November 2010
1 post
The currency dilemna becomes reality
So in my last post I mentioned briefly the rising Yen, and the fact that the Japanese government is not very happy about it. This seems counter-intuitive in the sense that you would think a strong currency equates to a strong economy, but this isn’t true. Here’s a perfect example of why their strong currency hurts them so bad, and why they have to do something about it, as soon as...
August 2010
1 post
3 final thoughts!
So I realize that I never officially put an end to my adventure of teaching in Thailand. I officially left Thailand on June 24th and have been in Los Angeles ever since. The last month and a half of my time in Bangkok was an unbelievable whirl-wind with the protests, finishing work, traveling Singapore and Indonesia, and eventually, leaving Thailand. I wanted to give a last, final blog post when I...
May 2010
4 posts
Bangkok Burning
Things escalated to a whole nother level today. This morning, at the crack of dawn, army troops in armored tanks entered one end of the rally site in order to clear out the protesters. There were some violent clashes, with at least 4 people dead and over 50 people injured - http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/178397/troops-armoured-vehicles-converge-on-silom. Following this, 7 top red-shirt...
The proverbial s*** has hit the fan
Unfortunately, my prediction on Thursday night - http://teachinginthailand.tumblr.com/post/595200038/the-calm-before-the-storm#disqus_thread - turned out to be quite accurate. After a few weeks of relative calm following the clashes on April 10, things have again gotten bad very quickly here in Bangkok. One area has even been listed as live-fire zones and all civilians have been restricted from...
The calm before the storm
There have been some interesting changes of events over the past couple days in regards to the Thai political situation. Early this week, Abhisit offered what seemed to be an appropriate peace offer to the red shirts. It involved a dissolution of the parliament in September, with new elections following in November. After some deliberation, the red shirts fired back with their own peace offer,...
The All-American Adventure
I keep reading articles from this website – Project Syndicate – that continue to bring new ideas and perspectives to the mind. The articles discuss many things from economics to culture to national security and identity. It’s really interesting and I’m slightly disappointed that I have only recently found it. If you haven’t checked it out yet, I highly recommend it.
A recent article discussed the...
April 2010
3 posts
The Future of Thailand
A couple weeks ago I wrote about an article that discussed the future of Asia. Considering that I am currently in Thailand, it only made sense to follow that up with a discussion on what the future of Thailand looks like. Of course, that is definitely easier said than done. After all, anyone that has paid attention to the current political situation in Thailand realizes that the future of...
The events of April 10
Anyone that has been reading the news over the past couple weeks has probably realized that things in Thailand took a turn for the worst almost two weeks ago. I haven’t had a chance to write about it (back to back trips to the beaches and then to the mountains), but I figure it’s better late than never. The events of the night have been chronicled in news reports around the world, but the exact...
The future of Asia
Is Asia the future? As we know, it’s hard to read an international newspaper or media source that discusses economics or politics without some mention of Asia within it. Whether it is about China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, or one of the other Asian countries, there is no doubt that Asia is a prominent force in international media. The question then becomes, how big of a force is it really? Will...
March 2010
5 posts
Famous People of Thailand
The other night, while sitting outside a bar, I look over to my left at the parking lot and saw a shiny, brand-new, lime-green Lamborghini. It belonged to non-other than Thai Tennis superstar, Paradorn Srichaphan. It made me think about other famous Thai icons and publicized individuals. In class, although they are sometimes mentioned, we usually focus more on either western popular culture, or on...
Transportation
So as the days turn into weeks, and the weeks turn into months, there becomes less and less to write about. Things that at first seemed surprising and shocking, now seem standard and ordinary. At first I wanted to write about every little detail and every cultural difference that I picked up, but now, those are all part of my everyday life, and things don’t stand out as much as they used to. One...
