Chinese philosophy and business practices have long influenced Southeast Asia. Here at WoWasis, we found the following books to be especially compelling for Westerners, as the information in the books on this list, while particular to China, helps to explain much about life in Southeast Asia. We’ve grouped them into Nonfiction and Fiction categories. Nonfiction […]
Read the rest of this entry »Archive for the 'Politics' Category
WoWasis Book review: Perfect Spy, the Life of Pham Xuan An
Perhaps the most apt introduction WoWasis found to the amazing world of North Vietnam’s super spy Pham Xuan An was discovered during a tour we took of the Cu Chi war tunnels, just outside of Saigon. Our tour guide was Binh Le Thai, a member of the Viet Cong who worked for American interests while […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis banned book review: Paul Handley’s ‘The King Never Smiles’
As it says on the back cover, “Any journalist or academic who takes an interest in Thailand soon learns that one topic is off limits: the modern monarchy.” It also mentions that “it is dangerous, and one risks expulsion or jail for lèse-majesté” for reporting on sensitive matters relating to the royal family. And thusly, […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis Book review: Timothy Hallinan’s ‘Breathing Water’
Breathing Water: A Bangkok Thriller (2009, ISBN 978-0-06-167223-1) is Bangkok Fiction writer Timothy Hallinan’s current foray into the ongoing saga of travel writer Poke Rafferty and his family, ex- bar girl Rose, and adopted daughter Miaow. The novel is rather timely, in terms of what’s been happening politically in Bangkok during the first half of […]
Read the rest of this entry »Who owns the news? Not the major news networks.
WoWasis had a very interesting conversation the other day with a cameraman from the BBC. We were discussing the red shirt protest in Bangkok in May of 2010, in which several reporters and camerapersons were killed or injured while in the line of fire. We mentioned that some of the most interesting footage was […]
Read the rest of this entry »Murder for Hire in Thailand: a few good ways to die if you’re careless
It’s conventional wisdom in the expat community that you don’t want to run afoul of Thais in business dealings, because it’s a good way to lose one’s life. But it’s not just expats that lose their lives, it’s Thais as well. This WoWasis post describes most popular ways of murdering people, the activities of some […]
Read the rest of this entry »The Good Manner: Failure to respect the King gets man in hot water with Thai girlfriend
The Good Manner: Love & Relationship Advice from WoWasis’ Pa Farang This week’s dilemma: Failure to respect the King gets man in hot water with Thai girlfriend Dear Pa Farang, I think I’m in hot water. The other day, while on a boat, the wind blew some baht notes out of my hand, and, to […]
Read the rest of this entry »Bangkok’s Central World burns: were protesters paid to commit arson?
That’s a mighty sobering video of the burning of Central World, Asia’s second largest shopping complex. Especially interesting is the cheering of the red shirts as Central World burns at 2:35 into the video, applauding no doubt the hundreds, maybe thousands of jobs lost at the center to middle and lower middle class workers who […]
Read the rest of this entry »Are red shirts winning the Bangkok propaganda battle in international media? Where’s the critical analysis?
Watching the international media coverage on CNN and BBC, it’s apparent that the redshirt side is winning the propaganda battle. As we reported several weeks ago, protesters fall into four main camps: Thaksin and his supporters, Radical Leftists (including Maoists), the country poor, and soldiers who have crossed over into the pro-Thaksin camp, looking to achieve […]
Read the rest of this entry »Military clashes with redshirts at Bangkok’s Sukhumvit Soi Nana intersection as bomb explodes
Early Friday morning at approximately 3 am, UDD red shirts, beginning near the BTS Nana skytrain station, began an attempt to take over Sukhumvit-Ploenchit Road, thereby extending the protest area now bounded by the BTS Chitlom station to the north. They were rebuffed by the Thai military and chased out of the area, which included […]
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