Setting out in the midst of one of the fiercest rainstorms I’ve seen, Tawn and I headed up to The Esplanade shopping center Saturday night to meet Brian, Roka and Ken for dinner, followed by a performance at the Thailand Cultural Center.

Traffic was very heavy, as you might expect.  We took a shortcut through the green line (a series of back sois that form a maze bounded by Sukhumvit, Phetchaburi, Asoke and Ekkamai) to Phetchaburi, working back to Asoke and then up to Ratchadapisek.

We had dinner at Ootoya restaurant, which does a good job on reasonably priced Japanese donburi cuisine (rice dishes, no sushi).  The English spelling on their signage caused some confusion for Ken, though!  (right)

The event at the Thailand Cultural Center was the Friends of the Arts Annual Charity Performance.  The program was a triple bill of dance activities:

The first part was a performance of the balcony scene from Prokofiev’s ballet of Romeo and Juliet performed by a pair of Canadians from Alberta Ballet.  It was beautifully danced and Prokofiev’s music is wonderful. 

The second part was four pieces, each choreographed by (and performed by) local Thai dancers.  The first of the four was May Yimsai, a professional teacher from whom Tawn will soon be taking classes.  Her piece was a three-part modern dance that lasted about ten minutes.  It was followed by a Hindu-inspired pieces with six males dancers and one female.  Then there was a very modern, angry piece by a female soloist that was – I read in the program after the fact – meant to describe the anguish of getting over an affair with a married man.  (I really should read the program beforehand!) 

Left: Tawn poses with some local dance students after making a donation to Friends of the Arts.

The final of the four local pieces was an interestingly effective modern piece in which five dancers, all dressed as people from every walk of life, form a line on the stage under full lights.  Then they waited.  The audience anticipated that music would start but for several minutes there was just silence.  Then they started to dance, initially in ballet-inspired moves, each doing their own thing. 

One dancer was trying to keep his balance on just one leg with his eyes closed.  When he finally lost his balance, he froze.  Another dancer came over and put her hand on his head and he came back to life, but this time his dancing was erratic, even spastic.  Slowly, the other dancers also devolved into chaotic dance.

As the Thai national anthem started playing, dozens of other people rushed the stage from the wings and started throwing orange ping pong balls at each other.  Suddenly, they stopped, but when the lyrics reached the phrase about how, when fighting, Thais never give up, they resumed pummeling each other with ping pong balls, below.

It was very engaging throughout because it was unexpected but really invited the viewer to view it through many different lenses of interpretation.  I saw it as a piece about the conformity of Thai society where everyone is told to keep their balance.  When the balance is lost, the inner side of people comes out, none the better for the repression.

The third act of the show was performed by local students and was advertised as selections from musicals such as “Chicago” and “Moulin Rouge”.  What it ended up as was a lot of fairly explicit dancing by skimpily-clad young woman.  If I was a parent who had paid for my daughter to take dancing lessons and this was the recital I saw, I’d be shocked.

I was more embarrassed for the half-dozen Catholic nuns and the two dozen young children who had been brought as part of the Christian humanitarian organization, World Vision.  The nuns were sitting in the second row and didn’t seem to be getting a lot out of the dancing.  The whole thing became increasingly surreal when Tawn pointed out that on the way to the theatre, we had passed one of the local “adult entertainment” clubs that had a help-wanted sign out in front: “Looking for pretty girls, coyote dancers, and mama sans.”

At least these girls will have somewhere to put their dance training to good use.  Roka was a bit concerned, though, that there would be another act featuring ping pong balls.

After the show, we ducked back stage to say hello to Tawn’s high school friend, future ballet teacher, and noted performed this evening, May Yimsai, right.

These cultural events are always interesting, if for no other reason than it helps to support the arts and the reality is that the average Thai citizen isn’t very aware of the public arts.  Showing up to these events adds at least a modicum of momentum to making public arts more a part of Thai life. 

