My top class are doing a project on the constitution of Thailand. Because they have enough ability and initiative to do so, I asked them to tell me what parts of the constitution they thought were particularly important and/or needed to change. It was enjoyable experience because it gives me an insight into the finest minds of Thailand and a glimpse into the future. My role of course was not to give a 'right' or 'wrong' response but merely to listen and ask any questions to test how ell they had thought out their argument.
Student one told me that he thought the age limit for free education (as guaranteed under the constitution) should be raised to age fifteen. He felt taxes should be raised to cover this.

Student two felt likewise, but felt the limit should be raised to eighteen. Student three felt the same again - I guess it's easy to understand why fifteen year olds would focus on this point - but felt it should cover the whole of a student's university life. He felt Thailand should adopt a student loan scheme, similar to that used in the UK.

Student four had an interesting idea. He felt the constitution should introduce a law saying all women can carry a weapon to protect themselves when travelling alone at night times. When I pressed him on this, he stated women should be forced to carry pepper spray by law, and the government should cover the cost for each female.

Student five wanted the issue of ID cards to be delayed to age eighteen (it's currently fifteen). She felt too many students lose them, because at age fifteen they have no real use for them yet.

Student six was he most controversial in my opinion. He wanted the legal age for marriage to be raised to age twenty five. Anyone below that should require parental consent in his opinion. He said this is because people under age twenty five should be studying.

It's such a privilege to deal with students who have enough motivation to bounce their ideas around. Sharing, questioning Ned refining ideas is what real teaching is about, after all.

The computer teacher in my school is a highly gifted and intelligent character. I sometimes wonder why he doesn't work at a more prestigious location but he seems happy where he is.
This semester, he was told he should teach C++ to the students. The teacher immediately informed his superiors that C SHARP might be more appropriate. C++ is a dated language and C Sharp is in far greater demand. It would provide drastically more career opportunities for the students to learn it.

His superiors agreed but told him he would have to prepare the worksheets himself. He duly agreed and spent the next three days working flat out to prepare a curriculum. On the day he was due to begin teaching, the message came in. 'Head Office' had informed him that he was forbidden to teach C SHARP and should return to teaching C+++ immediately. Somebody somewhere was offended that the curriculum had been questioned. The career prospects and knowledge of the students had been flushed down the toilet to save face for someone senior.

Not from me but from a colleague I work with closely:

My first year in Thailand teaching Economics to Thai 8th Graders proved somewhat difficult in that not only did I have no English text book (I still don't), it proved singularly difficult to find the right definitions and explanations for the jargon of Economics in Thai. After several months of looking, however, I finally stumbled across and 1600 page tome in Asia Books (Thailand's answer to Borders) in that temple to conspicuous class-conscious consumption: Siam Paragon -- a shopping mall that defies comparison: let’s just say on the 4th floor of just one of their massive buildings you will find dealerships for Rolls Royce, Bentley, Lamborghini, Maserati, Ferrari, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Alpha Romeo, and Porsche ... for sale in a country where the road quality and traffic conditions even on "the best" highways make it difficult to maintain a speed of over 60 for more than a few seconds.

At any rate, there in Asia Books I started thumbing through this English-Thai dictionary and quickly noted that it had not only detailed Thai definitions of Economics and Business jargon, but also multiple examples of use and myriad compounds and idioms for almost every word. Sure that I had struck the mother lode, I shelled out the 1800 Baht (~$50) for the thing and gleefully took my prize home.

As time wore on, I gradually began to note a striking ideological bias in the cited examples of use. The 2nd example on "capital" is what first struck me as somewhat curious: "capital is created from every drop of sweat from the brow of labor." But when I looked up "relationship" and found the first sentence was, "the relationship between the people and the army has never been stronger," the light went on, and when I read under 'family,' "the farmers and the workers are one family," it was absolutely clear what I had unwittingly purchased - and what was no doubt unwittingly sold - in that theme park of consumerism in this the most anti-Communist nation in Southeast Asia.

Indeed, there is nothing in the title or any of the front material to lead one to suspect that this Mao's Little Red Dictionary was anything other than a fairly exhaustive English-Thai dictionary for academic, artistic, political, business, and technical usage. But one doesn't have to read beyond the first entry to see which way the author dresses:

a, an: art.: ... a united front ... an underground worker ... a foreign guest ... a high building ... a deep hatred for the enemies of the Revolution ... an ice cream ... a Comrade Lin is looking for you... a complete Lu Hsun ... a profound lesson in class education...

