Dear Editor,

I could not believe the most current letter I read from a Nick Fisher in your 06-30-00 edition regarding the “salty” language he heard being used by US Navy personnel who were on a well deserved shore leave after a joint Thai/US operation. This letter reeked of a person just jumping on the “slam” USA bandwagon. The same with the fellow yacking about shirtless Americans walking the South Pattaya streets. You know I have not seen what he’s talking about.

Most GIs I have seen on shore leave were pretty clean cut. They were shaved, had short hair and were wearing clean and neat clothing. They spend a lot of money in the local shops. Take a walk downtown right now with them gone and you’ll see other non Americans on motorbikes without shirts as well as walking around the streets with huge beer guts hanging out with no shirt. A lot our ex pats.

I would strongly suggest that Mr. Fisher as well as the other gentleman who wrote in the week earlier frequent another area not so populated by the servicemen during there well deserved and earned few days of leave in Pattaya.

They normally just hang around the South Pattaya waterfront and stand bars. Where was Mr. Fisher hanging out that he did not expect to hear this language? He has the option of visiting another area a bit more sophisticated. It just sounds like another slam at the US Military.

Please remember that there will always be a problem with people on Holiday but swearing isn’t worth the paper it was printed on. I was just thumbing through the Pattaya Mail and observed that once again and its almost every time the US Military is in town that they have donated precious time, money, or material goods to the less fortunate in this Community that they just about put on the map in the first place. I reside in Pattaya throughout the year and see the walking street during several different time periods. It seems to me that most younger vacationing males seem to all act the same way while on a Holiday . A holiday that they have saved their hard earned money to go on. Let them be without judging them. If they are out of line the local police will deal with them.

On this 4th of July I want to say that I am very proud to me a retired American Serviceman who would have gone to war to protect a smaller Nation that some of these complainers come from. With a military as big as the entire population of some of these whiners very own towns and cities, there are going to be problems. There is a strong and severe judicial system in place for those who go astray. However I don’t know if they will ‘Court martial’ for salty language on the walking street.

USA

Dear Editor,

Peter Cummings brands Europeans as warmongers, in relation to splitting the atom. All this in an article on New Zealand. His history and politics are a little suspect and his geography is very confused. The technology was with many people particularly Europeans well before 1944 (the date he suggests). It was the American government funded project that completed the first chain reaction and eventually the first nuclear bomb. No European country has ever used one in spite of the ability and often justification (if there is one). Why blame Europeans? New Zealand is a product of European enterprise, particularly British enterprise. Some of the indigenous population still are not happy about that. But it is many of the New Zealander’s mentioned in the article that profited from it.

Rutherford may have split the atom but he received more than his title from Europe. It contributed to his education and life style. I appreciate the article may have been ‘tongue in cheek’ but you can’t do that in a Thai based newspaper. Many people reading this will not know the facts and could believe it. It adds to the myth that those who win wars must be the ones that start them. New Zealand is as much European as The USA or Australia.

I understand that New Zealand has a shortage of teachers at present so this may have an effect. Lets face it, if an English navigator from North Yorkshire had sailed a few miles south we would still be looking for the place, and all those sheep would live in England.

North York’s

Captain Cook Country

Dear sir,

As a regular reader of your newspaper and some one who works and resides here in Pattaya, I feel that I must bring to your newspapers and readers attention something that happened to me the other evening whilst on my way home from a farewell social event in honour of a friends return to the UK.

After I left a well known drinking establishment to catch a song tau (Baht bus) home, I walked along the main South Pattaya Road, close to walking street, which is well lit and supposedly relatively safe to walk. As I crossed over the road to hail a song tau I was approached by what I thought was a Katoey, asking if I wanted the usual after hours entertainment. I turned down his/her offer and turned to walk away. I had stopped for approximately 10 seconds, and as I turned to walk away, I noticed her hand in my pocket. I grabbed her arm and pulled it out of my pocket to find that she was clutching the remains of my money from the evening out. I told her to let go of it, but she then continued to attack me, first kneeing me where I would rather not mention. Secondly, she started to wrestle with me crying out for police. I shouted ‘Yes please fetch the police and we can sort this out quickly’. We fell on the floor still wrestling, I was determined not to allow her to blantantly rob me in full view of others now gathering. I held on to her neck with one hand and trying to yank the money away with my other hand. I was also aware of other Katoeys approaching, so I was conscious of possible repercussions, so I hurried my actions and managed to pull free my money. I wanted to make sure that I did this before they got any nearer and before she could open her handbag, in case she was hiding anything inside. I was also aware that some one had been stabbed a few weeks earlier by one of these night walkers and I was determined not to be the next. Furthermore, if she had managed to get her bag open and put the money in there, it would have been impossible for me to prove that she had taken it from me. Luckily, I managed to get back my money with little more than a bruised lip and a sore manhood. On returning home, my wife asked why I had not gone to the police. I replied that because of the way I felt, I may not have been able to control myself should they do nothing to assist me. Upon reflection, I realise that I was indeed very lucky, as I could have come off far worse. If I had really gone to town on this robber, I may have done something stupid and ended up in the local nick, or worse still been left lying in the gutter with knife wounds or worse. It is amazing that your life can turn in an instant, one minute enjoying a social event, the next lying face down in the gutter, or in a cell somewhere. Maybe, I should have left her to it, but I feel strongly about being robbed and did not think about the consequences until my return home.

So my message is: not to be a vigilante, or even the opposite, that is to allow these things to go unchallenged, but rather be extra careful. If and when approached, even for a few seconds, stand far enough away from them so that they can not even attempt this type of thing.

Battered & Bruised (Terry) Wong Amat

Dear Sir,

I like Thailand and the Thai sense of humour (I have been to Thailand in the past), I have respect for Thai society, especially compared to its neighbours like Burma or Laos, but Richard Evans‘ letter made me a little confused. I do not know where this guy is from but I suppose he is from USA. That would explain his easy thinking and why he in the fact does not know anything about relationships in Europe, maybe except United Kingdom where a conservative society is still divided into very closed high class, worker class and some other classes.

USA as a country with strong protestant morality (however sometimes it is a little double morality) can be really a little difficult to live for such transgendered persons. However my experiences from New York or San Francisco let me have a little different image of American society. I do not know Bombay but has Richard ever been to Birmingham, London, Vienna, Berlin or Paris? Has he ever seen the Love Parade in Berlin (I invite everyone to see it with their own eyes) and other parades like this original one in the German capital?

Tourists traveling to other cultures try to be nice, especially to people who are proud of their own culture (like Thais in Thailand for example. But to be nice should never mean not to tell the truth. Even if transgendered persons have more freedom here in Thailand than in Burma, China or Laos (I believe it’s true) the fact is that people in Thailand still have to wait to have such freedoms and rights as are available to habitants of Europe or USA, which are available to transgendered, handicapped, the mentally damaged, legal immigrants, men and women, Christian, Buddhists, Muslims...

I wish they will have these freedoms and rights someday in future however I also know they are happy today and maybe there is no need to change today’s status quo. It is up to themselves. Anyway, everyone has his own point of view. And compared to its neighbours Thailand is still a light in a

half-dark room. And I like it anyway.

Sincerely Yours