“Oktober Fest’s” French connection

Kim Caula (centre), Chancelier President of the Chaine des Rotisseurs, presents a certificate of appreciation to Naresh Desing (right), Manager of Bavaria House 2 and their German chef Wolfgang Hölscher.

Since Pattaya became a city, it has been well known throughout the country for it’s many exclusive member clubs. Not those clubs, the respectable, well reputed ones. One of them, the French originated Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, a well established club for gourmets and gourmands, held an Oktober Fest Party for the first time.
To give it the right atmosphere and - very import - to serve original food and play original music, the party was held at the Bavaria House 2 on Second Road. Mr. Naresh Desing, Manager of Bavaria House 2, is not an original Bavarian, but he has lived long enough in Bavaria and in Switzerland to know how to create the right atmosphere to fulfil all expectations.
The food, even though this time not French, was very good and plentiful. At the opening, many guests were seen gazing at the food, and as soon as Mr. Joachim Caula, the “Chancelier President” of the Club, announced the opening of the buffet after his speech, all the guests stormed in to fill their plates with Oktober Fest specialities.
Beer in mugs was served, along with wine presented by Mr. Gago of Penrode Company of Australia to give the event a little French touch. It’s no wonder that after several mugs of beer or glasses of wine, everybody had a very great time.
In-between all the fun, Mr. Caula presented awards to the Chef and to the Manager of Bavaria House to thank them for their outstanding work and service.
In Munich, the Oktoberfest closes exactly at 11:00 PM - but not the Oktoberfest of the Chaine de Rotisseurs. People who usually go home quite early stayed long after “closing” to enjoy themselves.
A big thanks to Mr. Caula, Mr. Naresh and the Chef for another very successful and enjoyable event. Well done, gentlemen! Au revoir and Pfüat Euch!
Notice to Chaine members: The dinner originally scheduled for November 25 at Bruno’s Restaurant has been postponed until December 2, 1996 at Bruno’s Restaurant. On December 2, a special VIP guest from the Bailliage de La Cote D’Or, Australia, Mr. Alec E. Allison, Bailli Regional, will be present. On this evening, the Bailliage de La Cote D’Or and the Bailliage de Pattaya will be joining a Jumbelage between their Chapters. In a small ceremony, both Chapters will exchange certificates. This will be a special event that all Chaine Members should attend.

Bavaria House II Chef Wolfgang Hölscher with his award winning cuisine.

Ending Buddhist Lent

By Kittisak Khamthong

In an earlier article we talked about Khao Pansa, or the beginning of Buddhist lent, when all monks had to be cloistered.
During this period The Lord Buddha ascended to the Daowadeung level of heaven on a silver staircase. This was to visit his mother Sirimahamaya, in the celestial world, for three months.
On the 14th or 15th day of the waxing moon in the eleventh month, The Lord Buddha descended back to the human world on a golden staircase.
All of the faithful would gather at Holy Mount Meru and wait for his return. They prepared many offerings for The Lord Buddha. The faithful would prepare a special rice which they put in long wooden tubes. This was because, since there were so many faithful, it was often difficult to get near enough to The Lord Buddha to put offerings in his bowl. People would throw these very long tubes of rice towards The Lord Buddha’s bowl and if they did not go in the sticks could be retrieved and another attempt could be made. From this came the name Wan Tak Bart Thevo. This day has been a very important holy day ever since those times.
After this day, which became known as Oork Pansa, and the Lord Buddha allowed monks to leave the temples for another nine months, until the next Khao Phansa.

Pattaya International Ladies Club October Fayre

Celia Waters of the PILC Granny’s attic booth could sell ice to an eskimo with that smile.

The P.I.L.C. October Fayre, held at the Montien Hotel, attracted a large number of vendors and shoppers and proved to be as successful as the past few such Fayres have been.
There were 22 stalls selling everything from carpets to Christmas decorations. Business from Bangkok and other parts of Thailand were there as well as 9 local charity stalls.
The day started at 10 a.m. and business was brisk as over 200 people came to buy Christmas cards, gifts, jewellery, exotic coffee, silk items, carpets, decorations, ornamental soaps and fruit baskets, and numerous other exciting and unusual things that were for sale.
The A.N.D. home shopping team were present with a huge selection of bargain items, and P.I.L.C. thanks them for their support.

