Fei Tai Hua: It seems more than a bit far-fetched to suggest that “perhaps 90%” of Thais of Chinese descent have lost their connection with Chinese culture.
It is more the case that like the Sino-Thais themselves, Chinese culture has been incorporated rather smoothly into Thai culture to the point where many young people in Thailand wouldn’t be sure whether a particular cultural expression was originally Thai or Chinese.
Of course, there will always be those whose cultural essentialism and/or inability to comprehend how multicultural cultures actually work (as opposed to how government programs and academics muck in) who will insist that without full fluency in a Chinese dialect and strict adherence to every detail of the rituals of ancestor worship there can be no “connection with Chinese culture”.
It hasn’t always been this way in Thailand of course. During the fascist thirties, the Chinese were treated as the “Jews of Thailand”, and, of course, as anti-communism became the ne plus ultra of Thainess in the 60s and 70s, there was always the suspicion that a “jek” was a Maoist in the pay of Peking.
But things eased up and Sino-Thais were eventually admitted to Chulachomklao so that they too could find their way to the PM’s chair without ever having to make a political pitch.
TV soaps started dramatizing the “mat and pillow” crowd’s descendants in gaudy materialist ascendance, and Joey Boy flaunted his pigtail and that was it.
There are those who would go so far as to suggest that it is the Thais who have lost connection with their culture, due to interference from the wealthy, domineering Sino-Thais who more or less run the country.
It is easier for Chinese to assimilate with Thais because of religious affinity. However, Thailand has failed pathetically to integrate the Malay-speaking communities in the south. Also, Chinese Malaysians are able to maintain their distinct identity, have their own schooling system and even autonomous business circle. The same cannot be said with Thailand, where perhaps 90% of the nationals of Chinese descent have lost their connection with Chinese culture. Hence, there is always a price to pay. If you want to be fully embraced and enjoy equal status with the native populations, ditch your language and culture. Then again, it works in the case of the Chinese in Thailand, but not the Malays, due to religious affinity between Buddhism and Taoism. In Indonesia, forced assimilation is a failure because Islam and Buddhism/Taoism simply do not see eye to eye.
Cosying up to Mahathir by the Chinese Malaysian politicians and NGOs sends chills up my spine. I can’t believe for the life of me the reasons they gave. TDM is the guy who planted the seeds of Malay racism and Islamisation in Malaysia… I have given up, now just trying to improve my golf handicap…
Tony Pua is, with all due respect, an apple-polisher. Teo would be a better example of a more honest DAP or opposition politician. She is honest and not full of hubris like Tony. I know both somewhat.
In fact, Nyonya Chinese who had arrived 200 years ago to Malaya, lived with Malays and spoke Malay and took on Malay characteristics. It is not Malay adat in itself that brought about anti-Chinese bigotry, but the increasing Islamization of Malaysia and accompanying Arabization, which led Malays away from their own traditions. Now most politicized Malays have become obsessed with Islam, except the liberal urban class, and they are taught by parents and Imams that Chinese are “haram”. This is fostered by UMNO, PAS, PERKASA and for 22 years by Mahathir, who’s know found love for both Chinese and Anwar, would be laughable if it wasn’t so sickening.
Thai-Chinese had ever experienced the anti-Chinese agenda from 1910s to 1970s also. However, it is very difficult to find the religious drive behind them.. Rather the economic disparity weighted more. The Chinese in both Malaysia and Indonesia had been settled down almost separately from the local muslims. This had inevitably caused the lack of understanding between Chinese and majority muslims culturally and religiously. The growing economic disparities between them had undoubtedly fueled the already ethnic conflicts there.
