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LETTERS

  HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]: 
 
Pattaya Bashing: new sport for the new millennium

Lunacy on Jomtien Beach

Don’t buy the birds

Handicap access to Beach Walk

Your article on the King

Ly Tong

Beach Road Curbs

Pattaya Bashing: new sport for the new millennium

Editor;

The year 2000 has seen the growth of a new ‘sport’ in the international media: Pattaya bashing. The ‘sport’ has been around for almost as long as Pattaya itself, but this year it seems to have gained a new impetus.

It kicked off back in March with an article in the American soft-porn magazine Maxim that had a front page exclaiming: ‘Naked by Noon, Dead by Dawn, Life in the world’s most dangerous resort’. Pullouts like, ‘Pattaya is a human roach motel, they check in but they don’t check out’ must have had readers of this drivel living here in Pattaya almost choking on their bowls of Cornflakes with laughter.

The problem is that most of the (overseas) readers of this trash tend to believe what is written. The fact is that the reporter concerned, according to those in the know, spent most of his time engaging in carnal pursuits and imbibing copious quantities of cheap booze at the expense of his employer and then had the temerity to lambaste the resort. When it comes to hypocrisy it seems members of the Fourth Estate have contrived to obtain a monopoly when it comes to reporting on Pattaya.

The fact is that most of us know Pattaya is probably one of the safest places in the world in which to live, but of course that doesn’t help to sell magazines.

Then Australian Penthouse, a hardcore porn magazine, went in to bat with an equally ridiculous waste of precious trees and natural resources. The first paragraph of their article contained this classic: ‘As the popular T-shirt, straining around the gut of so many tourists says: “Welcome to Pattaya, the Disneyland for Grown-ups”....’ The sad part is that no one I know has ever seen a copy of this fabled T-shirt. It just doesn’t exist, or if it does, then it certainly isn’t ‘popular’.

It was the Australian Penthouse article that spurred the 60 Minutes Australia programme into action with the aim of doing a piece on Pattaya. More of that later.

The British also got in on the act with a couple of programmes by the BBC and others. Must have been a slow period in Britain for the usual ‘vicar elopes with lorry-driver’ and ‘naked MP in bed with choir boy’ stories.

One of the interesting features with these features is how they concentrate on a place far enough away, yet sufficiently recognisable, so that the average reader cannot discern fact from fiction. They also contain the essential elements of paid for sex, repulsive foreign nationals engaging in activities that, they consider, went out with the end of the British Raj, and impoverished local women whose only way out from under is to endure the attentions of men they don’t like.

However, hypocrisy reached new heights and journalistic integrity new lows with the airing of the Australian 60 Minutes programme on Pattaya.

The producer spent nearly eight days in Bangkok and Pattaya preparing the background to the programme and then, for the final five days, was joined by the cameraman, soundman and reporter, Jeff McMullen.

The resultant programme was headed, ‘The Ugly Australians’ and was a masterpiece of creative editing and sensationalist scripting. Turn the voiceover down and what comes shining through, despite the editing, is the ‘sanuk’ nature of Fun Town. Turn the voiceover up and the lurid reporting for which 60 Minutes has become infamous is readily in evidence.

Yes, but there is a Buddha. Eight days after the programme went to air, reporter Jeff McMullen was sacked after 16 years on the front lines.

McMullen’s Machiavellian nature was revealed within a day or two of his removal from the 60 Minutes line up. He went into damage control regarding his reputation. He lambasted the Channel Nine network and 60 Minutes for its use of chequebook journalism, the obsession with ratings as the arbiter of the value of a given story, tabloidism and sensationalism.

Yet, this is the same man who arrived in Pattaya and told one of his three ‘victims’ that the programme was searching for nothing less noble than, in his words, “the truth”. But the truth from what standpoint: clearly, a truth based around sensationalism, tabloidism and an obsession with ratings.

Where will it end? Despite mankind’s advances in almost every field of human endeavour, the Judaeo-Christian attitudes to sex still seem to be stuck in a time warp reminiscent of the Salem Witch Trials, Puritanism and a WASP-ish mentality that equates sexual satisfaction and enjoyment with the machinations of Lucifer and the forces of Darkness.

Why is it that I just can’t help thinking that there is an element of jealousy about much of the reporting on Pattaya and Thailand? The mendacious hacks seem to possess a flagellant urge that would have propelled them towards canonisation in the world that was once dominated by the Holy Inquisition. Sadly, their petty jealousies combine with their pious tones to produce a fodder that is consumed whole and unquestioned by a general public grown complacent and pliable by a constant stream of media sound bites thinly disguised as fact. Average people grow fat with self-satisfaction as they feast on a rote diet replete with the fruits of xenophobia, racism and condescension.

Perhaps the attitudes expressed by the minions who venture into Pattaya say more about the sexual dysfunction of themselves and the publishers and producers who lap it up with such religious fervour than the people they report on.

Duncan

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Lunacy on Jomtien Beach

Dear Mailbag,

Some months back the city invested in the construction of a pathway on Jomtien Beach between Dongtan police box and Pattaya Park. The pathway was both functional and attractive and was applauded by both local people and visitors alike. As I live in Jomtien Plaza I used the pathway regularly for walking and jogging.

