Today’s (Feb. 15) Bangkok Post newspaper had a most helpful article for all its readers.
Next time there are major snow storms in Bangkok I’ll be sure to heed its advice.
[502]
St. Valentine has truly been taken into the heart here in Thailand. The supermarket shelves are lined with heart-shaped boxes. Romantic cards to proclaim one’s devotion are in the shops. Bouquets of roses fill the florists shops. And everywhere, just everywhere, there are toy stuffed bears clutching padded hearts.
This day is also the traditional one for young ladies to offer up their virtue to their paramour. The Bangkok police makes the rounds of the short time hotels to make sure that no underaged beauty is prematurely defiled.
In Thailand half a million people are living with HIV. And in 2009 (the last year for which statistics are available) 28,000 died from AIDS-related complications. So what do the boneheads of the Bangkok city administration decide to order? Nothing short of the removal of condom dispensing machines from all its schools for Valentine’s Day. Apparently some parents had complained that the presence in schools of these most persuasive of devices provoked unnatural and insatiable sexual curiosity in teenagers.
One can’t prevent teenagers from having sex. So how will the complaining parents feel when their little girl gets pregnant, their little boy catches syphillis, or is dying from AIDS?
I despair at the sheer boneheaded stupidity of this decision. Have years of promotion of safe sex in Thailand passed totally unheeded by Bangkok’s pencil pushers?
[501]
TrueVisions, the monopoly provider of satellite television, is a pretty dire operation. Endless repeats of ancient episodes of imported programmes such as ER and Martha lack mental stimulation. However, TrueVisions does make some of its own content. I thought that things were at a low point when they started broadcasting the contents of a panda’s cage twenty four hours a day, every day of the week. However, I recently discovered that there’s another 24 hour channel which films the inside of a coffee shop. Yes, all the thrills of watching people make and drink coffee.
In fact, this exercise in inane television, is a reality game show. Each week one of the contestants will be voted off by the viewers (if there are any) submitting a text message with their vote. The prize is to run a coffee shop for a year. Amazingly, this is the second series.
British TV viewers can look forward to the return of Big Brother to their living room. It seems that Britain’s most famous pornographer is poised to sign the deal for a further series to be broadcast on his Red Hot TV Channel 5. Big Brother was also made in Thailand, but it seems the format was too exciting for TrueVisions’ viewers, and the programme was pulled after the second series a few years ago.
Coming next, a thrilling, 24 hour reality series … Watching Paint Dry.
[500]
It all starts with a paste. Aromatic plant parts are pounded in a hefty stone mortar; garlic, ginger, lemon grass, galangal, Thai shallots, chillies (red and green) – quintessentially Thai flavours – all get the same treatment. There’s hardly a Thai dish that doesn’t start with a paste, be it a curry, soup, savoury snack, grilled meat or dipping sauce.
When I lived in an apartment in Bangkok I always knew when the neighbours upstairs were cooking: there’s be a steady thwock-thwock-thwock on the ceiling above as the unseen cook squatted on the floor and pounded her paste for that night’s repast.
There are plenty of dishes that we think of as Thai, but are really mutant Chinese food. For example, sweet and sour sauce in Thailand has no cornflour to thicken it, and the soy sauce is replaced by fish sauce. Stir-fried chicken with dried chillies acquires cashew nuts in its Thai incarnation, and soy sauce (again) is supplanted by fish sauce. (The use of fish sauce, rather than soy sauce is a common feature of Thai-Chinese dishes. However, increasingly fish sauce is being replaced by oyster sauce in Thai cuisine. For example, phat gaphao [spicy stir-fried finely choppped meat with holy basil] – virtually Thailand’s national dish, used to be seasoned with fish sauce, but the sweet, saltiness and rich unami taste of oyster sauce is far more prevalent nowadays.)
But to return to curry pastes. One can buy curry pastes in plastic sachets or glass jars in any supermarket, though the range is fairly limited. One can go to the local market where a curry paste vendor will dollop paste into a plastic bag for you to take away. But the dedicated cook will make his/her own. And here begins the first crisis: Thailand has banned the export of a wide range of herbs and vegetables, including Thai basil, peppers, chillies, Thai aubergines, bitter gourds (karelia) and saw tooth coriander. This preemptive move was in an attempt to stop the European Union banning the import of these ingredients because of high levels of pesticide – many of which are banned in Europe – and insect infestation.
(Many Thai people are aware of the issue of high levels of insecticide in food plants. In most supermarkets the “organic” section is both large and prominent. Sometimes it’s hard not to buy organic.)
Thai restaurants overseas now have a problem: they are cut off from their supply of essential ingredients. Some restaurants have taken to buying Vietnamese or Cambodian equivalents – at a higher price. Others have taken to importing pasteurised curry pastes from Thailand. Desperate times, desperate measures.