There is no “rise” in anti-Chinese bigotry in Malaysia; it never went away. It may be worse in some circumstances were groups like PERKASA and ISMA, along with their UMNO patrons, fan the flames of anti-Chinese bigotry and they indeed do so, and have for some time, catalyzed by mutant freaks like Abdullah Tee, a Chinese Muslim convert and self-hating Chinese. That portion of the Chinese community that clings to MCA or other UMNO hacks must ask themselves how valuable their individual identity is, and most egregiously, I would ask new found lovers of Mahathir, the archetypal Malay racist who not long ago fanned the flames of bigotry against Chinese and continues to peddle anti-Semitic bull, why some Chinese so readily forget what Mahathir said about them, in the interests in the totally false, naïve and arrogant belief that Mahathir likes Chinese now and will help them dump Najib. Really ? Are some Malaysia-Chinese that dull-headed to think Mukhriz Mahathir could ever beat Zahid Hamidi in a head-to-head contest ? One is not compelled to be proud of a nation that has used them and then spat them out, unless one lacks any pride in oneself to begin with.
I am not German, Mr Wilson, and it should be Sehr Geehrter Herr Professor Cohen were I German. I propose what I have already stated; the Bangladeshi Muslims must be repatriated to Bangladesh immediately and all Bengali Christians, Hindus and Hill Tract Asian tribal animists and Christians be allowed into Myanmar and give initial permanent residence and then citizsenhip. Since Bengali Muslims cannot get along with non-Muslims, and Burmese can, they would fare better in Myanmar. Since Burmese and ethnic Rakhine Muslims do not want Bangladehi Muslim in Myanmar, to which they have no historical and cultural ties, they belong in Bangladesh. I note Bangladesh had no problem exporting thousands of Bengali Muslims to Malaysia, where they do menial work, and even though they are Muslims like the Malays, are not entirely well-received. I will remind for the umpteenth time, that any mass killing of Bangladeshi Muslims happened in Kelantan, Malaysia, where mass graves of Bangladeshis were found, the reasonable culprits being Malays and/or Pattani (Patani) Malays. I have yet to see one report of a mass grave of “Rohingya” in any portion of Myanmar. Finally, I propose Mr Wilson, you and your minions stop posting obvious rhetorical questions, to which you do not want answers. Your minds were already brainwashed quite a while ago. Guten tag.
More than two US$ a kilo of Thai Jasmin Rice retail at every developed country including US and Australia this writer stating the free-fall of global rice prices must be either crazy or delusional. Five years ago it was just above one US$ a kilo for a kilo of same rice if I still remember correctly.
Also measuring commodity prices such as rice prices as percentage of wages is rather misleading or even false for constantly-growing wages are to cover not only food but for other costs of life such as housing and education, I reckoned.
As the world becoming more developed the percentage of food costs to the total wages have been dropping relatively but it does not necessarily mean food prices have been falling in absolute term. It just means that wages are growing faster than rice prices, period.
Bangladeshi Islam which is now Deobandi Islam and not more moderate Shaf’i or even Hanafi Islam has nothing at all good to offer Myanmar. The continued effort of armchair academics to push DASSK and Myanmar to suit foreign Western ideological catharsis is stupid. The illegal Bangladeshi migrants will be expelled; they are source of instability in Myanmar. The northern Indian Muslim community in urban areas (Yangon, etc.) who came in with the British, in some cases earlier, have established roots in Myanmar and should be differentiated from the faux “Rohingya”. No amount of NM folderol will change the fact that Myanmar is not an Islamic State and many Bangladeshis wish that it were. At the least it could be a continuous excuse for them to procreate without birth control at will and they certainly would do to the Bamar, what ISIS is doing to the Yezidi, if given the opportunity; they certainly seem to enjoy beheading Hindus and Christians in Bangladesh. DASSK is no fool. She knows what Hizbut Tahrir is and she knows Bangladesh is unstable.
It’s a bad decision for a very different reason. I wish European sanctions would be lifted while the US sanctions remain.
Sure, sanctions didn’t work. They also have next to nothing to do with people’s suffering. It’s caused by junta’s stupidity and inability to manage the country. As well, whenever the US lectures Myanmar on human rights, I’m appalled by the sufferings of tens of millions in the American-meddled Middle East.
