John Galt Presents: Songkrag Festival Part 1</font></font>

I want to examine in more detail a holiday that we have all come to know as Songkran.

In years past water has been one of the life-lines to a community. Without a healthy source of clean water, a city or town could not flourish, obviously. So water has always garnered the respect of the inhabitants of any location. The Thais with their predominant Buddhist religion are very conscience of their resources and commonly have traditions and ceremony's that honor those resources. Water happens to have a large part of those ceremony's. Water is in integral part in Songkran, Loy Krathong, and up in the Northeast, Li Rua Fai Festival (the fire boat festival).

Remember, Thailand has been developing quickly in the past 50 years. To gain a little perspective, put yourself in the past. Not too long ago, water was pulled from the ground. My senior employee is 55 and as as boy he distinctly remembers pulling water buckets from the ground and carrying that water to the house.

Here in Nakhon Phanom, water was not pumped by pipe until about the early 1960's. At the beginning, the primitive water station had it's own generator and pump and the water was distributed to select business area by a 2 inch metal pipe.

So imagine if you will, that you are here in the land of smiles prior to 1960, you're up in the country and its February or early March. There had been no regular rain for about 6 or 8 months (end of the dry season). People who live near a river are in pretty good shape, in fact you'll find that fewer homes are inland. If you were poor, your house was farther from the river or the most natural local abundant water supply.

Then, in early April the new rain season begins to come upon the land and suddenly everyone can gain some relief and easily collect the water to clean down their homes and livestock, etc.

It is easily to understand that a new season of rain would tend to feel like a new year for the people. And of course the planting of the crops would begin again.

Also keep in mind that Thailand has a unusual environment. Everything here over time is coated with a very fine brown dust. That dust collects on everything. If you wipe off a shelf with a damp towel, that dust clumps together it looks like a brown paste. This fine dust also make a vacuum cleaner a poor household tool. Tiny dust particles will clog a normal vacuum bag. The Thais will sweep or mop a floor for cleaning and therefore carpet doesn't work here either. Floor sweeping is done about every 2 or 3 days to keep the floor in state that feels clean.

Therefore, without lots of easily available water, you have a very hard time keeping the house clean. Everything is dusty. You can't really see this dust in the air and it floats around and will coat everything. Somehow it will settle in the highest places in the house. So, when you don't have the rain and lots of water handy, you live somewhat dirty. As it is written in many places on the web, the time of Songkran is also a time to clean house and home. Again it would seem that the end of the dry season would become a logical time to enjoy the abundance of water.

Logically, Sonkran to the Thais probably has always felt like a new year just by virtue of the change of the seasons and their ability to start a new crop. According to Wikipedia it was officially the new year until 1940 and afterward, it was changed to January 1.

Aside from just being a new year, also remember that all their celebrations also center around family and the reunions of those families. And when families get together; respects are paid. Respects are paid to Buddha and the temple. Respects are also paid the ones people who have passed away and respected are paid to the elders who are still with us. So, Songkran, along with other holidays is a time to pay respects. Respect is a fundamentally important part of the culture and it may very well be one of the values that sets the Asians apart from the rest of the world.

This is my very first Songkran here in Nakhon Phanom. Day one (April 10th 2002) is a ceremony held at the local police station. The kids had not hits the streets quite yet. The police asked a friend and I to be the farang representation at this ceremony.

The ceremony was set up directly for the police to pay their respects to the local community. We were all under tents in the parking lot of the main police station.

On the left were seats and chair for the invited guests and families of the officers. On the right was a long table for the elders who were also invited to attend the ceremony.

I would say there was about 150 people there. Its was about 10 am in the morning. Businesses around the area are closed for the holidays. Families were on the move to join up with each other.

The first thing to take notice of is the very pleasant smelling Jasmine Flower necklaces. This is a very traditional for Songkran. The master of ceremonies is washing a small Buddha before beginning.

Here you see the a speaker making some general announcements and he'll also outline the series of events for the ceremony. The "Kong" is beat 3 times and this indicates that the ceremony has begin.

One of the deputies bring in the main source of water. This arrives in an ornate aluminum forged/cast pot. This decorations on this pot are associated with the temple and the Buddhist religion. They are not real serious about the pots, they just happen to be widely available and inexpensive at the local markets and they are pretty. I believe the water is slightly chilled and there are flower petals laying in the water to make a present a nice odor. Notice the petals laying on the table where water has been poured already. The guy in the blue went first, I don't know if he was someone special or not.

