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16 02, 2011

Indian Gastronomy Explosion

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:24+00:00Bangkok, Food|0 Comments

I know what you're thinking: Indian Gastronomy Explosion would be an awesome name for a rock band. While I would definitely pay good money to see a dude from IGE rock the sitar, you are incorrect. It's actually a description of a badass meal I had the other night at a new Indian joint in Bangkok called Gaggan. Indian food in Bangkok is pretty easy to find; Thailand's Indian community is very vibrant, and the food I've tasted here is probably the best Indian food I've ever had - outside of India, of course. But at Gaggan, Indian food is being pushed to the limits and being combined with some truly bizarre and awesome techniques.

3 02, 2011

A Few Suggested Tools for Life in Bangkok

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:24+00:00Bangkok, Tips on Visiting|0 Comments

Every big city has its own unique attitude, and likewise everyone living in every one of these big cities requires a certain set of implements, tools and gear in order to get the most out of life there. In my home city - Calgary, Alberta (motto: You don't work with horses or in oil? What do you do?) - the necessary tools were, among others, a car (it's a big city area-wise), winter clothes, and maybe a pack of Skoal if you want to mimic the stanky, cancer-ridden jawline of your cowboy hereoes. But Bangkok - with its vast canvas of contrasting landscapes, transport, people, and infrastructure - is a much more enjoyable place to live if you have the right tools to cut through the din. I came up with a few items that make my life in Bangkok that much easier.

1 02, 2011

Egypt vs. Thailand: A Matter of Perspective

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:25+00:00Current Events, Politics|0 Comments

The current unrest in Egypt is making a lot of people nervous, and rightfully so. The one phrase that I keep coming back to is from Alan Moore’s badass comic book V for Vendetta: People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people. It’s a simple statement, but it carries a lot of weight. But as I took in what’s happening in Egypt and compared it with my experiences with Thailand’s recent unrest over the past year, I got to thinking about how context and relativity plays a role in examining just how bad one actually has it, or how serious a situation really is.

21 01, 2011

The Fallout of the (sometimes)Truth

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:25+00:00Culture, Thailand, Web Media|0 Comments

In the online war of words between representatives of Thailand’s various cultural groups (sexpats, expats, students, teachers, businessmen, hi-sos, etc), there’s never a shortage of interesting wordplay to read through. I’ve written about this before, but the one piece of advice I give to prospective expats is to be very selective when boning (heh) up on how Thailand works, simply because there’s so much crap out there that it’s easy to get a very distorted view of the country. The latest salvo in this ongoing battle was written for CNNGo by a friend of mine, and is causing quite a little uproar. Well, I’m here to defend him… sort of.

10 01, 2011

Meanwhile, in Bangkok: Upskirt Prevention

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:25+00:00Meanwhile in Bangkok...|0 Comments

As with any place, the longer you stay there, the more you start to see things repeat themselves. Sometimes it's every month, sometimes it's every decade, but a lot of things tend to move in circles. One of these things that comes around every year in Thailand is the issue of how short the skirts of university girls should be. Every year the hemlines inch upward, and every year the Department of Anti-Turpitude gets quoted on the front page of the papers on how this isn't Thai culture and the girls should be ashamed of themselves and why can't they just dress like we did in the 1920's? Far be it from me to be outraged at a bit of leg, but there actually have been a few times where I've done a double-take at the length (or lack thereof) of a skirt. One must be very careful how they walk if they're to avoid a free show for those in the vicinity, which is what this girl did one day at Siam Square.

24 12, 2010

The Future of Bangkok’s Mass Transit

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:25+00:00Bangkok, Technology, Transport, Travel|0 Comments

Ahhh, the new year. Time to put the diseased, pockmarked wreck of the last year behind us and stare at the glorious, unspoilt landscape of the next 12 months in front of us. In the spirit of new beginnings, I finally completed a little project I've been working on for a while. I've had on my desktop for some time now a high-resolution map of the proposed future of Bangkok's mass transit lines. The original was all in Thai, but I whipped out my mad Photoshop skillz and roughly translated the names of the stations (with a bit of help) into English. It's still a bit busy, and I'm not sure what the timeframe on all these routes are, but it gives you an idea of what Bangkok's overlords have in store for the future. Bangkok right now is woefully underserved by its mass transit network, but when/if this is all complete, it will likely rank up near Tokyo and Hong Kong for mass transit awesomeness. Take a look.

19 12, 2010

What the World Writes about Thailand

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:26+00:00Current Events, Language, Print Media, Technology, Thailand|0 Comments

Google's a pretty neat tool, and it's fascinating to see how it's evolved over the past ten years. When I first came to Thailand in 2001, I did all my searches using either Lycos, HotBot, or Excite, but now I - indeed, most of the world - simply uses Google. It's pretty amazing how far their shadow stretches, touching pretty much every corner of the internet, no matter how insignificant. For non-insansely smart computer geeks, it's a bit hard to wrap your mind around exactly how access to all this seemingly minor information can congeal into a useful whole, but a new Google tool called Ngram consolidates an incredible amount of information - 200 years' worth, to be precise - and lets you search. Just for fun, I did some popular searches for Thai terms.

9 12, 2010

Cultural Counterweights

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:26+00:00Culture, Pop Culture, Thailand, Video|12 Comments

The topic of navigating inter-cultural relationships in Thailand is something that comes up a lot in books, bars, and especially on the web. In Bangkok, it’s kind of assumed that a foreigner will have a Thai girlfriend – with a few thousand of us and a few million of them, it’s simply a numbers game. (So much so that it's still a bit odd when you see a foreign guy with a foreign girl, or even odder, a foreign girl with a Thai guy, but that’s another post). The topic was being discussed and dissected long before I was even born, but I’ve been mulling it for a while and wanted to put something down on, err, a thin liquid crystal display panel. Obviously, this post will be from the perspective of a foreigner (that’s me) and will obviously not cover both sides of the coin, but I’d like to hear what you think.

22 11, 2010

The Abortion Scandal

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:26+00:00Bangkok, Current Events|0 Comments

I usually stay away from 'serious' topics like a kid from a broccoli salad, but this issue is a pretty big one, and I wanted to get a few thoughts out. You may have heard recently about the current abortion scandal going on in Thailand; basically, someone discovered over 2,000 aborted fetuses at a Bangkok temple, a pretty grisly find. This would be pretty awful in any country, but it’s especially significant in Thailand for several reasons, most notably the fact that abortion is: a) illegal in Thailand and b) seen as a grave sin in Buddhist countries. As you may expect, it’s tearing up the headlines and causing a huge stir. However, while regrettable in every sense of the word, the fallout – one would hope – may prompt some much-needed introspection in Thai culture. What’s done is done, but hopefully this will cause a few people in positions of influence to examine the cause of the problem instead of simply start to throw blame around.

18 11, 2010

Telling Myself About Bangkok

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:27+00:00Bangkok, Tips on Visiting|0 Comments

I’ve gotten a lot of requests over the past while asking for various bits of info on Bangkok, and have seen a lot of chatter on the intertubes relating to the city by the people that have visited - critiques, commentary, criticism and praise. Most has been praise, but even the criticism is refreshing because it allows me just a tiny glimpse of my first year here. I got to thinking - what hints I would tell myself if I got a chance to send a short note back through time to myself in 2001 just as I arrived in Bangkok. Nothing major, like "That guy will betray your friendship," or "She just wants a baby, run!", but rather general little hints that would have eased my passage into life in the 'Kok. Here are a few I thought of.