Where is David?

It’s kinda difficult to get into the holiday spirit in Bangkok, but I’m gonna give it a shot with this list I compiled with some simple research.

10 Things you might not know (or care?) about Christmas

1. Christmas was outlawed in Boston, MA from 1659 to 1681.

2. Christmas was declared a U.S. federal holiday in 1870.

3. In The Netherlands, Santa Claus has a ‘black servant’ that helps him named Pete.

Dutch Woman as Black Pete.
image courtesy of Wikipedia

4. The original Finnish Santa Claus, called Joulupukki, demanded presents from children, instead of giving them.

5. Japanese celebrate Christmas as a romantic holiday (similar to our Valentine’s Day) and eat Christmas Cake (white sponge cake with strawberries and whipped cream) as a couple.

6. Some Latin American countries believe that Santa Claus makes the presents and then gives them to baby Jesus, who then gives them to the children.

7. 44% of men in the U.S. admitted to having an affair with a co-worker at the company Christmas party at least once. (seems high, but if Men’s Health magazine says it’s true, then who am I to doubt them?)

8. It is estimated that Christmas’ deadweight economic loss hovers around $4 billion (2001 statistic, in U.S. dollars). This means that people pay $4 billion more on gifts for other people than they would if they bought the same thing for themselves.

9. Queen Elizabeth II is said to prefer saying “Happy Christmas” because “Merry” can also have the meaning of ‘tipsy’ or ‘drunk’.

10. Iceland has 13 ‘Santa Clauses’, called the Yule Lads, who were traditionally the sons of trolls. Children who were bad were told they would be eaten by the ‘Christmas Cat’, the Yule Lads’ family pet.

In case any of you were considering visiting Thailand and wondering about local customs and behaviours, here is an example of what not to do here:

Drunk Swiss faces Thai wrath for King grafitti

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A drunk Swiss has been arrested for defacing portraits of Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej on the revered monarch’s birthday and faces up to 15 years in jail, a newspaper and police said on Friday.

Police in Chiang Mai identified the man as Oliver Rudolf Jufer, a long-term resident of the northern province, but declined to give details, citing the sensitivity that surrounds any alleged disrespect to the king, whom many Thais regard as semi-divine.

(photo from Thai Photo Blogs)

“I can’t tell you anything because it is a lese majeste case,” Chiang Mai city police chief Colonel Yutachai Puaprasert told Reuters.

Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej reviews a parade to mark his 79th birthday in Bangkok December 2, 2006. A drunk Swiss has been arrested for defacing portraits of Adulyadej on the revered monarch’s birthday and faces up to 15 years in jail, a newspaper and police said on Friday. (REUTERS/Chaiwat Subprasom)
The southeast Asian nation’s lese majeste laws carry a penalty of between three and 15 years in jail for anybody found guilty of slandering or defaming a member of the royal family.

The Matichon newspaper said Jufer, 57, had told police he sprayed black paint on portraits of the world’s longest-reigning monarch in six villages in the province on Tuesday, the king’s 79th birthday.

He had admitted to being drunk at the time, the paper said. Dried paint was found on his fingers and he was caught on security cameras going into a shop which sold a spray can found discarded near one of the defaced images, it added.

As is customary in Thai detective work, he had to return to the scene of the crime for a police re-enactment — but early in the morning to avoid the risk of being lynched by passers-by.

The Swiss embassy in Bangkok said it had been informed about the arrest of a Swiss national in Chiang Mai and that police were seeking a court order to extend his detention for further interrogation.

Matichon was the only newspaper to report the episode after Chiang Mai police asked local journalists to kill their coverage to minimise the disrespect.

Copyright © 2006 Reuters

This Title of this post is adjusted from the headling of The Nation newspaper today (Bt820-billion blunder).