Click on this first picture and take a really close look at it. This is a powerful shot. Look at that exchange. He is honoring her with respect and she in turn is blessing him with good luck and a happy life. These moments are the strength of Thailand. I believe you can go anywhere in the Kingdom and immediately bond with the people when you are in their mind set. It's a real moment.

A thought just hit me... Would I ever been seen across the table from Stickman? Being older than Stickman that makes me "Pee", and I would sitting at the table on the receiving end of his respect. If he came up to me with a bowl, I don't think I would behave very well. With a smirk, I would probably give him a sarcastic, "Get those pussy mittens away from me". If I'm going to have an exchange of respect with someone, I at least would want them to have a back bone and be genuine about it. I may not always agree with the Thais and some of them don't care for me, but I do believe that aside from our differences, we respect each other and mutual respect is a key element in this society.

Fiction being the definitive word here... A reader brought an article to my attention this week. This is an excerpt from a reader's submission over at "you know who's" web site.

I looked back at Mr Nonstickman; I could see now the evil clearly etched in his bloodshot eyes; it sent a cold shiver down my spine. The outward appearance suggested a man, but the body was not quite developed in evolutionary terms beyond that of an amoeba, quite unable to react towards its surroundings in a manner which tended to promote its own survival. Not quite sophisticated enough to be classified as a disease, more accurately just a bundle of rogue chemicals, yet lacking the capability of reproducing itself like a virus, simply a loose collection of protoplasm broken away from a more complex organism destined to forever wreak havoc in its environment. Nonstickman was less than nothing - so it wasn’t even possible to feel sorry for him.

I don't know what school "Dr JA Earnshawe" went to but he slipped up when he wrote the following about me, Keith Summers (NotStickman) being a parasite on Paul Owen (Stickman)

Because I, The Great Galt know a little bit about biology (comes as a shocker doesn't it?). In nature, a parasite if left to it's own will, always kills the host if it can. This is normal. Any doctor of science would know this. This a pretty common piece of information.

So, I went searching for the good doctor on Google. I know that doctors typically publish articles and normally their doctorial thesis is on-line. But with Earnshawe, I had no luck. Then I thought, we'll he would be listed in professional associations or would have contributed to research on some level -- Nada. Some Doctors love to publish - like Dr JA Earnshawe. He loves to publish but has never had anything of his professional career published to the web. That seems strange. According to Google "Dr JA Earnshawe" only exists in Thailand (is that a doctorial in English Teaching earned from Bruce over at TEFL International?). The Dr was a little confused on the name as well, he wrote "NotStickman" once and then wrote "NonStickman" everywhere else.

Hey Dr "Zachary Smith" Earnshawe, I do know a little about the parasites in Thailand. They run large businesses and sell alcohol and tobacco to teenagers. I can assure you there is nothing in those products that help the host survive. It's all poison. These hosts die around age 50 yet the parasites live on.

This is Tookata (this means baby doll in Thai). This is the younger of the two sisters that I wrote about previously who lost their father to liver cancer. He was 52 I believe and a smoker/drinker. I met this man a few years ago. He was very nice to me. Now I see his picture on the wall above a table where they remember him, burn incense, and keep a small lantern lit with oil.

These sisters and a few friends party 3 or 4 times a week with whiskey. The dad at his "table" gets the first small cup of whiskey. Fortunately the girls don't smoke. Perhaps their drinking habit will subside in time (I went through this a few years myself in my mid-twenties). By the way, Tookata at age 22 has a stunning little figure. (and no, I've never touched her)

At the end of the Doctor's article over at Stickman's site, he comments: "I laughed out load!". That's nice. A little levity is good, unless you're really dieing a slow death from parasites.

Time to give Matt "The Lost Boy", a plug. He is struggling with his web

site and finds the need to borrow copy from mine. He came up with the idea that I'm part Ninja and managed to piece together a faux ninja warrior. It was in easy article, he writes 1 paragraph and copies 14 of mine. Nice creative effort there Matt....

Matt, people will read more of your articles if you don't show my face over there... I'm mean, I'm flattered but P.S. (A lot of people don't like me). This could be part of your circulation problem.

