Is Thai an Ethnic?

[Stramash]

Sorry - I didn't distinguish between Britain and England on that point...

The English national dish comes from India.

The Scottish national dish comes from a distillery.

Still wrong however; if you want to be like that, the English national dish comes from Glasgow.

Since I presume you mean Chicken Tikka Masala, which originated not in India, but in a little restuarant not 3 miles from where I'm sitting!!

:twisted:

The chips served with it are the English bit perhaps.

Usually the lager actually... :wink:

And the barely veiled racist remarks.

[English_Bob]

Wikipedia

The origins of chicken tikka masala are disputed. One explanation of the origins of the dish is that it was conceived in a British Bangladeshi restaurant.[1][4] A chef in Glasgow claims he invented it by improvising a sauce made from yogurt, cream and spices.[5]

Pakistani-born British MP Mohammed Sarwar claimed he had applied to have chicken tikka masala granted Protected Geographical Status by the European Union which would officially recognise Glasgow as the home of tikka masala.[6]

The claim for a Scottish origin for the dish is disputed by a number of Indian chefs,[7] who believe that it is one of many variations on a dish known to the Mughal Emperors.

Wherever it originated, no-one can argue it's an English dish.

Now get us some poppadums, Gungha Din!

[Stramash]

Wikipedia

The origins of chicken tikka masala are disputed. One explanation of the origins of the dish is that it was conceived in a British Bangladeshi restaurant.[1][4] A chef in Glasgow claims he invented it by improvising a sauce made from yogurt, cream and spices.[5]

Pakistani-born British MP Mohammed Sarwar claimed he had applied to have chicken tikka masala granted Protected Geographical Status by the European Union which would officially recognise Glasgow as the home of tikka masala.[6]

The claim for a Scottish origin for the dish is disputed by a number of Indian chefs,[7] who believe that it is one of many variations on a dish known to the Mughal Emperors.

Wherever it originated, no-one can argue it's an English dish.

Now get us some poppadums, Gungha Din!

That's McGungha Din to you ya sad soothern sassenach!!!

It's as Scottish as prolonged sobriety!!!

:twisted:

[English_Bob]

That's MR Sad Soothern Sassenach to you.

[Stramash]

That's MR Sad Soothern Sassenach to you.

or just c*nt for short. :wink:

[English_Bob]

or just c*nt for short. :wink:

How do you think Arsenal will do tonight? Keep up the sterling performance?

NOW I'm a *****.

[Stramash]

or just c*nt for short. :wink:

How do you think Arsenal will do tonight? Keep up the sterling performance?

NOW I'm a c*nt.

Nah, that's just reality.

Think we should halt the slump. Ever the eternal optimist.

But you're still a c*nt.

[English_Bob]

Nah, that's just reality.

Think we should halt the slump. Ever the eternal optimist.

But you're still a c*nt.

Well predicted. I'm happy with the night's results too... Closed the gap to 1 point, although Nani's suspension is a concern.

[Stramash]

Nah, that's just reality.

Think we should halt the slump. Ever the eternal optimist.

But you're still a c*nt.

Well predicted. I'm happy with the night's results too... Closed the gap to 1 point, although Nani's suspension is a concern.

Can't believe I frikkin sold Saha from my fantasy team yesterday!!!

Think it's definitely going to be a tight run in. If Chelski and UTd keep dropping points here and there, may offset our inability to win the really big games. But really think we will finish 3rd in the end. (thus allowing me another 'Sack Wenger' campaign!)

[LakeGeneve]

Seems appropriate to post this in full here.

BURNING ISSUE

A Violent nature behind the veneer of smiles

By Pravit Rojanaphruk Published on May 13, 2010, The Nation

Like a nightmarish deja vu, we customers were told to immediately leave the True Coffee shop at Siam Square at 3.25pm yesterday. It was an unusual closing time but a staffer told me that the government had ordered them to shut down because "a [military] dispersal of the [red-shirt] crowd will soon" take place.

For those of us and foreigners who still cling to the myth that Thais are non-violent - cling no further.

The gruesome killing of 25 people on April 10 as a result of a night-time military crackdown on the red-shirt protesters says a lot about how we value life and how peaceful we are. This was followed by two more skirmishes and a few more deaths.

The red shirts did not appear to be disturbed by the deaths of soldiers, and the government, the prime minister included, did not seem to be remorseful about the deaths of red-shirt protesters. Now, as I type these words, violence is threatening to engulf downtown Bangkok anew after the latest "reconciliation plan" appeared to sink.

For violence to become acceptable, people have to project a sense of "otherness" onto the identity of their opponents. Once they are no longer "one of us", they became fair game for dehumanisation, abuse, violence and even killing.

Over the past two months, I have listened to many dehumanising speeches from both sides. "The government is tyrannical", they are the "other", the so-called corrupt old bureaucratic-aristocratic elite who must be overthrown and defeated.

On the other hand, the red shirts are accused by their opponents of being "terrorists", "anti-monarchists", "a paid mob", "Thaksin's minions" who must be crushed by force. Some mainstream media have no qualms calling for the "killing" of red-shirt protesters by military means, claiming it is "necessary" and "just".

