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Money matters: Early winter is here (Part 1)
Graham Macdonald
MBMG International Ltd.
Much of what we believe about the right ways to
approach equity investing right now is derived from our views on the
global economy - the biggest single component of which is the US economy.
The fate of the global economy is now more dependent upon the US economy
than ever previously. The States doesn’t even need to sneeze now for the
rest of the world to catch a cold, just breathing out its germs is enough.
There is no doubt in our mind that the US economy is sick - seriously ill
to the extent that major surgery is required and the illness will prevail
for up to 5 years before full recovery is achieved.
The twin deficits afflicting the US are well documented
- to such a degree that we should actually remind ourselves of the actual
numbers because we’ve all become so inured to the fact that the US is
heavily in debt, we sometimes tend to actually forget the full extent of
it. Firstly though let’s just familiarise ourselves with the terminology
of very large numbers. The convention in global financial reports is to
use American terminology, namely
1) a thousand million is called a billion (in British
terminology it’s a milliard) and looks like this 1,000,000,000
2) a million million is called a trillion (in British
terminology it’s called a billion) and looks like this 1,000,000,000,000
Every single day the US Federal government is spending
over $2 billion more than it receives as income - around $800 billion this
year - at that level it sounds bad enough, but ultimately this isn’t
sustainable once you realize that it is eating around 80% of world
savings. Dick Cheney has said that deficits don’t matter because the
world is happy to finance these deficits. Today it may well be willing and
able to do so. Before too much longer it will be unable to do so, willing
or not. Generally, however, breakdown occurs before then - as money starts
to become more scarce it also becomes more expensive (like any commodity,
money is affected by the laws of supply and demand) and the lenders will
become less supportive of extending further credit as America’s ability
to offer attractive incentives for lending becomes increasingly squeezed
and therefore less happy.
So why is the US spending more than it earns every day?
Since the Dickensian economics of Mr. Micawber (“Annual income twenty
pounds, annual expenditure nineteen ... happiness. Annual income twenty
pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result:
misery.”) it’s been recognised that unless you live within your means,
you’ll face problems in the long run. To understand this we simply need
to look at long term economic cycles and human nature (the two are largely
interwoven anyway).
On this page is Ian Gordon’s long term Kondratieff
Wave model. Long term readers of our views will already be familiar with
this. The economic cycle is like the 4 seasons of the year. The business
cycle starts with spring. Business trade, demand for goods and services
grows, people generally feel good about the future and inflation, from
zero or negative levels starts to gently take root. This most recently
occurred in the roughly synchronised western economies from around 1949 to
around 1966.
In the ‘summer’ part of the cycle, people and
corporations borrow money to increase their expenditure capacity, spending
increases unabated and inflation gets out of control leading to high
interest rates. This last occurred in the west between 1966-1980.
In ‘Autumn’ inflation is low as a sequel to the
higher interest rates of the previous season and, therefore, interest
rates fall to low levels. This encourages a late burst of economic
activity that is largely funded by unsustainable increases in debt. This
last occurred in the western economies from 1980-2000.
The final part of the cycle is ‘winter’. Heavily in
debt, people and governments can no longer afford to buy increased levels
of goods and services (which is what is needed for economies to grow) and
instead of growing, economies contract. Negative growth or recession
leaves these carrying heavy debts unable to service them leading to
widespread defaults and bankruptcies, the focus moves to cost-cutting and
unemployment levels soar. The West has been in the early stages of winter
for the last 4 or 5 years (although we have been protected from seeing the
full effects of this by government economic polices, especially in the
USA).
In terms of the impact on the stock markets, spring and
autumn are very positive, summer is fairly neutral and winter is
disastrous. The last complete winter season that we endured took in the
Wall Street Crash and the Great Recession. If you work back from that then
the cycle has been pretty constant as far as data is reliable (probably
around 1000 years in Europe). For instance the previous winter season in
the West took in the great US deflation from the 1860s to the 1880s, and
was followed by a spring, summer and autumn cycle that lasted into the
late 1920s.
All of which rather begs the question - if this is so
predictable why hasn’t anything been done about it? Partly it’s
because the cycle reflects the inevitable nature of capitalism and
mercantilism - if we want our good years, we do have to pay for them in
the long run - you can’t have a boom without a bust.