Stuart has been living here in Khrungthep for about five years and recently set up his company ITS4Knowledge.  ITS4K’s first project is to create an e-learning platform to enable foreigners to easily and conveniently learn the Thai language.  Appropriately enough, it is called ITS4Thai.  Website here.  You can sign up on the website for free updates in anticipation of the launch of their materials.

Thursday after lunch, Ken and I headed over to ITS4K’s corporate headquarters, a 30-square meter office on the second floor of a building near the Russian embassy and Wat Hua Lamphong, to assist with some alpha testing of their new product.  We spent about ninety minutes reviewing the Level 1 materials including several games and testing functions.  The interface is smooth and the convenience of learning online will be unbeatable.

In the next few weeks, Stuart expects to have a beta version ready.  When that happens, I’ll let you know about it here.  Stay tuned.

On the way back to the subway station, Ken and I walked past a food vendor who was pushing his cart to the Silom district to set up for the night.  His fare: grilled chicken satay.  As he was going down the road, he hit a bump and a tray of uncooked satay skewers fell onto the wet road (it had been raining all day).  He stopped, scooped the skewers back into the tray, and continued down the road.

What do you want to bet that those skewers were grilled and served Thursday night?

Wednesday morning, July 4th.  Independence Day in the United States.  But as I’m not in the United States, I take it as a regular work day and will instead take some local holiday in exchange.  Not to be completely unpatriotic, Kobfa and I meet up for a return trip to Sunrise Tacos.  The first and second visits in late May were very tasty but there were still some gaps, mostly in terms of the quality of the tortillas and the heat (or lack thereof) in the hot sauces.

Sunrise Tacos is within walking distance of my apartment and all the way down Soi Asoke I was looking at the sky, wondering just how many minutes I had left before the coming storm would completely break loose.  Thankfully, I made it to the covered walkway leading from the Asoke BTS station towards Times Square.  Just as I took the above picture, it started sprinkling and that turned to a downpour in a matter of seconds.

By the time Kobfa arrived less than ten minutes later, the energy of the storm had dissipated and the rain had stopped.  It is amazing to me how much rain is dumped in such a short time.

At Sunrise Tacos, we placed our order and dove into a basket of chips and guacamole in order to discover whether the most critical problem had been addressed: tortilla quality. 

In my previous visit  I had found the tortillas to be too thick and quite tough.  After writing on this site, I received a message from Greg Lange, “Food Taster/Owner” of Sunrise.  He explained that they were working to resolve this issue with the help of a tortilla making machine, to get the desired thinness. 

The basket of chips and guacamole were the real test and Sunrise Tacos passed with flying colors: the chips are much lighter and crispier now, with none of that “I’m fighting to take a bite” that I previously experienced.

Greg also addressed my concern that John’s Hot Sauce – ostensibly the spiciest on the menu – wasn’t spicy at all.  In response to customer feedback, they added John’s Super Hot Sauce which I can gladly report has the right degree of heat to complement the smokey carne asada and tasty chicken.

So the good news is not only that we have a 24-hour taqueria conveniently located on Sukhumvit, but it is now serving really good food that is worthy of at least one weekly lunch in my schedule.  Yeah!

Now if they’d just get fish tacos and quesadillas on the menu, I’d be super happy.

The big news of the day was not the improvements made at Sunrise Tacos, no matter how tasty they may be.  The real news was the talk given at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club by Dr. Mongkol na Songkhla, Thailand’s Minister of Public Health.

Dr. Mongkol is the man who gives Big Pharma the shivers because he mounted a bold campaign to secure cheaper generic drugs for the country’s poor.  When two years of negotiations with drug manufacturers were unsuccessful, he announced the issuing of compulsory licenses for three highly-profitable HIV-related drugs.  At this point, one of the licenses, for the first line anti-retroviral drug Efavirenz, has been issued.  Two additional drugs for non-HIV conditions are set to be added to the list shortly.

