Let me conclude the week with a few shots I took while out and about.
The morning after we have a heavy rain storm, the skies are really clear and the sun is tremendously intense. Here at the Thong Lo BTS station, passengers huddle in the only shaded area as the sun is at such a point that during midmorning, it floods the inbound platform with bright light.
The passengers waited until the train had arrived and come to a full stop before they left the shade to board.
Walking to my Thai class on a warm and increasingly humid Thursday afternoon, about two hours before another thunderstorm set in, I was following a tourist who was carrying his toddler daughter. I felt so sorry for him, trying to navigate the unevenly paved sidewalks of a miserably warm Big Mango in flip-flops while carrying a sleeping child who looked so warm and uncomfortable with her sweat-matted hair. Add to that the pollution and noise coming from the neighboring street and the Tourism Authority of Thailand would have a fit!
Interesting billboard for an English Language school near Chulalongkorn University. The stated message: “You… can do it.” The implied message, “Unleash your inner farang.” Is it any wonder that so many Thais (especially the better-off ones such as those who might find their way to Chula U) apply whitening lotions and have plastic surgery to shape their features to be more “pleasing” (i.e. more Western)? With messages like this plastered along the street, who wouldn’t feel a bit dissatisfied with themselves?
christao408 
amazing the reputation that boston has! nah…more interested in visiting montreal and vermont for fall colors of the tree leaves falling.interesting sugject
Only thing that I dislike about a lot of my favourite Asian destinations…humidity!
Hi there. Just was scrolling down the recent blogs page and came upon this entry. I find the picture of the billboard particularly interesting and bothersome. So tired of seeing/hearing conversations centered around the concept that “white is better” or “black is better” or “Asian is better” — be who you are, already. Some people bleach their skin, and some spend money for more of a tan.
Wow, I could write a paper on that last billboard. So is Boston Bright a language school like the way Berlitz is around the world? The Asian people are unzipping their facade to reveal the inner Euro-White person? Learn English (the language of power, capitalism, and international commerce) and you can shed your Asian-ness, looks and I assume culture and language too. Talk about post-colonialism and internalized oppression…
My goodness, I cannot believe how much Bangkok has changed…of course it HAS been 30 years since we have been there!!! I still think of it exactly like it was when we lived there. I understand your unease about that ad on the University…it makes me sad to think that the beautiful, kind, loving Thai people would think that they need to change anything about themselves!!! I loved our time in Thailand so very much…and I was so astounded at the people ( mostly American wives) who just hated everything about the country!! They expected to go to Thailand and find a “little America” waiting for them…silly women!!! Thank you for the glimpse of Bangkok 2009. (What year is it there?? I cant remember…must be somewhere near 2500 by now..if my memory serves me correctly. Ruth Ann
Nice shots. Nice weather after the storm. Thanks for the update.
@epiginoskete – Welcome. Yeah, it is fascinating the messages people receive (and sometimes buy into) about how they should look. I’m always tickled that so many caucasians come here to lay on the beach and get darker skin, while so many Thais try to make their appearance lighter! Nobody seems happy with themselves the way they are.
@tdaojensen – Boston Bright is a local school; I had not heard of it before. Wall Street is another, larger chain. Their ads show young Thais sticking out their tongues, which are painted with a UK or American flag. A bit more clever, I think.
@Redlegsix – 2552 on the Buddhist calendar, 543 years ahead of the Christian calendar. Yes, I imagine many things about Thailand have changed since you were here. There are still parts, though, that probably haven’t changed much at all!
@brooklyn2028 – Yeah, it is the one down side to travel here.
A picture tells a thousand words, right? Interesting enough you brought up Chulalongkorn U; reminded me that a few of my ex’s friends graduated from there. I remembered we were there visiting, the campus was kinda big and nice if my memory serves me right. He told me it’s one of the most expensive of all the universities.
i bet you can make more money teaching english than any asian person could. hahaha.
“Unleash your inner farang?” Sigh… that is really sad. I mean, this has been around for a long time but I never thought I would see ads about it.
wow… i didn’t know there was still such a strong appeal to be white. then again, i was reading a book called “blink” and in one chapter they discussed how so many people naturally associate “white” with “good”, so much so that it obviously affects how people perform on word-association type tests. it’s quite sad… and yet i know i do it too.
Wow, that is a really bizarre ad. It’s kind of ironic how there are many Asian countries where having really light skin is in while here in the States, there are many white people that really want to be tan.
@Uncious – It would be like having a Brooklyn Academy of English. Would people be learning English with a New York accent?@TheCheshireGrins – It is ironic and kind of sad at the same time.@kunhuo42 – I suppose it is a matter of who controls the culture’s media, although I know that a lot of the desire for light skin here seems to come directly from Japanese culture, with which the Thais have had a long history and quite a fascination.@ElusiveWords – Sometimes the message is very in your face, no pun intended. There’s less of the self-censorship / presure to be politically correct than there is in the US and Canada.@iso_whiteSnow – I actually did teach English for about a year and a half, but just as a volunteer in a small country school about 90 km outside Bangkok: http://christao408.xanga.com/562856151/childrens-day/@curry69curry – Tawn graduated from Chula, too. Don’t know that it is particularly expensive; all the public schools are subsidised by the government. But it is the most prestigious school, to be sure. There’s a whole mafia of alumnae and the connections go a long way to getting you jobs, etc.
It is sad that many non-Westerners think it’s better to appear Western. I wonder if the same people who think it’s better to look Western realize how much nicer & cleaner their public transportation is than ours (wow!) & that they have it all over us in so many other ways?
@jojobaDESIGNS – Well, the cleanliness of public transportation is relative. The buses in most major US cities are cleaner and about thirty years newer than those here in Bangkok, those in Manila, and several other cities.