[Bangkok, 10/13/22] Yesterday, I went to the US Embassy to apply for a new passport. As expected, it’s in an affluent and sophisticated neighborhood, with the ambassador’s residence set apart from the embassy itself. It’s a country estate on the most expensive street in an overcrowded city, befitting a representative of the baddest and coolest empire ever. As I photographed its gate, a chubby white woman with green hair and a cutesy tattoo on her arm walked into the frame. For some reason, Bangkok has more tattooed white people than just about any place on earth.
I just got the below message at my blog, as sent by Blogger/Google. Should my blog of +13 years be terminated from additional flags or "violations," SubStack will be my only home. So be it, for I'm not going to censor myself.--Linh
Hello,
As you may know, our Community Guidelines
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I'm always intrigued by where you write about and often look at google earth to see the surroundings. In this case it's true that the US Ambassador's residence appeared to be an anomoly in the middle of a chaotic city but it used to be a large colonial house on a lake. https://th.usembassy.gov/cmr-history/
"By the late 1800s, the area east of Rattanakosin was filled with verdant rice fields, interlaced with large and small khlongs and dotted by small, scattered farms.
...
Personifying Bangkok’s boom growth was English engineer Horatio Victor Bailey. By 1913, Bailey was a well-connected Bangkokian, having worked for Bangkok Dock Company and later as Engineer-In-Chief to the Royal Mint Department. Bailey then founded his own engineering consultancy and an import company.
...
Bailey sited his house at the back third of the property, in view of but at a discrete distance from the dirt road that inevitably would be developed someday. Walking on a path from the front drive south of the house, Bailey’s prominent bathing sala would come into view, and adjacent to it, Bailey widened and deepened the western and southern border canals to form a large, square bathing pond.
...
For the main house architecture, Bailey chose a playful combination of European colonial, restrained gingerbread and tropical Malaysian designs, harmonized with Siamese architecture’s elegance, intricacy and neatness. His design was consistent with several other houses built in Bangkok at the time."
Annoying as it might seem to us that one man lived in such luxury (before he turned 40!), all credit to the Americans for retaining the historical building for as long as they did, having bought it in 1927. However looking at the latest aerial photos it's evident that they've now demolished the house, filled in the lake, destroyed the surrounding parkland and are in the process of erecting an abysmal edifice in its place.
To me, nothing is as edifying about a culture as watching how it treats the historial buildings it 'owns' and, if it demolishes them, what it erects as their replacement. The American, British and French attitude towards the architectural heritage they have been bequeathed is often lamentably philistine.
"In France, the Yellow Jackets are mounting protests against inflation and lower standards of living, but street rallies won’t do anything. Only with forceful disruption to business as usual can we even begin to hope for change."
Hello Linh... Without a doubt. Unfortunately my fellow modern moron slaves aren't still aware that these types of protests won't get them anywhere.
What clearly is preventing us (herds of modern moron slaves) from ACTING in a way that cause an actual disruption to business as usual is the fact that deep down majority knows that we aren't able to live without "business as usual", and we aren't willing to CHANGE.
The embassies and consulates are not the only places that the US has turned into fortresses. Have you taken a gander at recent pics from good old Washington DC? Several houses of government, including the White House, Congress, and (I believe) the Supreme Court are all surrounded by fences, K-rails, armed soldiers, etc. DC is starting to resemble the Baghdad Green Zone. There’s nothing like a government that rules with the consent of the governed…
CNN and other corporate media outlets go on with more of their BS about what's happening in Ukraine. But at least a few in high places are starting to worry about what will happen when Russia wins and the vast majority of the public realizes how badly it’s been lied to. The big shots know that gaslighting people about "safe and effective" is much easier than concealing a Russian victory that many have had a ringside seat for.
Incredibly, I’d say close to a quarter of the people I see still walk around even outdoors on a beautiful day with N95 masks on. But I would at least cut the Asians a bit of slack on their motives for masking, given that many in Asian cities wore masks for other reasons long before the Age of Covid, and are more acclimated to the practice.
