Queer activist’s quest to open Thai monkhood provokes passions – and sometimes outrage

 

By Porpor Leelasestaporn  Jun 23, 2021 | 8:39am Bangkok time

 Sirisakposh Chaitedspice / Courtesy

Twelve years ago, LGBTQ+ activist Sirisakposh Chaitedspice (they/them) drove Chiang Mai conservatives crazy by organizing the city’s first Pride parade. Recently, Sirisakposh made news again by posing in a saffron robe with a rainbow stripe on their shoulder for a gender-inclusive monkhood campaign. We spoke with Sirisakposh about the controversial campaign and their fight for equality.

How did you become a gender rights activist?

I suffered a horrendous attack at school, and it was never just about me being queer. With me being born to a Vietnamese immigrant family and without hair, I was an easy target for other kids because I was different. People would call me names like kaew to remind me that I wasn’t one of them. The fact that I wasn’t like the other boys my age made it worse. Some kids would pull down my pants and pretend to rape me. Teachers mocked me and threatened to break my back if I didn’t act manly enough. I couldn’t talk about this to anyone – even my own family since they were all Catholics. There was no one I could trust.

One day, I felt like I couldn’t take it anymore, and I took a whole bottle of pills to end my life. Little did I know that it was not that easy. I survived and was hospitalized for months. But when I got back, people were nicer to me. My mother had found my diary where I had written about everything I had suffered. She gave it to my teacher, who read a note I had written in front of the whole class. I didn’t know that my words could have such an impact. From then on, I grew more confident and swore to speak up about gender rights for other people.

What happened at Chiang Mai’s Pride in 2009?

Some villagers were furious. They threatened to march through the Pride Parade if we hosted it. At first, we thought it was just a threat. We didn’t know that they would actually follow through with it.

About 300 or 400 villagers blocked our way in and out of the parade. Some of them threw bags filled with blood and plaa raa (fermented fish) at us. They finally agreed to let us go if we agreed on the following: We must cancel the event immediately; we would not host another LGBTQ+-related event for the next 1,500 years, and we would have to crawl on our knees to apologize. It’s unthinkable that they didn’t see us as humans. I was furious. We may have differences, but we should be able to stand equal as humans. Ultimately, we only agreed to cancel the parade and took a risk to make a public statement by hosting a candlelight vigil.

 Sirisakposh Chaitedspice / Courtesy

Why did you start this campaign for gender-inclusivity in monkhood?

Over the past few years, I have been challenging gender discrimination in Thailand in several different fields. My previous campaigns specifically targeted uniforms that are narrowly defined by gender. For example, I advocated for the right for transgender people to wear female public servant uniforms or university students to wear gowns that fit their gender identities at graduation ceremonies. Now, I’m challenging our right to enter the monkhood, since it’s one of the most male-reserved realms in Thai society.

Did you get in trouble for wearing the monk’s robe?

It was like a costume. Many Thai comedians have worn it in movies. It isn’t like I was wearing this to deceive anyone into thinking that I was really a monk. I just wore it because I knew that it would spark debates.

Some commentators cited the Buddha’s teaching that gay people can’t be ordained. What’s your take?

If you carefully read the religious texts, the part where gay people are not permitted to enter the monkhood came from a Buddhist parable told many centuries ago [that described gay people having sex after they were ordained]. That has made people jump to the conclusion that LGBTQ+ people would behave this way. Give people more credit than that.

So as long as people act according to the rules, anyone can become a monk?

People can lead monastic lives as long as they aren’t acting against the rules. It’s not about their gender or genitals. We aren’t asking for more privileges; we simply want to be equally recognized for whatever we believe in. We aren’t calling for the right for LGBTQ+ monks to wear makeup or engage in oral sex inside temples. Our demand is simple: Everyone should have the right to enter the monkhood.

Some have said that gay monks are pretty common nowadays, so what’s the point of this campaign?

