October 2005 118th Issue

October has long been associated with ghosts, ghoulies and things that go bump in the night, so to find out why see our feature on Halloween!

Hopefully you won't be too scared by that, and will get some spiritual rejuvenation from the article celebrating a local landmark, Wat Huay Mongkhon. One man who certainly raised spirits and many eyebrows too, was John Peel, the celebrated British DJ, who died a year ago this month. Read about his passion for music and the special day that has been created in his memory in ‘The Ticket'.

Our newly introduced ‘Charts' section will allow the longer stayers here to keep up to date with the movers and the shakers in the music and film worlds, while the game of golf is under the microscope, with special attention to our local players, in ‘State Of the Game'.

Trick or Treat anyone?

Hua Hin Events

Richard Walker gratefully receives his birthday presents from johnnie and dao at dick's office. apparently the money box was released from his grasp eventually!

Graduation day for Oe, Chumpoo,Fan and friends - well done after all the hard work

Who said Hua Hin is like the Wild West? These good ole boys celebrate at Jungle Juice with the new co-owner, Dave.

sai (on the left) is another year older - happy birthday!

Anthony's daughter Amy looks overwhelmed at reaching the grand old age of 2

2005 King's Cup Elephant Polo Tournament

CHIVAS ARE THE PUKKA CHUKKAS!

The 5th King's Cup Elephant Polo came to a dramatic close as the Chivas Regal Scotland team clinched the title from Mullis Capital during a sudden-death play-off. It was a tough first half, and Mullis had a 2-goal lead from handicap, soon extending the score to 4-1 with two goals from Khun Tat. An exchange of long distance shots followed, but the next goals in the first half came from skilful play, both from Chivas' Angad Kalaan.

The second half started with a concerted three minute attack by Mullis Capital, but Chivas Regal cleared their lines and began to pile on the pressure, and in a fantastic piece of team play, the Duke of Argyll swept towards the empty opposition goalmouth to convert a backhand from Kalaan. Chivas missed several opportunities in front of goal and were made to pay when Khun Dat squeezed an equaliser to force extra time.

Momentum seemed to be with Chivas Regal Scotland as extra time started. After two and a half minutes, they had the ball an inch from the Mullis line. In a desperate race, Kalaan kept the coolest head and popped it over the line for one of the most dramatic wins in King's Cup history.

HALLOWEEN

Halloween is an annual celebration, but just what is it actually a celebration of? Why is it celebrated on October 31st? And how did this peculiar custom originate? Is it, as some claim, a kind of demon worship? Or is it just a harmless vestige of some ancient pagan ritual?

The word itself, “Halloween,” or the Hallow E'en as they call it in Ireland and Scotland , actually has its origins in the Catholic Church. It comes from a contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve. November 1st, “All Hollows Day” (or “All Saints Day”), is a Catholic day of observance in honour of saints. But, in the 5th century BC, in Celtic Ireland, summer officially ended on October 31st. The holiday was called Samhain (sow-en), the Celtic New year.

One story says that, on that day, the disembodied spirits of all those who had died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess for the next year. It was believed to be their only hope for the afterlife. The Celts believed all laws of space and time were suspended during this time, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the living. Naturally, the still living did not want to be possessed. So on the night of October 31, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes, to make them cold and undesirable. They would then dress up in all manner of ghoulish costumes and noisily paraded around the neighbourhood, being as destructive as possible in order to frighten away spirits looking for bodies to possess.

Probably a better explanation of why the Celts extinguished their fires was not to discourage spirit possession, but so that all the Celtic tribes could relight their fires from a common source, the Druidic fire that was kept burning in the Middle of Ireland, at Usinach. Some accounts tell of how the Celts would burn someone at the stake who was thought to have already been possessed, as sort of a lesson to the spirits. Other accounts of Celtic history debunk these stories as myth.

The Romans adopted the Celtic practices as their own. But in the first century AD, Samhain was assimilated into celebrations of some of the other Roman traditions that took place in October, such as their day to honour Pomona , the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, which might explain the origin of our modern tradition of bobbing for apples on Halloween. The thrust of the practices also changed over time to become more ritualized. As belief in spirit possession waned, the practice of dressing up like hobgoblins, ghosts, and witches took on a more ceremonial role. Irish immigrants fleeing their country's potato famine brought the custom of Halloween to America in the 1840's. At that time, the favourite pranks in New England included tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence gates.

The custom of trick-or-treating is thought to have originated not with the Irish Celts, but with a ninth-century European custom called souling. On November 2, All Souls Day, early Christians would walk from village to village begging for “soul cakes,” made out of square pieces of bread with currants. The more soul cakes the beggars would receive, the more prayers they would promise to say on behalf of the dead relatives of the donors. At the time, it was believed that the dead remained in limbo for a time after death, and that prayer, even by strangers, could expedite a soul's passage to heaven.