***
For consumers in Thailand things are also looking grim. Last month shelves were stripped bare of coconut milk. There’s apparently a shortage of coconuts caused by a plague sweeping the nation. Things are so bad that Thailand’s major exporter of coconut milk has halted export better to meet domestic demand.
And for the last couple of weeks there’s been no oil on supermarket shelves. It seems to be a problem based upon a shortage of palm fruit and consumers hoarding palm oil ahead of an impending price rise. It also appears that the government has been directing supplies to large food manufacturers, rather than to the retail market. The shortage of palm oil led consumers to shift to soybean oil. When all that disappeared they stripped the shelves of corn and sunflower oils, too.
[498]
It’s probably fair to say that I’m not the most romantically inclined person on the planet. After I’ve done the dozen red roses thing, the diamond ring the size of a pigeon egg, and the magnum of champagne well, I’m pretty much out of ideas.
Thankfully, Villa Market, which I visited earlier today (a Thai supermarket aimed at the wealthy, and at the stinking rich expatriate) has come to the rescue. On Valentine’s Day this year I’ll not be scrabbling for inspiration thanks to their kind handout.
Idea #1: Spam With Bacon
Idea #2: Jones Pork Little Sausage. (Not so keen on the little sausage – might be misunderstood.)
Idea #3: Kleenex Tissue. (Might be necessary, even with a little sausage.)
Idea #4: If there’s no Kleenex to hand, there’s always toilet roll:
Idea #5: And if things don’t go quite to plan and there’s a little accident, one might end up needing these:
Idea #6:
I’m not quite sure where the olive oil, granola bars, prego sauce and frozen pot pies fit in with the romantic scenario, but as I said, I’m not the most romantically inclined person on the planet. However, I suspect the “Super Hard, Wet Hard, Madom G Long Keep Gel” might have its uses.
(And the Gatsby “Hard, Supper Hard” does reflect my problems with deciding what to eat this evening.)
[497]
Red and yellow and pink and green
Purple and orange and blue
I can sing a rainbow…
To make life simple political protest in Thailand is colour-coded.
We have the reds – fans of Thaksin (or, at least, fans of the vast handouts he made to poor people from the public purse). They are again staging massive rallies every week (except when there’s a major UK football match on the TV – no I’m not joking) in the retail heart of Bangkok, bringing business to a standstill.
Then there are the yellows – broadly speaking, supporters of the monarchy and of the establishment. When they’re not seizing control of the airport they’re protesting and blocking the traffic around Government House.
Then there’s Santi Asoke (a renegade Buddhist sect) which favours brown. They’re ultranationalists protesting against Cambodia’s claim to a tiny patch of disputed territory on the Thai/Cambodian border.
Members of the Thai Patriots Network – formerly in yellow – are now in blue pyjamas thanks to their having been arrested in the disputed territory and being given new, prison garb to wear by the Cambodian authorities.
The security forces wear green, and the police, brown.
The only colour that hasn’t shown up lately is black, the favoured colour of the paramilitary group that was notionally responsible for protecting the reds during the rallies last year, but was allegedly/apparently/possibly responsible for shooting a few/some/many of the red shirts during the final bloody hours of the protests. However I fear, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, they’ll “be back”.
I could add the saffron robes of the monks, and the white of the nuns.
All very colourful.
It is, however, clear, that political tensions and public protest are rising again. I fear for Thailand’s future.
[496]
One of the negatives of being an expat in Thailand is that it comes with so many stereotypes. I’m not typical: I don’t frequent girly bars and use the services of ladies of the night; I have no interest in kiddy fiddling or dirty videos; I’m not married to an ex-prostitute from the north east; I’m neither an alcoholic nor a drug fiend; I’m not grossly obese and don’t (as far as I know) have problems with my personal hygiene; I’m not boorish, ill mannered, pushy, arrogant, yobbish or a football thug; and I can eat spicy food. In short, I don’t fit in. I therefore find it hurtful when even the English language press decides to comment broadly characterising expats. From an article in today’s Bangkok Post about hospitals treating foreigners who couldn’t afford to pay their medical bills:
“Many retired foreigners … are now struggling after spending their pensions wastefully”
“‘These patients are mostly European men,’ … ‘They didn’t take out health insurance. They renew their visas every year and have no savings.'”
“Some of them produced fake financial statements to have their visas renewed.”
“Foreigners’ savings often were quickly used up on entertainment and women.”
“In a lot of cases, the patients require long-term treatment for chronic illnesses such as alcoholism”.
So much for stereotyping. I don’t ask or expect to feel accepted or wanted, but I don’t want to feel reviled.
And as for the hospitals, perhaps they should all stop the double-charging system whereby foreigners pay more than Thais for the same treatment.