I don't have much to say or add, but I always come away from one of your articles with more good things to read or watch. Well worth the price of supporting you. I am always delighted to find another LD article in my inbox. I absolutely hate the masks. But since Covidtopia woke me up and I quit my absolutely useless federal intel job, in a way, I have to admit the masks are useful. A person walking outside by themselves wearing a mask, is not someone worth engaging. I have been feeling off and on these past few years that I am in a "Body Snatchers" world, that most people around me are Pod People. But in many ways I am living my "best life" now. A major contention within myself is whether I should spend time trying to improve this world and fight the Dark Side, as in, shoulder the burden of society, or if I should "follow my bliss" and simply pursue my hobbies and interests purely for their own sake. (I am trying for the middle right now, but lately, it seems my most of my time is taken with fixing things and helping my two grown sons. The fridge died last week, and I used the internet to learn how to fix it myself.) For example, I bought most of the Covid truth books, at least to support the authors, but the truth is I don't want to spend my precious reading time on them. Who am I kidding, do I think I am going to debate a Covidiot, and convince them of anything?
Linh your corkscrew eyes don't miss a thing - very interesting how you noted the strong presence of gay men in the US State Department. I had such a friend and saw this with my own eyes. Of course, it's only fairly recently that these men could be open about their preferences - homosexuality had to be hidden and could be used for blackmail. Ambitious gay white men have always been useful tools for the Powers That Be, illegal or not.
I enjoy your letters Linh especially now you are back in Thailand where I once used to live for a few years myself, off and on.
I first arrived there in 1957, at age 21. I had an older brother living there who worked in the shipping department of Diethelm, a Swiss firm long settled in Bangkok. I believe they are still there.
What does one do when one is 21 - one goes after the women. But in my case not any woman. I had my heart set on finding the woman who is called Vital in Jack Reynold’s novel A Woman of Bangkok which had just recently appeared then (and is still available in Kindle).In the novel as in real life she was a bar/good time girl and reputedly still in business, not under the name Vital but the more alluring one of “The Black Tiger”. I found her in one of the nightclubs back then, called Copacabana. She seemed quite a bit older than me - I looked even younger than my age then and well meaning white ladies accompanying their husbands in that club (Bangkok was still that type of place then) advised me “You better go home boy”. I didn’t.
There were not many nightclubs back then because Bangkok was not yet a destination for mass tourism. In fact most of the foreigners then seemed to be living and working there. The city itself looked far more “oriental” than it does now. The high rise buildings were not there yet which made the temples look more predominant. Many of the klongs had not been filled in yet which earned Bangkok the somewhat inflated title of “Venice of Asia”. .
About eight years after my first visit to the country, when I was living in Chiang Mai (at Thanon Rajviti if I remember correctly) I met a foreigner there who had been living in Thailand since 1896. It was old Mr.W.A.R.Wood who had joined the British diplomatic service in Bangkok ar the tender age of 18 and had, 25 years later (according to his Wiki), achieved the rank of British Consul General in Chiang Mai. There he also had a judicial function because Britain still enjoyed extra territorial rights then and there was even then a sizable community of Britishers in Chiang Mai, working inter alia for two large companies, the Bombay Burma Company and the Borneo one. People could also choose to put themselves under British protection and hence forward only be adjudicable in a British Court, in this case presided over by Mr.Wood. I understand that it was mainly foreign merchants (Chinese, Indian, Burmese) who made use of this option.
I visited Mr.Wood at his home that was presided over by his wife, reputedly a Shan of aristocratic descent. Wood has given in his book A Consul in Paradise an amusing tale of how he won her. When I say “presided over” I mean it literally. She hovered around us while we were talking, giving me dirty looks when she thought I was staying too long and tiring out her aged husband. Wood was 87 then. I thought him as old as the hills then and now I am exactly that age myself I cannot conceive how and why I thought that.
I might indeed have stayed too long. Wood was a very amusing and eager talker and his wife might have known the limits of his strength better than he knew those himself. One of his tales that has stayed with me is how easy it was for a white man then to contact the king. Well a white man then was a rarity there in itself, and this white man had, hovever junior then, the prestige of the British Empire in its full flowering behind him. Wood said “ I simply had to knock on the palace gate and then you got a message the King is brushing his teeth or something but he will be presently with you.
The contrast with how his own subjects were allowed to approach him couldn’t have been stronger.
For most of Wood’s time in Bangkok the reigning monarch was Chulalongkorn,Rama V (1853-1910), who is regarded as Thailand’s greatest king and its moderniser (though that process had already started under his father, king Mongkut, the king of “Anna and the King of Siam”). There is a substantial statue of Chulalongkorn at the entrance of Lumpini park (when your taxi driver goes past that you have to watch him because he might be inclined to take his hands off the steering wheel and raise them in a wai).
I treasure as a keepsake Wood’s History of Siam with his signature. His Wiki says that when it appeared (1926) it “was regarded as a standard work of the time"[1] It doesn’t specify who regarded it so. The book has no scholarly value whatsoever and it would have been a small miracle if it had. Wood was too isolated up there and had too little training in the field to make a valuable contribution to the history of Southeast Asia.
