I'm in Taipei. I should be in Seattle, really. My sister is going to have some brain monitoring done this week and I just happened to have a plane ticket to Seattle on the 30th. Great timing.

Actually the timing wasn't as good as I'd hoped: China Airlines aparently canceled the Taipei-Seattle leg of my flight months ago but I didn't know that until I got here. Don't worry, there is a later flight, but it mean sleeping on couches until 11pm tonight. Oh well. Tough it out.



One I get in to SEA-TAC I'll take a bus to the hospital. Not sure which bus, but I'll worry about that later.

Abusing trust or power is something no person should ever do. Stories about the notorious corruption of Thai police always seemed distanced to me; I had nothing to worry about. Usually the people in these stories are high school tough kids, motorcycle racers, or just about anyone breaking the law but ready to pay for police protection. This story is about me.

You may have read in my blog about my band practices every Tuesday and Friday evening. Every week, after class on Tuesday, I change clothes, grab my instrument, and take the BTS Skytrain to Victory Monument (อนุสาวรีย์ชัยฯ) station. Then I take either a bus or motorcycle taxi to Suan Oy where the practice studio is located. Last Tuesday I got to Victory Monument at 5:50 which meant I was going to be a few minutes late if I took the bus through dense rush-hour traffic. Motorcycle taxis are great for these situations if you don't mind bumping elbows against review mirrors a bit. There are too ways into Suan Oy, a street with restaurants and apartments for Ratchapat Universtiy which sits across the road. One end comes off the main road and turns into Suan Oy. The other entrance is from a small side road which our studio is on. Motorcycles come in the back way because they can stop, get paid, and return to their posts without having to dodge traffic and university students. This is a normal routine for me.

This Tuesday was different. As soon as we made the turn off the main road on to the small side street, we were stopped by five or six men in dark clothes, waiting between a pickup truck and a stone wall. As they surrounded us, I could tell they were wearing the standard dark green police uniforms. Police road blocks are a normal procedure here, and a good one I feel, as they help to stop many from drinking and driving. I certainly had no problems answering a few questions and moving on. Tuesday was different. They formed a circle around the bike and asked us to get off and park the motorcycle. The road was barely big enough for two cars to pass without scraping against eachother. One officer asked "Ai nong, what are you doing in this area?" Coming in the back way, eh?" Police split the driver and I up. "Been doing any drugs today?" I explained I was on my way to practice, at the end of this same dark alley. "You can go" they told the driver. They looked at my guitar bag as if I had a riffle in it. "What's in the bag?" I'll give you three guesses. Now isn't the time for sarcasm. I opened the bag to show my guitar. The bag was taken out of my hands. I could tell there was one boss leading the gang here. "Open it all up, it's here for sure." The motorcycle guy was asking to be paid now. I paid him and he started his bike and sped off onto the main road. I didn't mind the police checking my bad, I had nothing to hide, but why weren't they setting things up under a street lamp with big STOP signs like they normally do? "What's this?" They had found a rolled up ATM receipt in the smallest of 7 pockets on my case. The boss stared at me in the dark. "What's this? Nervous now aren't ya? That's it for sure, open it." They opened the crumbled up receipt. My stomach was starting to turn. If this had taken place during the former PM Thaksin's "War on Drugs" I could be shot in the middle of this alley, without a trial, if these policemen wanted to meet their quota and plant drugs on me. Nothing. The receipt was just a receipt. "Sir, I'm just coming to play music like I always do. I'm not interested in selling or buying drugs." This time I was speaking. The boss looked disappointed had me zip my guitar back up and put all my tools and things back in the pockets. "You just keep your mouth shut. He's got some on him for sure. Make him piss." What? Was this a road block or what? These guys wanted me to be someone I wasn't for sure. Did I want to take some roadside test in a dark alley, run by 6 guys who obviously needed to find something? One police officer took my arm and lead me to the wall only a few meters away. He pulled out a plastic kit, removed what looked like a piece of pH testing paper from my old days in chemistry class, and handed me the plastic wrapper. "Do it quick." I was supposed to fill the plastic wrapper while the cop watched. I was praying my friends, a few hundred meters down the road would somehow walk down to help me. I wrote my name on the wall, and put only a little into the bag. I turned around and went to give the bag back. A hand grabbed my arm and I was asked to tilt the bag. One officer shown a flashlight, another dipped the tester and swirled. They held the stick up, now green, and shown a light to it. "135." Not sure what that meant, but everyone shown a light into my face at the same time. "Are you even from here?" asked a policeman who hadn't said anything earlier. "No, I'm studying at Bangkok University. I honestly came to play music officer. I'm not who you think I am." The boss looked stunned. "You mean your not even Thai?" After looking at m student ID and drivers license. The "good cop" said I was free to go. I set my urine bag against the curb, picked up my guitar, and made the walk to the restaurant where our studio is. It was great to see familiar faces again. The owners were sitting out front drinking together and playing games. "Yeah, the cops in this area are a shady bunch. You're not the first."

