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More pictures coming soonI've been busy again with moving, but the Thailand pictures should resume sometime next week. Sorry for the delay! You'll be pleased to know that our third day, in Chiang Mai, was much more fun than the second day. posted on Oct 31, 2007 9:13 pm (comment) Mossberg calls telcos "Soviet ministries"Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal calls out the telephone companies for stifling innovation and limiting consumer choice. The telcos claim that their market is competitive, that they are empowering rather than restricting their customers, but unlike Congress, Mossberg isn't fooled. (Mossberg doesn't receive tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the telcos.) A shortsighted and often just plain stupid federal government has allowed itself to be bullied and fooled by a handful of big wireless phone operators for decades now. And the result has been a mobile phone system that ... severely limits consumer choice, stifles innovation, crushes entrepreneurship, and has made the U.S. the laughingstock of the mobile-technology world.Great framing by Mossberg, and great that someone of his stature is laying out the facts. posted on Oct 24, 2007 1:48 am (comment) Surprise plaza in the Meatpacking DistrictThis evening, I met up with a former coworker outside the Google office. We just wanted to chat and catch up, and strolled along looking for a good place to sit. Neither of us wanted a loud, crowded bar or club with expensive drinks, as are common in the Meatpacking District.
And then, as we reached the corner of 14th Street and 9th Avenue, in the middle of the intersection, was a large, triangular plaza full of folding chairs, small tables, outdoor umbrellas, and bushes:
What is this? Can we really just sit down and enjoy the beautiful weather and the lively city? Yes, it's true: a real public square. We sat and talked and relaxed in this oasis among busy streets. It still feels temporary, but it's a major step. This is the effect of New York's new, progressive DOT. What was once a huge, crowded intersection with way too many turn lanes has become a space for people. Announced in late June, it opened only three months later. Thanks NYC DOT—you've made one part of Manhattan much more pleasant and enabled an enjoyable few hours this evening. posted on Oct 24, 2007 1:24 am (comment) Tourist traps, floating markets and mall food courtsWhile our first full day in Southeast Asia, in Ayutthaya, was one of the best days of the trip, our second was one of the worst. The activities changed from interesting, pretty places filled with Thai people who were fascinating to watch, to dull, overly commercial places filled with Western tourists.
posted on Oct 21, 2007 11:37 am (comment) Bangkok: the Las Vegas of AsiaBangkok evokes, to me, what I imagined of the anarcho-capitalist cities depicted in cyberpunk novels like Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. In the lawless cities of the future in these books, housing and shopping developments barricade themselves behind fortifications and private security, the only way to stay safe. Bangkok is far from lawless, but our hotel nevertheless had security guarding its gates to the street, and a restaurant we visited was located in a small shopping center surrounded along with its parking lot by a gated wall.
The city has developed so quickly and become so commercialized that many sections of main road simply pass mall after mall situated right next to one another. There are few pedestrians, with most tourists riding around in taxis and most locals using motorbikes. For those who do try to brave a short walk, the sidewalks are narrow and poorly maintained, and in many areas practically nonexistent, while traffic does not even stop reliably for red lights. The closest analogy in the United States is the Las Vegas strip, a similarly tourist-centered fake environment.
posted on Oct 21, 2007 9:58 am (comment) Buddhism in ThailandThe main religion of Southeast Asia is Theravada Buddhism. I have had some experience with Zen Buddhism, at least as it is practiced in the United States, but that much more closely resembles Western religions than the Thai Buddhism.
