The Bangkok Post is one of the better English language newspapers in a foreign country. Every so often there is an op-ed that is worthy of repeat. The paper was founded in 1946, and four pages cost one baht (today, it is around 31 baht/dollar). The story is that the U.S. State Department bankrolled the operation to counter Soviet views. Daily circulation is around 110,000. They have 179 journalists and professional staff. Media censorship is common, as this is a military controlled country.
So, anyway, Apichai Sunchindah's article caught my attention. Entitled Linking Covid-19 and "Parasite," nicely linked two Asian newsworthy topics:
- Wearing a facemask has now become the norm in much of Asia, and everyone is now into frequent hand washing and personal cleanliness.
- In a matter of a few weeks, Covid-19 has created global havoc in terms of physical, psychological, economic and social disruptions. Doom and gloom now prevails.
- Recently, the South Korean movie Parasite (Rotten Tomatoes, 99% reviewers and 91% audiences) won four Oscars, including Best Picture. How did this Asian film manage to "infect" Hollywood like a virus and create history for the first time by heralding East Asia's rise in what used to be a Western-dominated sphere of influence?
- It is interesting that the confluence of these two seemingly independent events within the same time interval has, on the one hand, created widespread agony and even hate in the case of the Chinese-originated virus but great joy and ecstasy on the part of Korea's stamp on the global film industry.
- So, what are some lessons that could perhaps be drawn from these two ground-shaking developments? East Asia can now be considered at both the "best…and worst of times" as the British author Charles Dickens wrote in the introductory paragraph to his novel A Tale of Two Cities.
- The movie Parasite became successful at the Oscars in a novel path-breaking way while the novel Covid-19 disease was introduced in an equally, if not more ground-breaking manner. As the English scholar John Donne once remarked on the inter-connectedness of human beings and global sympathy: "No man is an island, entire of itself… any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee".
- All these literary references including the movie Parasite and the emergence of Covid-19 point to the duality of human existence, living in vastly different worlds or multi-tier societies, but which should be inhabiting one equal world sharing the resources available on the planet.
- This is at the heart of what it really means to achieve the United Nations' sustainable and inclusive development agenda of "leaving no one behind" that the global community has promised to attain by the year 2030, hopefully in a peaceful and harmonious fashion.
Okay, enough of this. What about our trip? The usual end of the day drinks and snacks at the Les Meridien executive club:
Our final night in Chiang Mai saw us loitering around the night market again, but, this time there was an LGBT parade:
Bought a few more shirts. 15 Craigside will see me in this latest trend and rave.
The next morn, breakfast:
I'm getting be addicted to this Thai noodle bowl with a lot of veggies and an egg. The left juice is tangerine/pineapple and right guava/apple juice.
Then on to Chiang Mai Airport. It is so close that the total taxi price was around $5. I would say that 80% of passengers wore face masks. Not me, they're so uncomfortable, and anyone sick would be wearing one...I hope. Anyway, they say that you can't catch the corona virus through the airplane ventilation system. Goodbye to Chiang Mai, my usual snack and hello Bangkok:
Note that we have been using Air Asia, not Lion Air, for it was Lion Air 610 that on 20October2018 crashed, killing 189 passengers and crew. This was that Boeing 737 MAX. Air Asia is Malaysian, while Lion Air is Indonesian. Next time we will fly Thai Smile, for it is Thai Air's low cost airline, and we can thus use the Thai Air lounge.
-
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น