WORLD TRADE CENTER
This shows the early construction phase in 1987. The tower in the background
occupies the site of what used to be a chinese school.
BUDDHIST TEMPLE
This temple near Sanam Luang is likely to avoid development.
KARABAO CONCERT
In 1987 mudslides wrecked some villages in the South so the rock group
KARABAO gave a charity concert. KARABAO play a form of thai rock music
and they are very popular.
CROWD CONTROL
Fighting often follows KARABAO concerts. In Bangkok there is intense
rivalry between the vocational colleges and the universities. There
are various police forces engaged in crowd control, and there is always
a hooligan pen at such events.
EKKAMAI ROAD
This shows the Tai Ping towers under construction in 1982. For several
years they were the tallest buildings to be seen in this area.
NEW PETCHABURI ROAD
The breakneck growth of modern Bangkok has transformed the area. Even
though the Middle East construction boom ended in the 1980s there is
still plenty of work for the labourers who migrate from the country
areas. Despite the new buildings the quality of the roads have hardly
improved, and Bangkok has some of the worst traffic jams in the world.
SLEEPING CATS
These cats are relaxing by the library in Wat Doi Sudhep, the temple which
overlooks Chiang Mai. Wat Doi Sudhep is now very popular for tourism,
and the monk who chose the site is revered by all the local people.
PHOO YING
Phoo-ying is the thai word for woman. This picture also shows an example
of RCV or Retaliatory Copyright Violation. Ordinary Copyright Violation
(OCV) is simply when a country like China or a singaporean island off
Indonesia copy western goods and ideas, or at least some of them. In the
past Taiwan has done this just as much as China, but America sells lots
of airplanes to Taiwan, and also the Arab Gulf, where all these copyright
violations are sold.
To do RCV just take a camera with you to an art exhibition, and photograph the pictures, in a country that normally steals from the United States. Anywhere in the Far East is good. Instead of hitting China with sanctions, president Clinton should canvass a regulation from Congress that everyone had to hire videos of Chinese operas, and kung-fu movies. Millions of pirated copies could be done in a nice big building at Langley just outside Washington DC, or perhaps in a suburb of DC itself. Local politicians could argue for the privilege.
There are a few dedicated bands of westerners already doing this. GO players for example are amongst the worst offenders. Think sports have old game records that allow a low-technology method of re-staging events. Unlike football or boxing, this action replay did not need expensive technology. It could come with the invention of printing.
With the computer age the scale of theft increased. There is lots of information about foreign countries that even those countries governments do not know themselves. Repressive regimes make it hard for a government to know the true facts because of fear of bad news.