Media: The great influencer
This has been quite an interesting couple weeks in Thailand. I would have written about it earlier, but it felt necessary to wait until the public interest had died down a little bit before I wrote about it. The past couple weeks people living in Bangkok and throughout Thailand were witness to political unrest. If you didn’t hear about it, essentially the opposition, or the Red Shirts, wanted the...
Change
People change. It’s part of human nature and something that everyone goes through. Some changes are for the better, while some are for the worse. Some changes are noticed, while others are pushed under rugs and pretended that they aren’t evident. It depends as much on the person, as it does on the environment that they are in, and the change that is occurring to them. Living out in Thailand for...
4 months!
Wow, so it’s officially been 4 months since I first left the good ol United States of America. My first thought is just how fast time has flown by. I still remember the family dinner the night that I was leaving. I remember the uncertainty, the fear, and the excitement that I was feeling about my upcoming trip. I remember when I first got off the plane in Cambodia and a wave of heat, pollution,...
February 2010
3 posts
Judgment Day
So I probably shouldn’t mention this, let alone write a blog post about it, if not purely for the sake of the sleeping ability of everyone back home, but this day could easily become one of the most important days in Thai history, and who am I to deny history. You know it’s never a good thing when US, Australian, and UK embassies each issued warnings to express concern while traveling...
The infamous Bangkok sex trade
So enough of the boring posts, lets get down to some of the good stuff. As much as I can try to portray Bangkok as a nice, pleasant city with friendly, fun-loving people, there is still one main thing that attracts tourists from all over the world: sex. And surely you can avoid it here (at least the blatant, sleazy ones), but eh, who wants to avoid sex? I heard a funny thing once - ordering a...
Bangkok
I have talked a lot in my past blog posts (as rare as they come) about Thai people, and Thai culture. But I haven’t talked much about Bangkok and Bangkok is one pretty remarkable city. I have visited a number of different cities throughout my short life, and each time I visit a new city, it’s always fun to try to relate or compare it to a different city. New York to Chicago or San Francisco to...
January 2010
3 posts
Are Thai people genuinely altruistic??
About a month ago I finished reading the recent Freakonomics book that came out. First off, if you haven’t read the second one yet, you definitely should. And if you haven’t read the first one, then you’re missing out greatly. Both books take an economic approach to some different topics and end up putting a very interesting twist on many common perceptions. The second book declares that drunk...
Thailand: The true "family guys"
Helloo!! So continuous with the rest of my posts, I know I’m lagging on the updating. At this point, shooting for an update once a week is probably a good, realistic goal. I wanted to update more consistently, but I’m busy, so whatever. Anyways, it’s been a pretty hectic couple weeks since new years. I never really even had a chance to breathe after the crazy week that I had around new years...
My 2010 Predictions
Hellooooooo 2010 and gooooodbyeeee 2009! It’s a new year. A new decade. And what a year it has been. Wow. This has been one crazy, fast-paced year for me. I’ve kinda been all over the place. It all started out in a random warehouse in the undergrounds of Brooklyn listening to some random band rock out and bring in 2009. Somehow managed to graduate college in the midst of living in Santa Barbara. I...
December 2009
3 posts
Did they really just say that???
Hmmm…. what to write about first. I’ve been at work for about 2 weeks now and I’m finally starting to get in the flow of full time teaching. It’s a lot of hours (I teach on avg 6 classes a day, but I’m at work for 9 hours), but the teaching’s pretty easy, so I can’t really say that it’s hard work. The cool thing is that for each of the 6 classes a day that I teach I have different students....
Long Live the King
I know, I know, my updating sucks, but things have been crazy busy over here. The parents were in town visiting, all in the midst of my apartment hunting and job hunting, so not too many free moments in the past 2 weeks. But no matter how busy I was or how much I had going on, when December 5th rolled around there was only one thing that was important: the King’s 82nd Birthday. And I’m just some...
So do you have a girlfriend?
Good news! I got a job! It’s at the Wall Street Institute - http://www.wallstreetinstitute.com/. It took a little bit longer than I expected, mostly because I felt that it was important to find a job that I enjoyed and that (I think) I will actually want to go to when I wake up in the mornings (or at 12 o clock, which is when I start work). But that wasn’t the point of this post. The point of...