But still, I wish sanctions should be kept. Myanmar has long been “untapped” and “unspoiled” because of sanctions. Consumerism that afflicted most of the Southeast Asian nations simply was not there. Sure, the so-called foreign investment and trade could decrease poverty but they could, if not managed carefully, lead to neocolonialism. Millions of workers in China work day and night to fill Walmart stores and to exchange their work hours with their own products: iPhones and Western luxury items. Sure, economists would disagree and argue this and that, professing faith in their equations, though their discipline is more similar to alchemy than physics they aspire to be.
In short, there is a much better way to improve the lives of ordinary citizens than foreign investment-fueled and so-called “export-led” growth. Think about it, trillions of poor people’s working hours have been exchanged for one million useless cars that do nothing more than creating traffic congestions. Much of the “growth” fueled by consumerism does not improve the quality of life.
Everyone talks about China’s rise and Korea’s miracle etc. Economists love these stories because the countries did so by following American world order. But there are better ways out there.
That Sondhi had – at the least – lost very high protection, was obvious way back in 2008, when he nearly died after having been shot at with about 100 bullets, by assassins never caught. He’s in jail now, and has n’t been seen alive since sentencing.
Australia has lost in its claim that an international commission has no jurisdiction to hear a complaint by East Timor in the bitter dispute over undersea oil and gas riches.
The reason for Malaysia’s political failure stems from the fact that the government has a false label of being a federal government while really being a unitary system of government. The Government is highly centralized leaving almost no power to individual states. In fact, state governments in Malaysia are excluded from revenues of income tax, export, import and excise duties and are very heavily restricted from borrowing money internationally; which is why states are so heavily influenced by independent forms of revenue like oil and forestry. Cases like these unveil the necessity for Malaysia to dissolve its politically concentrated power. Federal systems of government are better because when one political party loses control or representation of the national government, they are still able to represent themselves in office of several states, which allows them to continue advocating for their political values. This ultimately is why Malaysia’s opposition has almost zero representation in social media, and more importantly political stances. Federal systems provide a safety net through which the government can sift out differences.
From my personal experience, I would argue Myanmar is more “democratic” than the USA.
In Myanmar, I have seen people fighting for the Muslims. Wai Wai Nu is an open Rohingya advocate. Some of my friends follow Western narratives, stand moral high ground and look down on the Rakhine. Sure, there are others who hate them, but their personal safety has never been compromised.
But in the USA, simply wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt puts you at risk if you are in the wrong place. Someone driving a car threw a water bottle at me for the Che T-shirt. I have seen in certain colleges, students received death threats for voicing unpopular opinions. This society is awash with guns and in a terrible mess, with a big brother watching to punish anyone who disagrees with the majority. Remember what happened to James Watson and Lawrence Summers. At any instance, I would choose to live in a random village in Myanmar over, say, the New York city.
Unlike the Burmese, I’ve found Americans anxiety-ridden, over-materialistic and super self-righteous. Seeing someone driving a better car could push an American into depression. The pursuit for self-gratification is boundless. The whole country is covered in concrete and consumer goods. Natural landscape has long gone along with the Native Americans. What is sadder to see is Americans fighting tirelessly to export their materialistic culture and the Burmese with huge inferiority complex ready to espouse it.
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A rise in anti-Chinese rhetoric
Fei Tai Hua: It seems more than a bit far-fetched to suggest that “perhaps 90%” of Thais of Chinese descent have lost their connection with Chinese culture.
It is more the case that like the Sino-Thais themselves, Chinese culture has been incorporated rather smoothly into Thai culture to the point where many young people in Thailand wouldn’t be sure whether a particular cultural expression was originally Thai or Chinese.
Of course, there will always be those whose cultural essentialism and/or inability to comprehend how multicultural cultures actually work (as opposed to how government programs and academics muck in) who will insist that without full fluency in a Chinese dialect and strict adherence to every detail of the rituals of ancestor worship there can be no “connection with Chinese culture”.
