The Prince And Us

The other day I was taking a walk and noticed an unusual number of police cars coming and going in and out of our neighborhood. There were also a few police trucks staked out at the various entrances, and on a small back road there were about 20 regular and plain clothes police officers sitting under a tent, eating lunch, and shooting the breeze.

Nuch and I figured a big politician had a home here and was hiding out until the protests were smoothed over. We even imagined the Prime Minister holding secret meetings with his cabinet and top generals to discuss how to crush the "Red Rebellion".

Well, it turns out the cops were not here to protect the Prime Minister, but almost just as interesting, it turns out that the Crown Prince of Thailand is our neighbor - that is, when he's not at one of his 10 other homes and palaces around Thailand and the world.

This is taken from our balcony. You can't make it out in this picture, but his home is the white spot that peeks out above the trees on the far side of the golf course.

BTW, in the bottom left corner is our plastic, pet crow that keeps the pigeons away.



Here's a close-up. It's the Victorian-style home with a dome roof.

Rumor has it he's a real a$$, so we don't expect to be invited over for a Bar-BQ any time soon. Nonetheless, it's cool to be bumping elbows with the upper crust - even if we can't get closer than a 1,000 yards.

Day Of Mourning

On a recent trip to China, I came back to the hotel and the picture below came up on the TV screen.

It's the menu for the In-House Entertainment system, which is normal, but usually it's in color. At first, I figured I got a room with a busted TV.

Then, I recalled someone at the factory saying that all the radio and TV programs were talking about the April 14th Earthquake in Northwest China. So, I assumed that the authorities had ordered everything to be black and white, as a symbol of national day or mourning. I later found out that all Chinese websites and newspapers were black and white, as well.

When I checked the international channels, I got this.

Apparently, all international and entertainment channels were shutdown for the day and only news was available. In addition, the news only reported on the earthquake - for 24 hours on each of the 20+ state run channels. One thing you can say about the Chinese is that they don't play around when it comes to mourning.

On April 22st, things were back to normal. Same crap channels and shows, but in color.

Target Practice

My new condo is right next to a golf course. It's the first thing I see when I get up in the morning and look out over my balcony. There's also a nearby driving range - see below. (You can see the top of my condo off in the distance.)

Also, in this picture you can see a black spot on the grass about 200 yards out and just to the left of the sand traps. This black spot is a dog that lives on the golf course and happened to wander across the driving range the other day while I was hitting some balls.

As soon as the dog appeared, there was an instant buzz along the driving range tees and everyone started taking target practice like there was some kind of sweepstakes. To the left and to the right of me, guys, who moments earlier were leisurely working their way through their buckets, suddenly discovered a new urgency and started whacking balls as fast as the ball machines could tee them up. I even overheard a few bets being placed to see who could hit the dog first. Caught up in the frenzy, I, admittedly, took a few shots myself.

Luckily for this wayward mutt, we're all lousy shots, and he was able to pass unscathed - laughing the entire way, I'm sure.

Les Reds

Man the barricades!!!!

This is starting to look like something out of Les Miserables.

The Original Air Conditioner

On a recent hot Sunday afternoon, Nuch and I stopped by her mom's house for a quick visit. While pulling in, we found these five buckets filled with water sitting in the driveway.

Asked what they were for, she told us they were to absorb the heat and help cools things down.

Mission Bungled

Last week, the Deputy Prime Minister (like our Vice President) announced that one of the senior leaders of the Red Shirts, who was hiding out in a Bangkok hotel, was about to be captured by a team of Special Police.

Not so fast - apparently, this guy also watches the news and with the help of some of his supporters, he repelled out of the 3rd floor hotel window, and was whisked away to safey. In the meantime, the Red Shirt mob captured 2 special police officers and held them hostage.

Somebody with a sense of humor photoshopped this picture of George Bush giving a speech after the war in Iraq was supposedly won.

Suthep, the Deputy Prime Minister and Arisman in the background getting away. Oops!


Here's a video of the "escape":

River House In Korat

A couple weeks ago I visited a friend up in Korat, where I worked the previous 5 years. He's based in Bangkok, but bought some land along a canal and built a little house there. The house is nothing to look at - just a comfortable getaway. The view of the rice fields and the village life took me back to my Peace Corps days.

Here are some pictures.

