Many people might be aware that by living in Bangkok I’m 12 hours ahead of EST/EDT but what many people might not grasp is that I’m living far more in the future than you could ever imagine. Right now in Thailand the year is 2552. Aug 11, 2552 to be exact.
Buddha died approx 543 years before Christ. Since Thailand is approx 90% Buddhist they’ve adopted the Buddhist calendar for most official forms of communication. But if it were only that simple.
See, Thailand is a country that is in constant flux. As it becomes more modernized they adopt things from the western world even though their own culture hasn’t completely let go of their way of doing things.
For instance, when I went to open a Thai bank account I had to fill out my birthday in the Buddhist year but filling out a visa application is all done in Christian years. My satellite and telephone bills use the Buddhist dates but some of my utilities use the Christian calendar. Unfortunately, saying that you’ll pay your bills when the Christian 2552 rolls around doesn’t seem to cut it.
Likewise, the Thais often take liberties with well-known holidays. While many countries celebrate Father’s Day according to local customs, a good chunk of the Americas and Europe celebrate the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. In Thailand, it’s celebrated on Dec 5th which is the current king’s, king Bhumibol Adulyadej, birth date. Similarly, Aug 12 has been deemed to be Mother’s Day because it is the birth date of H.M Queen Sirikit.
As Aug 12 approaches more and more malls and shops have begun putting out large tributes to H.M Queen Sirikit. Some choose to honor her with current photos of her while others choose to remember her in her youth.
I’m not sure what age she is in this photo but she’ll be 77 this week so this was obviously some time ago.
Anything involving the monarchy tends to be over the top compared to what we might expect back home. All government websites usually change their homepage to some sort of appropriate message. For instance when the king’s sister died last year all government websites put up a splash page expressing their condolences and talking about what a great lady she was. Many businesses also change their homepage as well. I would suspect that most Thai television channels will be back to back programming about Queen Sirikit on Wed.
But it works the other way around too. Anything negative about the monarchy is strictly regulated. I was going to research some background info on the king on Wikipedia and I encountered this roadblock.
I’m not sure what was offensive but it seems someone didn’t like something that was written about the king so . . . now you can’t access the page. A similar thing happened awhile back where someone posted some videos on YouTube that were considered derogatory to the monarchy. The entire YouTube site was blocked for several months.
Hmmm . . . . let’s see, what else? My Thai is getting better. Or at least I think it is. The mini-mart in my building used to always tell me the price in English and turn the terminal around so I could see it. Now they tell me the price in Thai since they figure I understand it well enough.
Just to make any feminists reading the blog unhappy I shot this pic on my camera phone the other day.
Yes, even if you can’t read Thai it’s pretty obvious that this place helps “hot chicks” with their careers. And oh, so many careers to choose from. She can be a PR girl (the photo below explains what they are) or a flight attendant. Nice.
Sorry for another bad photo with the mobile phone but it’s all I had on me. Here is what a PR girl does. She dresses up in a sexy outfit and poses with products. They draw crowds but I have no idea how effective they are in selling anything.
A variation on that is promotion girls. These are girls who work in different types of stores and are brought in to sell you crap you don’t want. For instance, if you go to one of the mobile phone operator’s shops in a major shopping mall they’ll often have gals standing around in what look like cocktail dresses who’s job it is to sell you on upgrading your existing plan. Very effective 🙂
Other promotion girls sell beer. They’re sort of like the Jagermiester girls that used to tour around the US showing up in bars and offering shots of Jager but here they’re everywhere. Some gal dressed in a skin-tight dress with a Heineken, Singha or Chang logo will be your Johnny on the Spot if you need any of that particular beverage.
BTW, my friend opened up a business within the True Coffee Shop next door to that “hot chicks” place and I popped in one night to see him and the hot chicks place was having some sort of event. Wow.
Until next time . . . sawadee khrap.