It also reflects the fact that the policy makers in all
countries exaggerate these same flaws, although we probably do get the
policy makers that we deserve. If a candidate had stood in the US
elections of 2000 on the platform of “America needs a short sharp
recession now so that we can ensure that the winter season is as mild and
brief as possible” he would have stood little chance against a platform
of “We can keep this boom going a while longer as long as you don’t
worry about the aftermath,” which is why both main candidates stood for
economic policies that echoed this latter - although the Bush ticket was
undoubtedly the more willing of the two (both in 2000 and 2004) to adopt
aggressive policies that ramped up the short term most at greatest long
term economic cost.
Former IMF consultant and Financial Sector Specialist
of the World Bank Richard Duncan describes in detail (Richard Duncan: The
Dollar Crisis - Causes - Consequences - Cures) how the US economic growth
of the last 20 years has been fuelled by credit (Fed policy has been to
make available sustained easy credit by lowering interest rates to a 40
year low thereby encouraging consumers to take out cheaper mortgage loans
and to spend, spend, spend and then re-mortgage and spend some more!),
thereby creating a total US debt of almost US$40 trillion (more of that
next week).
In other words, long term economic cycles are really
accurate reflections of human nature, which is why they have been so
constant throughout relatively modern times. Unless people change their
fundamental attitudes to wealth, security and their entire hierarchy of
needs, these trends will almost certainly continue.
So that explains how we allowed ourselves to get in such deep debt.
Next week, we’ll have a more detailed look at this debt and what it
means.
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The above data and research was compiled from sources believed to be
reliable. However, neither MBMG International Ltd nor its officers can accept
any liability for any errors or omissions in the above article nor bear any
responsibility for any losses achieved as a result of any actions taken or not
taken as a consequence of reading the above article. For more information please
contact Graham Macdonald on [email protected]
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Snap Shots: Looking through the lens (darkly)
by Harry Flashman
 Here
we are in the electronic age of digital cameras that are so small they
will fit in your shirt pocket, but there is one factor that has remained
the same since the early days of photography. And that is the lens.
Whether it is film that the image falls on or a garden full of pixels,
that image has to go through the lens.
If you go into the darkroom in any national daily
newspaper overseas I will wager you will find an old photographer with an
equally old camera. It will be scratched and battered and done the miles,
and so will he. The camera will be stuffed full of outdated technology and
will have manual focussing. It will be tossed into an old camera bag,
apparently carelessly, yet it will produce black and white newspaper
prints that are as sharp as a tack.
My introduction to this school of photography came when
I was offered the contract to write some photography columns for one of
media baron Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers. Part of the deal was free use
of the darkroom.
Up till then, my choice of camera had been Hasselblad
medium format, but it soon became evident that everything in the darkroom
was set up for the usual 35 mm film, so enquiries were made around the pro
suppliers for a new 35 mm camera. One of these outlets had just received
the latest in auto-focus, super electronic 35 mm cameras and left it with
me for appraisal for a month.
On paper it was wonderful. It had programmes on
programmes to cover every conceivable photographic situation. It had a
“brain” that was supposed to understand that you were attempting to
shoot a moving train and would work out the best split second to fire off
the shutter as it follow-focussed. It could automatically “bracket”
the exposures to give one slightly underexposed and another slightly
overexposed compared to the auto exposure setting. It could even remember
what settings had been used to produce the picture.
This piece of gear should have impressed the old
photographers. It didn’t. My pictures weren’t sharp. Reasoning that it
had to be poor technique, for the next week the camera was mounted on a
tripod and lo and behold – the results were still “soft.” Hard
bitten press photographers with outdated equipment were producing the
goods, and the very latest bit of electronic whizzbangery was producing
something which at best could be described as “average.” I was in
despair. Here I was, the “outside” hot-shot, brought in to write
columns on photography and my photos were fuzzy.
I confided in the pictorial editor who threw me an old
Nikon FM2 which had probably seen more rolls of film through it than I’d
had hot dinners. It was well worn. “Try this for a week” was his
reply. So I took the “old” camera away and shot a multitude of photos.
Off to the darkroom and guess what? Every one as sharp as a tack. The
super electronic marvel was returned and I bought some second hand Nikon
equipment, and never regretted it since. In fact, old Nikons are still
part of my camera equipment.
So what was the difference? Well, the end result will
always rely on super sharp optics in the lens department. If the lens is
not spot on, neither will your photos. The actual exposure values are
close enough for just about any camera these days, so the real differences
now come down to just how good is the lens!