November 2009
8 posts
My trip to the biggest market in the world
Holy. F***ing. S***. I went the Chatuchak weekend market in Bangkok yesterday and wow. just wow. This was by far the craziest shopping experience I have ever had in my life. Thousands of people (estimates say up to 200,000 in a day). Over 10,000 stalls selling literally anything you can ever think. Clothes? Easy. Furniture? No problem. Artifacts, incense, and giant elephant statues? Simple. How...
Pattaya: A lovely city.... for old, white men
So I know I’ve been laggin on my blog posting, but it’s about time that I update this bad boy on the events of the past week or so. (FYI, this is kinda a long post, so prepare yourselves). First off, let’s start with good ol Pattaya. Pattaya is ummmm, interesting. Ya, interesting’s a nice way to put it. So I now know where the spot in the world is for old white men: Pattaya (that and maybe palm...
Perspective changes all
It’s so funny how one thing in life can be looked at in so many different angles depending on where you’re looking from. Whether it’s different type of food, different values of money, different standards for dating and relationships, or even different standards for politics and economics. In the end it’s all the same thing, right? Food is food. A relationship is a relationship. Politics is...
Feel free to call me Professor Epstein
Yup, you read right – Professor Epstein. Well, not really, but kind of. I’ll explain more in a little, but first let me give you an idea of what teacher training the past 2 weeks actually consisted of. We learned how a basic structure of a class went, and the different nuances to consider while teaching kids in Southeast Asia, such as the different cultures differences and whatnot. We then would...
Welcome to Thailand!
Welcome to Thailand!
Aw and what a beautiful sight it was. Paved roads. Lush greens forests. Delicious Thai food. Clear blue ocean water. For some reason I imagined that there wouldn’t be that large of a disparity between Cambodia and Thailand… o wow was I wrong. Don’t get be wrong, Thailand isn’t a completely developed country, but, generally speaking, it’s quite amazing.
We spent the first...
Peace out Cambodia
My final thoughts from Cambodia
So before I get into this, I know I’ve been lagging on the whole blogging thing. I’ve finally made it into Thailand though, and officially have a good internet connection! That means consistent updates and uploading of pictures so hope you’re all excited for that!
So now for my final thoughts…
Cambodia is undoubtedly very poor. There are starving men, women,...
OMG! It's a festival celebrating water!
Holy shit, this whole water festival thing was absolutely ridiculous. The water festival is a celebration of the end of the rainy season and is celebrated in the main city, Phnom Penh. It lasted three days, starting Sunday morning and ending Tuesday night. It’s celebrated with everyone from the rural areas of Cambodia coming into the main city, and a lot of food, drinks, fireworks, and a general...
Angkor What??!!?!?
Before I get into the post, I just want to mention that my internet is pretty bad out here, which is why I’m not posting as often as I would like and is also why I haven’t posted pictures yet.
So anyway, what an amazing weekend! It started off on Friday with a really, well interesting, 6 hour van ride up to Siem Reap. Simply put, our van driver just did not give a fuck about any other...
October 2009
2 posts
O hey there Cambodia!
So I wrote out a whole long post 2 nights ago and posted it, then decided to come back today just to check it out and it never posted!!! FUCK! Kinda sucks but o well. I don’t really have a chance to go into a whole long intricate post right now, but I’ll try to give a quick overview of my thoughts on the first couple days.
The disparity in wealth is unbelievable. There are areas that...
The Adventure Begins
So the adventure and the journey finally begins tomorrow when I leave on a flight to Phnom Penh, Cambodia at 1 in the morning. Wow! It feels so weird that the time has come and that it’s finally here. I’m sure you’re asking yourself, aren’t you supposed to be going to Thailand? Why then are you flying to Cambodia? Well I’m glad you asked! The program that I joined,...