This comment is becoming too long. I hope to continue it later.
Assuming that ambassadors are chosen because they're in any way knowledgeable about the country in question is apparently appallingly naive. All they need to know, as Zelensky's choice shows, is that pyramid schemes work, that shiny objects are valuable, and that sex sells.
I have never worn a face rag, observed any lockdowns or social distancing bullshit. Nor shall I. I dare any spineless jackass doing any of that to whine about it too, let alone interfere with my progress through the day. Who'd have thought that a man could become ten feet tall by doing nothing but what he always did, without being cowed into doing stupid shit? I'd rather the occasional fight over it than crawling around like a fucking pissant. I was last in Thailand in 1987, but for six months. maybe why I can also recall Krup kun Krup and Krup kun Kra for ladies. My favorites Buddha was at Surat Thani. Maybe it is time Zelensky the penis musician had his photo up next to the reclining Buddha.
"Moving through countries constantly won’t likely make your wife happy, and it’s also child abuse, so a high percentage of American diplomats are gay."
That's an interesting hypothesis. But is it true? Thailand seems gay-friendly, but Tunisia and Kenya a bit less so, not to mention, say, Afghanistan. So it's a risky business if you don't have any say on where you go.
In any case, being shuffled around to completely different countries is weird. I met a few people working at Embassies and Consulates. I knew one who was being moved from Los Angeles to some city in Colombia, I think. I don't think he was gay, but I don't really know.
Years ago (but I don't think that happens anymore) writers were many times given jobs as ambassadors or consuls. For instance, famous Brazilian poet (and singer) Vinicius de Moraes was a vice-consul or similar, first in Los Angeles, then Paris and then Rome. Not the worst places, at least at the time. Other writers did it too. Nice gig if you can get it.
p.s. Vinicius was certainly not gay - he married 9 times, not counting lovers etc.
Luckily basically nobody is masked here in rutabaga land, just a few hysterics. I've never used one. Btw have you been to the crime forensic and medical historical (?? or whatever) museum at Siriraj hospital? If not you have to go, its great.
Hi everyone,
I just got the below message at my blog, as sent by Blogger/Google. Should my blog of +13 years be terminated from additional flags or "violations," SubStack will be my only home. So be it, for I'm not going to censor myself.--Linh
Hello,
As you may know, our Community Guidelines
(https://blogger.com/go/contentpolicy) describe the boundaries for what we allow-- and don't allow-- on Blogger. Your post titled "My comment at SubStack, after my latest:" was flagged to us for review. We have determined that it violates our guidelines and deleted the post, previously at
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I'm always intrigued by where you write about and often look at google earth to see the surroundings. In this case it's true that the US Ambassador's residence appeared to be an anomoly in the middle of a chaotic city but it used to be a large colonial house on a lake. https://th.usembassy.gov/cmr-history/
"By the late 1800s, the area east of Rattanakosin was filled with verdant rice fields, interlaced with large and small khlongs and dotted by small, scattered farms.
...
Personifying Bangkok’s boom growth was English engineer Horatio Victor Bailey. By 1913, Bailey was a well-connected Bangkokian, having worked for Bangkok Dock Company and later as Engineer-In-Chief to the Royal Mint Department. Bailey then founded his own engineering consultancy and an import company.
...
Bailey sited his house at the back third of the property, in view of but at a discrete distance from the dirt road that inevitably would be developed someday. Walking on a path from the front drive south of the house, Bailey’s prominent bathing sala would come into view, and adjacent to it, Bailey widened and deepened the western and southern border canals to form a large, square bathing pond.
...
For the main house architecture, Bailey chose a playful combination of European colonial, restrained gingerbread and tropical Malaysian designs, harmonized with Siamese architecture’s elegance, intricacy and neatness. His design was consistent with several other houses built in Bangkok at the time."
Annoying as it might seem to us that one man lived in such luxury (before he turned 40!), all credit to the Americans for retaining the historical building for as long as they did, having bought it in 1927. However looking at the latest aerial photos it's evident that they've now demolished the house, filled in the lake, destroyed the surrounding parkland and are in the process of erecting an abysmal edifice in its place.
To me, nothing is as edifying about a culture as watching how it treats the historial buildings it 'owns' and, if it demolishes them, what it erects as their replacement. The American, British and French attitude towards the architectural heritage they have been bequeathed is often lamentably philistine.
