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Thai Secretary General of the U.N.? - December 23, 2001
On December 21, 2001, TNA reported on the MCOT site about the search to find an appropriate candidate for U.N. Secretary General. As the tenure of present U.N. Secretrary-General Kofi Annan will end over the next two years, and the next U.N. chief will be the quota of Southeast Asian countries, Thailand and other countries in the region will send candidates to run for the U.N. honourable top post by next year. The candidates will then launch their campaigns in 2003....
PM Thaksin: “We’re looking for a suitable person to bid for the U.N. top post. The selected candidate must be recognized by the Thai society, and should not be a politician. This is because before the candidate will be accepted and recognized by the international community, he/she is to be well recognized by the Thai people and society first”, he pointed out.
During the selection process, the general public will be welcome to express their opinions, he stated.
Origins of phad Thai - December 20, 2001
Widely known among foreigners abroad as well as those visiting Thailand, phad Thai was invented by dictator Plaek Pibolsonggram during the 1950s. By transforming Chinese noodle into a common, Thai-style dish, Plaek was promoting nationalism to resist what he considered Chinese encroachment.
Phad Thai could be cooked with different ingredients depending on local tastes. In Bangkok, it is frequently mixed with dried or fresh shrimp, but in the Northeast's Korat province, people prefer their phad Thai with bits of pork. - from 'No need to panic about phad Thai,' The Nation, December 19, 2001
AFP reports: Thailand set for record rice exports in 2002 - December 20, 2001
This is because China must open its markets in line with WTO agreements.
You heard it here first - January 15, 2002
The BBC reported on DigitalGlobe's QuickBird satellite photos on January 11, 2002 (Non-military satellite views Earth). They included the Grand Palace photo and captioned it "The Imperial Palace in Bangkok" (in English it is usually called "the Grand Palace"). We first mentioned this story on December 18, 2001:
Bangkok satellite photos - December 18, 2001
Slashdot.org has a thread about DigitalGlobe's QuickBird satellite photos. Samples include some incredible Bangkok images (taken December 10, 2001) including an astonishing, must-see photo of downtown Bangkok (3.95MB) and a close-up of the Grand Palace (752KB).
Anti-mosquito program? - December 17, 2001
We don't know if this really works or not, but the AFP is reporting on a Thai program which claims to keep mosquitoes at bay by emitting a low-frequency sound from computer speakers. You can download the anti-mosquito program here.
Riverside promenades - December 14, 2001
Wesley Hsu has alerted us to possible new riverside promenades: Taking the Chaopraya Express boat north, I've noticed the recent construction of what appear to be walkways with concrete railing posts very similar (possibly identical) to the ones on the promenade of Santichaiprakarn Park. Locations of this new work all seem to be on the Thonburi side of the river, including the area in front of the defunct Sofitel hotel and occurring as far north as past the Pinklao bridge.... It almost looks as if they intend to build some sort of intermittent, disjoint riverwalk.... The Si Praya ferry lands right on top of one (by the Sofitel). Anyone know anything about this?
Just what does Thaksin's rise mean for Thailand? - December 1, 2001
There are many simplistic, knee-jerk appraisals of Thai PM Thaksin, but here's a downloadable paper, Modern Society, Thailand's Thaksin: New Populism or Old Cronyism?, that gives a reasoned take on Thaksin's rise to power and what it means to the Thai political system. It is by Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker and was presented at Johns Hopkins University-SAIS this November, 2001.
"The World's Biggest Restaurant" - November 29, 2001
Wisarut Bholsithi found the website for the Golden Dragon, the successor restaurant to the defunct Tam Nak Thai we reported on earlier. The Golden Dragon bills itself as "The World's Biggest Restaurant."
Boiler rooms still going strong - November 19, 2001
Time is reporting in Fast Bucks that those frangs "banned for life" from Thailand in July for working in boiler rooms are already back in town scamming. We also see that local papers are advertising boiler room positions again. Apply now for a piece of the action!
Old National Geographic articles on Thailand - November 25, 2001
If you take a look inside the new Thai-language version of National Geographic, you will find that each month they are reprinting a vintage article on Thailand. For instance, the August 2001 issue contained "The Greatest Hunt in the World," a 1906 story about capturing elephants and the September 2001 issue featured "Pageantry of the Siamese Stage" from 1947. If you have have friend with a subscription, it is worth a look for the vintage photographs.
