<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;"><div id="yiv427713592"><div id="yiv100759824">S'baydee Everyone,<br>
<br>
Reading all these back and forth editorial between "Thais and
foreigners", you can't help but to think that these group of people
like to hear themselves talk. After awhile, it gets pretty old and
stale. There's nothing new to be learn from.<br><br>We can say that these Thai elites are <span style="font-style: italic;">ngomngai</span> (real blindness, lack of vision, lack of sight) in all things <span style="font-style: italic;">chao</span> (royalty) to the point that they cannot think for themselves. <span style="font-style: italic;">Ngomngai</span> is a great Lao word (I think Thai word also) that describes these people who are like those in Plato's <span style="font-style: italic;">Book VII of the Republic: The Allegory of the Cave</span>.<br><br>What
I really want to read and hear most about is what do the rest of the people
in Thailand, ordinary Isan, northerners, southerners, etc., think, ie the people who
have been released from the Bangkok <span style="font-style: italic;">cave</span> and have come up to see the light<span style="font-style: italic;"></span>. Thus far, we have not heard from them, the real people of Thailand.<br><br><div style="color: rgb(127, 127, 0);"><div><div align="center"><font color="#ff80ff" face="verdana"><em>Warmest regards,</em></font></div> <div align="center"><font color="#a040ff" face="verdana">----------o<font color="#80ff00">O</font>o----------</font></div> <div align="center"><font color="#ff0000" face="verdana">Tutu Phimviengkham<br></font></div> <div align="center"><font face="verdana"> <em><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.bakkamagazine.com/"><font color="#ff7f00"><span id="lw_1178892335_0" style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy:
-moz-initial;">www.bakkamagazine.com</span></font></a></em><em></em></font></div> <div align="center"><font color="#a040ff"><font face="verdana"><em> ----------</em>o<font color="#80ff00">O</font>o----------</font></font></div></div></div><br><br>--- On <b>Tue, 12/23/08, justinm@ucr.edu <i><justinm@ucr.edu></i></b> wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;">From: justinm@ucr.edu <justinm@ucr.edu><br>Subject: [Tlc] T-politics<br>To: tlc@lists.ucr.edu<br>Date: Tuesday, December 23, 2008, 2:55 AM<br><br><pre>Forwarded from Dr. Michael Nelson.<br>Thanks,<br>justin<br><br>Bangkok Pundit has a translation of the Vasit article here:<br> <br><br>http://bangkokpundit.blogspot.com/2008/12/those-foreigners-and-their-foreign.html#comments<br> <br><br>______________<br>Dr. Justin McDaniel<br>Dept. of Religious Studies<br>3046 INTN<br>University of California,<br>
Riverside<br>Riverside,<br> CA 92521<br>951-827-4530<br>justinm@ucr.edu<br>_______________________________________________<br>Tlc mailing list<br>Tlc@lists.ucr.edu<br>http://lists.ucr.edu/mailman/listinfo/tlc<br></pre></blockquote></div></div></td></tr></table><br>