The important lesson from all that is that to get good results you need
a camera that has good optics. There are plenty on the market these days,
and although the Nikon brand may be my favourite, there are other
manufacturers which have equally as sharp good glass at the front.
Unfortunately, the results from these great cameras can become poor if you
put a cheap “after market” lens on it. Good lenses are expensive, but
the end result is worth it.
Modern Medicine: Work is the curse of the drinking classes!
by Dr. Iain Corness, ConsultantOne
of the lesser known medical specialties is Occupational Medicine. This is
the study of worker health, how the workplace affects health, the
man-machine interface, industrial exposure to contaminants and many other
occupational hazards. One example of occupationally induced conditions is
known as ‘Vibration White Fingers’ and comes under the general umbrella
of an interesting set of conditions known as Raynaud’s phenomenon.
Since doctors like to have conditions named after them,
Raynaud’s phenomenon comes from Dr. Maurice Raynaud, a French physician
who published a report in 1862 of a young woman whose fingertips changed
colors when she was cold or under stress. He is credited with the discovery
of the condition. Thank you Dr. Raynaud!
Raynaud’s phenomenon, sometimes called Raynaud’s
syndrome or disease, is a disorder of blood circulation in the fingers. This
condition is usually produced by exposure to cold which reduces blood
circulation causing the fingers to become pale, waxy-white or purple. This
condition is sometimes called “white finger”, “wax finger” or
“dead finger”. These attacks occur when the hands or the whole body get
cold either at work or at home. Ordinary activities resulting in cold
exposure can include washing a car, holding a cold steering wheel, or the
cold handlebars of a bicycle. Attacks of white finger can also occur when a
person is outdoors watching sports, or while gardening, fishing or golfing
in cold weather.
Typical attacks occur with tingling and slight loss of
feeling or numbness in the fingers, blanching or whitening of the fingers,
usually without affecting the thumb, and pain, sometimes with redness, which
accompanies the return of blood circulation generally after 30 minutes to
two hours.
Many cases of Raynaud’s phenomenon are such that we
cannot identify the cause. To escape the embarrassment of admitting that we
just don’t know, we call this “primary Raynaud’s phenomenon” or even
“constitutional” white finger. However, when we do know the occupational
cause of Raynaud’s phenomenon we call it “secondary Raynaud’s
phenomenon”!
In the occupational sphere, there are many causes of this
secondary condition. It is most commonly associated with hand-arm vibration
syndrome but it is also involved in other occupational diseases. Awareness
of the condition can help prevent the disorder from occurring or
progressing, as if not detected in the early stages, the disorder can
permanently impair blood circulation in the fingers.
Exposure to vibration from power tools is by far the
greatest concern in secondary Raynauds. Hand-held power tools such as chain
saws, jackhammers and pneumatic rock drillers and chippers can cause
“hand-arm vibration syndrome”. This disorder is the “vibration white
finger”, “hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS)”, or “secondary
Raynaud’s phenomenon of occupational origin.” In early years, before the
cancer-causing effects of vinyl chloride monomer were known, workers exposed
to high levels of this chemical also experienced Raynaud’s phenomenon.
Although Raynaud’s phenomenon is not life threatening,
severe cases cause disability and may force workers to leave their jobs and
workman’s compensation issues may end up in courts of law. Although rare,
severe cases can lead to breakdown of the skin and gangrene. Less severely
affected workers sometimes have to change their social activities and work
habits to avoid attacks of white finger.
The underlying cause relates to the physiology of
maintaining an even body temperature. Usually, the body conserves heat by
reducing blood circulation to the extremities, particularly the hands and
feet. This response uses a complex system of nerves and muscles to control
blood flow through the smallest blood vessels in the skin. In people with
Raynaud’s phenomenon, this control system becomes too sensitive to cold
and greatly reduces blood flow in the fingers.
So that is the story of Raynaud’s phenomenon.
Fortunately, in our warm tropical climate it is rarely seen, other than the
occupational secondary variety.
 Heart to Heart with Hillary
Dear Hillary,
I have been reading your columns for many years and can see that you have a
sweet tooth. Every week there’s you crying for champagne and chocolates.
Have you got any teeth left? Have you ever been stopped for driving with too
much champagne? Honest answer, please. I’ll still love you even if you
have.
