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Long Boat races are a wonderful event for Pattaya

Not covering all tennis events

One person’s view

Counterfeit overlooked at home, but not abroad

Great web site

Long Boat races are a wonderful event for Pattaya

Editor:

That was a great story on a wonderful event for Pattaya, the longboat festival at the reservoir. I am pleased that the Nong Prue and Pong sub district administrative organizations were the festival organizers. They are due the congratulations and thanks of the citizenry of this whole area.

It was indeed an exciting and fascinating event, one that all citizens and visitors to the Pattaya area should be informed about. The organizers indicate, according to your article that, “the event was a new idea to promote tourism to the area and carry on an age-old tradition. Organizers hope to develop it into an annual affair with participation from top-level competitors from all over Thailand coming to Pattaya to compete.”

It would be even better for tourism if it were promoted for foreigners as well as Thais, as a great many foreigners are absolutely fascinated by the longboat racing elsewhere in Thailand and by the parade of the Royal Barges on the Chao Phraya River.

It is a massive job for organizers of such an event, who must do all the leg work we all know is ever so necessary to arrange for participants from such distances, to arrange the use of the facilities, to find sponsors, to invite the governor to attend, and hopefully to arrange advance publicity, “next time”. The administrative organizations of the sub districts of Nong Prue and Pong deserve recognition for a tremendous contribution to Pattaya, and this is especially so if it truly can become an “annual event.” It sure would have been nice, also, had the Pattaya Mail and other English language newspapers carried a story in advance on this project.

In any event, though, congratulations to the “organizers”, and to the Pattaya Mail for giving us a really fine story on the event.

Allen Briggs

Editor’s note: FYI - We actually did publicize this event, with a promotion in the November 9 issue on page 7, an article in the October 26 issue on page 3, and an article when the event was first announced in the August 24 issue, page 7.

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Not covering all tennis events

Dear Sirs,

Thank you for your report in the sports section about the Volvo Women’s tennis event held in Pattaya. It was good coverage of one of the main events in the tennis calendar in Thailand. It is nice to see that you are carrying on this good practice, except you have omitted to report on the other event, that being the Thailand International ITF men’s futures event, which I believe is or was been played in Pattaya as well.

It would be of interest to many tennis fans if you reported this as well, I think, as Thailand is pretty much starved of good tennis events.

So it would be nice if you could correct this oversight, which I’m sure it was, in this week’s edition, as here in England, one of the main sources of information is the Pattaya Mail as to what is going on in the Eastern Seaboard.

Many thanks for your attention to the letters that we all write to you.

T.C. tennis fan

England

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One person’s view

Pattaya Mail Editor:

I am a regular reader of your wonderful online newspaper and a regular visitor to Thailand. Recently there have been articles on escaped crocodiles and renovation of Jomtien Beach and their alleged effect on tourism in Pattaya.

I submit to you that the recent turmoil over zoning entertainment, early closings and police raids are much more to blame for any decrease in tourism. I have 5 friends who have postponed indefinitely any visits to Thailand until the harassment is over.

Whatever well intended plans the PM has to cleanse and purify the country is only hurting tourism and giving police a means of pocketing more “fees” from businesses trying to stay afloat.

R. Bensen

Ohio - USA

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Counterfeit overlooked at home, but not abroad

Dear Sir:

A couple of weeks ago, I paid a visit to Bangkok’s Panthip Plaza, where I encountered numerous shops openly selling counterfeit computer software, movie and music CDs, as well as all kinds of pirated computer games. During a stroll down Sukhumvit Road a few days later, I passed virtually dozens of stalls peddling a multitude of faked goods from Swiss watches to inferior-quality shirts bearing some well-known international logos. With my curiosity awakened, I decided to check out the Patpong night market, too, where I stumbled across brightly-lit stalls offering practically the same wares and, amazingly, even fake perfumes of renowned French brands. An excursion to Pattaya over the past weekend confronted me with exactly the same situation there. Shops on Beach Road, flying vendors on Walking Street, and so-called “Shopping Plazas” on Second Road openly selling a wide array of counterfeit products to ignorant tourists, and under the eye of the local constabulary. Settling down for a cold beer at a pub, I recalled complaints about an American scientist allegedly “stealing” the country’s treasured Jasmine rice. I started laughing out loud and uncontrollably. It was a sinister, cynical laugh. Isn’t it just tragic how it’s all right to infringe on foreign copyrights as long as it generates a local profit, but let it happen the other way round and an entire nation goes on the barricades. Without wanting to entangle myself in any religious dogma, I think there is a valid ethical saying which can be applied here: “Don’t do to others what you don’t want to have done unto yourself.”

Thomas Schmid

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Great web site

Dear Pattaya Mail.

I would like to thank you for creating such a great web site for the paper. The pages are well designed and the site is easy to use and move around in. Through emails I have been able to send my daughter, who is 10, many of your articles and features on Thai life, tradition, culture, history and festivals such as Loi Kratong. This gives me the opportunity to teach my daughter about Thailand and show her what a truly marvellous place it really is, dispelling some of the traditional western mythologies and associations. Well done!

Scott

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Copyright 2001  Pattaya Mail Publishing Co.Ltd.
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