It hasn’t always been this way in Thailand of course. During the fascist thirties, the Chinese were treated as the “Jews of Thailand”, and, of course, as anti-communism became the ne plus ultra of Thainess in the 60s and 70s, there was always the suspicion that a “jek” was a Maoist in the pay of Peking.
But things eased up and Sino-Thais were eventually admitted to Chulachomklao so that they too could find their way to the PM’s chair without ever having to make a political pitch.
TV soaps started dramatizing the “mat and pillow” crowd’s descendants in gaudy materialist ascendance, and Joey Boy flaunted his pigtail and that was it.
There are those who would go so far as to suggest that it is the Thais who have lost connection with their culture, due to interference from the wealthy, domineering Sino-Thais who more or less run the country.
Funny that.
A rise in anti-Chinese rhetoric
Stick to golf, Neptunian, Malaysia is about done for.
A rise in anti-Chinese rhetoric
It is easier for Chinese to assimilate with Thais because of religious affinity. However, Thailand has failed pathetically to integrate the Malay-speaking communities in the south. Also, Chinese Malaysians are able to maintain their distinct identity, have their own schooling system and even autonomous business circle. The same cannot be said with Thailand, where perhaps 90% of the nationals of Chinese descent have lost their connection with Chinese culture. Hence, there is always a price to pay. If you want to be fully embraced and enjoy equal status with the native populations, ditch your language and culture. Then again, it works in the case of the Chinese in Thailand, but not the Malays, due to religious affinity between Buddhism and Taoism. In Indonesia, forced assimilation is a failure because Islam and Buddhism/Taoism simply do not see eye to eye.
A rise in anti-Chinese rhetoric
Cosying up to Mahathir by the Chinese Malaysian politicians and NGOs sends chills up my spine. I can’t believe for the life of me the reasons they gave. TDM is the guy who planted the seeds of Malay racism and Islamisation in Malaysia… I have given up, now just trying to improve my golf handicap…
A rise in anti-Chinese rhetoric
Tony Pua is, with all due respect, an apple-polisher. Teo would be a better example of a more honest DAP or opposition politician. She is honest and not full of hubris like Tony. I know both somewhat.
A rise in anti-Chinese rhetoric
In fact, Nyonya Chinese who had arrived 200 years ago to Malaya, lived with Malays and spoke Malay and took on Malay characteristics. It is not Malay adat in itself that brought about anti-Chinese bigotry, but the increasing Islamization of Malaysia and accompanying Arabization, which led Malays away from their own traditions. Now most politicized Malays have become obsessed with Islam, except the liberal urban class, and they are taught by parents and Imams that Chinese are “haram”. This is fostered by UMNO, PAS, PERKASA and for 22 years by Mahathir, who’s know found love for both Chinese and Anwar, would be laughable if it wasn’t so sickening.
A rise in anti-Chinese rhetoric
Chinese should participate in politics like my friend Tony Pua.
A rise in anti-Chinese rhetoric
Thai-Chinese had ever experienced the anti-Chinese agenda from 1910s to 1970s also. However, it is very difficult to find the religious drive behind them.. Rather the economic disparity weighted more. The Chinese in both Malaysia and Indonesia had been settled down almost separately from the local muslims. This had inevitably caused the lack of understanding between Chinese and majority muslims culturally and religiously. The growing economic disparities between them had undoubtedly fueled the already ethnic conflicts there.
Myanmar’s Rohingya need tomorrow’s fairer world today
I wasn’t suggesting you were German, Herr Cohen.
So would you use trains to transport the undesirables? And would you give them showers at the end of the trip or the beginning?