Just because some gay people can ordain doesn’t mean that all people can. People usually have this misconception when they see gay celebrities ordained. But the problem is they often overlook the fact that these gay celebrities have louder voices. Supposing they were to be denied their rights, they could just post about it on Instagram to their 100k+ followers and suddenly their massive fan clubs will speak out to support them. We’re talking about normal people – ordinary people like us whose voices aren’t loud enough. Some of my friends told me that they want to ordain as monks, but people in their local communities thought it would be inappropriate. Some had to move to a different temple so that they could be ordained without facing backlash [from their communities]. That’s why I’m fighting to end all this.

A quick look at your Facebook post suggests many LGBTQ+ people don’t wholly support this either. Why?

Gender discrimination is deeply entrenched in Thai society, and it’s so subtle that people don’t usually see it. Since we were kids, we have been taught to believe that we are wrong for being born gay, that it is a sin waiting to be atoned for. So when they see religious texts sanctioning homosexuality, they readily embrace it without realizing the errors within it.

What’s your thoughts on the future of LGBTQ+ monkhood?

The dhamma didn’t fall from heaven; these rules were written by humans. I don’t mean to disregard people’s beliefs, but before people could be ordained as monks to create these rules and norms, they were all humans. If humans are behind the teachings, then humans should have the right to criticize and change them as well – even if it may take a long journey to make that a reality.

MALAYSIA AND SINGAPORE: A DIFFERENT PATH. A view from history.

(excerpt From: Lee Kuan Yew. “One man's view of the world.”)

“Malaysia and Singapore emerged from colonialism at comparable levels of development and with largely similar legacies left behind by the British. But the two countries could not have picked more different paths after 1965. Malaysia chose to be a Malay-speaking country, while Singapore chose English and has forged a multiracial society. The concept of a Malay-speaking Malaysia will, over time, become more firmly established as Malays form an ever larger share of the population.

For nearly two years, when Singapore was part of Malaysia, I did my best to confront the race issue by leading others in a coalition that stood for a Malaysian Malaysia. But the opposition to our efforts was violent, sometimes literally so. It culminated in Singapore having to walk away from the federation on 9 August 1965.

Those from my generation had always believed that Singapore and Malaya were one. The British kept us as a separate colony after the war and we fought for a merger. The leaders of Malaya did not want us initially because the large number of Chinese in Singapore would have upset the overall racial mix. Eventually the British persuaded Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia’s first prime minister, “that with the leftists gaining strength in our Chinese schools, the danger of Singapore going communist was simply too grave. He finally agreed to take us in along with Sabah and Sarawak, which had lower proportions of Chinese, to balance us.

But after we joined, the Tunku told me: “Your party should leave Malays in Malaysia alone.” We had three Malay-dominated constituencies in Singapore - in Geylang Serai, Kampong Kembangan and the Southern Islands - and he did not want us to reach out to constituencies in Malaya, which he considered Malay territory. But we could not abide by that. We had to go by the constitution, which did not say that it was a Malay Malaysia but a Malaysian Malaysia. “We went ahead and formed the Malaysian Solidarity Convention, which advocated a truly multiracial country. We persuaded parties from Sarawak, Penang and Ipoh to join. There were more than a few Malay representatives. As the convention gathered strength, the Tunku got upset and we were told that Singapore had to leave Malaysia or there would be bloodshed. Some within my Cabinet were opposed to leaving Malaysia, most notably Toh Chin Chye, then deputy prime minister. Toh was born in Ipoh and, for him, it went against the grain to get out. He wanted to see the Tunku. I encouraged him to do so. The Tunku refused to see him but wrote a letter indicating that he could no longer control the situation. “There is absolutely no other way out,” the Tunku wrote.’”

“Between 1963 and 1965, as prime minister of Singapore, I had to attend meetings of the Council of Rulers in Malaysia. The rulers who attended would all be Malays, dressed in uniforms and accompanied by their sword bearers. All the chief ministers had their traditional Malay dressed on and I was the sole exception. This was not mere symbolism. It was to drive home a point:” This is a Malay country. Never should you forget that.”

