SISTAHood's First International Excursion, Hatyai, Songkhla, Thailand (II): Miscellaneous Bits, Thoughts and Observations.

As a continuation from previous post, this post serves as a compilation of all the random bits of thoughts and observations that I came across through our weekend escape which happens to be my very first international trip to Thailand (or anywhere foreign, for that matter.)

The inseparable relationship between Thais/Thailand and HM King Bhumibol Adulyadej (that's his Royal Cypher/Flag by the way, on the left), Rama IX. HM has an omnipresence in all public sphere in Thailand from the usual portrait in office and paper notes to calendars, posters and gigantic banners on building. In fact, almost all town we have passed through on the way from border to Hat Yai will definitely has a portrait of HM hosted on an intricate gold colour pedestal situated right in the middle of the central divider of its main through fare. Almost no pedestrian bridge (or rather, all the few pedestrian bridge we saw) will be left unadorned with Thai Royal Family especially HM the King. Being the longest reigning monarch ever with vital role in pacifying rival factions during Thailand's various tumultuous political debacle past and present, little wonder that HM is revered as such by his subject. Then again, they have lese majeste law that proclaim HM is "inviolable" and any act of violation is crime. While I am largely non-monarchical (justified, spending all my life growing up in a subnational entities that has a civilian appointed head of state while the federal entity has a rotating monarch every five years.) Nonetheless, it's interesting to note the difference and uniqueness in attitude of people towards a monarch and the monarchy between Thailand and Malaysia.

7-11 (and why's Malaysians 7-11 pales so much in comparison). 7-11 seems to be the dominant convenience store chain in Thailand with a branch at all towns and one branch for every one or two block in the urban area. Not sure is it because  of novelty of foreign country or favourable exchange rate between ringgit and baht, their 7-11 offers incredible range of products at affordable price with specific highlight on their buns and microwave meals while Malaysian's are essentially a money trap fleecing your money for emergency shopping. Sure, Malaysian's 7-11 also have slushies machine and coffee maker but Thai's has a fridge teeming with cheap compact meal in box in which the shop attendant will reheat for you on request. So I bought a box of spaghetti as my breakfast on the last day. 39 baht. Their offer of drinks is interesting as well such as Oishi Green Tea...with ONE PIECE's Character and soft drinks.. in GLASS BOTTLE even if the cheapest option (10 baht)! Last but not least of course pertaining to demography of Thai in a way, they have PORK floss bun with mayo (lower right) side by side with the usual (and halal certified) egg and mayo bun and other such pastries (lower left.) Malaysia's all same old Gardenia and Massimo. How boring.

Overseas Chinese, here and there. As I mentioned in the previous post about stall keepers and attendant that is able to speak Chinese and Hokkien, it seems to me that Thai of Chinese descent has and still maintain a reasonable presence in Thailand despite years of Thai-fication (almost all of them has a Thai name) and intermarriage with local Thais, maintaining most of their lifestyle (for example Chinese vegetarian shop), social and cultural institution (for example, Hat Yai Chinese Church at lower left and Wat Thawon Wararam or 敕赐庆寿寺 at lower right. There's also a Chinese school and clan association that I spotted during our ride around) and most importantly of course, business and trade but all with interesting blend of Thai influence in it. It also helps of course that Hat Yai is quite a cosmopolitan city with sizable Chinese and Patani Malay besides the majority Thai population to enable Hat Yai to have such mix. It should be noted as well that Thai of Chinese descent forms 14% of total Thailand's population and numerically (but not proportionally because Thailand has higher population that Malaysia) speaking, it's actually more than Malaysian of Chinese descent plus 40% of Thai claimed to have partial Chinese descent reflecting how well Thai Chinese has integrated into the society. Perhaps the path of history than Thailand took as an independent kingdom surrounded by colonies of Western power has shaped the current demography situation that is Thai today. Speaking of which.

There's a school located not far down from our hotel called Thidanukhro School which happens to be a convent girl school and all of the girl has to have bob hair, much like the Chinese girl schools in Penang like PCGHS or Convent Datuk Keramat. Seems to me that missionary school is doing reasonably well in Thailand as well judging from the large compound that the school has. As I walk past there, it sure sounds like they are having a football match or something but of course I can't go any closer for fear of being accused as a stalker and pervert of the convent girls.