A rise in anti-Chinese rhetoric
There is no “rise” in anti-Chinese bigotry in Malaysia; it never went away. It may be worse in some circumstances were groups like PERKASA and ISMA, along with their UMNO patrons, fan the flames of anti-Chinese bigotry and they indeed do so, and have for some time, catalyzed by mutant freaks like Abdullah Tee, a Chinese Muslim convert and self-hating Chinese. That portion of the Chinese community that clings to MCA or other UMNO hacks must ask themselves how valuable their individual identity is, and most egregiously, I would ask new found lovers of Mahathir, the archetypal Malay racist who not long ago fanned the flames of bigotry against Chinese and continues to peddle anti-Semitic bull, why some Chinese so readily forget what Mahathir said about them, in the interests in the totally false, naïve and arrogant belief that Mahathir likes Chinese now and will help them dump Najib. Really ? Are some Malaysia-Chinese that dull-headed to think Mukhriz Mahathir could ever beat Zahid Hamidi in a head-to-head contest ? One is not compelled to be proud of a nation that has used them and then spat them out, unless one lacks any pride in oneself to begin with.
Myanmar’s Rohingya need tomorrow’s fairer world today
I am not German, Mr Wilson, and it should be Sehr Geehrter Herr Professor Cohen were I German. I propose what I have already stated; the Bangladeshi Muslims must be repatriated to Bangladesh immediately and all Bengali Christians, Hindus and Hill Tract Asian tribal animists and Christians be allowed into Myanmar and give initial permanent residence and then citizsenhip. Since Bengali Muslims cannot get along with non-Muslims, and Burmese can, they would fare better in Myanmar. Since Burmese and ethnic Rakhine Muslims do not want Bangladehi Muslim in Myanmar, to which they have no historical and cultural ties, they belong in Bangladesh. I note Bangladesh had no problem exporting thousands of Bengali Muslims to Malaysia, where they do menial work, and even though they are Muslims like the Malays, are not entirely well-received. I will remind for the umpteenth time, that any mass killing of Bangladeshi Muslims happened in Kelantan, Malaysia, where mass graves of Bangladeshis were found, the reasonable culprits being Malays and/or Pattani (Patani) Malays. I have yet to see one report of a mass grave of “Rohingya” in any portion of Myanmar. Finally, I propose Mr Wilson, you and your minions stop posting obvious rhetorical questions, to which you do not want answers. Your minds were already brainwashed quite a while ago. Guten tag.
Four hundred years of free fall
More than two US$ a kilo of Thai Jasmin Rice retail at every developed country including US and Australia this writer stating the free-fall of global rice prices must be either crazy or delusional. Five years ago it was just above one US$ a kilo for a kilo of same rice if I still remember correctly.
Also measuring commodity prices such as rice prices as percentage of wages is rather misleading or even false for constantly-growing wages are to cover not only food but for other costs of life such as housing and education, I reckoned.
As the world becoming more developed the percentage of food costs to the total wages have been dropping relatively but it does not necessarily mean food prices have been falling in absolute term. It just means that wages are growing faster than rice prices, period.
Myanmar’s Rohingya need tomorrow’s fairer world today
So what do you propose as a “final solution” then Herr Cohen?
I really Wanna See what sort of thing you come out with.
Myanmar’s Rohingya need tomorrow’s fairer world today
Bangladeshi Islam which is now Deobandi Islam and not more moderate Shaf’i or even Hanafi Islam has nothing at all good to offer Myanmar. The continued effort of armchair academics to push DASSK and Myanmar to suit foreign Western ideological catharsis is stupid. The illegal Bangladeshi migrants will be expelled; they are source of instability in Myanmar. The northern Indian Muslim community in urban areas (Yangon, etc.) who came in with the British, in some cases earlier, have established roots in Myanmar and should be differentiated from the faux “Rohingya”. No amount of NM folderol will change the fact that Myanmar is not an Islamic State and many Bangladeshis wish that it were. At the least it could be a continuous excuse for them to procreate without birth control at will and they certainly would do to the Bamar, what ISIS is doing to the Yezidi, if given the opportunity; they certainly seem to enjoy beheading Hindus and Christians in Bangladesh. DASSK is no fool. She knows what Hizbut Tahrir is and she knows Bangladesh is unstable.
Lifting US sanctions: right or wrong?