"In France, the Yellow Jackets are mounting protests against inflation and lower standards of living, but street rallies won’t do anything. Only with forceful disruption to business as usual can we even begin to hope for change."
Hello Linh... Without a doubt. Unfortunately my fellow modern moron slaves aren't still aware that these types of protests won't get them anywhere.
What clearly is preventing us (herds of modern moron slaves) from ACTING in a way that cause an actual disruption to business as usual is the fact that deep down majority knows that we aren't able to live without "business as usual", and we aren't willing to CHANGE.
The embassies and consulates are not the only places that the US has turned into fortresses. Have you taken a gander at recent pics from good old Washington DC? Several houses of government, including the White House, Congress, and (I believe) the Supreme Court are all surrounded by fences, K-rails, armed soldiers, etc. DC is starting to resemble the Baghdad Green Zone. There’s nothing like a government that rules with the consent of the governed…
CNN and other corporate media outlets go on with more of their BS about what's happening in Ukraine. But at least a few in high places are starting to worry about what will happen when Russia wins and the vast majority of the public realizes how badly it’s been lied to. The big shots know that gaslighting people about "safe and effective" is much easier than concealing a Russian victory that many have had a ringside seat for.
Incredibly, I’d say close to a quarter of the people I see still walk around even outdoors on a beautiful day with N95 masks on. But I would at least cut the Asians a bit of slack on their motives for masking, given that many in Asian cities wore masks for other reasons long before the Age of Covid, and are more acclimated to the practice.
I don't have much to say or add, but I always come away from one of your articles with more good things to read or watch. Well worth the price of supporting you. I am always delighted to find another LD article in my inbox. I absolutely hate the masks. But since Covidtopia woke me up and I quit my absolutely useless federal intel job, in a way, I have to admit the masks are useful. A person walking outside by themselves wearing a mask, is not someone worth engaging. I have been feeling off and on these past few years that I am in a "Body Snatchers" world, that most people around me are Pod People. But in many ways I am living my "best life" now. A major contention within myself is whether I should spend time trying to improve this world and fight the Dark Side, as in, shoulder the burden of society, or if I should "follow my bliss" and simply pursue my hobbies and interests purely for their own sake. (I am trying for the middle right now, but lately, it seems my most of my time is taken with fixing things and helping my two grown sons. The fridge died last week, and I used the internet to learn how to fix it myself.) For example, I bought most of the Covid truth books, at least to support the authors, but the truth is I don't want to spend my precious reading time on them. Who am I kidding, do I think I am going to debate a Covidiot, and convince them of anything?
Linh your corkscrew eyes don't miss a thing - very interesting how you noted the strong presence of gay men in the US State Department. I had such a friend and saw this with my own eyes. Of course, it's only fairly recently that these men could be open about their preferences - homosexuality had to be hidden and could be used for blackmail. Ambitious gay white men have always been useful tools for the Powers That Be, illegal or not.
Adrian
I enjoy your letters Linh especially now you are back in Thailand where I once used to live for a few years myself, off and on.
I first arrived there in 1957, at age 21. I had an older brother living there who worked in the shipping department of Diethelm, a Swiss firm long settled in Bangkok. I believe they are still there.
What does one do when one is 21 - one goes after the women. But in my case not any woman. I had my heart set on finding the woman who is called Vital in Jack Reynold’s novel A Woman of Bangkok which had just recently appeared then (and is still available in Kindle).In the novel as in real life she was a bar/good time girl and reputedly still in business, not under the name Vital but the more alluring one of “The Black Tiger”. I found her in one of the nightclubs back then, called Copacabana. She seemed quite a bit older than me - I looked even younger than my age then and well meaning white ladies accompanying their husbands in that club (Bangkok was still that type of place then) advised me “You better go home boy”. I didn’t.
There were not many nightclubs back then because Bangkok was not yet a destination for mass tourism. In fact most of the foreigners then seemed to be living and working there. The city itself looked far more “oriental” than it does now. The high rise buildings were not there yet which made the temples look more predominant. Many of the klongs had not been filled in yet which earned Bangkok the somewhat inflated title of “Venice of Asia”. .