For example, Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship together at set times and in communities. The congregation is a major feature of the religious experience, and for many people is the primary draw, a social gathering with familiar faces. Not so in Thai Buddhist temples, where prayer is an individual activity. According to our tour guide, a person or a family may visit eight to ten temples on a Sunday, staying for only a few minutes each time. Each temple centers around a particular Buddha statue, each of which has its own distinctive draw—one may be especially large, another very old, or made of emerald, or in a reclining pose. Instead of visiting the same temple each week as in a congregation-based religion, Thai Buddhists will try to visit as many as possible of the hundreds of temples in their city.
posted on Oct 20, 2007 10:39 am (1 comment) Laws not enforced: Tim Wu in SlateColumbia Law professor Tim Wu has a great series of articles in Slate about laws that go unenforced in America, like drug abuse laws for legal prescription drugs, or immigration laws against those who employ illegal immigrants. In these and the other cases Wu identifies, one common thread unites them all: repealing the law would be politically infeasible, but enforcing the law would harm or inconvenience large numbers of upper middle class Americans who, in aggregate, are politically powerful.
For those times when we look with displeasure on unfair or inconsistently applied laws, Wu makes a simple point: the arbitrary enforcement of these laws is society's solution to the complex problems underlying them, an equilibrium state in itself. It's still extremely unfair—the dichotomy between illegal drugs and abused legal drugs penalizes poor and minority people disproportionately, and some religious groups win exceptions under the First Amendment for their activities while others do not. But it is an unfortunate reality that the politically influential groups get what they want, and when explicitly codifying that in a law would be too controversial, they get what they want anyway by toleration. It's not a great system; besides the economic injustices, one big flaw is the way prosecutors can find a crime for almost anyone if they try (Wu relates a game Southern District of New York prosecutors played where they would figure out what they could charge Mother Theresa or John Lennon with). But it's the system we've got, and it's hard to see how to change it. In the live chat that followed the series Wu goes into some alternatives that have been proposed, like automatically sunsetting laws, but subsequent chat questions also make clear the flaws or controversies inherent in any of the proposals. posted on Oct 19, 2007 8:25 pm (comment) The long tail (boat)After seeing the Summer Palace, we took a long-tail boat up the Chao Phraya River toward the main city of Ayutthaya. The banks of the river are lined with houses, each with a boathouse. Some of the houses and boathouses are elaborate, others simple; some are immaculate, others run down. This river was a primary transportation link to and from Bangkok, and some people still use it to commute, avoiding the car traffic, though the houses now all have road access as well. As it was Sunday, many people were out on the riverfront eating, doing laundry, fishing, or swimming.
posted on Oct 19, 2007 11:18 am (comment) Ayutthaya Summer PalaceAyutthaya, about an hour's drive north of Bangkok, was Thailand's capital from 1350 to 1787, when Burmese invaders conquered it and killed the king. The Bang Pa In Summer Palace is a royal residence, originally used during the Ayutthaya Kingdom but then rebuilt in the 19th Century. Now it is mostly a tourist attraction, though occasional state dinners and similar events still take place there.
King Rama IV, who revived the Summer Palace, appreciated architecture from around the world, and so rather than following a single traditional style, the buildings reflect an eclectic variety of global styles, primarily European and Chinese (Thailand is about 30% Chinese, with good relations between the Chinese and Thai populations), as well as some small Thai buildings. The grounds are laid out with manicured gardens around an artificial lake. Unlike many of the other tourist attractions we visited on our trip, most of the tourists at Bang Pa In were Thai students from nearby colleges. The most interesting part of the palace visit was the opportunity to anthropologically observe the Thai young people - their Hello Kitty umbrellas and Playboy tote bags which American women would never carry, or the way two female friends would hold hands while taking a picture.
posted on Oct 18, 2007 8:48 am (comment) The Southeast Asia pictures begin!During two weeks in Southeast Asia, I took 2,683 pictures (not counting ones I deleted on the spot). I bought an external hard drive and some recordable DVDs in Bangkok to store the pictures as my camera card filled up. Picking out and editing the best ones has had to wait, primarily while we moved in to our new apartment in DC; also, because a bad Internet cafe computer corrupted my memory card, losing half a day of pictures, which took several days of slow data recovery software to retrieve.
But now, Stefanie is in South America, I have some time, and it's time for pictures to start appearing. Watch this space! Here's a quick reference guide to our itinerary, so you can put new pictures into context: posted on Oct 18, 2007 8:02 am (comment) | Blog ArchivesMost Popular Tags |
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