It’s a bad decision for a very different reason. I wish European sanctions would be lifted while the US sanctions remain.
Sure, sanctions didn’t work. They also have next to nothing to do with people’s suffering. It’s caused by junta’s stupidity and inability to manage the country. As well, whenever the US lectures Myanmar on human rights, I’m appalled by the sufferings of tens of millions in the American-meddled Middle East.
But still, I wish sanctions should be kept. Myanmar has long been “untapped” and “unspoiled” because of sanctions. Consumerism that afflicted most of the Southeast Asian nations simply was not there. Sure, the so-called foreign investment and trade could decrease poverty but they could, if not managed carefully, lead to neocolonialism. Millions of workers in China work day and night to fill Walmart stores and to exchange their work hours with their own products: iPhones and Western luxury items. Sure, economists would disagree and argue this and that, professing faith in their equations, though their discipline is more similar to alchemy than physics they aspire to be.
In short, there is a much better way to improve the lives of ordinary citizens than foreign investment-fueled and so-called “export-led” growth. Think about it, trillions of poor people’s working hours have been exchanged for one million useless cars that do nothing more than creating traffic congestions. Much of the “growth” fueled by consumerism does not improve the quality of life.
Everyone talks about China’s rise and Korea’s miracle etc. Economists love these stories because the countries did so by following American world order. But there are better ways out there.
Sondhi Limthongkul going to gaol?
That Sondhi had – at the least – lost very high protection, was obvious way back in 2008, when he nearly died after having been shot at with about 100 bullets, by assassins never caught. He’s in jail now, and has n’t been seen alive since sentencing.
Time to draw the line
Australia has lost in its claim that an international commission has no jurisdiction to hear a complaint by East Timor in the bitter dispute over undersea oil and gas riches.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australia-loses-attempt-to-knock-out-east-timors-maritime-boundary-complaint-20160926-grooik.html
Crisis and confidence in Najib’s Malaysia
If Najib could get a Nobel Prize, Pol Pot will too.
Why Najib Razak is still in power
The reason for Malaysia’s political failure stems from the fact that the government has a false label of being a federal government while really being a unitary system of government. The Government is highly centralized leaving almost no power to individual states. In fact, state governments in Malaysia are excluded from revenues of income tax, export, import and excise duties and are very heavily restricted from borrowing money internationally; which is why states are so heavily influenced by independent forms of revenue like oil and forestry. Cases like these unveil the necessity for Malaysia to dissolve its politically concentrated power. Federal systems of government are better because when one political party loses control or representation of the national government, they are still able to represent themselves in office of several states, which allows them to continue advocating for their political values. This ultimately is why Malaysia’s opposition has almost zero representation in social media, and more importantly political stances. Federal systems provide a safety net through which the government can sift out differences.
Local democracy in Myanmar
From my personal experience, I would argue Myanmar is more “democratic” than the USA.
In Myanmar, I have seen people fighting for the Muslims. Wai Wai Nu is an open Rohingya advocate. Some of my friends follow Western narratives, stand moral high ground and look down on the Rakhine. Sure, there are others who hate them, but their personal safety has never been compromised.
But in the USA, simply wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt puts you at risk if you are in the wrong place. Someone driving a car threw a water bottle at me for the Che T-shirt. I have seen in certain colleges, students received death threats for voicing unpopular opinions. This society is awash with guns and in a terrible mess, with a big brother watching to punish anyone who disagrees with the majority. Remember what happened to James Watson and Lawrence Summers. At any instance, I would choose to live in a random village in Myanmar over, say, the New York city.
Unlike the Burmese, I’ve found Americans anxiety-ridden, over-materialistic and super self-righteous. Seeing someone driving a better car could push an American into depression. The pursuit for self-gratification is boundless. The whole country is covered in concrete and consumer goods. Natural landscape has long gone along with the Native Americans. What is sadder to see is Americans fighting tirelessly to export their materialistic culture and the Burmese with huge inferiority complex ready to espouse it.