Each example was painstakingly translated into Thai.

I have gotten literally hours of very odd, sardonic enjoyment out of this work, and now I intend to share it with my friends. Every day I'll be posting yet another priceless example of the none-too-subtle attempts at indoctrination from this dictionary to my FaceBook Wall, so if you're interested and have a similarly twisted sense of irony as my own, please check in and take a look at the daily entries.

Thaksin and justice

They say that if you tell a lie for long enough, it becomes the truth. If that's the case, then it must be true that the Thai authorities are desperately trying to bring Thaksin Shinwatra back to Thailand to face punishment for his crimes.

After all, we keep hearing that Thaksin narrowly escaped police swoops in various countries, we hear every week of a 'request'' from Thailand to some other country for his extradition and let us not forget the likes of The Nation publishing unfounded rumours, anonymous sources telling us where the man is hiding right now.

It all seems a little strange when you consider the real facts: he was allowed to leave Thailand  immediately after his wife was found guilty in court. That's right, the door was left wide open for Thaksin to leave Thailand to go to the Olympics in China the very day after Potjamo was sentenced. Imagine how hard it must have been for the powers that be to act surprised when the billionaire decided to remain overseas instead of coming hoe and facing possible jail time.

There are other points to consider too: is it really politically beneficial for Thaksin opponents to bring him home? His political and financial muscle seems to have passed its peak. The Song Kran riots achieved little, his phone ins have become dull and even Thaksin himself asked his supporters to cancel his birthday celebrations out of fear of reprisals. Bringing him back to the country and sentencing him in court would run a certain risk of bringing all the emotions and fanaticism of his supports back to the surface, kicking off a new wave of clashes. It's clear that his opponents fear being unable to control Thaksin, but it would be far more damaging to lose control of his supporters once more.

Political tumbleweed

Apologies for the lack of bloggage which is directly related to the birth of my second child and first daughter two weeks ago.

Of all the events that Pundit is  is as red hot as ever on, the charges leveled against all the FCCT execs looks the most shocking.

Meanwhile I can only offer thsi quote from a conversation witha twelve year old student today:

The word I was trying to get the students to say was 'hat'

Me: "I've never seen you or your sister wearing one, you've never seen me wearing one but we both do wear this sometimes....."

Student: "Ummm....clothes?"

Bye bye TNWL

I've stopped blogging on Tue Nation's weblog site. I've enjoyed a good relationship with TN for some time, but they just seem to sink further and further into silliness.

It's not just TN's fault, the whole newspaper scene in Thailand seems to be based around idle gossip, opinion pieces and agency reports. Meanwhile, the Thai language papers add as many gruesome photos as possible to their covers. The photo of Mister Carridine's corpse shocked foreigners who are not used to this procedure but the fixation with shocking and gruesome photos is something I have queried many times.

hat is totally absent in any Thai newspaper is investigative journalism. Rarely, if ever, do we see any kind of first hand digging, fact finding or pressing interviews. One can only imagine what would be revealed if a Thai paper uncovered information in the same way the 'Daily Telegraph' leaked the MPs expenses scandal in the UK. But of course, that simply would not happen here.

What really disappointed me though was the wasted potential of TN's blogging site. It could have been an excellent way for debate, discussion and amateur journalism. Instead it has descended into dullness, pathetic squabbles and repetition.

This is partly down to a couple of unstable people being allowed to run riot while other bloggers have blogs banned for bizarre reasons. My decision not to blog was made when I posted a blog on teaching only to receive a random vitriolic comment calling my wife a whore, and myself an alcoholic and an idiot. Ironically, this came from a native speaker with the most retarded English I had ever seen. Perhaps this is part of the price for free speech- morons should be allowed to babble - but TN's rules do state comments must be on topic and not abusive.

In any case, the site receives, at best, bizarre, random moderation and no effort is made to improve the service or structure. I have a blog in the 'editor's picks' section that has been there for months, simply because the editor can't be bothered to make any fresh choices.

All in all, I'm done. There are some good blogging sites in Thailand that can be found with a quick Google search.

The latest edition of UK magazine 'Private Eye' features an interesting column about Thailand. I hear the writer of the column is a handsome, sophisticated and smart Englishman.

Or at least he wishes he was :-)