New PM, ABC News, oh and Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas everyone! I had a great day here in Thailand. This morning in front of the whole school, Shaleas, Kelly and I sang 'Silent Night' and 'We Wish You A Merry Christmas' while Devon played the violin. It was a beautiful sight. Kelly also told the historical story of the real Santa - St Nick, and a student spoke the words of the song 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' among other activities. 

The kids enjoyed having one more thing to yell at us down the hallways. Now instead of just "Hello teacher! Good morning!" it's "Hello teacher! Good morning! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!"

My friend Kara had sent me a can of cranberry jelly, powdered mashed potatoes and powdered gravy from the States which the four of us made and ate with some good chicken for Christmas dinner. Then it was followed up by some delicious mince pies and traditional Christmas pudding which I received this morning from London thanks to Naomi!

After stuffing our faces we watched The Christmas Story on Kelly's laptop and I now feel appropriately 'Christmassy.' But now Christmas is about to be over, so what now? By the way, HILARIOUS skit about the time between Christmas and New Years by Michael McIntyre here. Please check it out, he is hilarious. American's may not find him as funny, so Brits, enjoy. :)

I hope you've all had a great holiday, it was definitely strange not being home for the first time, but I got lots of love from a lot of you through cards, e-mails and Facebook messages so thanks so much for that. 

Moving on briefly...

A few blog posts ago I wrote about the political situation here in Thailand.

Since then I've mentioned that Thailand does now have a new Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva. One blog reader asked me what I thought about him. Right now I'm not sure what to think. He represents a political party that I'm not particularly supportive of, however if you check out what he has said in that past (read here, thank you Wikipedia...it's on the internet so it must be true right?) he seems to be all about helping out the people. The PAD as a party appear to be more about supporting the rich and ignoring the poor, but Abhisit says he supports creating free health care and lower gas prices among other things, which clearly help out the less fortunate in this country, of which there are many. So in other words, I don't know and I will wait and see just like everyone else! He was educated at Eton and Oxford (more bio information here) so maybe it's just my innate tendencies to love my fellow Brits...

As far as news in other parts of the world - my only connection to the Western World is Aljazeera, the Internet, and my podcasts. I am a podcast junkie, subscribing to over two dozen including ABC Nightly News. I am currently watching the December 22nd episode, and I just want to say how ridiculous it is that the FIRST headline news story; the one Charles Gibson/whoever actually organises the show thought was most important, was the weather. That's right everyone, it's winter. In winter, it snows sometimes. Sometimes a lot. Apparently this year, so much snow that it trumped the economic downturn, the many wars going on in the world,  and all the other fun things Charles Gibson chatted about. The reporter on the scene - standing in front of some ...snow... Linsey Davis (someone should tell her there's a D in Lindsey) described it as 'bone numbing.' That's one level above 'bone chilling' I guess? Fascinating stuff. Also in the podcast - you can now buy an attachment for your iPhone called the iBreath to test your own alcohol blood content. Love technology. 

That's it for now. I miss you all especially during this holiday season, so have a great time and Happy New Year!!

PAD...PPP...too many acronyms, not enough information

I have to admit that before coming to Thailand, I knew very little about the country except that I have a lot of friends who have spent many a drunken week here diving, sunbathing, and all in all 'chilling out.' 

I also don't remember the last time I ever saw Thailand in the international news headlines. 

My how things have changed.

I've learned that Thailand isn't just a drunken beach party, and I've managed to arrive in this country just in time for it to splash its name all over the English papers paired with words like 'crisis' and 'attack.' Words I don't like to hear any more than the next guy. 

So for my readers who are just as naive to the situation here as I was just a short time ago, here's the deal:

For a few months there was a large group of anti-government protesters (the PAD, or People's Alliance for Democracy...the most ironic title they could find; will explain later, or read here for more details) on the streets, surrounding government buildings, and for a few days sitting in Bangkok's two major airports, suspending all air traffic in and out of the country's capital. Basically they wanted the Prime Minister to resign because they believe him to be corrupt (which it appears is probably true). 

The airport sit-in caused enormous disruptions to Thailand's economy as you can imagine, so the protesters definitely made their point. Check out the link for more on that, but the short version is that during Thailand's busiest tourist season (now) hotels are at a fraction of their usual capacity. Not to mention all the exports Thailand produces that couldn't fly out last week. One foreigner managed to get inside the airport and camp out with the PAD. He video taped a bunch of what he saw which you can see here.

So last week when the PAD made it clear that they in fact were quite comfortable in the airport, but thanks for asking, the leaders of the ruling party were found guilty of electoral fraud and the Prime Minister plus his executives were banned from government for five years. Ouch. Party in the airport!! 

So now everyone is sitting around and playing the waiting game. They will probably hold elections in the next couple of weeks which could be pretty interesting and could very probably make things worse regardless of the turn out. Here's why. 

The PAD is not a party for the people, nor are they democratic. So great title right? PAD members are royalists, consisting of middle/upper class citizens who believe in an appointment based government led by the royal family. So no popular elections, no democracy, the term fascist-like has been thrown around...

The PAD managed to lead a government coup a couple of years ago throwing out the previous Prime Minister, Thaksin. Only problem is, when a popular election was held after that coup, Thaksin's ally was appointed Prime Minister, because despite their ability to make a whole lot of noise, the PAD do not make up the majority of the population here. 

Do you see the problem yet?

So now here we are again, probably about to have another election. And guess what? The PAD still don't make up most of the population. The PPP (pro-government) members consist mostly of rural farmers which is a huge majority of Thailand's population. So post-election, either the PAD wins (not likely) and the majority finally get pissed off enough to do something about it, or the PPP supporters win and we've all seen what kind of mess the PAD can drum up. 

So there's the deal on Thailand. Don't you feel smarter? Now go impress someone with your knowledge and feel free to correct the mistakes I probably made.