Welcome to Sunday, Bangkok!
This week we’ve been obsessed with the spasmodic levels of air quality in the city, we’ve berated the tone-deaf Thai bloggers photographing themselves sat on coral reefs in the protected Koh Surin marine national park, and we’ve marveled at the new ‘ham and cheese sandwich’ crisps pushed on us by 7-Eleven workers.
What a week.
Let’s see what else has been entertaining and enraging Bangkok…
Post Contents
News
Bangkok air quality dips to ‘very unhealthy’
After a couple of weeks of intermittent smog, it appeared that Bangkok’s air quality was improving — that was until Thursday this week where residents woke up to a sky hitting 203 on the air pollution index. That put us at the high end of ‘very unhealthy’ and a placing in the top 5 worst cities in the world for air quality, behind Mumbai, Lahore, Delhi and Kolkata.
Thailand leads the world in internet usage
Another dubious accolade Thailand received this week was the news that our country is number one worldwide for time spent on the internet and mobile internet — a stonking average of 9.38 hours per day. It also placed fourth for time spent on social media and eighth for number of Facebook users.
Bangkok also placed number one for global city with the most active Facebook accounts — this can presumably be attributed to Thai girls’ peculiar penchant for multiple online personalities.
Three Thais arrested for making fake whiskey in Bangkok
A fake booze factory in a house in Bangkok was raided this week and three Thai women subsequently arrested. They were discovered with numerous bottles of an ‘unpopular imported liquor’ together with more popular brands — apparently the women were paid to mix the unpopular stuff in with the more popular liquor in order to be sold on to middlemen.
Blogs
Healing my sex addiction in Koh Phangan
This is the story of self-confessed sex and porn addict Erica Garza, an American woman, and how she took the first steps towards healing her destructive addictions on a female only tantra retreat on Thailand’s Koh Phangan.
Here she tells the story of what she learned about herself and women more generally on the retreat, how recovery in sex addiction can be difficult when you’re embarking on a new relationship in Thailand of all places, and how she eventually found some semblance of self-acceptance.
Why do Thai businesses only advertise Valentine’s deals with white men and Thai women?
In this piece, Coconuts spots a peculiar trend doing the rounds at the moment: why do so many of the press releases from Thailand’s hotels and restaurants only feature Thai women and white men in their Valentine’s Day deals? Are Farang-Thai relationships really so ubiquitous that they command so much advertising focus?
We’ve all seen the photos of the Thai woman gifting her boyfriend a bouquet made of 100,000 baht worth of notes for Valentine’s Day, so it’s clearly not only foreign men that like to splash the cash to show their love…
Forum Threads
Why don’t Thai women like silver?
If you’ve been in Thailand long enough you’ll have doubtless noticed the locals’ love for all things gold — and not just any gold: gaudy yellow gold is the name of the game. This peculiar value system is dissected in this Reddit thread as the poster asks why his girlfriend is so dismissive of silver over gold.
Under discussion is the cultural value attached to gold thanks to Thailand’s royal history, the very real monetary value of it and, of course, the power and influence of status displays here in Bangkok.
Will a 44-year old massage girl make a good partner?
“Asking for a friend,” the Thaivisa poster begins. Always a good start. Anyway, without revealing any details about this so-called friend nor the woman he is interested in, the poster wants to know if a 44-year old ‘massage gal’ will make a good partner.
No information is provided on the gal’s values, personality, or even level of compatibility with the ‘friend’. All we have to go on is her age and occupation. And the fact that she charged him 3,000 baht for a massage and a happy ending (kinda expensive for a hand shandy, no?) Regardless, Thaivisa members weigh in with their informed responses over 10 pages at the last count.
We wonder if they’d been as assured and opinionated if the initial question had been, “can a 39-year old legal secretary make a good partner?”
YouTube
What a great CPR instruction. Found in a hotel in Thailand. @DrRider @oulepaca pic.twitter.com/NQ5vdMWjRE
— James D ⠚⠁⠍⠑⠎ (@underexpose) February 9, 2018
Love walking on Bangkok footpaths. Dodging motor bikes and the odd car… pic.twitter.com/YzkyezSls2
— John (@fedcbz987654321) February 7, 2018
Spotted at Patong Beach by Matthew L pic.twitter.com/N3GyCHd4Pd
— Stickboy Bangkok (@StickboyBangkok) February 7, 2018
Bangkok street dogs be like. pic.twitter.com/yMPCGMj1xo
— Phil / Ajarn.com (@Ajarncom) February 8, 2018
The Bangkok smog is classed as “very unhealthy” today. It is strongly advisable to wear a N95 or N99 mask if you are outside for prolonged periods of time. You can buy from HomePro, B2S and other places. Don’t buy the hospital masks as they don’t work #Bangkok pic.twitter.com/Pb26KvFTUX
— Richard Barrow in Thailand (@RichardBarrow) February 8, 2018
What is this sorcery? pic.twitter.com/dwSN5sZWDs
— Somchai the Dog (@bkksomchai) February 7, 2018
Knowing you’ll be taken to hospital in the back of a pick up truck, should be an incentive to ride your scooter carefully whilst on Koh Chang. pic.twitter.com/NRSsiUA7Yi
— Ian (@iamKohChang) February 8, 2018
It’s grim out there today pic.twitter.com/YBXMKG1gZ5
— 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘮𝘢𝘯 (@NeilShelley) February 8, 2018
[Me on my first day working at a Thai TV station]
“What if we had a show that didn’t have childish cartoon sound effects every 3 seconds?”
[gets fired]— Greg (@BkkGreg) February 8, 2018
And that’s the Week On Sukhumvit — see you next time!
Featured photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash
