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Bangkok Pattaya Hospital celebrates 16th anniversary
Vimolrat Singnikorn
Bangkok Pattaya Hospital celebrated its 16th anniversary on December 20,
with hospital director Dr Piras Pradithwanit leading a Buddhist ceremony
featuring nine monks to commemorate the occasion. Senior doctors, including
Dr Yingdao Krairuek, chief executive officer of Bangkok Eastern Hospital
Group, and Kamjorn Suriyasin, assistant director of Bangkok Pattaya
Hospital, were also present.
Bangkok Pattaya Hospital completed its 16th year of
service and held a gathering for an auspicious and victorious 17th year.
Bangkok Pattaya Hospital opened for service on December 20, 1990, built on a
13-rai plot of land. The hospital provides service for treatment of general
diseases and specific ailments. There are over 20 specialist centers within
the hospital, dealing with subjects including heart disease, dentistry,
dermatology, neuroscience, orthopedics, allergies and diabetes. There is
also an accident and trauma center.
The hospital is part of the Bangkok Hospital group, and is located at
Sukhumvit Road, Km 143, in Naklua Sub-district.
Hospital staff provide between them service in 18 different languages, and
60,000 foreign patients a year use the hospital, accounting for 40 percent
of patient visits. The hospital has over 200 beds.
Kamjorn Suriyasin, assistant director of Bangkok
Pattaya Hospital, leads administrators in distributing ceremonial food to
celebrate an auspicious 16 years for Pattaya Bangkok Hospital.
Administrators offer alms as thanks for a prosperous
16 years of serving people.
Lucky winner rides away on new motorcycle after Hard Rock Cafe party
Vimolrat Singnikorn
Hard Rock Cafe held a thank you party on December 23 when a Honda Wave
motorcycle was star prize in a raffle and much Christmas festival fun was had.
The party was for Thai customers, who are about equal in number to foreign
visitors. Guests wrote their names on the raffle tickets that were given out
along with T-shirts and jackets.
Lucky winner of the Honda Wave was Lertnapa Wang-Umklang, who was presented with
his prize by assistant director of food and beverage John Pang.
Hard Rock Café Pattaya staff performed a thrilling
bartender show.
Lertnapa Wang-Umklang (left) was the lucky Thai woman
who won the Honda Wave. It was presented by John Pang (right), assistant
director of Food & Beverages at Hard Rock Cafe.
Hard Rock staff put on a dance show, Hard Rock Cafe
Pattaya style.
German-speaking community briefed on MTU developments
Members and guests pose for a photo prior to the meeting.
Peter Nordhues
At the regular DSU meeting for the German-speaking business community, held
on December 16 at Dusit Resort, Ruprecht Lattermann was the guest speaker.
He is managing director of MTU Asia (Thailand) Ltd, and also represents MTU
Asia Pte Ltd in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. The company has 20
employees and expects a turnover of 17.5 million euros for 2006.
 Rainer Rössler received a surprise birthday cake
after the meeting.
Lattermann has been working for MTU
Friedrichshafen since 1987 and moved to Thailand in 2004 after having had
some experience in Asia through working in Myanmar and Japan.
In his lecture he used a slide projector to give an introduction to the
history and the products of MTU. In its history of almost 100 years, MTU and
its forerunning corporations, especially Maybach Motors Co Ltd, developed a
variety of innovations that are of utmost importance to this day.
Today MTU is one of the major trade names for the Tognum Group. MTU
develops, produces and maintains civil and military engines, ranging from 15
to 13.000 horsepower.
Besides civil engines of all propulsive force categories, MTU manufactures
military engines as a partner of the German armed forces as well as for
other nations including Thailand. Even industrial gas turbines are being
produced.
Having several factories worldwide, MTU has become one of the leading
companies in this sector in the global market. It delivers diesel engines
and complete driving systems for ships, heavy land and rail vehicles,
industrial power engines and peripheral energy plants. Its diesel motor
products, generating up to 9,000 kilowatts, and its gas turbines are
considered as being the most modern and encompassing ones in this field. The
company also develops and produces customized electronic systems that
operate and monitor all motors and power engines.
“As a manufacturer of engines, MTU has never given up on its core
technology. Everything is being produced in-house so we don’t depend on
suppliers. A quality motor features low oil and gas usage with very little
emission. In terms of quality, MTU can hardly be outperformed,” Lattermann
told the DSU gathering.
The Royal Thai Navy has been supplied by MTU. In addition, the army received
engines for their tanks.
“Without our motors, the coup would not have been possible,” Lattermann
jested.
Frigates, minesweepers and aircraft carriers are equipped as well as yachts
and locomotives. MTU Asia (Thailand) Ltd also offers a maintenance service
for all engines.
Lattermann was able to give several answers to the question: Why is MTU one
of the leading companies in this field?
First of all, he said, it is a global company. The high-speed trains in
Spain, reaching up to 280 km/h, get their engines from MTU, and so does 90
percent of the Japanese coastguard. Today, due to environmental protection
the company concentrates more and more on gas engines powered by biogas
plants. Moreover, the development of combined diesel-gas motors is being
pursued. In this matter MTU is a pioneer.
The DSU meeting saw Ruprecht Lattermann as a charming and laid-back guest
speaker who was capable of answering all difficult technical questions in a
diverting way.
Seasonal flavour at PCEC meeting
Thor Halland provides the origins of Christmas.
The Pattaya City Expats Club (PCEC) meeting on Sunday
December 24th, Christmas Eve, at Henry J. Bean’s was of a decidedly seasonal
flavour.
The emcee, Roger Fox, started the proceedings with a report from Gary Brown,
who thanked all donators of the toys to be distributed to the
underprivileged children at the Redemptorist Centre on Christmas Day. A
total of 145 gifts had been donated which had surpassed the number provided
last year. It is hoped that this club tradition will continue for many years
to come.