Malaysia - a country in decay? K. Kathirgugan -December 23, 2020 7:00 AM

 Malaysia, sadly, seems to be a country in decay – a fact that’s becoming more apparent everyday.

 Here are its four most telling signs:

A massive brain drain

Malaysia, a country which has long wanted to join the coveted developed nations club, is in no position to achieve it. How can it, considering Malaysia is losing its most talented, highest-skilled people by the boatload? This is a contentious topic that’s become front and centre of national conversation, thanks to a slew of recent stories about Malaysians who have made it big in other, more meritocratic countries.

This dangerous outflow of skilled labour from Malaysia has been increasing. From 184,014 people in 2000, it increased to 276,557 people in 2010 and 342,639 people in 2013. I shudder to think of what the number would be today.

A joint study by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 2013 found that Malaysia’s exodus of skilled labour was double the world average.

At this point, we should probably stop calling it “brain drain” and start calling it “brain bleed”.

TalentCorp, the GLC tasked with bringing back skilled Malaysians, has failed dismally. It brought back 272 people in 2017, 309 in 2018 and 276 in 2019. To call this a drop in the ocean would be generous.

The perks and higher salaries they might offer do little to mitigate Malaysia’s many systemic problems, the chief of which – according to research house Fitch Solutions Country Risk & Industry Research – is its race-based affirmative action policy.

It states: “…affirmative action policies favouring the ethnic Malay population (Bumiputera)… is likely to continue to cause a ‘brain drain’ where talented non-Malay members of the population seek opportunities overseas”.

Popular FMT columnist Mariam Mokhtar takes a similar stance, writing: “Many of the people who left did so reluctantly because they were denied opportunities, such as in education, and they didn’t want to suffer like their parents at the hands of the affirmative action policies. Less qualified people were able to get scholarships or jobs.”

She adds: “It is not just the non-Malays who stay away; for several years, many Malays have also decided that they have had enough of the stifling race-baiting and religious extremism in Malaysia.”

Another source of consternation for many is the relatively poor salaries offered by many companies here. We don’t even have to compare Malaysian salaries with American, European or Singaporean salaries as some might argue that they have a decided advantage due to their stronger currency, hence making it an unfair comparison.

Instead, let’s look at China, a country that’s been synonymous with cheap labour for decades. Today, the average pay for a software engineer in China is RM10,367 (RMB16,756) a month. In Malaysia, however, it’s a measly RM3,900. The situation is similar in other professions as well. How does Malaysia expect to stay competitive in the global market with such stark pay disparity? It’s no wonder highly-skilled people are leaving the country in droves.

Unfavourable business climate

When Grab – arguably Malaysia’s biggest ever startup – relocated its headquarters from Malaysia to Singapore, I was upset. Here was an ambitious, aggressive, regionally dominant, Uber-beating local startup that Malaysia had let slip out of its grasp.

Grab should have been touted as a national success and provided incentives to coax it to stay; it should have been made the basis for incubating other nascent, disruptive local startups. Instead, today, it is adding to the already flourishing Singaporean economy – providing it with high-paying jobs and plenty of tax revenue.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development added insult to injury, reporting that Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam pulled in more than 80% of the record US$156 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) that Asean countries attracted last year. Malaysia was left trailing with a dreadfully low 5% or RM31.7 billion.

Indonesia, especially, is seen as a lucrative, up and coming market, with its large population and exciting startup scene that’s seen the meteoric rise of companies such as Go-Jek, Tokopedia, Traveloka and Bukalapak. This has pulled in investment from not just American heavyweights Amazon and Google but also Chinese powerhouses Alibaba and Tencent.

Malaysia, which does not have the startup ecosystem of Singapore nor the burgeoning internet population of Indonesia, is the unloved middle child being left by the wayside.