About eight years after my first visit to the country, when I was living in Chiang Mai (at Thanon Rajviti if I remember correctly) I met a foreigner there who had been living in Thailand since 1896. It was old Mr.W.A.R.Wood who had joined the British diplomatic service in Bangkok ar the tender age of 18 and had, 25 years later (according to his Wiki), achieved the rank of British Consul General in Chiang Mai. There he also had a judicial function because Britain still enjoyed extra territorial rights then and there was even then a sizable community of Britishers in Chiang Mai, working inter alia for two large companies, the Bombay Burma Company and the Borneo one. People could also choose to put themselves under British protection and hence forward only be adjudicable in a British Court, in this case presided over by Mr.Wood. I understand that it was mainly foreign merchants (Chinese, Indian, Burmese) who made use of this option.
I visited Mr.Wood at his home that was presided over by his wife, reputedly a Shan of aristocratic descent. Wood has given in his book A Consul in Paradise an amusing tale of how he won her. When I say “presided over” I mean it literally. She hovered around us while we were talking, giving me dirty looks when she thought I was staying too long and tiring out her aged husband. Wood was 87 then. I thought him as old as the hills then and now I am exactly that age myself I cannot conceive how and why I thought that.
I might indeed have stayed too long. Wood was a very amusing and eager talker and his wife might have known the limits of his strength better than he knew those himself. One of his tales that has stayed with me is how easy it was for a white man then to contact the king. Well a white man then was a rarity there in itself, and this white man had, hovever junior then, the prestige of the British Empire in its full flowering behind him. Wood said “ I simply had to knock on the palace gate and then you got a message the King is brushing his teeth or something but he will be presently with you.
The contrast with how his own subjects were allowed to approach him couldn’t have been stronger.
For most of Wood’s time in Bangkok the reigning monarch was Chulalongkorn,Rama V (1853-1910), who is regarded as Thailand’s greatest king and its moderniser (though that process had already started under his father, king Mongkut, the king of “Anna and the King of Siam”). There is a substantial statue of Chulalongkorn at the entrance of Lumpini park (when your taxi driver goes past that you have to watch him because he might be inclined to take his hands off the steering wheel and raise them in a wai).
I treasure as a keepsake Wood’s History of Siam with his signature. His Wiki says that when it appeared (1926) it “was regarded as a standard work of the time"[1] It doesn’t specify who regarded it so. The book has no scholarly value whatsoever and it would have been a small miracle if it had. Wood was too isolated up there and had too little training in the field to make a valuable contribution to the history of Southeast Asia.
This comment is becoming too long. I hope to continue it later.
Speaking of Ambassadors, there's this: "Zelensky appoints sexologist pyramid schemer as ambassador to Bulgaria" by Alexander Rubinstein on The Grayzone. https://thegrayzone.com/2022/12/28/zelensky-sexologist-pyramid-schemer-ambassador-bulgaria/
Assuming that ambassadors are chosen because they're in any way knowledgeable about the country in question is apparently appallingly naive. All they need to know, as Zelensky's choice shows, is that pyramid schemes work, that shiny objects are valuable, and that sex sells.
I have never worn a face rag, observed any lockdowns or social distancing bullshit. Nor shall I. I dare any spineless jackass doing any of that to whine about it too, let alone interfere with my progress through the day. Who'd have thought that a man could become ten feet tall by doing nothing but what he always did, without being cowed into doing stupid shit? I'd rather the occasional fight over it than crawling around like a fucking pissant. I was last in Thailand in 1987, but for six months. maybe why I can also recall Krup kun Krup and Krup kun Kra for ladies. My favorites Buddha was at Surat Thani. Maybe it is time Zelensky the penis musician had his photo up next to the reclining Buddha.
"Moving through countries constantly won’t likely make your wife happy, and it’s also child abuse, so a high percentage of American diplomats are gay."
That's an interesting hypothesis. But is it true? Thailand seems gay-friendly, but Tunisia and Kenya a bit less so, not to mention, say, Afghanistan. So it's a risky business if you don't have any say on where you go.
In any case, being shuffled around to completely different countries is weird. I met a few people working at Embassies and Consulates. I knew one who was being moved from Los Angeles to some city in Colombia, I think. I don't think he was gay, but I don't really know.
Years ago (but I don't think that happens anymore) writers were many times given jobs as ambassadors or consuls. For instance, famous Brazilian poet (and singer) Vinicius de Moraes was a vice-consul or similar, first in Los Angeles, then Paris and then Rome. Not the worst places, at least at the time. Other writers did it too. Nice gig if you can get it.
p.s. Vinicius was certainly not gay - he married 9 times, not counting lovers etc.
Luckily basically nobody is masked here in rutabaga land, just a few hysterics. I've never used one. Btw have you been to the crime forensic and medical historical (?? or whatever) museum at Siriraj hospital? If not you have to go, its great.