Basically, the central bank of Thailand thought it would be a good idea to tell foreign stock investors that they have to reserve 30% of their money when investing in the stock market. For example, if JP Morgan wanted to bring in $100 million to invest in the stock market here, they could only use $70 million of it, the other $30 million just has to sit in a bank doing nothing.

Needless to say, foreign investors don’t like their money just sitting around, so people were selling stocks like crazy yesterday, so much so that trading had to be halted on the Stock Exchange of Thailand. It lost about 15% of its total value, or $20 billion (U.S. dollars).

After this happened, the government admitted that ‘they might not have thought this through completely’ and reversed this decision. The markets gained about 11% today, only leaves them with an approximately $5.4 billion (U.S.) loss now.

Here is a smidgen of quotes from experts in the field about this fiasco:

“The one thing worse than an incompetent central bank is an incompetent central bank that flip-flops,” said Bratin Sanyal, head of Asian equity investments at ING in Hong Kong.

“They are proving themselves to be very unprofessional. Their actions are very irresponsible. They have totally lost credibility,” said Catherine Tan, head of Asia Emerging Markets at Forecast in Singapore. “I don’t see foreigners returning to Thailand anytime in the near future. Markets now have no confidence in the government.”

“We don’t need to discuss who to blame. Our priority is on fixing the problems.” Thai Minister of Finance Pridiyathorn Devakula.

Additional Reading:

FT Article showing how during the stock crash, the government said they weren’t going to do anything about it.

The Nation newspaper article, insinuates failures by Minister of Finance and Central Bank governor

I’m not really one to read blogs much on the internet, but if you’re interested in an interesting take on Southeast Asia, I’d recommend checking this one out:

New Mandala

It’s a blog by some mostly Australian-based academics with some intriguing insights into mainland Southeast Asia, definitely worth a read if you’re into that kind of thing…it’s definitely on my RSS reading list.

this site is going throught some cosmetic and other changes…..I’m working on getting a better image gallery and hopefully will have a new design in a little bit. Bear with this template for a while…thanks.

Thailand, like many Asian countries I’ve visited, somehow thinks that if something has a name in English, it gives it an international feel and quality. There are even sites like engrish.com dedicated to documenting occurrences of wierd English throughout the region.

After living in Asia almost 5 years, I think I’ve become immune to both visual and verbal forms of “Engrish”. In fact, I have even noticed my own level of English declining and think it’s only a matter of time before I speak engrish like a local.

Still, I’m not totally immune…yet. Every day, I walk by a beauty salon called “Porn Beauty”. (Porn is a common part of Thai names….even stranger is there is even a Thai name Wannaporn)

The final straw was when I saw an advertisement for the KKK Resort on the internet. It’s website is http://www.kkkresort.com/ if you don’t believe me. Even though this acronym stands for Koh Kho Khao Resort (which means Kho Khao Island resort in Thai), I still was amazed upon seeing it…..have they never watched Jerry Springer?

My point is, if you think it’s a good idea to have an English name or text for something, at least ask a native speaker their opinion of the name before you do it.

I’d just like to write a quick note to everyone saying that I celebrated Thai Constitution Day recently. It was a very fun and enjoyable experience.

For those of you who haven’t heard, Thailand’s Constitution was revoked by the recent military coup on September 19th, which means that Thailand is probably the only country ever to celebrate a holiday for a constitution that they got rid of.

Ok, technically speaking, the holiday celebrates the transistion of Thailand from Absolute Monarchy to Constitutional Monarchy, not just any individual constitution (and Thailand’s had a lot, most recent, the now defunct 1997 one). And actually, the country transitioned from monarchy to military dictatorship during this period….quite similar to recent events…..so maybe this holiday wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

Still, life under a ‘transitional military dictatorship’ is pretty good. They’re serious about battling corruption here in Thailand, and are even talking about reforming the police department. Maybe life in a military dictatorship isn’t so bad after all….

also, my friend Cotton has a blog…..it’s at http://www.onebadseed.com/blog/. Check it out when you get a chance.