Over-reliance on low-wage foreign labour

Malaysian employers have become so addicted to cheap, foreign labour that a stunning 81.5% of net jobs created in 2016 went to foreigners, most of whom were low-skilled workers, according to Bank Negara Malaysia. This is a precipitous rise from a minuscule 1.8% just two years prior in 2014.

Due to Malaysia’s over-reliance on and easy access to low-wage foreign labour, it isn’t incentivised to invest in high-tech, high-value manufacturing – something that is essential for propelling Malaysia to high-income nation status.

This is why for every 10,000 employees, Malaysia only has a paltry 34 industrial manufacturing robots, which is lower than the Asian average. China has double this number, while Singapore and South Korea have a high 488 and 631 robots per 10,000 employees respectively.

According to a Bank Negara report: “This results in foreign multinationals relocating lower value-added processes to Malaysia, while moving higher productivity and value-added processes to neighbouring economies such as Singapore and PR China. In the end, this self-reinforcing image further locks Malaysia into this low-cost bind that would require significant resources to undo.”

This influx of low-skilled foreign workers, coupled with the exodus of high-skilled locals is a poisonous cocktail that looks set to keep us in middle-income nation territory.

Education system in shambles

At the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) 2018 – which assesses the proficiency of 15-year-olds in 79 high and middle income countries in reading, mathematics and science – Malaysia performed abysmally. We weren’t only below average, but were pathetically distant from chart toppers China and Singapore – with a more than 100-point gap separating us from them.

It’s no wonder many Malaysian parents have grown disillusioned with our crumbling national schools, compelling them to send their children to private and international schools. Tellingly, Malaysia now has the highest number of private schools per capita in all of Asia. We had 66 private schools in 2010, but by 2017, it had ballooned to a whopping 126.

Activist Marina Mahathir says that the “deteriorating” education standards and an “uncomfortable” emphasis on religion have driven many non-Malays to abandon national schools.

Even some Malays are presumably unhappy with national schools, as evidenced by the increase in Malay student enrollment in Chinese vernacular schools. Today, Malay students make up 15.33% of its total enrollment, up from 9.5% just a decade ago.

Malaysia’s inability to provide quality basic education pains me like no other issue. After all, how can we expect to become a developed nation if we can’t even properly educate our children?

The writer can be contacted at kathirgugan@gmail.com.

Horror experience with HomePro Malaysia

We stay in a condo in JB (Malaysia) that is roughly 20 y.o., and it was time to renovate the kitchen and bring the kitchen up to modern standards. We asked some price quotations from several contractors, included the special service from HomePro (www.homepro.com.my/home-projects). Although HomePro was offering the most expensive total price, we decided to contract this firm, mostly because we knew the firm from Thailand, and we had very good experiences with the Thai HomePro. Little did we know that the Malaysian franchise wasn’t as reliable as the Thai parent.

Anyway, HomePro Malaysia promised us to do everything at a given price: interior design, hacking, cementing, tiling, electricity, installing, painting, just name it, the renovation of the kitchen and adjacent storage and bathroom would be in one hand (HomePro), and we didn’t have to contact several workers, we only had to work with our one contact person at HomePro Malaysia. Price: 54.000,00 MR for work and 5.000,00 MR for materials. Payment must be upfront, otherwise they won’t work (no trust in customer, obviously). A time-frame was given, in which the works would be done: roughly 2 months.

Since we trusted HomePro, we didn’t ask for too many warranties, just a basic 2 pages description of how the renovation would be done, and some prints of the future look of the kitchen were handed over to us. Now we deeply regret that we didn’t insisted on a detailed description and on a clear sanction or compensation if HomePro would not deliver according to their promises.

The works didn’t take roughly 2 months, they took more then 4 months, with workers not showing up from time to time, or arriving late in the morning and leaving early in the afternoon. Living 2 months in a condo without a kitchen is already a very unpleasant challenge, but if it takes more then 4 months it becomes a horror story.
We asked for compensation from HomePro for this horrible delay in work and lack of comfort for us, but HomePro refused to give any financial compensation.