Original Skytrain stored-value tickets will soon expire! - October 30, 2001
Skytrain stored-value tickets expire after two years. The old tickets must be returned to a ticket booth and the remaining money will be transferred to a new ticket. Many ticket takers do not know anything about this. If they run your ticket through the machine, show you the amount, and then give it back to you, they don't know what they are doing--your old ticket must be exchanged for a new one.
Renumbering bus routes - November 18, 2001
Familiar old bus routes are getting new numbers. For instance, the orange aircon bus 11 is now 511. This removes the Thai letters that prefixed the number (to designate aircon) and prevents confusion between different classes of bus with the same number. For now, the old number is posted nearby the new number to help passengers get used to the change. Official bus routes are listed here, but there is no mention of the new numbering yet.
The story of the obsolete letters in the Thai alphabet - November 8, 2001
Two Thai letters in the Thai alphabet are obsolete. How did that happen? In the late 1800s, Thailand was looking to create the first Thai typewriters. It was found that the Thai alphabet had too many characters to fit on a standard keyboard layout. Khor khoat and khor koh, the most rarely used, were declared obsolete and not put on the typewriter. The modified Smith Premier typewriter was presented to King Rama V sometime in 1892. The whole story is on the Origins of the Thai Typewriter website (offsite). There is also a section on Antique phonographs and gramophones in Thailand (offsite). We here at 2Bangkok.com live for this kind of stuff! Thanks to Don Entz for pointing out this excellent site.
The lost city of New Amsterdam - October 22, 2001
Head south on Highway 303 (Suk Sawat Road) to Chedi Samut Prakan. This is where the Bang Pla Kod Canal meets the Chao Phraya River. The bank of the canal was once the location of the Ayutthaya-era settlement of New Amsterdam. There is nothing to see today but a swampy, mangrove-covered area. A placard at the site says the following:
New Amsterdam City was one of the significant historical sites which was situated at Tambon Klong Bang Pla Kod, Phra Samut Chedi district. In Samut Prakan Province in those days a large number of Dutch men came to trade with Thailand. These Dutch men were well-behaved and cordial in conducting their business with Thai people. Some of them provided good service to the government. They were thus bestowed with some land on the western bank of Bang Pla Kod Canal to be used for storage and residences. The place looked so nice that it was known among the Dutch men living there as New Amsterdam or the Holland Buildings.
Later, the mutual relationship began to deteriorate until the end of the Ayutthaya Period and so did the significance of New Amsterdam.
Time also strengthened the decline of the riverbank where the Holland buildings were situated. They were eroded by the tide. That is why no traces of such places can be seen today.
U.S. Embassy exposes names of citizens
September 26, 2001 - Ron Morris
Did you register with the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok? If so, I might have your full name and email address courtesy of an embassy emailing! The embassy sent out security precaution emails to registered citizens and wardens on September 26, 2001 without BCCing the send addresses (this would hide the recipients' names from each other). Everyone who received the message could see the names of everyone else.
The messages were sent alphabetically by surname and the message I have contains the full names (first, middle, and last) of 13 other people. (Hi, Frederick, William, Joshua, Jane, Marshall, Sally, Steven, Robert, Kathryn, Donald, Richard, Sally, and Katherine!)
No one should expect the careless disclosure of this type of information by one's own embassy (especially in these times). The embassy should learn to use their email system before sending any more notices.
September 27, 2001 - The U.S. Embassy responds to my email complaining about this: I agree with you that all addressees should be blind, and that was my instruction yesterday morning. Unfortunately, technical problems prevented the message from going out to large numbers of blind addressees, and it was decided that it was important to get this particular message out as soon as possible rather than waiting until the address problem was solved. I apologize for this, and I hope that we will not have to face the same choice again.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey C. Schwenk
Chief, American Citizen Services Unit
US Embassy Bangkok
[This story got a mention on techdirt and the Inquirer.]
UPDATE - A further warning message sent on October 2, 2001 was apparently BCCed. However, they did send me six copies....
A short, negative review of the film Suriyothai (2001)
September 5, 2001
by Ron Morris (This review is of the Thai-release of the film.)Now that the hubbub has died down, I can say it: Suriyothai is not really a film, but a forced march through an uninvolving history lesson. Intriguing events are presented in rapid succession without rhyme or reason. Emotionally gripping scenes, such as the execution of a young king, are wasted in a frantic attempt to chronicle every historical incident possible.
The filmmakers have an obvious reverence for the characters they present, but this reverence only makes the characters more remote. No character ever seems more than an artificial cardboard cutout. And while the cast is attractive, the acting is uneven--at times naturalistic, at times broad, soap opera-style monotone.