Don the Dentist
Dear Don the Dentist,
What a sweet man you are, and let me assure you that I still have a full
mouth of teeth; however, I have to admit that not all of them are originals.
But a couple still are. My dentist says it’s because I have chalky teeth,
and since I always clean my teeth after choccie chewing, it’s nothing to
do with the chocolate. Yes, my Petal, I do love champagne, or the sparkling
‘methode champenoise’ from other wine growing regions, and I can
honestly say I have lived in many countries but I have never been arraigned
for drinking and driving over the limit. And what about you, Don the
Dentist? Do you still have as many teeth as you once had, and what about
driving? You have to be honest too!
Dear Hillary,
Beats me how all these blokes get themselves into so much trouble with the
local girls. Surely they know that their most important feeture (sic) lies
in their trousers, and its not in the crutch, but in the pockets. Don’t
they know it after all this time? Who would go out with these sad sacks if
they weren’t being paid? Somebody called them the “living dead” and I
reckon that’s about the best they would be. The local girls will soon
finnish (sic) them off, or at least their bank accounts.
Bar room Bert
Dear Bar room Bert,
Aren’t you the high and mighty one? So what if these “living dead” as
you and your friends call them are getting a little fun and excitement in
their lives, even if it is towards the end. At last count there were no
pockets in shrouds, so they can’t take it with them. Why not have a little
fun, even if they are paying for it? In their own countries, they can’t
even pay for some fun, as all the moralists come down on such an idea. When
you look at it all, without putting some sort of judgment on it, it is a
win-win situation all round. He gets looked after, while she gets money to
send home to mother who will be looking after the baby left to her by the
boyfriend who ran away as soon as he knew she was pregnant. It may not be
the ideal situation, Bert, but we live in an imperfect world. Just like your
spelling. Learn to live and let live, Petal.
Dear Hillary,
You have quoted many times in your answers to the hopeless people who write
to you that “You don’t lose your girl, you only lose your turn”. Is
this really true? Is this how the farangs see the Thai women? I think it is
disgusting, and we would never let this kind of thing happen in England.
Somehow this place turns them into animals. Why?
Just sign me Disgusted
Dear Just sign me Disgusted,
Maybe the reason that Thailand makes animals of your men is that you keep
them caged up in your country and when they come here it is like being let
off the leash. These downtrodden men now think they have found the Garden of
Eden. I also take exception to your referring to my letter writers as
“hopeless people”. After all, you have written in too. Are you
“hopeless” as well? I think it is time you took Sense of Humor classes,
before it is too late, though it may be, when I read your letter again.
Dear Hillary,
The other day you gave advice to some poor chap who had loaned money to a
bar girl and more or less said that he was foolish. Surely you have been in
love at some stage in your life, Hillary. By the end of the night he was
probably seeing the finest girl he had ever seen in the whole world. Why
shouldn’t he loan her some money? I’d be interested to know just how
many run off with the money and how many give it back. Do you know, Hillary?
Barstool Bill
Dear Barstool,
You work it out! You are the one in the area to do the research. I certainly
have been in and out of love frequently (depending on who was buying the
champagne, and what vintage it was), but never was the amount of time I have
spent sitting and drinking on a barstool been the measure of my affections.
Hillary is not a miser either and will often contribute to renowned lost
causes. Like buying bananas for the elephants or giving, not loaning, a bar
girl 100 baht to buy noodles for herself and her friends. There is a
difference. When you view the world through your beer glasses, you end up
with a distorted view on life and often with an empty wallet as well.
Whether or not it gets re-filled is another question. Ask your friends on
the other barstools.
Psychological Perspectives: Lessons of the South Korean
stem cell research scandal
by Michael Catalanello,
Ph.D.
The world of scientific research has been
rocked by the recent revelations of fraud by a South Korean medical
researcher. According to investigators, stem cell researcher Woo Suk Hwang
lied and falsified research when claiming that he had cloned human embryos
and extracted stem cells genetically matched to patients. Hwang’s
research was published last May in the prestigious American journal, Science.
The journal editors are expected to publish a retraction of the report.
The story represents a huge embarrassment to the Korean
people, who had regarded Hwang as a national hero. It is, likewise, a
tremendous disappointment to those hoping that the achievements of the team
of South Korean medical researchers might eventually result in the
development of revolutionary new treatments for such debilitating
conditions as spinal cord injury and Parkinson’s disease. In addition,
the apparently unethical activities of this investigator might be viewed as
tarnishing the reputation of other scientific investigators in the field of
stem cell research.