The background on compulsory licensing

As a member of the World Trade Organization, Thailand is obligated to abide by the rules and regulations in the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). TRIPS sets a minimum international standard for forms of intellectual property such as patent pharmaceuticals.  Compulsory licensing is a flexibility of TRIPS that permits all member countries to manufacture generic alternatives of patented pharmaceuticals to increase accessibility to affordable medicine.

The debate is around whether Thailand, as a middle-income country, really needs CL.  The pharmaceutical countries argue that their intellectual rights are being violated and that they will suffer financially.  “We won’t make enough money to research new drugs!” they claim. 

Thailand’s universal healthcare system is one of the country’s strengths, but Dr. Mongkol argues that the country lacks affordable access to high priced antiretroviral HIV treatment and medications for priority health conditions such as cancer, hypertension, and heart disease, for a large number of very poor patients.

Defending the policy

Dr. Mongkol defends his government’s contentious policy by explaining that the people who will benefit from these generic drugs – the poorest of the poor – are people who could never have afforded the brand-name drugs in the first place.  And, he adds, the people who can afford the brand-name drugs will not switch to generics, which have the reputation of not being as good*.  So, he reasons, the pharmaceutical companies shouldn’t lose out on any income.

*This seems to be a point of difference from what I’ve experienced in the United States, where generic drugs are pharmacologically the same as brand-name drugs.

Additional healthcare concerns

In either case, Dr. Mongkol spent the evening responding to questions from the audience, including a large contingent of local HIV/AIDS activists who, while full of praise for the doctor calling him their “hero”, had questions about why government policy still treats those who acquired HIV through intravenous drug use more as criminals than patients.  (Below, Dr. Mongkol speaks with local activists after the event, about their ideas for additional government actions.)

Dr. Mongkol responded fairly to those questions and explained that there are a number of changes to the laws that his team has proposed and he expects many of them to be passed into law in the next month or so. 

Questions were also raised about why the government doesn’t spend more of its HIV-related budget on prevention instead of treatment.  Currently, it is reported that only about 10% of the budget is spent on prevention efforts, which if done properly can have the effect of significantly lowering cases in the future.

Examples of harm prevention methods include education, the distribution of “female condoms“, clean needle exchange programs for IV drug users, and in the case of the Netherlands and other countries, decriminalization of small quantities of drugs.

This is where, as with many countries, good public health policy runs afoul of social mores.  Dr. Mongkol was pragmatic, explaining that he doesn’t think Thai society as a whole will be accepting of some of those methods.  Even things like women insisting that their husbands use condoms is a tough sell, even though 60% of the women who are HIV infected in Thailand were infected by their husbands.  (Thailand is a country where philandering husbands is a recognized, if not often discussed, part of life.)

One person Dr. Mongkol has working with him is Senator Mechai Viravaidya, Thailand’s famous “Mr. Condom” who is heading up the National AIDS Committee, pictured left. 

Senator Mechai is founder and head of the Population and Community Development Association (which runs, among other things, the Cabbages and Condoms restaurants – the Hard Rock Cafes of the population development community) and has long been the country’s most progressive voice in issues of both population control and, in the past two decades, HIV prevention.

Because of his history as being the most outspoken man, and the most respected one, on these issues, Senator Mechai is in a position to push public opinion forward more effectively than working directly through the Ministry of Public Health.

Conclusion

The talk was very interesting and informative, not only because it gave me much more insight into the issue of compulsory licensing that has caused such a stir in the past few months, but also because it gave me much more respect for at least one part of the Thai government.  After having listened to Khun Sittichai, the Minister of Information and Communication Technology, speak last week in paternalistic tones about how the government, and specifically himself, knew best for the country, it is refreshing to hear a Minister speaking openly and honestly and carefully considering the feedback of not only world opinion but most importantly, of his citizens.