Sisters of Good Shepherd with their clothing and cards, which were made by the Fatima self help centre.

P.I.L.C. received a donation in goods from every stall and these items will all be raffled at the P.I.L.C. Christmas lunch in December, with all proceeds going to charities.
The Montien Hotel will also be giving a donation to the P.I.L.C. for their charity fund (thank you for the help in this project).
To all vendors and local charities that made the day so enjoyable, P.I.L.C. says thank you for your donations of prizes and all your wonderful goods which seemed to bring the festive spirit to Pattaya on a wet day in October.
The amount raised for the day was 36,000 baht and with money from the Christmas lunch raffle, this amount could exceed 40,000 baht, so a very worthwhile day for all concerned, even though all went home tired.
P.I.L.C. says a special thanks to Celia and all her team, keep up with the good work, you do a great job helping the local charities and getting involved with the local community.
Vendors and their products included: Arlette Cykman (jewellery and decorations), Khun Wanna (soap cosmetics), Susan Race (cards), Janneke Ariesen (silk), Khun Vilai (miscellaneous), Wan Bell (silver), Brian Robson - A.N.D. Shopping (misc. products), Chantal Colmant - Sisters of Good Shepherd (clothing and cards), Jo Pall - Fountain of Life (cards), Claudia Kennedy (PILC exotic coffee), Celia Waters (PILC Granny’s attic), Tiew (veggies, quilts, rice paper, etc.), Guddi Sethi (silks and ornamental fruit baskets), Shirley Rice & Val Mallinder (Huey Pong Home - flowers, crochet), Fatima Sisters of the Good Shepherd - Dirginie (Christmas decorations), Carolina Wang (Christmas decorations), Darlim (inexpensive jewellery and ornaments), Sylvie Oyomba (Kenyan bags, jewellery), Franza, JTK Resources (Sop Mogi Arts, silk cotton stuff), Bob Nizza (non-authentic jewellery), Mr. Raza - friend of Dar Lims (carpets), Khun Rotjana - Duan Prateep Foundation (greeting cards).