Episodes of misconduct like this are not unknown in
science. Perhaps the most famous is that of the so-called “Piltdown
man.” Piltdown was the site of an archaeological find in England. In 1908
and 1912 human, ape and other mammal fossils were found in close proximity
at Piltdown. British anthropologists subsequently became convinced that
fossils discovered at a nearby site in 1913 represented a single individual
possessing a human cranium and an ape’s jaw.
This find was interpreted as evidence favoring one
particular theory of human evolution over a competing one at the time. In
1953, however, the find was determined to have been a forgery. The skull
was shown to be that of a modern human, while the jaw had come from an ape.
The teeth had been deliberately filed down to give them a more human
appearance. The identity of the forger was never determined with certainty.
It might seem surprising when scientists are involved in
misconduct, particularly one as egregious as this. Perhaps our surprise
when episodes of scientific misconduct come to light stems from a basic
misunderstanding within modern societies about the nature of science, and
of scientists. We live, after all, in a world transformed by spectacular
technological advances. Revolutionary progress has been made in fields of
medicine, transportation, communications, space travel and warfare, to name
a few. We generally attribute such advances to the progress in our
understanding of the world ushered in by modern scientists.
Revolutionary scientific and technological achievements
of our time have created a sort of “halo-effect” around scientists and
their work. The popular image of the scientist is that of a dispassionate
and ethical observer of nature, who dutifully abides by strict ethical
codes of conduct, one who operates unaffected by the political, social,
economic, religious, cultural forces around him/her. This image is,
however, unrealistic.
Scientists are, in fact, human beings. Like the rest of
us, they possess human traits, prejudices and biases. They are subject to
errors in judgment, sloppiness, and incompetence. They can be lazy, greedy,
and ambitious. They are capable of being wise or just plain ignorant.
Scientists operate in an extremely competitive and
materialistic world. Most academics are subject to powerful pressures to
“publish or perish.” The competition for the limited funds available
for scholarly research can be fierce. Research agendas are often dictated
by political and social priorities, passing professional trends, and
economic incentives. Scientists can be bought and sold by commercial and
other special interests.
The humanity of scientists is nothing new, nor is the imperfection of
the societies in which they operate. Nevertheless, science endures and
prospers. Unfortunate events like the stem cell research and Piltdown man
scandals, in the long run, demonstrate the very characteristics that enable
science to survive, despite errors and adversities. Unlike other knowledge
bases, science is a self-correcting enterprise. It has the unique capacity
to critically examine its own activities, to scrutinize its practitioners,
to renounce flawed research, to correct errors, to revise or replace faulty
theories. In this way, science can continue to advance, despite the
limitations and shortcomings of its celebrated, illustrious, yet fallible
human practitioners.
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Dr. Catalanello is a licensed psychologist in his home State of Louisiana, USA, and a member of the Faculty of Liberal Arts at Asian University,
Chonburi. You may address questions and comments to him at [email protected], or post on his weblog at
http://asianupsych.blogspot.com
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A Female Perspective: Christmas and the New Year
with Sharona Watson I
love Christmas. In fact I’ll celebrate anything that will make me happy.
Having said that, I was not born to the faith, which every year celebrates
the arrival into the world of their messiah. But I was born in the land
where it all happened a couple of thousand years ago. Bethlehem, which is a
Palestinian town, is only about fifty kilometres from where I lived for the
first ten years of my life. It used to be as much as eighty percent
Christian (Arab) but this has changed a lot, especially in the last fifty
years or so and now it is about forty percent Christian, sixty percent
Muslim.
But I have only ever been there once. Religiously,
politically and socially, I never had any reason to go there. It’s not
part of my country, I’m not Christian and until we lived in Jerusalem we
didn’t have any friends there. Soon, it became a bit too dangerous to go
there. Although it’s only about twenty minutes drive from the centre of
Jerusalem, there is a lot of high security around Bethlehem. Israel has
built a huge wall (which I disagree with by the way) which mentally at
least, makes it more difficult to go there.
The only time I did go there, before the millennium,
everybody was in high spirits, thinking the economy was going to boom
because peace looked possible. Only one year later, this hope had fallen
apart. It was terrible. Children in the international school who lived in
Bethlehem used to be late because of all the road blocks and they would
bring photographs of huge holes in their houses made by shells.
