Opinion
The Thaiger Opinion Columns.
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Phuket Opinion: Changing the way we see with photos
PHUKET: My friends abroad have been writing to urge me to be careful and take care in light of the anti-government protests. If they thought for a moment, they might remember that Phuket is quite far from Bangkok. It’s the photos that get to them, I think. Photos, valuable documenters of the truth, can sometimes mislead – as any user…
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Phuket Opinion: Road safety: what we’re doing wrong
Thanapong Jinvong, 50, is Director of the Academy of Road Safety at the National Health Foundation and also works at the Department of Disease Control. He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University with a specialization in epidemiology. Here, he talks about three ways to improve road safety in Thailand, which ranks third in the world…
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Phuket Opinion: Marketing failing airport bus service
PHUKET: The operators of the airport bus service linking Phuket International Airport with Patong need to improve their marketing approach as quickly as possible if they hope to turn around the service’s slow start before the high season draws to a close. It came as somewhat of a surprise that the service, launched with considerable fanfare in July last year,…
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Phuket Opinion: Good news for Phuket life on the road
PHUKET: My car has been filthy for weeks, covered in the dust that is everywhere now, due to the lack of rain. When the light hits it just right in the morning, I have trouble seeing out the back window. I don’t want to wash it at home because I have no outside source of water, and I haven’t taken…
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Phuket Opinion: Deputizing the masses
PHUKET: Everyone should get behind two recent appeals for public participation in protecting our marine and coastal resources. Earlier this month, the Phuket Marine Office encouraged the public to provide photographic evidence to bring to justice people so ignorant that they actually still dump used petrochemicals directly into the sea surrounding our resort island. The entreaty came with the promise…
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Phuket Opinion: Navigating the ‘expat hump’
PHUKET: I openly admit that I had no idea what I was walking into when I decided to move to Phuket last August. Not only had I never been to Thailand, but I had never even left my vacuum-sealed bubble of a home country: America. The gravity of my move became immediately apparent as I left the airport. The sights…
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Phuket Opinion: Forging a place for women on the force
Chollada Chokdeesrijun, 23, graduated from the Royal Police Cadet Academy last year and started working at the Chalong Police Station on November 1. Originally from Bangkok, she and her family moved to Phang Nga when she was 13 years old. Here Lt Chollada talks about why it is important to have women on the police force, and the challenges she…
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Phuket Opinion: ‘Bangkok-centric’ travel slows Phuket progress
PHUKET: There are many different indices used to assess how developed a country is. Fortunately for Thailand, the state of the domestic aviation industry is not among them, because if it were, the country would not fare well in the ratings. In many countries, regional carriers operating small turboprop commuter planes on scheduled routes in lean markets are an important…
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Phuket Opinion: Just give it time
PHUKET: Enough was enough. After nearly being run down by a mechanical dinosaur, I made my way through glass doors to the car park. The overbearing cacophony that apparently is a necessary companion to the modern shopping experience – or at least of the Games Zone on the basement level of the Big C shopping complex on the bypass road…
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Phuket Opinion: Clean up time for Tourist Police
PHUKET: A recent protest in Patong against alleged corruption by Tourist Police officers (story here) will likely go unnoticed nationally given the current state of affairs in the country, yet the issues and the outcry raised offer valuable insights into the serious problems that confront us nationally, locally and individually. The broader issue is how a democracy can function, let…
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Phuket Opinion: Happy days again
PHUKET: Do you miss your childhood? Wish you were young once again? You can be… just move to another country. It feels not only like moving in space, but also like moving back in time – to the happy days when everything was new, exciting and mysterious. Since I moved to Thailand I have often felt like a toddler as…
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Phuket Opinion: Boosting Phuket tourism through sport
Virat Patee, 55, is a native of Phuket. He has served as the director of the Sport Authority of Thailand’s Phuket office for five years, and formerly served as the director of the SAT Krabi office for 12 years. Here, he talks about the valuable contribution sports make to tourism and suggests how Phuket can do more to promote sport…
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Phuket Opinion: Airport expectations hit rough turbulence
PHUKET: Phuket is an international tourist destination – few can argue differently. Islanders may whine that it isn’t what it used to be, but even they are likely to admit that one of the benefits of progress is having an international airport, with international standards.The airport does meet standards, doesn’t it?World travellers and even domestic puddle jumpers have some basic…
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Phuket Opinion: Creating a family for the ill far from home
Anita Somaini, 51, is the owner of Baan Tschuai Duu Lää, a nursing facility in Rawai. She has degrees in nursing, emergency nursing and pharmacology and worked for 20 years in hospitals, geriatric institutes and pharmaceutical companies in her native Switzerland. She came to Phuket in 2010.Here, she talks about why Phuket is a good place for a nursing home,…
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Phuket Opinion: Safe Phuket roads still nowhere to be found
PHUKET: It is hard to imagine that only two countries in the world have more deadly roads than Thailand. Yes, Phuket Land Transport officials should take a measure of pride in the reduction of road accident deaths in recent years, but the island obviously has far to go before conditions on the roadways can be considered anything close to acceptably…
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Phuket Opinion: Good time walking
PHUKET: I read the article written by Don Limnun-thaphisit regarding the Lardyai walking street (story here). However, I did so after stumbling upon the event by chance last weekend. I expected another of the ubiquitous Thai markets with fried chicken, cheap knock-off goods and blaring dance music. What I discovered was a place with much more character. A plethora of…
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Phuket Opinion: Race against a fading pulse
PHUKET: The sustained work of the Phuket Regional Blood Center (PRBC) in organizing blood donation drives that have saved countless lives over the years should be applauded. However, it might be time to reconsider some of the more restrictive criteria over who can donate blood when it is a matter of life and death. Thanks to relatively recent advances in…
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Phuket Opinion: Stiffer penalties needed for those going for gold
Chaiyut Prayoonyong, 65, from Nakhon Sri Thammarat, is the president of the Phuket Gold Shop Association. The owner of three gold shops on the island, Mr Chaiyut has over 40 years’ experience as a gold trader.Here, he talks about the steps gold shop owners should take to protect their shops against robberies, and suggests that the government create stricter punishments…
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Phuket Opinion: You call that a hill?