Being an independent kingdom since its founding does help in solidify the codification, development and spread of Thai in all form of publication (unlike other country within the region that has been colony of Western power before hence facing residual competition of language of colonial power especially English in British south east asia as well as The Philippines) as evidently shown by the whole bookstores that I visited (Seng Ho at Lee Garden which I think similar in stature to Popular in Malaysia as well as B2S at Central which is more like MPH in Malaysia) pretty much completely stocked with Thai language book and little else. All Japanese manga on sale are in Thai like the example that I have above which is RuroKen and Shakugan no Shana as well as english books such as Fifty Shades Trilogy (I am curious how are the translator going to handle all those fisting and SM and anal intercourse and buttplug). Conversely of course without the influence of colonial power such as the British, their English is slightly shaky like that typo over there. Despite these difference, I can see that Thais shares similar aspiration or taste in reading judging from one large section devoted to school and job references, another section devoted to fengshui and horoscopes, a few shelves for religious book (mostly buddhist of course unlike Malaysia which is mostly Islam), multilingual dictionaries, magazines etc. Oh but their light novels and teenage literature and manga section (all in Thai of course) is so much larger than ours of course. Speaking of which...

As I go around perusing on their manga offering, I saw...familiar titles of...my guilty pleasure. My inner fanboy is left awestruck. ISN'T THAT BUKIYOU NA SILENT and JUNJOU ROMANTICA!? OMG THEY HAVE YAOI ON DISPLAY! As I continue my fanboying, I realized they have THREE WHOLE SHELVES devoted to YAOI/Boy's Love and my gut feeling was: "DAMMIT I WISH I KNOW HOW TO READ THAI BECAUSE ALL OF THEM ARE IN THAI!" To have yaoi/BL book on display publicly seems to reflect Thai's more liberal attitude towards publication in all form. Meanwhile, Malaysian government are halting import of such titles, calling it a moral menace while those few that got in were prohibitively expensive because they're all from United States and no local publishers dares to take up the challenge to translate Japanese mangas of all genre. How FUCKING UNFAIR.

Random observation of Thai television in hotel. Top: surreal midnight programme on some sort of religious channel which feature nothing else but a looping picture of a person meditating in lotus position while the perspective go through his head through his spine while accompanying voice over probably is talking about meditating sort of stuff. Thailand indeed. Center: one of the channel that the hotel subscribe to is Chaozhou/Teochew Business Channel which I think is oddly specific justified when over half of Thai Chinese are of Teochew descent especially in Bangkok/central Thai. Southern Thai Chinese however is largely Hokkien. Bottom: the hotel does subscribe to international channels as well like Al-Jazeera, NHK World, KBS World, France 24, Fox News and for Malaysians, TV3, TVB8 and ASTRO Wah Lai Toi. Top story on Al-Jazeera on the morning of our departure: the portrayal of Edward Snowden in the American mediasphere (hero or traitor) and the labeling used (whistleblower which create the impression of an individual exposing wrongdoing of evil government and large organisation or leaker which sounds more like compromising ethics and state secret). The power of words indeed.

Value Added Tax at work. It only occurs to me for the first time during this visit that Thailand is one of the countries that applies VAT/GST and only after examining the receipt closely which stated the VAT you paid when you purchase your item. Shopping in Thailand certainly gives me an indication on the mechanism of VAT/GST when it's Malaysia turn to implement it some time in the future but still in discussion at the moment. The thing about VAT/GST is that you won't even notice the VAT you paid as everything is already included in the rounded price you paid for an item unlike the service tax (10%) and government tax (6%) that we occasionally get in Malaysian F&B outlet that is not included in the price list and will only pop up with additional dollar and cents as you paid. Indeed, one of the justification used by the government in its discussion of VAT implementation is that it seeks to harmonize all those tax into a single number which is included first hand in the price itself rather than counted separately. One important question remains of course talking about including VAT in purchase price: will it cause the increase of price of items in general since business might just add additional percentage to the current price transferring the cost to customer (DO NOT WANT) OR the price will remain the same and the business will deduct 6% to pay the GST/VAT (OK then)? Whom is it going to be affected more. consumer or business?

Our Red Tuk-Tuk and the Red Nose Driver. We encountered Uncle Red Nose (who can speak Hokkien by the way) when we were done shopping over the municipal market in the morning initially seeing him as a some sort of creeper for his persistence of getting us to take his tuk-tuk. After he offered the unbeatable 100 baht (which is almost half than the usual 20 baht per person fare) for trip back to hotel then to Lee Garden however, we took on his ride. After we reached Lee Garden, he asked us in Hokkien whether we wanna go to the Floating Market and offered 200 baht for back and fro and he's willing to wait and pick us up on specific time, we took on his offer while still feeling a bit apprehensive about his enthusiasm. After we're done with the floating market and wanna go for grocery shopping, he went to for a slight detour to Big C and willingly waited for us with no additional charge again! In fact when we reached our hotel, he actually insisted free of charge to bring us to Tesco Lotus (because we initially suggested this) that we actually has to turned him down of his excess enthusiasm. Because of his enthusiasm and cut price fares, we actually got to keep his phone number (good thing Chan Pao bought a Thai simcard) and asked him to come back later at night for a trip to Lee Garden as well as booking him as airport transport for SzeSze, Ah Pheng and Chia Min the next morning for 300 baht. His tuk-tuk is well battered but his enthusiasm certainly warm our hearts...which translated to extra tips being given willingly to him! Imagine just by going normal fares, our transport fares for that day would've gone double.

For anyone who wish to stay away from all the touristy hustle and bustle in the city center for a true Thai urban neighbourhood serenity, Greenview Hotel is certainly a great choice.  It's located slightly off the city center (about 1km to Lee Garden Plaza) at Thanon Saengsri (Saengsri Road) but close to Municipal Market and has all the amenities you need including free water cooler at the lobby which I made full use of that to re-hydrate self for every trip we did not to mention high density of wireless router for people who wish to stay connected to social media at all time. It has family room (two single bed, one king size bed) which is only bookable through email so if you're going in large group, you can certainly made some saving.

...and finally, a few more interesting bit (all of them from my early morning walk):

Thailand Post's postbox which seems to be indicative of geopolitical center of Thailand in which the slot is divided into Bangkok and Other Places.

Colourful interurban bus. It seems to me that the State of Thailand is playing a rather prominent role in Thailand's public transport in which all buses, songthaew (4WD converted into minibus for medium distance travel), tuk-tuk and even motorcycle taxi (motosai in Thai) are required to wear similar livery with government insignia on it (or for motosai's case, the cyclist has to wear a high vis jacket labelled with number). At the same time however, the driver/owner of the bus/tuk-tuk/songthaew seems to have a lot freedom in decorating or even pimp up their steed as much as they want and of course they actively attract customer to go on his ride. I am still curious what exactly is the model of management used for Thailand's public transport.

Haywire, defined. Ground electricity transmission hasn't really taken off in Thailand which result in this kind of health and safety hazard. It must be pain to figure out which wire is which for the electrician.

Hand painted poster for movies! Not exactly sure whether it's distributor sanctioned or not as I only see official (translated poster) in cinema. Another thing about movie listing (at least judging by Coliseum Cinema at Lee Garden Plaza) is that one can safely guess whether the movie is subbed or dubbed as we saw World War Z listed as two separate listing in which one is written in Thai while another is in English... As a foreign tourist, we wouldn't want to get the surprise of watching Brad Pitt speaking in Thai!

While we are on holiday, it seems that Hat Yai will be having its municipal election but when compared to Malaysian general election (or probably because it's just a municipal election), the general aura is much more subdued, limited to banners listing out the political parties' promise (the usual stuff like improving mass transport. One even suggested mass transit system while another a better bus system. Or curbing crime with the usual black and red wording) with candidate faces plastered on them from time to time. We did encounter one election campaign truck however calling the electorate to vote for candidate number 2 from Democrat Party. Not sure which party is number 1.

If there's any gripes of sort that I might like to point out in this satisfactory trip is definitely the low density of road signboards and its positioning which tend to be hidden by a lot of hanging clutters (not the municipality's fault though) hence making figuring out direction a bit challenging. Not to mention the built of Hat Yai city center is pretty dense with endless row of four storey buildings and shophouses with a lot of one way road. But being in a foreigner, we just have to get use to the sense of direction of Thailand and make our way through it. If all fail, there's always Tuk-tuk.

With that, I hereby conclude my first international trip report to Hat Yai with the complete reassembled SISTAHood. Certainly wouldn't mind to venture more of Thailand or other country in the region even. Who will I be going with next time and where will be I be going next time and when will I be going on another travel next time. *doki doki!*

Epilogue: Well. Today's the last day of the second semester, academic year 2012/2013. Have I achieved anything meaningful apart from making the decision to extend my candidacy? Anyway, I will get it done some way or the other. One day. *sigh*