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Congratulations
Hi to all at Pattaya Mail,
Congratulations on a successful 8 years, and many
wishes for more years to come. Thank you for keeping me up to date on news
and issues in and around Pattaya.
James Monahan, a long time reader
Happy Birthday
Dear Editor & Staff;
Happy birthday. I am from South Africa and a regular
visitor to Pattaya. Just a word of appreciation for the wonderful work that
you guys do. I cannot wait for Fridays to get the latest news from Pattaya.
May Pattaya Mail grow from strength to strength!
Kind regards
Johan de Beer
Johannesburg, South Africa
Chock dee for the
next 8 years
Dear everybody from Pattaya Mail,
Best wishes for Pattaya Mail and its entire staff for its
8th Anniversary. I hope you can continue to bring us all the news from
Pattaya. Every Sunday morning I look forward to reading the Pattaya Mail
newspaper on the Internet. So Pattaya and Thailand are not so far away from
me.
Chock dee for the next 8 years.
A reader from Holland
Happy Birthday
To all the staff of Pattaya Mail;
Yet another year has flown by and I did not realise.
Congrats on reaching the 8th birthday, well done. Keep raising the standard.
David Garred
Many
Congratulations
Editor and staff;
Many congratulations on your 8th. Hope you are around for
many, many years to come.
Your loyal readers in Ireland
Congratulations
Pattaya Mail,
I have been reading your paper since 1997. I mostly read your
paper on the Internet. I’m always in touch with LOS even when I’m at home in
America. Congratulations on 8 years of professionalism, keep up the great work!
Ryan Smith
Kearney, Nebraska, USA
Congratulations
Hello everyone @ Pattaya Mail,
Happy Eighth Birthday. Thanks.
All the best,
M. L. Pensak Ben Kridakara, Captain, RTN Ret
The Bowling Green
lawn mower saga
Editor;
Just to clarify the situation on the long running saga of the
bowling green lawn mower: after receiving a letter from a disgruntled resident
the owners of the bowling green immediately changed the cutting of their grass
to the daytime. This was at extra cost to the bowling green as more staff were
needed because certain work on the grass still has to be done at nighttime. (I
hope the sound of the water sprinkling on the grass doesn’t disturb anybody
too much.)
Anyway, I hope everything is ok now and I would like to thank
our next door neighbour for all the free advertising his original letter has
given us.
Yours Sincerely,
Kevin Springett
Joint Owner
The Bowling Green
Thanks
Dear Sir,
With this letter I would like to thank all the people who
showed up at our International Soccer and Boxing Charity event on Saturday 21
July. Also special thanks to our sponsors and volunteers who made all this
possible. I hope everybody enjoyed the whole day, the soccer and the boxing
evening.
I just feel sorry that I disappointed some people by losing
my fight. I discovered in the afternoon (the same day) in the Bangkok Hospital
after a week of pain in my ribs, that I had a broken rib from the fight earlier
in the Best Friend Bar a few weeks ago. The doctor said I was crazy if I should
fight, but I couldn’t get it over my heart to disappoint all my supporters and
the children, so I did the fight anyway and did the whole 6 rounds. It was hard
and very painful, but I don’t care the pain, as long we raise money for those
poor children; that’s more important!
I hope everybody enjoyed the event and in October there will
be another charity boxing event with a better and healthier Belgian Patrick.
Hope to see you then all again.
Thanks to you all,
Patrick
Patrick’s Belgian Restaurant & Cafe
So much for
operating hours being enforced
Dear Editor;
With all the recent talk about zoning for entertainment
centres, could someone from city hall please explain how permission was granted
to build a disco in a quiet residential area of North Pattaya?
Monkies Disco has shattered the peace for all residents and
visitors. The incessant pounding and vibration can be heard and felt over a very
large area, covering condos, hotels and private houses. And, just in case the
councillors and police are interested, the disco stays open until 0730. So much
for operating hours being enforced!
My condo was only rented, so I have managed to get out, but
there will not be any relief for condo or house owners, or hotel visitors, until
the authorities really practice what they preach about turning Pattaya into a
resort that can be enjoyed by partygoers and people who like to relax by the
sea, and get to sleep at night.
Regards,
David Johnson
Maybe it’s not
always selfish complaining
Editor;
In the backwater of two earlier letters from Mr. Jan Abbink
(PM15/6) and “Frequent Farang” (PM 29/6) I would like to contribute to that
discussion with a little wider perspective - back to some realities.
It should now be quite clear that dual pricing in most cases
is justified and fair on the factual ground that dual pricing is applied in
tourist attractions and establishments especially designed (as to investments,
etc.) to an arena of international tourism (as to a capacity to pay the
investment-related price for the commodity-service offered). Thusly, in short -
tourists (mostly westerners-”farangs”) pay the normal price and Thai
nationals (and farang residents) are given the self-clear discounts.
But all this applies to mostly private enterprises especially
designed for international tourists, isn’t it? Then it seems strange to me why
suddenly in the last ten years or so, dual pricing (10-20 times higher prices
for foreigners) has also been applied to establishments run by the state or
provincial authorities - like the nature given from our creator or buildings
constructed 300 years ago. Do these establishments demand the justified
investment for a heavily applied two-tiered pricing? I just wonder, I’m not
complaining.