I read an article in the Nation (local English-language newspaper) about the process for the approval of the draft constitution which is currently being finished by an “independent” Constitution Drafting Assembly (CDA) appointed by the CNS (Council for National Security – aka the coup government, fondly called the junta).

The CDA is supposed to wrap up the draft constitution in the next month or so and then within 30 days a referendum is to be held on it.  Although the prime minister has recently been quoted as saying that maybe that won’t happen so soon after all.  When the referendum does happen, the public can either vote in favor of the draft constitution or against it.

• If the public approves the draft constitution, it is then sent for royal approval.
• If the public does not approve the draft constitution, the CNS is then allowed to select from any of the previous 16 constitutions Thailand has had since it became a nominally democratic monarchy in 1932, make whatever revisions it sees fit to make, and then send it for royal approval. 

Political forces opposed to the coup are urging people to vote against the draft constitution because a vote for it would be tacit approval of the coup leaders and the use of a coup.  But, of course, voting against the draft constitution would then allow the coup leaders to create whatever constitution they favor.

Sort of a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario.  Interesting, huh?

Left: Anti-junta protests at Sanam Luang (near the Grand Palace) on Monday.  There were also protests in the Siam Square area.

For those of you who think the whole thing is utterly confusing (um, that would be everybody, right?) there is a nice article on the Nation’s website that gives a brief history of modern Thai politics.  There’s also a Wikipedia entry about the whole process for drafting the new constitution.

Fancy a home to stay in during your trip to Paris this summer?  Somewhere comfortable, well-located, fully furnished, with a nice view, and reasonably priced? 

Our friend Ryeroam, who is moving into a new home in the Paris suburbs with his partner this week, informs me that their fully-furnished in-town apartment will be available through October, when the sale of that apartment will close.  In the meantime, they would be happy to rent it to anyone who is visiting Paris and wants a good place to stay.

The 65-square meter (650 square feet) apartment is located in the 15th Arrondisement near the Eiffel Tour.  There is a nice view from the bedroom and the living room and it is conveniently located for tourists who want to take advantage of Paris’ excellent transportation system.

They are asking for a rental rate of 500 Euros a week, which is already quite reasonable, and they are open to negotiation.  Tawn and I would love to take advantage of this offer, if we weren’t already fully booked with trips over the summer and trying to save money for our remodel.

Photos of the apartment are below:

If you or someone you know would like more information, please send me a message or an email.

Saturday morning we met at the new condo with Ble (pronounced “bun”) and his contractor, Guang.  The objective: review the next steps that need to be taken to get our renovation underway.

Below is the floorplan of the condo as it currently is, with circles representing some of the key areas we need to address.  One thing that will have to be done throughout is an updating of the floors.  While at recent point I had thought they were hardwood, closer inspection by the contractor confirmed that they are veneer.  So we will either replace it with hardwood or with a higher quality of laminate.

A: Refashion the wall between the living area and the second bedroom.  The goal is to create more of an open feeling between the two rooms while preserving the ability to have a private space in the second bedroom when we have guests or, more commonly, when the bedroom is being used as a home office.

Below are two pictures, the left showing the wall as it currently exists and the sketch on the right (my work) showing the proposed changes.  The changes would include demolishing the wall and replacing it with a wall that has a pair of sliding pocket doors as well as built-in cabinetry on either side.  This look would be similar to the Victorian houses we found in San Francisco.

B: The second major area of renovation is the kitchen, pictured below.  The existing cabinets are poorly laid out.  The narrow door on the right hand side of the cabinet along the window is a narrow opening that then opens up to the entire back right corner of the cabinet – a large space that is nearly impossible to get to.  Anything you put back there will end up “out of sight and out of mind”.

Additionally, as the clothes washer and dryer were originally in the kitchen, there are now two large gaps in the cabinetry that need to be filled (left and right side of picture).  We’ve talked about some interim steps to fill in the gaps but they would be awkward and would not address the other issues of the cabinetry.