I've never had a problem with police officers. They are here to protect us, not intimidate us, right? In the last few days I've noticed I feel differently. I know there are both good and bad officers out there, but every time I see one I feel afraid. The thing is, I've never felt like that before. The only time I felt scared of cops was when the good guy was about to be caught by one in a movie. Now I feel like I have to watch my back everywhere I go. It's a feeling I think will wear off over a few weeks, but I just don't like the whole thing.

Something else I wasn't happy about was the Special Topics in Communication class I talked about in my last post. The professor? Same one that gave me a good grade if I would shut up and forget about ever failing the three question midterm. Her first class was last week, because she didn't show up the first week. This week was also canceled because of personal schedule conflicts. In last weeks class, I was singled out in a small speech she gave. Along the lines of: "If you have a problem you know. I will fix it for you, you don't need to talk with the office." This angers me a bit, not because she was talking about the 3 students who wanted to know why the midterm results were kept from us, but because this teacher promises a bad grade for anyone who asks questions. I thought good learners were supposed to ask questions. I want to graduate, so I'll go along with it, but I'm sure this won't be the last post about her.

To top off a great week. I have a small cold. I had a bit of a fever and stuffy nose the other day, but I'm feeling better now. Sleep, water, and paracetamol.

Tomorrow I have a job taking graduation pictures all day. Wish me luck.

I'm liking my class schedule for the new semester.

Monday morning is Mass Media Law and Ethics which should be exactly what it sounds about. The professor is from the university's law faculty and will teach us about what mass media can and can't do legally. She'll also cover last year's new Thai constitution, which was removes many of the old loopholes and makes it harder for businesses and government officials to interfere with journalists.

On Monday afternoons I have a class I think I'm really going to enjoy. Corporate Relationship Management is taught by Dr. Peeraya, a BU and Ohio U. graduate, who has spent the last 15 years helping BU to become the best school for Communication Arts in Thailand. For this class, our professor will advising as our whole class forms a team to plan and run a public relations plan for the college. This means designing media, writing press releases, purchasing advertising, and planning a promotional event: meaning the students are in charge of the schools PR activities.

Tuesday was canceled last week. I guess the professor couldn't make it. Special Topics in Communication sounds very interesting and possibly interactive, but I'll have to wait a couple more days to know for sure.

Seminar in Communication, Wednesday afternoon, is very interesting but I haven't had very good luck with this professor. Last year she gave my group's 30+ hours of interviews, library research, and 20 page paper, a D+ because we didn't have pretty pictures. I'm suspicious of professors who give grades on looks not content, but eh, I'll just try to spend more on leather bindings for my report this term. Seminar in Comm. is 5 seminars that groups from the class will plan and produce. We can contact anyone from the communication arts community: meaning journalists, political campaign managers, actors, advertising agents, public relations officers, and anyone else really. Each group has positions like secretaries, photographers, even caters! My group elected me to be master of ceremonies for our seminar; the last one of the semester.

Marketing Communication, on Thursday afternoon, is hands-down the most boring class on my schedule. Marketing communication is an important skill and should be very useful in a business environment, but something about this professor and classroom makes it hard concentrate. We spent half our first period doing hand counts of what majors everyone was from and whether or not they had ever studied communication. The professor later explained he knew his class was a required Comm. Arts course, but just wanted to make sure they're weren't any Marketing kids there by mistake.

Saturday (today) was a little complicated. My original class, Global Perspectives on International Issues, was pretty cool but nobody else thought so. Having only 4 students enrolled, the class was frozen. But not before we got one lecture out of it. An official (His Excellency) from the European Union spoke to a class packed with "dummy" students about EU-Thai relations specifically economic ones. I'll post the speaker's full title here once I find the correct spelling. The trade agreements and official positions he talked about were rather monotonous; it was the questions period that was most interesting.

The speaker explained the camps on the Thai-Burmese border where the EU spends approx. 40 million Euro a year to house Karen refugees, because Thai politicians want nothing to do with them. "This is a serious human rights violation that Thailand chooses to avoid". I found it most interesting that the EU Commission chooses not to talk publicly about this issue, to protect the image of Thai politicians. Another problem is the instability in Southern Thailand, where native Islamic groups want out of Thai-government rule. "What instability? Everything is perfectly stable." insist Thai cabinet ministers. Very interesting lecture, too bad there won't be any another.