Mutual trust, if there was any, has been broken a long time ago, through years of mutual propaganda and demonisation. Many red shirts think Abhisit is a serial liar - as well as a serial killer. The government thinks ordinary red shirts are "victims", shuts down their media and keeps sending SMS messages urging them to return home.

Killings have been sanitised by the government's newly coined euphemism of "requesting for a return of [public] space", which means nothing but the use of excessive force to crack down on protesters even at night - with armoured vehicles rolling out and heavy artillery flaunted and real bullets used.

The so-called "men in black" who joined the melee, believed by some red shirts to be on their side, engaged in unlicensed killings of soldiers - and some red shirts have no problem with that and laud them as their "protectors". Now, both sides don't appear to be bothered about more bloodshed.

Thais may superficially appear to be "non-violent" but their education and culture does not equip them well to deal with stark differences in perspectives. To think differently on some issue is to commit a crime and become an enemy. This dichotomy in thinking manifests itself in many ways - you are either with the reds or with the other camp, you are either royalist or anti-monarchist, and so on.

When the veneer and myth of Thai smiles and non-violent nature are corroded by virulent disagreement, then violence and even killings creep in. Observe our daily tabloids' reports on a gruesome killing by a jealous husband or wife, or those who ended up killed as a result of an accidental quarrel stemming from a minor and otherwise inconsequential issue at a pub, and the many more ways that differences are settled violently in Thailand, then think again about the myth of Thais being peaceful and full of smiles.

No solution is possible until Thais start introspecting their violence-prone nature and debunk the very myth that makes us think that we are peaceful by nature.

[LakeGeneve]

An interesting read

A guide to the perfect Thai idiot 26/05/2010 Bangkok Post

In 1996, three Latin Americans wrote a best-selling book in Spanish which was later translated into English as Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot.

Their main contention is that Latin American problems are not caused by outside influences as Latin Americans generally believe. Rather, they result mainly from actions of Latin Americans themselves. Correcting Latin American problems, therefore, must come from Latin Americans.

Ask Thais about the causes of last week's shameful event - or of any problems in Thailand for that matter - and they will readily point the finger somewhere else, never at themselves.

I am a Thai so I am part of this well-practised response. But I now believe that if we continue with this long-running charade of self-deception, Thailand is on its way to becoming a failed state shortly.

We present Thailand as the Land of Smiles full of gentle Buddhists. We regularly give alms to monks and often make donations to temples, believing that those are selfless acts for the welfare of others.

Deep down, however, we do that only because we wish to get something in return - to go to heaven or have a richer next life. It is a trade, pure and simple, nothing kind or selfless about it.

Few of us give for the sake of giving. We are basically very selfish.

Every time we go to the temple or attend a Buddhist ceremony, we duly accept and recite the Five Precepts as a guide to our daily lives, but we leave them there, as we always make promises without ever intending to keep them.

Actually, we understand little about Buddhism.

Even among the ranks of the monks, most do not know the teachings in-depth and lead their lives accordingly - all they know is how to conduct ceremonies from which they earn easy income.

This reflects something deeper - we are generally lazy and like to take short-cuts to the sabai (do-nothing) state. Lottery tickets, therefore, always sell out at premium prices; prostitution is rampant and young women readily marry foreign pensioners.

We love to talk but rarely listen. Even when we do, we often fail to hear, as we never learn to think critically.

We cannot put up with different points of view nor can we work cooperatively.

Many of the over 30,000 Buddhist temples were built next to one another because when we disagreed with one, we just built another.

That the cooperative movement has never been successful here is another indication of our inability to tolerate different points of view.

We readily forgive, so we believe, as our most common utterance is mai pen rai (it doesn't matter) when someone makes a mistake. But that is only a reflection of the culture of indifference and ready rationalisation.

We can always cite a well-known proverb, a famous poem or a sage's sharp utterance to justify everything we do.

We complain so much about corruption. But we do little about it.

Worse, we keep electing the same corrupt politicians because they have money and influence from which we hope to benefit.

Survey after survey shows that the majority of us do not mind corruption as long as we get something out of it.

One of the surveys last year showed that almost 85% of us believed that cheating was a normal business practice, making us practically a nation of thieves.

When I raised the matter in this column, I received the angriest responses from fellow Thais, using expressions so colourful that they should not be printed nor uttered within earshot of other humans.

This long-running self-deception has created so much moral deficit, to employ Joseph Stiglitz's terminology, that has put Thailand into a state of moral crisis for some time now. Some of the symptoms of this state are the economic crisis of 1997 and the protests culminating in last week's events.

Of course, we will never admit this, for we are perfect and will continue to be very angry when a foreigner utters something non-complementary about us.

But I do hope that the events of last week shock most of us into re-examining ourselves, our values, and start reducing the moral deficit as well as trying to generate some moral surplus: doing more genuinely voluntary work for the common good similar to the street cleaning carried out by Bangkokians last weekend, but on a regular basis.

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Sawai Boonma has worked for more than two decades as a development economist. He can be reached at.