The Pig Monument

A couple weeks ago Nuch took me to the Pig Monument. Apparently, this is a bad year for those of us, like me, who were born in the year of the Pig, and the best way to minimize your imminent misfortune is to pay your respect to the Pig Monument.

She also said I could make a wish that would help our factory in China get through some of its current problems. Well, if you look at my blog from last week - there was a fire in our supplier's warehouse. Needless to say, I went from extremely sceptical to angry for the complete waste of time.

That was until yesterday, when we were informed that our finished goods were mistakenly put in the wrong place and have miraculously survived the fire. This "mistake" likely saved our relationship with a few customers and the 15 million USD worth of business we do with them.

In appreciation, I've upgraded my feelings towards the Pig Monument back to extremely sceptical.


Here's Nuch on the far-right asking for some favors from the Pig Monument.

Where The Buffalo Roam

This is a cartoon from a Pro-Government newspaper, describing the weekend protests by the mostly rural "Red Shirts".

Monday to Friday the streets of Bangkok are filled with the cars of Bangkokians going about their business.

But, on Saturday and Sunday the streets are packed with herds of Buffalo - a strong derogatory reference to the Red Shirt protesters, who are viewed as slow, stupid, lazy, and better suited for farm-life.

I suppose it's all fair in a democratic society where everyone has the freedom of expression - no matter what color shirt you wear.

Well, that was the case until the government shut down the Red Shirt's television station. Soon after, Red Shirt protesters gathered at the Thai Telecom satellite station and demanded that the People's TV channel be turned back on.

Here are some pictures of the clashes between protesters and soldiers that were guarding the station.







In the end, the soldiers retreated and the station was turned back on.

Here are guns taken by the red shirts and then, returned.



Watermelon. Green on the outside and Red on the inside. This is slang for a soldier that secretly supports the Red Shirts. Being that most soldiers are from the rural parts of Thailand, this is, apparently, a fairly large contingent within the military.

Meanwhile, in downtown Bangkok the protests continued....

Police protecting McDonald's at all costs.

The Red Shirts

A couple years ago it was the Yellow Shirts. After a year of street protests and the occupation of Bangkok's International Airport, they finally got what they wanted.

Now, it the Red Shirts' turn. Here are some pictures I stole from the web.

Last week, they gave blood and then, splattered it across the Prime Minister's front gate.

Everybody Loves A Uniform

Nuch came home the other day and told me she had signed up to be a police volunteer at the Chatuchak Weekend Market. If you've ever been there, you can understand how a foreigner could easily get lost and need some assistance from an English-speaking local.

Here she is modeling her new uniform.

Knock On Wood

I have two bosses (Mark and Dave), and it happened that both of them are on week-long holidays this week.

When one of them wrote to ask me how things were going, I jokingly replied....

On 7 Apr 2010, at 12:48,

Hi Mark

I don't know what it is, but as soon as you and Dave went on holiday, everything started to run like clockwork. Kasen is even asking to deliver things early!!! [Kasen is our Chinese supplier that has been weeks behind schedule since the end of last year]

Just kidding - wish that was the truth. There are a few issues here and there, but nothing that can't wait until you're back. Until then, enjoy your break.

Cheers,

Joe
Sent via BlackBerry® from AIS


Moments later I received the following email from the Sales Director of our Chinese supplier.


----- Original Message -----
From: rick
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2010 1:04 PM
Subject: Big Fire in Hainix


Dear Joe,

There is a big fire occurred just few hours ago in Hainix,fortunately no person get hurt but our finished products warehouse got burned and lots of the containers become ashes right now.

We are still waiting for the result of the investigation running in the plant and I'm afraid that the only thing I can share with you all is,only finished products warehouse got burned and no person got hurt.

Under such certain circumstance,I have to report to all the customers that some of the your orders will be delayed for 4 weeks period while some of them will be delayed a little bit longer.We will do everything we can to be back on track in 30 days,any understanding and cooperation for this issue would be greatly appreciated.

Your specific assinged key contact in our plant will keep you update and share more information with you if possible.

Regards


Rick
One of our designers happened to be there and took these pictures.

Altogether about 115 containers worth of leather sofas burnt to the ground, and needless to say, things are no longer running like clockwork.

Runway Scarecrows

You've heard about the problem of birds being sucked into a plane's engine during take-off, leading to a major catastrophe. I think that's what happened with the "Miracle on the Hudson".

An airport an Southern China has found the solution - Runway Scarecrows.