The works were badly organized. For example: when the goods (tiles, toilet, ….) were delivered by a HomePro truck, the HomePro workers in the truck refused to bring the goods in the condo, they claimed that they only had to put the goods on the floor, 1.5 m. from the truck. They didn’t care what would happen with the goods after that. The contractor who was working at that time (drilling the old tiles) wasn’t aware of the delivery and didn’t instruct the one person working to bring the goods up. It was only after several contacts with the HomePro contact-person, that the workers were found willing to store the goods in the condo. A horrible experience.

Some works were simply lousy and extremely bad done. For example the plumbers: they installed new piping in daytime, with huge water leaking at night, repaired the day after, leaking again the night after, and so on and so forth. Nobody cleaned up the rubbish, caused by the massive water leaking, we had to do it ourselves. HomePro once again showed a total lack of respect for the client and an incredible amateurism in choosing the contractors and workers, with a total lack of follow-up.

Although it was clearly understood that the 2 pages of listing of work and materials would cover the totality of the renovation, HomePro requested extra money for some parts, for instance the price of the toilet: since we paid for toilet + installation, we supposed that the price included all materials for installation, such as a tap to connect the toilet to the water-supply. No no, for that tap we had to pay extra, HomePro was not willing to provide it included in the paid price.  Same thing happened with numerous other small parts. This was a horrible lesson for us: if we every contract with HomePro in the future, every screw and every nail will be detailed in the price agreement, so that there is no discussion at all, and so that HomePro cannot profit twice. Our confidence in that firm is down to zero.

This list is to be continued. We are now in the process of finalizing the works and that by itself is already a drama. We’ll keep this page open for further comment. Just some pictures of painting works, that HomePro claimed was duly finished; it is clear that the painting was not fully done yet, contrary to the false claims of HomePro.

 The horror story continues .

Belgians are building giga hotel with 100 swimming pools and 700 rooms in Dubai

The Belgian company Besix is ​​fully engaged in the construction of the Royal Atlantis Hotel. That should soon include more than one hundred swimming pools, more than two hundred apartments and another seven hundred rooms. The company is also building the Belgian and French pavilions for the world expo in 2020.
These are very busy times for Besix in Dubai. One and a half kilometers from the Atlantis hotel (also built by Besix), the Belgian construction company is currently building a second Royal Atlantis Hotel in futuristic style. It will be huge with almost a hundred swimming pools, more than two hundred apartments and more than seven hundred rooms. It must be ready by the opening of the world expo October 20, 2020.
And so there are buildings that the Belgian company must get finished by next year, because it is also building two pavilions at the expo: the Belgian and the French. "There is nothing upright yet, at most some foundations, but that was planned", reassures Jonas Vandeven. "The entire construction method has been adjusted to that timing. That will be all right. "

In the Belgian pavilion there will also be some concrete structures printed by Besix in 3D, a seat or a pillar from the 3D studio that the company has in Dubai. It is no coincidence that Besix founded that studio in Dubai. Jonas Vandeven explains: "A few years ago, Dubai expressed the vision to become the 'smartest city' of the world. One of the key points was that 25 percent of the buildings would be 3D-printed by 2025. We have not yet got a whole house out of the Besix print robot, the horizontal parts are still too brittle, but vertical structures, pillars and facades and the like are already possible, and we are looking to roll that out. in Belgium. We are seeing interest growing there. We hope to be able to implement our new building solutions in Belgium, "says Vandeven.
In recent years, Besix has built the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque and the Ferrari World amusement park in Abu Dhabi. 140 km away, in Dubai, Besix participated in the construction of the Burj Khalifa (the highest tower in the world, 828 meters, 163 floors), the canal, the metro, Legoland. At the moment, the construction of the Royal Atlantis hotel is in full swing. This project and the Belgian and French pavilions must be finished before the start of the world expo on October 20, 2020. "A very short and intensive period for Besix, but nothing to worry about. That will be all right," says 3D- Director of Besix, Jonas Vandeven.