Oh, and one more thing that could be of help to you as a Bangkok journalist (this is his day job I believe). The next time you pick out a name for a web site -- try choosing something grammatically correct. You named this one "What Is Matt", when the correct set of words should have been "Who Is Matt". I'm a very grammatically challenged person, everyone knows that -- and even this error was easy for me to spot.

So, Matt, is the site working for you? Do people want to know "what" you are? Why don't you publish your readership statistics? Galt readers, please take a peek at the article so Matt can get a few hits this week "Ninja Keith Summers: a force to be reckoned with" (what is this damn fascination with my face anyhow?)

I was reamed this week by a reader who has his own take on the questionable Baht exchange rate that I saw a few weeks ago. But I, "The Great Galt" as challenged as I am in matters of global finance, am willing to publish this email as I think it addresses my lack of understand of the two currency markets.

I'm afraid your statement "I am not an expert in the world of finance and I'm sure I may be missing something" is all too true. In today's world, currencies are a commodity, traded in a global electronic market, just like gold or copper, and prices are driven by supply and demand. In the case of the baht, there as always been an onshore and offshore market. The offshore market is extremely small and rather
illiquid. With the BOT's introduction of the 30% withholding for certain types foreign currency import transactions, the demand for offshore baht has increased (since it can be sent to Thailand without being subjected to withholding) and since there is a limited amount of offshore baht available (due to long standing currency controls employed by most counties with small currency markets) which has caused the price to increase relative to the onshore market which is not subject to the same demand factors. There is no evil conspiracy by the BOT “screwing around with controls on the local market. Not allowing local access to the dollars lower value keep a people from freely buying dollars when the baht is strong” The BOT does not control the market, this is obvious in by their very limited success in keeping it weak against the dollar, their ultimate goal. What you are seeing is normal supply and demand factors determining prices at work. The supply and demand is set by huge amounts of exchange, not the average person getting 20k baht out of an ATM or sending a few thousand dollars/pounds/euros via swift or western union. The rate you get for these
types of transactions depends on where the exchange to baht took place. Since you are getting the 35 or so rate, your bank sends USD and it is converted in Thailand. I understand that this the most common procedure but there are exceptions and some banks convert at offshore rate. As far as jumping on a plane with a load of baht and making money on the spread (known as arbitrage), if you take more 50k baht out you are breaking the law, something one should avoid. I am surprised that someone that makes a living exporting items from Thailand is not more familiar with how the global markets work and jumps to the conclusion that this is some BOT “behavior that is going to lead to another major economic miss-step.” TH

This explanation seems good but I'd still like to know for sure what exchange rate I'm going to get at the ATM machine. Does the BangkokPost.com / XE.com publish the local or world markets rates and why is not not specified in their postings???

As far as the economic mis-steps are concerned... let's see, the floating of the baht causing the Asian melt down in the late 90's? The BOT economic controls that a number of weeks ago sent the Thai stock market to a record down turn? I don't know, maybe these aren't miss-steps. A number of us farangs have seen and spoken of the large number of loans given out to Thais over the last hand full of years (seems to have slowed down now). We all suspect that a fare number of these borrowers are making payments on the narrowest of margins and so, our thoughts were that one small problem in the country could end up causing quite a ripple in the economic pond. Luckily, so far, we haven't seen anything that far reaching.

The famous comic book character Captain American was shot dead this week. He was killed by a sniper on the steps of a courthouse. So ends the hero who helped us fight Hitler and Communism -- at which time of course we kicked ass.

Now, we have more lawyers tying up our hands and celebrities bringing their sensibilities to the front lines against foes who primary understand only brute force.

Captain A was pushing 90 anyhow (appearing as an adult for the first time in 1941) so he was a relic from the old school where the fist was the best diplomacy. Today, people like Barbara Streisand seem to have more clout encouraging the likes of Iran in making the US the butt-end of endless bathroom jokes. Barbara, instead of bad mouthing president Bush and the war effort, why don't you go over to Iran and give them a free concert. Just sing, "People, people who need people...." and you'll have them in all tears and they will just magically stop saying that Israeli people should die. Isn't just that easy? Besides, we have all forgotten about the 3,000 plus people who died in NY a few years back anyhow. Terrorists are people too, surely they will listen to and embrace diplomacy.