PHUKET: I operated very large trucks, buses, cranes and earth-moving vehicles for more years than I care to remember, in various countries including Austria – whose mountain passes make “monster” Patong Hill look like a pimple on an elephant – and Australia, in giant mines in the northwest.The cardinal rule for going downhill is: Let your engine help retard your…
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Phuket Opinion: Success of bus ban relies on enforcement
PHUKET: The Phuket Land Transport Office’s trial ban on bus and truck traffic to Patong via the infamous Phra Barami Road over Patong Hill is a good idea. However, lack of proper enforcement by responsible officials, especially Traffic Police units, has the potential to jeopardize success during the trial period – and in the long term, if the measure is…
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Phuket Opinion: Protesters impose will outside political sphere
PHUKET: This year’s Red Cross Fair ended on a bitter note, with incidents of lethal violence near the fairgrounds and a political protest that prevented one of Thailand’s most famous rock stars from taking the stage (story here). The last-minute cancellation of a scheduled performance by Sek Loso left scores of excited fans deeply disappointed, once again demonstrating that Phuket…
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Phuket Opinion: People, not tinsel or music or gifts
PHUKET: Christmas has always been a somewhat schizophrenic event for me. Coming from a non-religious family, it was always celebrated as a time for the extended family to get together, share food and catch up on developments over the past year, and had absolutely nothing to do with celebrating the birth of Christ. Nevertheless, my mother is religious in her…
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Phuket Opinion: A reality check born of resolutions
Susanna Huza, 41, is CEO of Ignite Inspiration Co Ltd, a Communications Consultancy and Training Company. She has a multinational background and earned undergraduate and advanced degrees in law from the University of Hull in the UK. She is also a Master Practitioner and Trainer in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Hypnosis, and a Master Trainer of TimeLine Therapy. Here…
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Phuket Opinion: The toll of tourism
PHUKET: As we embark on the year 2014, there seems to be no better time to reflect on the monumental changes that have transformed Phuket over the past few decades, all the result of “Bangkok style” urbanization that continues to degrade what is left of the island’s natural beauty and diminish its appeal to foreign tourists. In a recent Phuket…
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Phuket Opinion: Beware the water
PHUKET: I’ve been losing sleep lately thinking about all the poison I’ve subjected myself to during 12 years in Thailand – alcohol, sugar, fatty and acidic foods, traffic smog, secondhand smoke and perhaps the biggest culprit of them all: water. I’m referring to fluoridated water, and the “forced-medication” of the planet’s prime life supply – drinking water. The practice, which…
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Phuket Opinion: Teaching that it’s not rude, it’s just culture
Madunan Chehteek, 47, is a native of Yala who left school at age 15 and came to Phuket to work at age 19. He held various positions at Phuket resorts, working his way up to receptionist, then was a tour guide for five years. He opened his shop, the Madunan shirt and souvenir shop, on the bypass road in 1997.Here,…
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Phuket Opinion: When democracy requires protest
Thitinan Pongsudhirak is a political science professor and Director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and an MA from Johns Hopkins University, and from 1998 to 2005, worked at the Economist Intelligence Unit. Here, he explains the recent Thai protests as a battle between those…
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Phuket Opinion: Seduced by parking
PHUKET: I didn’t know what the Thai Watsadu superstore in Thalang sold when I pulled into the parking lot over the weekend, but I wasn’t there to shop in any case. I went just to enjoy the parking lot, which I had admired from the road. It’s completely covered, offering protection rain or shine, and very well laid out. That…
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Phuket Opinion: Providing justice for aggrieved consumers
PHUKET: A friend came to see me the other day. He had a problem. He had fully paid for a pool to be built at his rental house. The pool, measuring only 6m x 8m, took the contractor 11 months to build – and within a few months of completion, it was falling apart. The concrete on the pool terrace…
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Phuket Opinion: Pushing for an Old Town revival
Phuket native Don Limnun-thaphisit, 49, is the project leader of Lardyai walking street and the head of the Phuket Old Town community. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Prince of Songkhla University in the faculty of Science. Here he talks about the need to revive Phuket Old Town and increase the popularity of the Lardyai street market with tourists.…
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