And perhaps the government should recognise that long-term expats pay a lot of tax into the Thai system (particularly if they’re alcoholics with a penchant for wine with its 300% tax rate) and provide them with free medical treatment at government hospitals.
[495]
The social niceties of public urination for men are manifold, though the rules unwritten. In a public urinal one mustn’t talk. One must stare at the wall whilst peeing, not look down. There’s a complex etiquette of which urinal one should elect. And there’s the standard distance away from the wall that one must stand. (Curiously, in Thailand that distance is much less than in the West.) It also appears that it’s mandatory to sprinkle a few drops on the floor in front of the urinal – at least, it appears so to judge by the state of most men’s public toilets.
Peeing is, of course, a competitive activity. A few years ago a company introduced a range of porcelain with a single fly printed at a strategic point. The idea was that men would aim at the fly, reducing spashback and misfired streams. Now the wily Japanese have gone one step further. Sega (the creator of Sonic the Hedgehog) have produced urinals with built-in video games controlled by pee. Now when one micturates one can make the skirt of a cartoon girl rise, and with sufficient force and accuracy one might even see her panties. Only in Japan …
[494]
The madeleine holds an iconic position in the world of French bakery. So important is it that Napoleon erected a church in Paris in its honour. And for Marcel Proust eating it was the jumping off point for a rambling seven volume, 1.5 million words – a novel responsible for most lost time than perhaps any other.
For Nigel Slater, toast holds is similar status. Though I read and thoroughly enjoyed his autobiography (entitled “Toast”), I enjoyed the movie (for which the producers came up with the startlingly original title – “Toast”) more. True, the movie did rather overplay the way that Nigel was light on his loafers from a surprisingly early age – though omitted the episode where he becomes a rentboy in Piccadilly. There were also things that didn’t seem right. Did he really cook tinned spaghetti bolognese in 1967? I didn’t think that the Elizabeth David effect had reached Wolverhampton so soon – and certainly not in canned form. And the cookery book with large pictures that he studied (I think, by Marguerite Patton) – did cookery books of that era have such glossy images? I remember a battered copy of The Daily Telegraph Cookbook by “Bon Viveur” (Fanny and Johnny Cradock’s nom-de-plume) from about that era – plain and picture-free. (That cookbook holds the record for the most disgusting dish I’ve ever attempted to eat: ox liver soaked in milk to make it, allegedly, taste like duck. Absolutely vile.) Didn’t the glossy cookbook start with Robert Carrier? (“Great Dishes of the World” was published 1967.) And would a schoolboy (Slater’s friend) have used such profane language at that time? I went to a primary school in the middle of a cluster of large council estates yet didn’t encounter such language until later in life.
But, small gripes aside, for me it was just wonderfully evocative. Slater is two years older than I, so much of his history is my history. The cream and green colour scheme of the kitchen was just à propos, the nasty plastic cups used at picnics on the beach so familiar (though they didn’t have the canvas windbreaker that seemed an indispensible part of any beach outing in my childhood), the crimpelene dresses, the looooong dried spaghetti (how I remember the blue paper packets of “Lily Brand” spaghetti), the vile school milk (probably Thatcher’s sole act of kindness in her entire life was to snatch milk from the hands of schoolchildren – that said, she’s not dead yet so there’s still time, but I won’t be holding my breath), the heavy NHS glasses frames, the cheese and pineapple on cocktail sticks (though they should have been stuck into a grapefruit wrapped in aluminium foil, rather than a pineapple).
It’s only January, but this is probably my favourite film of the year.
Footnote: when I came up with the title for this posting I was really pleased with myself. I thought I was being original. However, Google is not my friend, and reveals that a quarter of a million other sites have used the same pun. Bah!!!
[493]
The Burmese authorities (i.e. the brutal, repressive military dictatorship which refers to itself as the State Peace and Development Council) has decreed that more than 60 Buddhist monasteries and 10 Buddhist teaching centres in Rangoon will be razed to make way for a new road and port financed by two army cronies. A plot of land on the fringes of Rangoon has been earmarked for the monasteries to relocate to. However, the monks depend on alms from their supporters to survive, and the area to which they’re to move is remote and desolate. To add insult to injury, the monasteries and centres have been told they will receive no compensation for the loss of their existing land and buildings and no assistance with the costs of constructing their new accommodation.
And to think that ASEAN has just asked western countries to lift sanctions against Burma.
Welcome to the new, democratic Burma.
***
News also from Burma: the government is going to tax all purchases by NGOs at rates of up to 20% – just another way for the junta to feather its own nest whilst increasing the suffering of the Burmese people. In contrast, businesses close to the junta and those run by relatives of the generals are exempted from paying any tax.
[492]
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