You might find this interesting. Part of running a normal business here in Thailand as the managing director of your company is paying your personal income taxes. As a native English speaking American, I must declare a minimum income of 60,000 each month. For the year, that is 720,000 baht.

You get to deduct 40 percent of that amount as living expenses up to a maximum of 60,000 baht per year. I get the max of 60k removed from that figure. My taxable income is down to 660,000 baht.

Then you get to move all your social security taxes Plus another 30k. I pay the maximum in social security every month (1,500). Actually my company pays 750 and I pay 750. So, I can remove another 39,000 from my taxable income.

No taxes are paid on the first 100k. For any moneys between 100k and 400k, I must pay 10%. That is a maximum of 40,000 baht. I owe all of that.

For moneys over 500k and up to 1 mil, I must pay 20% taxes. So I owe 20% on the upper 121,000 baht. That adds 24,200 baht to my taxes.

Total it up, 40,000 plus 24,200 and my total person income tax liability for the entire year is 64,200 baht.

I normally pay a portion of the estimated taxes each month but this is the time of the year that I make full calculations, fill out the yearly paperwork and pay any difference in the final numbers.

My income tax and all my social security payments for the entire year total 82,200. So, if you're planning to run a legal business here and you are from the US, UK, Canada, (and I also believe Australia is included in this group) this will be your minimum yearly tax burden under current law.

Non primary English speakers (those whose first language is something other than English), get a break on taxes because their minimum wage each month required by law will be less than 60,000 baht.

A reader brought to my attention that this requirement is for the one year Visa and said that he thought you could work for less money if you didn't need that Visa.

A work permit requires a Non-Immigrant B Visa. That Visa can be either a 90 day or a one year Visa. The work permit people don't care. They will issue you 90 day blocks of Work Permit to match the duration of that Visa.

BUT, here is the sticky part. The consulates outside of Thai are not supposed to be issuing repetitive 90 day Non-B Visas to people who are not pursuing the one year Visa. I think if you show the consulates that you are continuously applying and making efforts they will help you out by issuing the 90 day Non-B Visas, but at some point they are going to cut you off. Then you are screwed. Then you won't ever be able to get your one year Visa and you'll loose your work permit as well. So, I recommend you don't screw with the system and get the one year Visa as is expected by Thailand.

Once you have the one year Visa and you are making all the tax payments and everything is good, you are in a sweet spot with the authorities. Why not make every effort to get there?

This system is set up specifically to weed out those who are not here doing real business. If you are young and have bucks are trying to get around the rules to extend your stay without really running a business, then you are swimming against the current.

In fact a few weeks ago, the immigration department asked one of my people to prove we had 2 million baht capital in the company. She told him that they had a seminar in Bangkok where they were told how to spot farangs not doing real business and one way was to inspect the fundamentally required capital. I agree with what they said, any lawyer can manufacture the bank accounts and false paperwork for the initial capital. I'll even tell you myself, that I did the same thing. I didn't have the full 2 million baht in capital 4 years ago. I just didn't have it. But today, with annual sales in the 2 million baht range (this number could be on the low side - can't tell all my secrets). The issue of whether I had the capital now is a mute point, because I've been in operation so long that they would be hard pressed to say I didn't have it several years ago.

My accountant just laughed and said "Show them the balance sheet". Nothing more was heard from immigration on this issue.

This last week was a typical week. My number are fairly steady. I'm really surprised. The chart shows 2/3 of the visitors as returning reader. This number would really be a bit higher as some people arrive from computers at places like Internet Cafes and others clear out their Internet cookies (which identifies them to Google tracking). You'll notice 800 on Thursdays. This is pretty steady.

This chart shows how many are coming back on a regular basis - "Visitor Loyalty". Again, allowing for I-Cafes and readers who clean out their cookies, this shows 402 who have come back 26 to 50 times. Assuming this is representative of primarily weekly traffic, that would likely be the entire life of my column as I have only been publishing columns for about 24 weeks now. I think this chart is very flattering and I'm grateful for the readership. I'm way beyond what I originally expected to do back at the early beginning of the NotStickmanBangkok.com idea.

Next week we'll bring you the local Songkran parade, a series of the water fighting on the streets and the more formal Songkran ceremony with Khun Chawalit. This next formal ceremony is likely to be the first class version as the former prime minister packs a lot of weight in this northeastern community and the local organizations make extra efforts when he presides over a local event.