To me, it seems like it’s not only a faction of farangs who
are not 100% clear about when dual pricing is justified. In fact a lot of
nationals seem quite confused about this as well. Some farangs, even so called
“frequent farangs”, will probably never get to know how wide spread the idea
really is that farangs should always pay much more. And this does not only stem
from a conception of hierarchy - “the patron-client relationship’’ - or
that it is an “honour to pay”. Some, maybe a fraction, of the farangs living
here relatively well integrated in the Thai society, know this very well. Some
farangs, even so called frequent farangs, will never get to know this - they
simply don’t notice, have not been here long enough or are living quite apart
or secluded lives as tourists or businessmen.
It is the idea that one group, on the presumption of every
such individual’s wealth, always should pay much more that could result in a
baht-bus driver’s threat and violence against a farang living here because he
refuses to pay 20 baht when the regular fare is 5 baht, for instance. The
producing of examples could be hundred fold. Individual and organized crimes
against tourists-foreigners-farangs does actually exist even in Thailand.
Sometimes it’s obvious but sometimes it’s very subtle. It is obvious from
articles in Thai newspapers, it’s obvious for an experienced person in this
country. But some farangs, even some “frequent farangs” and blue-eyed
tourists will never know.
As to “Frequent Farang’s’’ lecturing of Mr. Abbink I
think it is important for some readers to know that many farangs are brought up,
educated and moulded in western matured democracies with a high and intensive
“equality-climate”. So the idea of two-tiered pricing is very alien as a
concept in their home countries. Very, very strange and compromising actually.
Maybe it’s not always selfish complaining?
Last but not least, largely speaking, I also think that
farangs living here permanently have reason to be proud of Thailand. Thai people
are generally honest, pleasant, polite, humble, nice and sociable to all
foreigners.
Thank you.
Sign me,
N. A. A.
Their own worst
enemy
Dear Editor,
One must concur with ‘Mark’ and T. Crossley (both issue
29) in that this column is an excellent forum for airing opinions. Those writers
who call everyone who makes critical comment ‘moaners’ should follow the
advice they are so keen to dish out and find amusement elsewhere; the ‘Kids
Corner’ column perhaps?
Getting down to the nitty-gritty of what’s right and wrong
with Pattaya there have been some excellent letters recently. There are clear
differences in opinion on how the place could be improved but to add my own
baht’s worth, what is certain is that Pattaya is not, by far, the only place
that attracts sex-seekers. Isn’t a ‘holiday romance’ the desire of almost
all single tourists? In Pattaya though, even for the most desperate all that
achieving this usually requires is monetary payment. The consequence of this is
that Pattaya undoubtedly attracts a preponderance of males who never managed to
develop an ability to attract partners of their own kind by the more usual
method and have extensively all their lives remained bereft of attractive,
‘playful loving’ in that quarter. This presents a problem for Pattaya
because most of these men seem to have had little notion of self-improvement in
the way of physical or social ‘refinement’ either.
Many Pattaya farangs are bitter and bemoan how their
(sometimes ex) Thai wives and girlfriends treat them like walking ATMs or are
‘like kids’ with their ‘I want’ ways. Whatever do these men believe the
girls are with them for; their personality and good looks? By any understanding
of the term, the vast majority of these men are ‘sugar-daddies’ and need to
wake up to the fact. They entered the game willingly and can’t expect to move
the goalposts because they discover they weren’t being so clever after all.
Agree with it or not, all of the above is Pattaya’s
street-level front-window to the world and which is why the seedy side of
Pattaya is concentrated on in western media. ‘Presentation’ is in fact the
door that Pattaya seems unable to find the key to. There are relatively few of
the more regular type of tourist or traveller, never mind so-called ‘beautiful
people’, for the offing crew to blend in with and as there are in other
resorts.
Besides having the reputation it has, the hugely popular and
lucrative package tour industry also largely bypasses Pattaya because other than
for the up-market hotel/resorts, out-of-reach for many, there is little
accommodation that would not result in complaints to a tour-operator catering to
the mass-market. Whether it be caused by locals’ karaoke wailing, over-loud
music played in open air bars (or indeed early morning lawn mowing), without
drinking oneself unconscious a good night’s sleep is hard to come by in the
otherwise excellent value central hotels and guest-houses. Without such rest,
the other things that holidaymakers look for may not be enjoyed even though they
are available.
Conclusion? For one reason or another many of Pattaya’s
Thai and farang business owners have shown they are unable to regulate
themselves efficiently and are their own, and more importantly the resort’s,
worst enemy.
T Tighe
Updated every Friday
Copyright 2001 Pattaya Mail Publishing Co.Ltd.
370/7-8 Pattaya Second Road, Pattaya City, Chonburi 20260, Thailand
Tel.66-38 411 240-1, 413 240-1, Fax:66-38 427 596; e-mail: [email protected]
Updated by
Chinnaporn Sungwanlek, assisted by Boonsiri Suansuk.
E-Mail: [email protected]
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Letters published
in the Mailbag of Pattaya Mail
are also on our website. |
It is
noticed that the letters herein in no way reflect the opinions of the editor or writers
for Pattaya Mail, but are unsolicited letters from our readers, expressing their
own opinions. No anonymous letters or those without genuine addresses are printed, and,
whilst we do not object to the use of a nom de plume, preference will be given to those
signed. |
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