Compare Suriyothai to Bangrajan (2000), another recent Thai historical epic. While far from perfect, Bangrajan has characters that the viewer can care about and a purposeful story that builds to a meaningful climax--elements missing in Suriyothai.
A great deal of money was spent on Suriyothai and it shows. Every frame is replete with exotic eye-popping detail, sure to intrigue non-Thais, and the entire production is sumptuously photographed. Suriyothai also breaks new ground for a Thai film with its brief glimpses of nudity and graphic beheadings. Like Cecil B. DeMille, who was able to make racier films if dealing with Biblical subjects, the makers of Suriyothai have found that crowd-pleasing nudity and violence are acceptable when dramatizing patriotic events.
If Suriyothai was the first competent Thai film in years, I would be loathe to criticize it, but in recently, many Thai films have made money and achieved critical acclaim internationally. I am curious to see the reedited version of Suriyothai that will be released to international markets (which will reportedly include a foreign narrator to explain the myriad confusing incidents and characters).Having said all this, I'd like to also point out an interesting AsiaWeek article on the significance Suriyothai is supposed to have for the Thai viewer: A Movie to the Rescue.
Also: Interview with maverick Thai filmmaker Pen-ek Ratanaruang
The legendary public-health campaigner speaks up on ethics, AIDS, and unlicensed drugs
by Ron Morris [This interview was conducted in May, 2001 for the German webzine futureframe.de. They have published the German version. This is the original version in English.]
How many founders of NGOs have become legends in their own time? Mechai Viravaidya is one. Twenty-six years ago he founded the Population and Community Development Association (PDA) and embarked on the first successful population control program in a developing country. The voluntary program reduced the average number of children per family from seven to less than two today.
During the 1980's he started an influential program to combat the AIDS epidemic in Thailand head on by promoting condom use. Condom-inflating contests were held and rice farmers were paid to have family-planning slogans posted on their buffalos. Viravaidya himself walked through red-light districts handing out condoms.
(Photo: 2Bangkok.com)His chain of "Cabbages and Condoms" restaurants combine innovative Thai food with a positive attitude about condoms and family planning. The restaurant features humorous condom posters on the walls and t-shirts featuring Winston Churchhill's famous v for victory salute, but in this case it means "stop at two children." Viravaidya's office sports a huge coffee table with condoms under a glass surface. Bouquets of flowers around the PDA offices are decorated with colored condoms. So high-profile was the condom awareness campaign that condoms became know in some quarters as "Mechais."
In another internationally applauded program, the PDA partnered with major corporations to relocate factories near rural villages so local people would not have migrate to the cities for profitable employment.
And as for positions and accolades--you name it and Viravaidya has headed it or been a member. Presently he is a Thai Senator and the UN Ambassador for UNAIDS (Joint UN Programme on HIV-AIDS). He has served as a former cabinet minister and headed dozens of local and international organizations. Half-Thai and half-Scottish, educated in Australia, Viravaidya has made a unique contribution to how NGOs are run. NGO administrators from around the world attend training courses at the PDA's Asian Center to learn the secrets and successes of the Viravaidya approach.
And he's not out of ideas yet. His restaurant chain is planning to expand into eastern Europe, Australia, and the UK and is branching out into packaged Thai foods such as sauces, curries, and honey.
A unique red rice discovered by a farmer is also being marketed to support the PDA. The mutant rice, naturally high in carotene and fiber was crossbred to strengthen the strain and is now about to be exported. The PDA is applying its commitment to improving the plight of the rural poor to this project as well by offering the red-rice farmers the majority of income made from the sale.
According to Viravaidya, the businesses are a necessary way of raising funds. "Most charitable organizations in the Third World will find it hard to survive because donations come and go and donors change their mind. That's their right, of course. So for the last 25 years we've receiving grants and gifts, but at the same time building our own by setting up as separate legal entities companies like 'Cabbages and Condoms' to make a profit. That profit is given to the nonprofit foundation. That has to be the way of the future."Recently I spoke to Mechai Viravaidya on the future of the PDA and the issues it addresses:
Q: What's the next natural step for the PDA?
A: From the 70s to the mid-80s, it was population and family planning. From the 80s to the 90s, mostly rural development and institutional development such as village banks and taking manufacturing out to villages. In the last three years it was youth government in villages and scholarships--over 1200. In 2000 we started anti-corruption studies for youth in secondary school--seminars for the kids to talk about corruption.Q: Something like ethics?