This will be an expensive step and we might have to delay it until some time in the future when we have more funds.  This is especially true because I want to buy a 4-burner induction stovetop and a full-size oven, both pricey items here but necessary for having a kitchen in which I can do the type of cooking I like to do.  One thing that is going to go even if we don’t remodel: the ugly track lighting!

C: The bathroom will be another major area of remodel.  One of the biggest challenges is the space we want to put a stacked washer and dryer.  Behind the two doors in the bathroom is a space that has a water source, an electric supply, and a drain in the floor: perfect place for a washer and dryer, right? 

Well, there’s a minor problem: the space behind the door is exactly 60 cm deep (pictured right), the same depth of a washer or dryer.  There’s no room for the door to open fully without the handle hitting the washer.  Nor is there room for a cabinet to be built to hide the washer and dryer. 

So at this point it looks like both doors will be relocated: the door with the glass (which will be replaced – who needs light spilling form the bathroom into the bedroom?) will move to the right about 10 cm and possibly narrowed. 

The door on the left will move left about 25 cm, which will allow for a narrow vertical storage area to the side of the washer and dryer: perfect for brooms, mops and the ironing board.

The vanity and toilet area will be replaced (left).  A smaller mirror will be placed over the sink, and some nice narrow cabinetry will be installed over the toilet to provide storage for personal items and toiletries.  Lighting will be improved, too.

Finally, we’re going to take out the bathtub (below).  It is so tall that I have to stretch to step into it and our contractor, who is a short man, had to vault over it to take some measurements.  The tub will be replaced with a walk-in shower with a glass wall and mosaic-size tiles probably in an aqua green.  The ventilation fan will be moved so it is in the ceiling rather than on the wall.

So as you can see, we have quite a bit of work ahead of us.  This week the contractor is supposed to provide an itemized price list for all the major work.  After we choose which items to do and consider less-expensive alternatives, we have to submit a master plan to the condominium management so their engineer can review and approve any changes.

Estimated time frame at this point: hopefully move in sometime in late September.  Hopefully.

Full trip report of the recent trip to Hong Kong and back on Cathay Pacific is available here.

Saturday evening Tawn, Vic and I went for dinner at T Restaurant, a seafood restaurant owned by one of Tawn’s former United Airlines colleagues’ family.  We ate very well, as always, with huge grilled prawns and a whole garoupa steamed with soy sauce and green onions.

After dinner we drove across the river to the Millenium Hilton hotel.  Located in Thonburi on the western bank of the Chao Praya River, the Hilton is unqiue among Khrungthep’s “drinking with a view” places because it looks back on the rest of the city while the other places are smack in the middle of it.  This leads to some spectacular views that, while not as high up as Vertigo or Scirocco in terms of elevation, have the river framing them beautifully.

The venue is ThreeSixty, the non-rotating lounge located on the 32nd storey of the hotel, right.  With live jazz and low lighting, it provides an intimate space for relaxing and taking in the view, a sampling of which was borrowed here from the Hilton’s website:

While enjoying the vocalist, a woman from New York who has a strong voice perfect for singing the standards, we had drinks and I ate a trio of mousses for dessert: chocolate, panna cotta, and mango-caramel.  Tasty!  Below: Without a tripod, you can’t see much of view behind me, but I enjoyed it on your behalf.  Belive me.

Sunday morning I was up by seven and on my way to Queen Sirikit Convention Centre for some riding.  Markus is in Singapore this week so I was biking solo.  Nonetheless, I was able to ride thirty kilometers in just over an hour. 

 The Sirikit Centre has a nice park with a two-kilometer bicycle track parallel to the pedestrian track.  In the center is a large lake where you can rent paddle boats.  When I stopped at eight o’clock for the national anthem – it is broadcast over the speakers and all the runners, walkers and cyclists stop – I noticed some dead fish floating in the lake.  Not a good sign.