With Saturday free and a 4,600 baht refund to put towards tuition, I popped into the Computer Graphics and Multimedia major's Digital Photography which my pals Ton and Ying are taking. The class was an extra $140, the professor is an attendance Nazi, and the computer lab could have been one of the nicer ones, but I am thrilled I finally get to take a class I've waited 3 years for. The class has no midterm and only final weighted at 10% of the total grade. Most of the grade is photo assignments and projects. We should have a field trip at some point too.

The 26th, 27th, 28th, and 29th of this month I may be shooting photos of a corporate seminar for a major Thai Bank (can't say the name) more details later. Mid-February I may have a job on the other side of the lens, as an extra in a Korean war movie being shot in Thailand! Ha. That would be fun.

2008!



New Years Eve Pong, Jik, Ben, and met up at May's house on Rama 2 Rd. After getting beat 12-1 in a Playstation soccer match, we a barbecue on the front porch, then caught a cab to Siam. We walked down the Skybridge to Central World where all the beer companies have beer gardens with concerts everyday until New Years.

I've been in some pretty tight crowds before. Packed buses, the Skytrain after 5pm, airport terminals. Nothing compares to New Years Eve at Central World. The only path between stages and exits was one strip between the flagship Central department store's impressive glass wall and fences of the beer gardens. This was only 3-4 meters wide and almost 300 meters long. When we came, we were able to float with the river of people moving through this gap, pushing a bit to get to a door to the stage for Bodyslam. No big problems. Security were friendly and pointed us to "our" table in the back.

Our friend Sai had come early and reserved a table at the Singha area. Once we got to the table we received a less than pleasant greeting from the other people sitting at the packed table. The six of us certainly weren't going to fit. May stayed, Jik, Ben Pong, and I jumped the fence and headed back to Siam Paragon where Potato had a table we could hang out at.



Bad idea. The river of people had stopped flowing by this time and was becoming near violent. At first people could move a bit by pushing through the crowd. We did a pretty good job of sticking with each other by diving through gaps of people when we could find them. Then it got scary. A surge of people coming in met people leaving. Both sides packed with people who couldn't go anywhere. The pressure of people in front and behind made it had to breath. Pong and I have to lock arms to keep our dwarf-like friend Jik's head in the air. Sometime before midnight people started to get restless and began pushing in unison -- from both directions. This was more frightening than I can describe. The feeling reminded me of the team building exercise where everyone packs in tight and sits on the knees of the person behind them. Only this was a wall of hundreds of people being pushed backwards. Once you fell back, you were thrown back the other way.

We didn't get trampled. The only people I saw hurt had all fainted in the crowd but couldn't be carried out. We ended up counting down together from inside the mass of people: wedged between the sweaty bodies a couple hundred strangers.

Other than this whole bit, New Years was nice. No bombs this year, despite rumors. After the 1am we met up with May and headed back to the house. We played cards together; substituting chips for glasses of beer, until we couldn't say awake any longer. New Year's day we went to the ocean (but not a beach) to eat seafood and visit a temple famous for giving good luck on Jan. 1st.

After the 1st, I had a few band practices, and a party Friday night for Jan at Fam's house. We had an indoor barbecue, fondu style. The Potato crew came, AB Normal, and Blackhead friends, as well as P'Oun and P'1, my adopted brothers and travelmates from the 2007 New Year's trip to Phu Gadueng mountain.



Tomorrow is my first day back to school. It's been a short week-long break, but a good one nevertheless. My schedule is (currently):
Monday: Corporate Relationship Management
Tuesday: Special Topics in Communication
Wednesday: Media Communication
Thursday: Marketing Communication
Saturday: Communication Planning and Policy
Wednesday is the Add-Drop period, which I think I'll use to drop my Saturday course in exchange for a Wednesday afternoon class, and add a Monday morning class a lot of friends are taking.

I was careful, and lucky, in my pre-registration this year to get all my classes to start mid-day: a true challenge. This was done in anticipation for playing music a few nights a week. This means I'll have plenty of sleep before school and free days Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (after a successful Add-Drop period.

Although the Add-Drop starts Wednesday, I'm going to go to tomorrow morning's class even though I'm not yet part of it. Hopefully I'll have better luck adding courses than in previous years.

No set dates yet, but there may be a reunion trip with P'1 and P'Oun to the North around the 10th (next week). P'Ohm and Jan would drive they're cars and we'd leave on a Thursday night and return Sunday, which means I wouldn't miss any class.

Our band is getting better quickly. Por has started playing with a metronome in the practice studio, which takes some getting used to, but makes playing together feel very tight. Feels just right. In a few weeks we should be ready to take auditions.