Tower of one kilometer high

It is therefore a busy construction period for Besix, but also an exciting time. After all, there will soon be an answer to the question whether Besix can build the highest tower in the world, a tower that is said to be one kilometer high. Vandeven: "We are still in the running for that Dubai Creek Harbor project. Officially it is not yet known how big it will be, but in any case it will be the highest in the world. We hope that within a few months it will become clear who is going and then hopefully we can start with that. Our file for that is in. "

Besix was there very early in Dubai and set foot on it in 1965 - that is before the United Arab Emirates came into existence in 1971. In Dubai it has its headquarters, from which it has its 8,000 employees spread throughout the Gulf region , controls. "A third of our turnover is in the Gulf. In the Emirates they see us as a local company. We are part of the" home market "here," explains Jean-Philippe Patesson, technical director of Belhasa Six Construct, the local branch of Besix.

The Thai language is not difficult at all.

Unlike English, Thai is beautifully phonetic (it reads like it sounds) and has a much easier grammar. All the precious time you would normally use learning a complex grammar is put to good use mastering just 5 tones (Cantonese has 8), which are more fun than conjugating verbs.

Unlike Chinese, Thai has an alphabet! That alone makes it an easy language.

The Thai alphabet, though over twice the size of our Roman alphabet, is very phonetic. In addition to a logical tone system, it even has a super-helpful little squiggle over certain words (like the one above the final letter of the Thai word for Sunday, อาทิตย์), which indicates a silent letter — typically such words are polysyllabic loans from Sanskrit and therefore more tedious to pronounce, so the Thai language actually tells you which letter to drop. English, by comparison, is of no help whatsoever in that regard.

When hone says “Thai has basically no grammar”, one means ‘grammar’ as understood not by a linguist, but by a layperson.

Thai has a grammar, yes, but an exceedingly simple one. One can be struck by how simple its grammar is compared to English (not to mention French which, by the way, many English speakers find impossibly difficult).

It’s also true, that Thai’s tonal nature is the major stumbling block, and not only for European learners. I noticed that Japanese students often struggled with Thai tones and vowels far more than Europeans. The Japanese language seems to have no diphthongs — combinations of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable (ex. glooay, “banana” in Thai) — which Thai has in abundance. And certain Thai vowels are especially challenging for Japanese learners.

Vowel length is not an alien concept to English speakers. In English we have what we call short vowels (the A in “hat”, the O in “hop”) and long vowels (the A in “hate”, the O in “hope”). Thai vowel length is purely about length, not about changing the vowel itself, as happens in English. But no European/English speaker ever had trouble grasping the concept of Thai vowel length. Their problem was being able to hear and reproduce proper vowel length combined with tones.

Which is why there is Repetition, Repetition, Repetition.

Just as an experienced bird-watcher or hunter learns to imitate animal calls well enough to fool the animals themselves, if you want to learn any language well enough to be understood by native speakers, you have to get into the mindset of hitting Replay.

People may stare at you as you walk down the street in Bangkok repeating “ah-aaah! oh-oohhh! i-iiih!” under your breath or the “mai mai mai mai mai” tonal phrase over and over, but that’s what it takes for your brain to become familiar with new sounds and form new linguistic habits. Repetition is not difficult.

It does help if you speak another tonal language like Chinese. But in Thailand, the most well-known Thai-speaking foreigners (a couple of TV hosts, a couple of singers, etc.) are not Asians but Westerners.

The two key ingredients for learning any language are a genuine desire to learn it, and a parrot-like ability to Replay. Practise until you sound exactly like what you hear on the street.

Thai is easy. Which is why Thais will always tell you:

Pasaa Thai ngaai-ngaai! (“Thai language easy-easy”)…

Pasaa Ang-grit yaaaak! (“English language haaaard”)

(ource: Quora)

a very interesting look at ageing Japan