A: Yes, but going beyond, because if you start off in kindergarten teaching honesty and good manners it grows from there. And this year, instead of having scholarships, we're planning to have our own school in the Northeast. It'll be open Saturdays and Sundays so that good teachers from all over including those in business can come and help us.
We want to teach not just the basics of primary and secondary school, but produce people with conscience. People who want to do public good. We want kids to analyze with a modern style of thinking rather than just sit down and become parrots.
So originally we tried to prevent people from being born because there were too many, then we tried to keep them fed, and now the third stage is on the "software side," the brain side, that's beyond feeding.Q: There's been some slight increase in AIDS cases lately. Is the challenge of fighting AIDS in Thailand different these days?
A: Basically in the last nine years there has been a decline in new cases. We have just over one million that have been infected, so we must continue public education and that has weakened in the past couple of years. So when people don't hear about it on radio or television they think it's gone away like cholera.Q: This weakness is the result of what?
A: Governmental commitment which has slackened, so that was a failure. I've spoke with the current Prime Minister [Thaksin Shinawatra] about what we have to do. We'll never have enough money for the treatment side, so right now the major concern, like in many countries, is prevention.Q: Do you feel the present government is receptive to it?
A: Yes, they're committed to it and we just had a meeting last week that they're going to move on it.Q: Do you have any opinion on the situation in Brazil where they are producing AIDS drugs without patents?
A: Oh yes, this will have to be the case. It's much, much cheaper. Brazil is producing the cheaper stuff, India's doing the same, we're beginning to do it already, and so is South Africa. So it seems that countries are fed up when the poor cannot afford to buy this drug when we know so well the production costs are so low.Q: So that's what you would say to the big drug companies in the U.S. and elsewhere?
A: Oh yes. If it's luxury product, fine. If it's a Rolls Royce, or Mercedes Benz, fine. We can expect to pay a lot. But in this case it's just that the poor won't be able to touch it. It's just genuine survival.Q: Nearby in Cambodia, they have a very high AIDS rate...
A: Yes, it's 4 percent of adults now. Again, the thing they can do best is awareness, public education, and make condoms available everywhere.Q: So the same model that worked for Thailand would work for them?
A: Just tell them what it is, and again, some people, even if they know, they take risks, so have the condoms around everywhere. It's the only way you can really get hold of it.Q: Perhaps no one can really answer this themselves, but what in your life or background has enabled you to be the person you are--to come up with ideas and innovate freely?
A: Well, this is just a stab in the dark, but it may be because I use both hands. I write right, I throw left, I play tennis right, and I play golf left. Maybe the fact that I use both sides of my brain may be responsible for having more ideas because the brain is more active. Just a guess!
In terms of conscience, a lot came from my parents. My mother in particular said you just shouldn't waste your education and you just shouldn't just want money because that is not the be-all and end-all. If you have the opportunity, try and pass on opportunity to someone else. The book probably explains more. My biography comes out in early May. ["From Condoms to Cabbages" by American doctor Tom D'Agnes, published by the Post Publishing Company]Q: What's the most important thing to you in all the things you do?
A: Hard work, consistency, and I guess honesty. I started this off 26 years ago and had I been lining my pockets it would have certainly been different in terms of work and people's reactions. I think you have to be open and transparent and work hard at it and don't give up. Nothing's easy. Some people give up easily. I take quite a bit longer before I give up.Q: Of all the programs you've been involved in, what are you proudest of?
A: Firstly, the word "proud"--I don't use it. It's not in my vocabulary. I thinks it's the Scottish side of me that says you don't praise yourself. So I'm glad things worked or they didn't fail. I may have come up with the idea, but to put it into action I need all sorts of people to help, so what I've done is more like teamwork.
What has satisfied me is a combination of things--to get the family planning program going from seven kids to under two now--that's one. And to get the anti-AIDS program going and the rural development going--they all sort of give me a level of satisfaction.
It is not a sense of "oh, I've sacrificed this," it's just that this is the field I've found most pleasant and satisfying to work in. Probably the most important thing that I feel is that I don't think I've wasted my life. I've tried to make a difference. I hope I've made a difference. History will judge. I see a lot of people have wasted their life even if they have lots of money. I feel like a marathon runner. I reach kilometer 1, then kilometer 2. I'm glad I reached it, I've done it, and I've participated.Mechai links
Cabbages and Condoms Restaurant - a must-visit when in Bangkok
PDA - Population and Community Development Association
Mechai Viravaidya'sResume
For one brief shining moment... Bangkok bus lanes - August 16, 2001
A reminiscence by Ron MorrisI used to take the bus. Late at night, tearing across the city on a bus with all the windows open and a bracing breeze from a storm blowing through, they were great fun.