Thai wedding ceremonies, part one

by Sarawut Krasaekarn

Rural weddings in the Isarn region take many forms. But there are many similarities too.
Thai people like to have fun, eat drink and laugh at myriad festivals. Any festival. Chinese New Year, Christmas, Songkran, wedding celebrations, divorce celebrations. This of course has some effect on the standards of these proceedings, as Thai people suffer from ‘Festival Promiscuity’. In, short eat and drink however much there is. When it’s gone, then worry about not having any.
A good example of this is Isarn region wedding ceremonies. It begins with the boy and girl, usually meeting at a temple fair. Then custom complicates the whole thing. There usually is a creepy guy who has an obsession with her and the suitor usually gets beaten up by him at least once.
Some parents don’t like the boy and think he’s not suitable for their daughter who is as beautiful as a Chinese opera star. But what can you do once love has bloomed and hormones flow? If the parents don’t give in and the couple refuse to kill themselves in a love death, they usually run away together.
The family members come down with group headaches as it ruins the family name and causes great damage to the girl’s reputation. Then they give in and the true marriage customs begin.
But first, the girl’s relatives go to the boy’s family and plead for the boy to marry her to save the family. Does the boy really love her?
Then, when the boy’s family has OK’d all this, they have to go to the girl’s family. (This is the way it was supposed to be in the first place.)
They must request the girl for the boy. There is much discussion of the bride price and the amount of gold to be presented. They ask how much the girl wants. (She has nothing to say about this though. It’s the selfish adults who try to get as much from, or pay as little to, the other family as possible. She’s usually sitting in the back room of the house biting her nails.)
These negotiations sometimes take days. During the discussion, (or marital poker fake-out) it is not strange that that social lubricant, illegal whiskey, flows in enchanting rivers during the course of these arguments, uh, negotiations. This gives a warm glow and promotes friendship between the two families and they come to a ‘bargain’ agreement.
The bride price must always end with 9 as it is considered the luckiest of numbers. No receipt is given for these monies.
The bride’s mother and father put this money deep in their pockets. Don’t mistake this for greed. The girl’s mother and father have spent so many years and money raising her, they gotta get some of it back.
Then horoscopes must be calculated to search for an auspicious day for the wedding.
The young couple then wait pantingly for the big day. The time goes very slowly (in the betrothed’s minds, at least). The ceremony is performed by the most religious person in the village.
Finally, everything in the house is prepared. The day before the wedding, everyone comes to ‘help’. Food is prepared. Village elders prepare holy offerings on trays bound with cotton. Animals, such as a cow, a pig, a duck and a chicken, give their lives to be sustenance for people engaged in such a solemn ceremony.
Liquor is hauled out by the cask as one must feel great joy at the marriage of their beloved offspring.
When the time has come the groom, dressed in traditional Thai clothes, is followed by a procession of men beating a long drum. People dance, yodel and much merrymaking occurs. By this time, most of the guests are healthily sozzled. This is a result of the famous ‘bottle dance’, in which people demonstrate their skills at dancing with large jugs of liquor in their hands. Before the groom sees the bride, he is corralled with string by the elders of the village and covered with cotton to make him their son-in-law.
When they reach the bride’s house the excitement increases. The moth browed maiden is waiting with a bride’s offering for the spirits, a beautiful offertory exquisitely decorated with flowers. Next to the bride sits the bride’s maid who by tradition must be a virgin and never touched by the hand of lust.
Some guests don’t go home for four or five days after the ceremony. This causes considerable hardship to the hosts as by now all the food, liquor and money is gone, and they’re probably in debt with the local general store.
The wedding is not done.
Even moving a finger in Thailand has some kind of social meaning.
The nuptials are not finished. There is yet more to come.

Operation SOS Rice continues this weekend

SOS children’s Foundation will be holding Operation SOS Rice in Pattaya and the surrounding region from Friday, November 1 until Sunday, November 3. The goal of the operation is to collect over 10,000 kilos of rice which will be donated to the homes run by Father Ray Brennan. SOS will have rice collection stands set up at the entrance to all main shopping centres in the area from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Then on Sunday, after 3 p.m., the operation will be wrapped up with a programme put on by the children of the orphanage.
All the rice collected will be donated to the Pattaya Orphanage, the Deaf Mute School, the School for the Handicapped, and the School for Street Children. Currently, Father Ray uses about 100 kilos of rice per day to feed around 600 people.
SOS has been running this program all October, and have stated that the first 20 days have been a great success. Many different activities have provided rice for the orphanage, enabling SOS to have collected over ten tons of rice. But its not over yet.
The Francophone Women’s Society of Pattaya, organisers of the event, have stated that they need and hope to have a lot of people on the 1-3 of November to be at the 7 booths at the various supermarkets in the city. They will be needed to take care of the children that Father Raymond is bringing and who will give performances in traditional costumes and give out brochures.
Thai nationals are also needed to man the microphones and encourage people to donate. People are also needed to collect and weigh the rice, and registrars are needed to note the names of those who give 50 kilograms of more of rice.
The Francophone Women’s Society of Pattaya and SOS have asked the public to please talk with your neighbours, friends and colleagues. For those who work for large companies in Pattaya, please try to pool your resources to donate to this good cause.
Father Raymond Brennan wishes to thank all the organisers and generous patrons who have participated so far.
The program at the Sigma Hotel on Sunday, November 3 (Admission Free):
11:00 Arrival of 30 orphans with hotel personnel
13:00 Boules Game
16:00 Parachute jump by Patrick and the Royal Marine Corps
17:00 Cabaret Show from the Wellkom Inn
20:00 Belote Game
Food and drink and good companionship.