As the main speaker this week, Thor Halland was welcomed back. The PCEC has
always enjoyed Thor’s presentation style and knowledge and this week was no
exception as the subject of his talk was the origins of Christmas. Thor
examined many aspects of the Christmas festival and interestingly described
how they had come into being and had developed over time.
Christmas has its origin during pagan times in Europe, primarily as a
festival to ensure that the winter could be survived until warmer weather
arrived. Many of the familiar Christmas features can be traced back to this
time.
For example, the figure of Father Christmas originates from Finland where a
shaman visited local families to give a blessing. He arrived by sleigh due
to the thick snow covering the ground. The families occupied houses that
were partially underground for protection from the cold and quite often the
only way in was by way of a hole in the roof. Hence the tradition began!
More recently, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer originated from a marketing
campaign introduced by an American department store and the character and
accompanying song just stuck!
Club chairman, Andre Machielsen, then announced that the itinerary of the
next 3 day Club trip, this time to Chantaburi, scheduled to take place
during the second half of January, would be announced at the next Sunday
meeting. He also announced that his son Sam, who was interviewed at the PCEC
earlier this year, appeared in an HBO movie, ‘Tsunami - The Aftermath’, on
December 26th.
The regular Open Forum was then underway, led by John Lynham, the Writers
Group host, and this proved to be the usual lively and entertaining session.
Continuing the Christmas theme, John asked for contributions which reflected
the variation of experiences and different approaches to Christmas which the
members may have had in their home countries.
For more information regarding, not only PCEC Sunday meetings but also the
varied mid week activities, please see the Community Happenings section of
Pattaya Mail or, for more details, visit the Club’s website at
pattayacityexpatsclub.com.
The PCEC wishes all Pattaya Mail readers a Happy and Prosperous New Year.
50 Pattaya Marina Rotary members sing for charity
Narisa Nitikarn
December 18 saw Pattaya Marina Rotary Club led by its president Dr Olivier
Meyer organize a charity karaoke evening at the Gulf Siam Hotel in North
Pattaya.
Fifty members and guests came along to lend their vocal chords to sing in
French, English and Thai for this fundraiser. Rotary International Past
District Governor Prempreecha Dibbayawan was guest of honour, but declined
to sing, saying he preferred to perform traditional Thai dances.
President Dr. Olivier and his wife Lamyai who
turned out to be a real professional entertainer, comparable to the best.
Rotarians sing to raise funds for charity.
The First Annual Boathouse Writing Contest
From left: First runner-up Andrew Dearden from the
UK, Boathouse GM Louis Bronner, First Prize-winner Chris Bonds from Phuket
and Phuket Magazine editor Barry Daniel in the Boathouse Galley Bar
congratulating the winners of the first annual Boathouse writing
competition.
Mom Tri’s Boathouse first Short Fiction competition was a
tremendous success as proven by the unexpectedly high response. Short
stories with between 1,000 to 1,500 words incorporating the obligatory words
“Mom Tri’s Boathouse”, “Plato” and “Champagne” were sent-in from Australia,
The United Kingdom, Scotland, United States, Canada and Singapore and
several entries came from Pattaya, Chiang Mai, Bangkok and Phuket.
The starting point of the competition was the novel Killing Plato written by
Jake Needham. This jewel of local crime fiction opens at the classic Galley
Bar of Mom Tri’s Boathouse on Kata Beach in Phuket and spins a fascinating
tale of intrigue which brings Phuket and Thailand in intimate focus.
For Jake Needham, judging the more than thirty short stories wasn’t an easy
matter: “The submissions here ranged from chilling tales of child abuse to
an encyclopedia of wisdom on life to richly funny monologues to, inevitably,
a great many descriptions of the tsunami. How in the heck is it even
rational to say that one piece of writing is ‘better’ than another, that the
serious is better than the funny, or that the tightly constructed story is
better than the loosey-goosey essay? Still, that’s what I have been asked to
do here and, Lord help me, that is what I have done.”
Three winners and three honorable mentions were chosen:
First place
Escape From Home by Chris Bonds (Phuket) – a beautifully constructed,
genuinely moving piece of short fiction narrated convincingly from the
viewpoint of a confused and frightened young boy. Nothing to do with Phuket,
I’m afraid. Nothing to do with Thailand even. Just really good writing. Damn
good, in fact.
Second place
Statement to the police of John Arthur Earnshawe by Michael McKnight
(Bangkok) – a first-rate example of what we Americans refer to, sometimes I
admit with just a tiny bit of condescension, as ‘English humour’ (please
note my spelling choice here). Not ‘Mr. Bean;’ not ‘The Minder;’ but more a
sort of monologue you can see Robbie Coltrane doing on ‘Saturday Night
Live.’ Laugh-out-loud funny, artfully wry, subtle, not subtle; all at the
same time. Great stuff.
Third place
Symposium by Eric Rosenkranz (Singapore) – good writing and a layered
insight into real life in Thailand, both the local and expat variety, which
goes well beyond what we normally get in locally-set fiction.
Extremely honorable mentions
Same Same by Alan Platt (USA) – good structure and an even better story idea
with excellent dialogue …
Chess Is Only A Game by Andrew Dearden (Scotland) – strong action-adventure
story line and more than good enough writing…
Lonely In Paradise by Amy Van de Casteele (Phuket) – very good writing
indeed …. Almost there.
The winning entry will be published by Phuket Magazine. Winning entries and
honorable mentions can be found at
www.boathousephuket.com/short_fiction_contest/results.htm
The Second Annual Boathouse Writing Contest will be held in May 2007.
Details will be announced.
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