But usually, like the hoards of workers forced to take the ill-equipped buses, I was resigned to sullenly and compliantly cursing my fate as one of the unfortunates without a car, slowly breathing the still, still air of the hot city.
One morning in 1996, the bus lanes on Phahonyothin Road and a few other major thoroughfares were marked out with cones. The bus lanes had always been there, but no effort was made to keep cars out. This time, buses were actually the only vehicles permitted in the lanes.
It was part of then-Deputy Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's drive to solve Bangkok's traffic problem in six months. It was clear there were dozens of areas around town where it would never be possible to strictly close off bus lanes. There were too many roads with oddly configured lanes, weird u-turns, and buildings with no drop-off zones. However, on major roads such as Phahonyothin and Silom, bus lanes seemed to benefit the majority of commuters.
For the first time, riding the bus did not seem like a penalty for not having a car. I remember seeing the spoiled-brat kids in their giant Mercedes stopped in traffic. Their swarthy drivers scowled as I zoomed by and I was happy I rode the bus.
It was a heady time and people swapped pet theories on how to improve traffic--ban cars from the inner city (a la Singapore), crack down on reckless motorcycles, expand the bus routes, stagger work times, etc. New carpool lanes were discussed and people wondered whether unemployed men would gather at the start of these lanes, like they do in Jakarta, offering to ride in a car for a small fee to enable the driver to use the lanes.
I cannot recall exactly when the bus lanes disappeared. Like many optimistic schemes in Thailand, they were gradually forgotten and everything returned to normal. I know the lanes did not last very long. Two weeks? Three? It seemed to fall apart when cars with four or more persons were allowed in the lanes along with the buses. Apparently there were too many cars with dark tinted windows and "military or police caps on the rear ledge" (Bangkok Post editorial, June 26, 1996) that used the lanes, daring the authorities to stop them. Pretty soon everyone flooded back into the bus lanes. Eventually, Thaksin gave up on his traffic pledge.
Five years later, Thaksin is back, this time as Prime Minister and head of the first party ever to win an absolute majority of seats in parliament. Pledges to solve traffic problems have been forgotten, but the city is very different than it was in 1996.
Within a year of the bus-lane experiment, disaster struck the Thai economy and the marketplace removed cars from Bangkok streets. Fixed mass transit systems finally arrived and although the road system remains an unsightly, inconsistent tangle, many improvements were made. Nevertheless, given another bubble economy, the streets will surely swell up with the cars of the newly rich once again.
Today I am part of the problem. I drive--one man, one car. On my way to work I can still sympathize with the young men and women dangling from handrails outside the doors of overstuffed buses, each person knowing it is their punishment for not having a car. I turn up my ac and zoom by.
I wish had a photo of the bus lanes from that time. The open bus lanes marked off with cones are a vivid memory. If you know of a photo of this, let me know.
Learn astronomy with the Bangkok Post - June 24, 2001
From Conor Bracken: Bangkok Post had a lead article about Mars' proximity to the earth ("Stargazers view Mars at its closest point," June 24, 2001). Nice to see them giving scientific events some priority. But then they concluded with "In another two years, Mars will come to within 55.7 million km of Earth, the closest in at least 5,000 years. At that time, NASA is preparing to land astronauts on the planet for the first time." Full article on the Bangkok Post website
(Photo: 2Bangkok.com)
The site of the former Tam Nak Thai todayThe April 2001 issue of Sawasdee (Thai Airways' inflight magazine) reminded readers that Bangkok has the largest restaurant in the world, Tam Nak Thai. The problem is that the restaurant was closed five years ago. When the lease ran out on the land, the owners opened a Chinese restaurant, the Golden Dragon, on Bang-na Trat Highway. Tam Nak Thai was then razed and the land sat vacant until 2001 when a gigantic Carrefour was constructed. This "world's record restaurant" still appears on many websites and we have no doubt that careless free-lance travel writers will keep the phantom Tam Nak Thai alive for some time.
UPDATE - November 29, 2001 - Wisarut Bholsithi found the website for the Golden Dragon which is now billing itself as "The World's Biggest Restaurant."