Three weeks ago I left for the UK abruptly due to a bereavement and returned to Jomtien with my 88 year old father who loves nothing better than a walk and glass of beer. Whilst in the UK I had regaled him with stories of great places to walk and visit and made particular mention of the beautiful Jomtien Beach where he was to live.

What greeted us on our first steps onto the walkway was almost beyond belief. The walkway had become a full on two way traffic street with dozens of cars trying to pass each other on what is no more than a double pathway. The many cars were interspersed by numerous motorcycles jockeying for position and everyone giving liberal use of the horn.

The results of this mayhem was that my father and I took to the sand for safety, as we might as well have been walking down the centre of Soi Buakhao on market day.

Just as importantly the lovely pathway is now disintegrating, as after all, it is simply built on sand. I suppose to just open up the huge expanse of land which lies directly behind the beach and can be accessed from Jomtien Beach Road would be all too easy. Were this to be done, revenue could be gained and it would relieve the growing congestion problem at the corner of Beach Road. Unfortunately, the Dongtan police appear not to notice what is happening and appear more interested in apprehending motorcyclists without helmets. I witnessed one property developer well up the beach trying to divert the cars back onto the sand with a sign and small barrier. This was promptly removed by Dongtan’s finest.

Please city hall, do something quickly before the pathway simply disappears.

R Rhodes

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Don’t buy the birds

Dear Editor,

I find it distressing that in a Buddhist country (Buddha was a vegetarian who preached kindness to animals), there is so much cruelty to animals ranging from fishing to exploiting elephants and crocodiles, to keeping monkeys in cages and to killing farm animals in the most barbaric manner possible.

Here in Pattaya I’m upset by the children selling birds who are crammed together in cages like sardines in a can. When the children swing the cages back and forth the terrified birds fall over one another and suffocation could result. Some well meaning tourists buy the birds and set them free. But the children will simply use new birds to replace the ones who were freed. Besides, the freed birds might cause an ecological imbalance and they might not be prepared to survive in the wild.

If you really want to help the birds then for God sakes stop buying them and then this whole deplorable business will come to an end.

Sincerely,

Eric Bahrt

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Handicap access to Beach Walk

Editor;

It is unfortunate that the Pattaya City planners didn’t consider the many handicapped residents and tourists who would enjoy wheelchair access to the Pattaya Beach Promenade. The current high curbs make access impossible for those who need it. Before the reconstruction of the Beach, there were several access points along the beachfront and on both ends. Now there are none.

I hope that this letter can be called to the attention of the mayor, as the cost to add access would be minimal and the benefits to the handicapped well appreciated.

Gary Hacker

Pattaya

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Your article on the King

Dear Sir,

I was both impressed and delighted to read the long article that you printed on your King. I learned more about His Royal Highness in your few lines than I have been able to find anywhere else over here in Canada. It makes me wonder if you might consider a regular feature on Thai history and culture, designed for foreigners who will be visiting your country. Our knowledge of your land is both poor and in need of upgrading. There are more books on Angkor than Thailand in our library. I read your news as often as I can and find the articles informative and concise.

Keep up the good work.

A.R. Wainwright

Vancouver Island

British Columbia

Canada

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Ly Tong

Dear Pattaya Mail,

We Vietnamese expatriates around the world are concerned at reports that Ly Tong, the pilot who dropped anti-communist pamphlets on Saigon 17/11/2000 and featured in your paper Vol VIII No 47, is currently subject to harsh treatment in Thai prison. We are calling on the support and sympathy of the freedom loving Thai people; you have helped many of us to escape communist dictatorship when South Vietnam fell into the hands of communists. The Royal Thai Army had been a close ally of South Vietnam in our fight against the spreading of communism and to defend freedom and democracy in South East Asia. Mr Ly Tong’s action stems from his distress at the brutal oppression of freedom and human rights in Vn by the Vietnamese government. We are sure the freedom loving people of Thailand, as freedom loving people and human rights organisations around the world also share his concern. Ly Tong is a human rights campaigner, a freedom fighter; freedom loving people around the world are proud of him. To treat him as a criminal, his legs are shackled even when receiving visitors, is totally inappropriate. Please support him as his fight is also the fight of all of us for a better world.

Quynh Dao

Member of Amnesty International (Australia)

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Beach Road Curbs

Editor, Pattaya Mail;

To the City Mayor of Pattaya City: Why have you allowed the city engineering dept. to installed curbs along the entire Beach Road that do not allow wheelchairs, walkers, or scooters for the handicap to get onto the walk-way without asking for assistance?

There are 3 of us in wheelchairs that come to Pattaya every year for eight months and spend approximately 2 million Baht during this period between the three of us. We cherish our independence, not to have somebody always helping us. Have your engineers ever heard of sidewalk ramps? Do they know that “water seeks it’s own level” that allows these ramps to be installed at less cost than the curbs?

God forbid the person responsible for this inconsideration someday could not walk! There are many wheelchair conventions promoted by the Tourists Commission of Pattaya, yet this drastic mistake was allowed to be made.

Jon Dier

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