interest for a very long time.

Fanning out from the central core, a twisting latticework of alleyways and two-lane roads oxygenates the sprawling middle reaches of Bangkok and the suburbs beyond. My modest and rather pleasant guesthouse is tucked away on one of these innumerable side streets. After I sweated my way through customs yesterday morning and completed an unwelcome few hours of paperwork for CUSO, my friendly but slightly unsettling contact at the Bangkok office dropped me off at the hotel. More than slightly exhausted by the journey and put off by the last gasp of the rainy season, I retreated into my room for the night.

Fortunately, this left me well rested and up early for today's explorations. I picked my way along the wire-thin sidewalks that trace midtown Bangkok's central streets. An unnerving blur fills these roads, composed of taxis, the motorized tuk-tuk rickshaws, a surprising plethora of luxury sedans, and the countless, careening motorbikes and mopeds that symbolize Thailand as sincerely as the flag. Trusting somewhat nervously in the crude map drawn by the guesthouse, I found my way to the nearest main boulevard, gingerly sprinting across street corners. I picked a direction (left, if anyone cares) and walked past modest casinos and shuttered restaurants and shops just opening for the day (it was about 8AM, I think). Hunger eventually overcame my cultural reticence, and through gesturing and muttering I bought a huge steamed cob of corn, dipped in vinegar and green onion, from a tired-looking woman with a roadside food cart. Climbing an overpass, I found a small street boy begging change from passersby... I gave him ten baht because I liked the wai he offered me.

At street level I found an elegant entrance into one of Bangko's two subway lines, and pleasantly found it clean and sophisticated - far more so, I confess, than Vancouver's Skytrain, as evidenced by the LCD displays blaring advertisements and train schedules.

I'm not sure what I expected of Thailand's immense capital, but I've been taken aback by its startling, eager modernity. Though there's poverty aplenty here, this town is surprisingly reminiscent - economically speaking - of Hong Kong or even Tokyo. Unlike many of my fellow shoestring travelers, I have a great fondness for the trappings of modernity: supermarkets, refrigeration, mobile phones and, of course, tachyon-fast internet access. Discovering that such amenities are always within arm's reach here has been one of the pleasures of my trip so far.


P.S. (September 26th)

Sadly, further details will have to wait until tomorrow - that's all I've edited into coherence thus far, and I have homework due tomorrow. Smack me with HTML if I start slacking off - I really want to make a proper habit of updating this blog.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

You know it's a pretty sorry coup when...

... you see this:

I've given up trying to name this picture...

I'm nearly certain this is the weirdest picture I've ever taken.

I'm not sure if these soldiers were stationed as a result of the coup, or if they simply guard the king's nearby palace. But if a gaggle of junior high school girls can gigglingly ask to pose for photos with their assault rifles, then clearly Thailand, coup notwithstanding, just ain't all that militarized. That the soldiers unloaded the guns before handing military weaponry to adolescents makes this less startling - but not by all that much.

PS: I was supposed to get all my blog posts from Bangkok up this weekend, but I spent the entire time wandering around town looking at temples instead. So sue me. Pretty pictures will ensue.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

All quite on the northern front...

The tanks are gradually withdrawing from parts of Bangkok, and the the Prime Minister may more or less cede leadership to the coup. The next couple of weeks will be very critical, however - Thailand's military coups (and the world's, for that matter) have a very poor record of restoring civilian power. Not out of the woods yet, but the chance of violence seems slim now.

I'll have much more detail to report, but my workplace internet has an ugly habit of crapping out between noon and 6 PM. Makes blogging a little difficult.

In other news, my phone might work better at 011 66 5723 2347

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

No major news to report...

But I did get a phone. Anybody who wants expensive real-time updates on the coup and the less fascinating process of curriculum development at an NGO can reach me at (I think) +66 05-723-2347 by Skype. From Canada direct it's 011 66 057232347.

Those hyphens and other punctuation are randomly added - just seems to be how it's done here.
P.S.

Comments are open now - go nuts.
Lamest coup ever...

Camera hidden but within arm's reach, I wandered randomly around Chiang Mai for four hours this morning (making myself terribly late for work) in search of a military presence.

I saw a traffic cop buying a lottery ticket. Does that count?

While coups are generally accompanied by chaos and bloodshed, this one has thus far been bloodless, which is good for everybody but makes my blog less exciting. In Chiang Mai, 800 kilometres north of the coup's Bangkok epicentre, there's little sign of activity. Several people have told me of many troops at the bus and train stations.