Durian + Whiskey = Death? - June 14, 2001
There is a widely held belief in Thailand that eating durian and drinking whiskey can cause death. This appears to be from the Thai-Chinese tradition of assigning foods qualities of "hotness" or "coldness." The idea being that one should not consume too much of a hot or cold food, but balance things out with some of each. Both whiskey and durian are considered to be extremely hot in character and thus eating both would make one too hot and cause death.Durian is an unusual fruit. It grows in gigantic spiky husks that must be slashed open with cleavers. Its fleshy sickly yellow pulp is either ambrosia or something unsuitable for human consumption, depending on your point of view. The smell is penetrating. Across the region, carrying durians on buses or trains is prohibited because of the annoying odor. Thai Airways has special metal boxes in the holds of their planes to transport durians for passengers.
Is it possible some component that makes up the pungent odor might combine with alcohol and form a poisonous chemical? And if so, why only whiskey? What about beer or vodka? A friend of ours makes durian wine. Is he poisoning himself by drinking it? Where are the official warnings? Surely a drunken tourist might eat some durian without knowing and die.
Even some local doctors have told us it is not safe to eat whiskey and durian, but the explanation, that they are both "hot" foods, is not very satisfying. Considering the vast quantities of durian and whiskey consumed here, if the two were fatal in combination, there would likely be corpses littering the restaurants and pubs each night.
Update - July 26, 2001 - Thanks to the dozens of people who have written confirming they have consumed whiskey and durian without dying. The whiskey/durian urban legend seems similar to a new urban legend from Taiwan being reported on the Urban Legends Reference Pages: vitamin C + shrimp = death
Every few years someone claims to have found the elusive treasure that the Japanese supposedly buried in Kanchanaburi during World War II. These "finds" often occur during economic downturns and the local press is usually more interested in reporting how this gold will wipe away Thai debt or solve financial woes than actually wanting to see the gold itself. The treasure always turns out to be imaginary--the result of our collective urban myth-making culture. It is belief stoked by publicity-seekers, a careless press, and a desire that there be some quick fix to solve economic problems.
Right now, we are in the grips of gold fever once again. The new Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra visited a cave site where the gold was supposed to be and spoke favorably about the claim. CNN got into the act as well, reporting the gold find as fact and noting how it could help solve current Thai woes. However, the story on their website has a different tone, noting the many similar hoaxes that crop up now and then.
The treasure has yet to seen, and latest reports indicate that it actually consists of 100-million-dollar gold bonds from the US which the Japanese were hoarding (which makes no sense for so many reasons...). There are articles about the "treasure" in the April 15 and 16 editions of the Bangkok Post and the Nation, but since the links to these articles will change after a few days, we cannot link directly to them (if you want to read the articles, go to the newspapers' main page and then find the editions for April 15 and 16, 2001).
- Updates -
April 18, 2001 - The story has already broken down: "No Bills, No Gold, Only Red Faces" reports the April 18, 2001 edition of the Nation.
April 20, 2001 - The Nation has an interesting article on bond scammers in Thailand. Maybe this article should have been run when this story first broke. (April 29, 2001 - The link to this article has changed three times since its publication. It seems local newspapers are determined not to have their articles linked to... although it is more likely they do not understand how newspaper articles are typically accessed by viewers on the web.)
Not an urban legend (at least in Thailand)... - March 22, 2001
An urban legend makes the leap into reality!All over Thailand people have been collecting pulltabs because of the "special metal" in them that can be used to make artificial limbs for Cambodian mine victims. This practice sounds like the well-known urban legend in the West where good-hearted people collect pulltabs to redeem for wheelchairs or dialysis machines. See here (offsite) for the story.
However, in Thailand it is not an urban legend. We spoke to the Public Relations Department at Seleboss, the local company that produces Brands Essence of Chicken (condensed chicken soup in a small jar that you drink). They said a charity/foundation in Chiang Mai allied with the Medical Science University of Chiang Mai University is collecting pulltabs from soda cans and lids from Brands jars to make artificial limbs for Cambodians. While there is no "special metal" in pulltabs, the foundation does not want entire cans.
Why not collect the whole can? The foundation does not have a "melter" capable of handling the volume of aluminum in a single can and they don't have a shredder capable of shredding the full can into pieces they could melt. It seems pulltabs are the perfect size for the equipment they have and the volume they can deal with.
Here is the webpage Brands has describing the program.
Here are two real Thai urban legends-> Myron Kropp's recital in Bangkok & the Thai Starbucks Legend (both offsite)
