One man in Bangkok

So now you can call me Mr. 90%. Who’s yer daddy? It would have been higher still if I had remembered more than days of the week. Oh well, C’est la vie.

Ok, it’s time to admit it. Despite evidence to the contrary on Google, I’ve always maintained my bad melv innocence. However, today the truth has come crashing home. You see, today is my friend in Korea Rachel Lynn’s birthday - and I forgot. Despite several subtle and not so subtle reminders. Sorry Rachel Lynn.

I urge you all to visit her website now and buy her something she is desperately in need of - sweaters. I mean, she’s going into the Korean winter with just 22!!! Don’t be shy, act now.

Here are some hot pictures of my hot birthday friend.

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY RACHEL LYNN

It appears I was wrong on a previous post about Lumpini Park. The statue of the king isn’t King Rama V, but according to Mina, and I quote “King Rama VI, or King Rama III, I think, maybe.” Thanks. For. That. Anyway, this is King Rama V.

Also, according to the precise one, those pictures of my eyes in another previous post weren’t taken by me (in fairness, the closest I ever came to claiming them as my own was when I said “I can’t even be sure if it was actually me that took them or not”) . They were in fact taken by Mina when she was thinking about making them into something pop arty, or something. So I am hereby officially granting the rights of those particularly fine pictures of my eyes to one Miss Mina Chan. May she use them wisely.

Today is Remembrance Day in the British Commonwealth, where we remember all the people who died in World War One, and all wars. On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month GMT, a two minute silence is held, one minute each for the two world wars. To symbolise that we remember and appreciate the sacrifice that many people made, we wear poppies.

I would like to be wearing one of these today. Procedes from the sales of this kind of poppy go to help the survivors of the world wars and war charities.

I usually have strong anti-war views, but I feel that the sacrfice made for their country by these men and women should be remembered.

We shall remember you.

I joined a comunity called Stumbleupon it’s a lot of fun and I would recommend it to anyone who likes randomness. So, in my stumbling today, I came accross a site that draws a map of all the countries you’ve been to. I like this idea, but have to say I feel pretty disappointed by the results. If you had asked me before I found this site, I would have told you I’m pretty well travelled. However, after visiting this site I can see that my map need some serious development. I think trips to Russia, Australia, Nigeria, Cananda and Brazil are in order, just to fill it out a little. Then after that I can visit China, Mongolia, Greenland and some big African countries as well. That would set things straight a bit. Seriously, no South America, no Africa and no Australasia. In fact just two or three souther hemisphere countries full stop (I’m not sure if Taiwan is southern or northern).

Sorry if this is boring for most of you, but it’s just something that I’d like to get off my chest. A friend sent me this a few days ago.

Illegal Immigrants Poem

I cross ocean, poor and broke.
Take bus, see employment folk.

Nice man treat me good in there.
Say I need to see welfare.

Welfare say, “You come no more, we send cash right to your door.”

Welfare cheques - they make you wealthy! NHS - it keep you healthy!

By and by, I got plenty money.
Thanks to you, British dummy!

Write to friends in motherland.
Tell them “come fast as you can.”

They come in turbans and Ford trucks.
I buy big house with welfare bucks!

They come here, we live together.
More welfare cheques, it gets better!

Fourteen families, they moving in,
but neighbour’s patience wearing thin.

Finally, white guy moves away.
Now I buy his house,then I say,

“Find more aliens for house to rent.”
And in the yard I put a tent.

Everything is very good,
and soon we own the neighbourhood.

We have hobby, it’s called breeding.Welfare pay for baby feeding.

Kids need dentist? Wife need pills? We get free! We got no bills!

Britain crazy! They pay all year, To keep welfare running here.

We think UK darn good place.
Too darn good for the white man race!

If they no like us, they can scram. Got lots of room in Pakistan!

PLEASE SEND THIS TO EVERY BRITISH TAXPAYER YOU KNOW

Now, I know it’s supposed to be funny, and funny things don’t necessarily have to make sense, but the whole premise of this poem is just wrong. The subject of immigration is a pretty thorny issue around the world, especially in Britain (this article shows the kind of shit that people not only put up with, but believe) so I get pretty annoyed when people (conf)use it to score political points. The main problem I have with this poem is: how can illegal immigrants qualify for such things as the NHS or state benefits? I mean surely illegals come over in lorries full and have to work for about a pound a day like all those poor Chinese cockle pickers who were drowned a few years ago. This poem wants us to believe that people can come over the England on the back of a lorry and magically receive all these benefits at the expense of the taxpayer, which is frankly ridiculous.

I’m not saying that none of the immigrants in Britian cheat the system, but that the writer of this poem is just too far wide of the mark. I believe that the writer is, due to blindness or stupidity maybe, confusing illegal immigrants with asylum seekers. Asylum seekers usually come over to Britain with a valid reason, usually fear of persecution in their own countries. Asylum seekers ARE entitled to benefits when living in Britain because most of them have a legitimate reason for being there. And why shouldn’t they be entitled to the same benefits as everybody else in the country? Would some people advocate a two tiered benefits system depending on where people were born? Or even better, people who don’t work aren’t entitled to things like welfare and the NHS? The only people eligible for unemployment benefits are those people who work? Great idea lads!