TVs are blaring the news - with notably few updates - in every shop and food stall. Despite this omnipresence, Thais are going about their daily business and maintaining their characteristic good cheer. Traffic is as nutty as it was yesterday (to my untrained eye) and the shops in Chiang Mai are open. No doubt the situation is different in Bangkok, but for the moment we're mostly untouched by it up here. To the big question, "Will there be violence?", I have few answers and little insight. I haven't got an insider's grasp of Thai politics, and I know that ousted Prime Minister Thaksin is deeply unpopular in urban areas. The central issues are how Thaksin's supporters in the rural areas, and the corresponding factions of the military, will accept this transition, and whether Thaksin himself will go quietly. My gut tells me that it could go either way at this point - 50/50 odds of some violence. There's no chance of a larger civil conflict, I'm certain.

My CUSO contact in Bangkok, understandably frantic, called my office to tell me (like other CUSO cooperants) to stay home for the day. It seemed in poor taste, however, for me to leave the office as soon as I arrived and received the message. Moreover, today has been declared a public holiday - the military's oddly soothing euphemism for "Stay home and shut the %@#* up!". However, I'm here and web-wired, so I'll stick around and post what little I know as it comes up.

I've heard little about how this affects my work. I imagine that if there is violence, and DFAIT recommends that Canadians leave the country (which they haven't done yet) then CUSO will ask me to leave. I'd be a little cross to be pulled out of Asia a week after arrival, so I've been idly pondering personal contingency plans involving Hong Kong or elsewhere in China. I've put off finding an apartment for a couple of days, until I know more of my status, and getting a cellphone has rocketed to the top of my priorities list.

When I know more, you'll know more, and in the meantime keep in mind that I'm safe up here in Chiang Mai and the coup is a distant thing right now. And please, if you find any choice info, leave me a link in the comments.

That's all for now.
Ummm... wow.

It's a strange thing to move to Thailand, and find this on TV in the morning.

I'm not in any danger. So far I've seen no troops or other signs of a coup, but I'm in a very suburban part of Chiang Mai. Others have told me there are troops at the train and bus stations, and possibly elsewhere. I don't have any idea how/if this affects my work or the willingness of my sponsor to keep me in the country, so at this point I have little option but to go about my life as normal.

But first: CNN and the BBC, in light of the outgoing media blackout, have asked foreigners in the country to send pictures and firsthand accounts of what's going on, and I'm going to try to pitch in. Haven't seen anything untoward yet - let's see if I can find something.

Don't worry, I'm not going to wave a camera at any troops, nor do anything similarly foolish.

As soon as I know more I'll post here.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

In which I offer yet another micro-update...

I've arrived safe and sound in Chiang Mai, but since I don't have internet access at home my backlog of mostly-written blog posts is simply fermenting on my hard drive. I'll try to rectify that by tonight.

To Sum Up: Bangkok fun, food tasty, Chiang Mai pretty so far...

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Much excitement to discuss, but I'm on my way to Chiang Mai at the moment and don't have my computer at hand. So I'll talk more when I'm sitting still for a little while...

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Just Landed...

Now this is my kind of town!

Bangkok is loud, crowded, freakishly alive and saturated with spectacle and nifty trouble to get into.

More importantly, this is an entire country full of people who take food just as seriously as I do!

Much more to follow…

Friday, September 15, 2006

En route in Hong Kong...

It was the moving sidewalk that did it.

Anyone who’s gotten within ranting range of me in the last few weeks knows I’ve been more apprehensive than usual about this trip. I’ve spent a lot of time on the road of late, and leaving for yet another year, while for a damned good cause, has its share of downsides. I’ve approached this trip with an uncharacteristic trepidation.

Fortunately, I had a fine flight. Cathay Pacific fed me well, and with an entire row to myself I constructed a crude pillow-and-blanket fort and wedged myself against the window for twelve hours, rousing myself mainly for innumerable mealtimes and the first half of the startlingly mediocre Poseidon

When I arrived in Hong Kong’s cavernous new airport (which must be seen to be believed), I lugged my twenty-pound computer and the rest of my carry-on luggage out for the multi-kilometre walk to the next gate. I stepped, quite instinctively, on the right-hand moving sidewalk, and was of course repulsed, since everything moves on the left here.

In that insignificant moment I finally realized I was in Asia, abroad again, and felt a startling sense of eagerness. Vancouver is always home to me, and I’ll continue to miss it and my friends and family there. But I’ve also begun to understand that I feel an odd contentment on the road. I’m at home when I travel.

Of course, I imagine the Hong Kong International Airport is a mite more accessible than the sprawling, screeching monstrosity of Bangkok. Let’s see how I feel in a few more hours, when I touch down in Thailand.

P.S. I’m coming back to Hong Kong as soon as I get the chance… maybe I can spend a week here on my return leg.