From outside the religion, I thought this was not really
what Jesus stands for. Andy (my husband) used to keep on going with the
children. But he’s a Christian so I suppose it means something more to
him. One thing I do agree with though is what Andy says about Christianity,
“The greatest single cause of atheism is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus
with their lips, go out the door and deny him by their lifestyles.”
It’s a bit like the tsunami, which when you are tucking
into your turkey and drinking wine, can be easy to forget. But you don’t
have to be a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim to remember to think about all
the people who are still affected by this natural disaster, or a man-made
disaster, like the situation in the country I come from. I thought that
apart from all the carol singing, this was what Christmas was meant to be
about? Not just giving presents but the whole “giving” thing. But
speaking (as Andy insists on calling me) as a “three day a year Jew”
(two at Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year), one at Yom Kippur) this feeling of
“giving” is meant to last the whole year, right? Giving to someone else
that is, not to yourself!
When I first experienced Christmas in a foreign country,
England, I couldn’t believe it! Every house seemed to have a Christmas
tree and lights were everywhere. It looked very beautiful. Then one day Andy
brought home a tree and I refused to accept it into the house, on account
that it was a Christian symbol. (No offence but people still remember the
crusades where I come from, which weren’t very positive for the Jews or
Muslims). I married a Christian, what more do you want?
Looking back it was quite funny. Andy asked his parents
to help explain that the Christmas tree has no religious significance at
all. Now, it makes perfect sense when I think of it as a Pagan ritual. To
bring a tree in the darkest part of the year to celebrate midwinter and the
greenery that will come in spring. Maybe it helped that London was so damn
cold! So now, in Thailand, where everything is hot and green all year round,
it’s kind of funny to put the tree up. All the films seem to show
Christmas as a time when everything is covered in snow. Here, all I can see
out of my window is the sea.
What I do love is that Christmas is a wonderful time of
year when the whole family gets together and is merry. Let’s hope we
haven’t forgotten to buy anybody a present! Then there’s the Christmas
dinner, the turkey with cranberry sauce, roast potatoes, bread sauce,
sausages wrapped in bacon. Lovely! But have you ever thought about how much
work it is to get everything ready? Who cleans up? Who washes the dishes?
In England, I was completely shocked. Andy is one of four
boys and his dad is just another lad and when I first arrived it was only
Andy’s mum and his aunt who did anything! I remember that after lunch,
there were these five lazy guys slopping on the sofa whilst I was helping
the other two ladies in the kitchen. Well, that lasted about two minutes. In
no time at all, there were three women relaxing and the boys were doing the
washing up! And it’s been the same ever since. Later we would play Trivial
Pursuit or Monopoly or a game like that.
Over here I bought a wonderful Turkey ready cooked from
Yorkie’s. I still had to cook the potatoes and vegetables but it was fine.
We had a lovely day.
New Year parties are great fun too. The next morning is
usually quite difficult though! I’m looking forward to next year already,
putting down some real roots in Thailand. We’ll start by watching Andy’s
interview with the Israeli Ambassador, Her Excellency Yael Rubinstein, on
“Perspectives”. It sounds like she is a very beautiful person. Certainly
she believes in a real and just peace with the Palestinians. Then next week
we’ll get down to some work. Planning, making resolutions for the year. I
know what I’d like from Andy. A bit more gallantry.
Next week: Gallantry
[email protected]
Language Works: Romanisation: Part 1
Is Karaoke Thai the Future of Romanisation?
by Ian Smith
The
Mess
One of the gripes about Thailand that you commonly hear
from foreign residents, as well as many Thais, concerns the chaotic
Romanisation of Thai words.
For those unfamiliar with the term, Romanisation means
transcribing Thai words (or words from any non-Roman alphabet for that
matter) into the Roman alphabet – that is our “ABCs”. You will also
come across the terms “transcription” and “transliteration” used to
mean roughly the same thing.
While some of the weird transcriptions of Thai words can
be a source of great amusement, they do cause real problems for people.
Tourists get lost because a street name or other landmark changes spelling
quite radically from one sign to the next. Thai students going to study
overseas need to have their school records changed, because the officer
preparing their passport decides to use a different Romanised spelling of
their name to that on their ID cards.
Part of the chaos is caused by the number of different
systems out there. It is not so much a case of no standards, as a case of
too many! It seems as if everyone that writes about the Thai language feels
that he or she can improve on all of the existing systems.