Anyway, I could go on for hours about this subject as it’s pretty close to my heart, being an immigrant in Thailand myself. I’m also very likely to be going through the immigration process for England, with Mina, in the future. I know for a fact, from friends who’ve applied for visas for their spouses here, that immigration into Britain is not as easy as the tabloid press would have the public believe. Sorry to have gone on so long. If you made it down to here without clicking that “BACK” button congratulations and thank you very much! Normal service of photos and food and nothing too serious will commence shortly.

Nothing beats a good feed, and I have just had a good feed. Fresh egg noodles with Chinese roast red pork, crispy pork and fresh wantons, barbequed pork neck and some barbequed sweetcorn with butter and coconut milk sauce for dessert. As every Thai person ever would say “aroi maak”.

My good friend in Seoul, Rachel Lynn gave me a shameless plug on her website to increase my traffic. So as a result, I have to give her a big shout out. And also draw attention to one of the more photogenic moments of my life.

Bangkok is doing a very good impression of Bangladesh at the moment. Torrential rain over the last few days means that certain parts of the city are under water at the moment. At the moment, the area I live in is pretty ok. My road was flooded just over ankle deep for a few hours the other day, but that’s it. Where I’ve been working recently is another matter entirely though. Sorry about the quality of the pic, but I took it from the bus on the way home (as for the angle, I’m not too sure, maybe I was drunk). If you look hard enough you will see that there’s a white minibus, at the top right hand corner, with flood water over halfway up the wheels, and below it some kind of unidentified red thing that’s almost completely submerged.

I took the next photo on my way to work yesterday; it’s the canal closest to my apartment. As you can see, the water level is mere centimetres below the bank, usually it’s at least a metre below. By all accounts still in for some more rain over the next few days and weeks. I showed this picture to one of my students last night and he said, while laughing “Tomorrow their houses will be flooded.” Nice guy though really.

In non water related news, I saw a young elephant at the top of my street yesterday. Now, the relationship between Thai people and elephants is far too baffling for me to understand. Most Thais, rightly so, love elephants. They’re a royal animal, white elephants especially so (a white elephant actually featured on an early version of the Thai flag), they’ve also been very useful to the country throughout history in a variety of ways, and they look bad ass. So what do you see on the streets of Bangkok almost every night? Bastards (and I mean bastards!) walking around with elephants trying to get people to buy bags of food to feed them. I don’t claim to be an expert in elephant physiology, but I don’t think that their soft feet were designed to walk for hours on concrete! I also have trouble believing that their natural diet includes sacks full of half mouldy bananas.

Ok, off my soap box now, and on a much happier note some of my students took me out for dinner last night. We went to a little steak house near to the office and spent a lot of time just chatting. If I still lived in Korea, there is no doubt that an occasion like that would have called for copious amounts of something highly intoxicating, like soju. Instead I live n Thailand, so I had a lime juice. Almost as exciting, but somehow not quite.

So it seems like Kim Jong Il has jumped off the deep end and pissed a lot of people off. Apparantry he’s been feering especiarry ronery recentry. Why couldn’t George Bush just have given him that hug when he asked for it? Anyway, a nucular North Korea is not good news for anybody. The Japanese must be wondering what kind of nuclear god they’ve pissed off though.

So to all my friends in South Korea, we’re thinking about you all. Hope you are safe and well. Stay out of trouble, keep well, fight-eu! And remember to sing “Dae Han Min Guk” (followed rhythmical bashing of the inflatable red sticks from the football - you know the ones I mean). If it all goes wrong don’t forget to eat a lot of kimchi, I seem to remember one ajumma telling me that kimchi protects against the ravages of nuclear winter*.

*this may or may not come from the same school of thought as fan death.

So England drew with Macedonia last night and Scotland beat France. Very sad news indeed. Still, both Wales and Ireland got stuffed, so at least there’s a comedy element to the sadness.

I was on the internet the other day trying to think of a good name for my fledgling blog when some bald bloke from Swaziland suggested andythompsonisabadmelv.wordpress.com. Funnily enough I wasn’t particularly impressed with this, but his next suggestion was pure gold. Thailandy – wonderousness. So, I feel I have to publicly declare that Swaz James is a genius. Even if I move to another country, I can adapt my new moniker and it still works: Englandy, Scotlandy, Finlandy, Australiandy, Boliviandy, Japandy, Americandy, Papuandy New Guinea, and so on. The way I figure, the only countries I can’t move to now are Brazil and East Timor.

In other news, it’s almost the end of the weekend. Enjoy the rest of it. I will, I’m off to do some shopping and then to watch a movie. Here’s a picture of the CBD of Bangkok at dusk and a sign you can see on the subway here (happy Mina??).