So this week, let’s try to unravel the mess a little.
We will have a look at some of the different systems out there; their
strengths and weaknesses. Next week, I’ll take a more detailed look at the
Royal Thai Institute’s General System of Transcription (RTGS), and why I
will use it in this column, despite its shortfalls.
The Graphic System
The Graphic System was perhaps the first system for the
Romanisation of Thai that had been properly thought through. It was proposed
by His Majesty King Vajiravudh (Rama VI) in a 1912 article called “The
Romanisation of Siamese words”.
The Graphic System resembles the English writing system
in one important aspect: it is more concerned with the heritage of a word
than its pronunciation. Think of words that English has borrowed from other
languages. “Quay”, “chemist” and “catsup” are examples of words
that reflect the spelling and pronunciation of their original languages.
They give little indication of modern English pronunciation.
What His Majesty was proposing with the Graphic System
was to do just this with words that Thai has borrowed from Pali, Sanskrit
and other languages. An example that you can see throughout Thailand is
campuses of the Ratchamangala Institute of Technology. In the more modern
RTGS system, Ratchamangala would be written Ratchamonkon, which better
reflects modern pronunciation.
I must admit I rather like the Graphic System for
important place names. Suvarnabhumi Airport gives travellers an immediate
impression of what a wonderfully exotic country they are about to visit.
Phrasebooks and Guidebooks
The most common pitfall with many of the systems that you
find in phrasebooks and guidebooks stems from the claim that they transcribe
Thai “as you pronounce it”. What the authors should be saying is that
they transcribe Thai as they pronounce it.
Even assuming that the authors are native English
speakers of one variety or another, it is highly unlikely that their vowel
sounds are much like mine – unless they happen to have grown up in Perth,
Australia, in a middle-middle-class family that had recently moved there
from Adelaide.
Take a minute to think about your own accent, and the
kaleidoscope of English accents that we hear around the Kingdom. What are
the chances that your English pronunciation is similar to that of the
authors?
Given that many of these books are, otherwise, very
useful, I can recommend a work-around. Try to find out, or at last resort
guess, where the authors come from. Then do your best to imitate the English
accent from that part of the world as you read. You can produce some quite
passable Thai this way!
Karaoke Thai
Karaoke Thai has fast become the Romanised Thai that both
foreigners and Thais have most exposure to. It has some good features, but
its prime weakness is lack of consistency. I get the feeling that many of
the transcribers are really making it up as they go along.
Having said that, there is a vibrance to Karaoke Thai
that may well stem from the fact that it has developed naturally. It also
seems to be improving with time.
What is particularly noteworthy about Karaoke Thai is its
recent spread out of Karaoke bars into Internet chat-rooms. With its
increasing popularity as compared to other systems, perhaps, in time, the
record companies will manage to do what no one else has done: impose a
single consistent Romanisation system throughout Thailand. It could well be
the future.
As it stands though, the inadequacies and inconsistencies
of Karaoke Thai limit its use for even semi-serious discussion of the Thai
Language. We turn then to the Royal Thai Institute for help.
The Royal Thai Institute
Systems
The Royal Thai Institute first published the
“Romanization Guide for the Thai Script” in 1932, in which it proposed
two systems: the Royal Thai Precise System and the Royal Thai General System
(RTGS). It has been refining both systems ever since, and the RTGS has, in
recent years, become an ISO standard, which augurs well for its future.
Two systems? Don’t we
have too many already?
For once, there is a very good answer to this question.
The Precise System and the General System have quite different,
complementary purposes.
The Precise System was designed for serious students of
the Thai language. To be honest I am not very familiar with it, but have
read that it fulfils its purpose very well - precisely in fact! For those
that take the time and effort to learn its code, it clearly shows the
important features of standard Thai pronunciation.
The main reason that the Precise System has never caught
on is that most serious students of the Thai language learn the Thai writing
system anyway.
The General System is just the opposite. It was not
designed for serious students of Thai, but for a very broad group of more
casual Thai users, from tourists and business people to foreign government
officials both here and overseas, all with diverse mother-tongues.
These people are unwilling to spend time learning the
complexities of the Precise System. They need a system that takes little or
no effort to learn, and gets all of them somewhere near to the correct
pronunciation.
How well does the General System achieve its Mission
Impossible? We will have to leave a discussion of that until next week.
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