The Jack-o-lantern custom probably comes from Irish folklore. As the tale is told, a man named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree's trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree. According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heaven because of his evil ways, but he was also denied access to Hell because he had tricked the devil. Instead, the devil gave him a single ember to light his way through the frigid darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer. The Irish used turnips as their “Jack's lanterns” originally. But when the immigrants came to America , they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful than turnips. So the Jack-O-Lantern in America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with an ember.

So, although some cults may have adopted Halloween as their favourite “holiday,” the day itself did not grow out of evil practices. It grew out of the rituals of Celts celebrating a new year, and out of Medieval prayer rituals of Europeans. And today, even many churches have Halloween parties or pumpkin carving events for the kids. After all, the day itself is only as evil as one cares to make it.

HUAY MONGKHON MONASTERY

Wat Huya Mongkhon

Wat Huay Mongkhon is a Buddhist monastery where the world's largest sculpture of His Reverend Luang Poh Tuad is situated.

The monastery was formerly named Wat Huay Khot after the original name of the village it is located in. His Majesty the King renamed the village Huay Mongkhon, and he frequently visits, and has initiated many projects to improve the lives and well being of those living there. One of these is the Wat itself with the intention to make it a mental refuge for the villagers. The present Abbot of Wat Huay Mongkhon is His Reverend Phra Khru Papassom Vorapinij, or Phra Ajarn Phairoj, and in collaboration with General Viset Khong-Uthaikul, the Deputy Royal Aid de Camp, decided to build the world's largest sculpture of Luang Poh Tuad to be humbly offered to His Majesty the King on the occasion of the King's 6th cycle birthday, and to make the sculpture a key figure in the dissemination and perpetuation of Buddhism, as well as for Buddhists to worship and seek mental refuge.

The sculpture is made of mixed metals and the span across the knees (sitting in the lotus position) is 9.9 metres, and it is 11.5 metres high. The lower layer of the sculpture is 70 metres wide and 70 metres long. The initial molding of the sculpture, where melted gold and metal was poured in was presided over by Her Majesty the Queen on 27th August 2004, and graciously granted the working committee permission to bring forth Her Royal Initial, Sor Kor, for installation on the front of The masonry base of the sculpture. The history of the subject of the sculpture and why he is so special follows.

Somdet (Exalted One) Luang Poo Tuad Yieb Nam Thale Jued

Luang Poo Tuad or Somdet Phako was formerly named “Poo” He was a son of Mr. Hoo and Mrs. Jandra. Some said master Poo's date of birth was the 4th lunar month on the Year of the Dragon, corresponding to B.E. 2125 (1582), some said B.E 994 (451) corresponding to the Year of the Ox in Bronze Era and some said B.E. 2131 (1588), however, his period of birth can be assumed to be during the Reign of King Maha Dhammaraja which may be B.E. 2125 (1582) or B.E. 2131 (1588). During the time when Master Poo was an infant, there was a supernatural story told about him that after Mrs. Jandra, his mother, terminated the period of her postpartum lying-in by a fire, she immediately went out to the rice field for rice harvesting and that one day after leaving her baby lying in the cradle underneath a Jambu tree, a boa constrictor came into cradle and when the baby's parent came they were frightened of seeing the serpent. Subsequently, the serpent disappeared but spat out and left behind him a magic crystal ball.

When Master Poo was seven years old, his father brought him to be under the custodian of Juang, an abbot and Jandra's brother (his uncle) at Wat Kuti Luang (Wat Dee Luang) in order that he could be educated. Master Poo was an exceptionally intelligent boy and was well versed in both the old Khmer and Thai languages in no time. When he was ten years old, he was ordained as a novice and his father then gave him the magic crystal ball to be kept on his body. Subsequently, he traveled to Wat Si Young (Si Khoo Young) to further his education with Phra Shinnasen, a skillful and reputable monk from the capital city of Si Ayutthaya . After turning 20, he travelled to Nakhon Si Thammarat to further his education at the Reverend Piyadassi MahaThera Court and was subsequently ordained as a monk with a monkshood name of “Ramo Dhammiko” but the general public called him “Chao Samee Ram”.

Chao Samee Ram had a chance to further his education at Wat Thapae, Wat Simamuang and several others. After considering that he had obtained enough education, he asked for a ride back to the capital city of Si Ayutthaya on a junk. While in the vicinity of Chumphon City , it was very windy and the sea turned stormy, creating high waves and panic, thus preventing the junk from sailing any further. The junk had to anchor there for seven days resulting in food and water supplies to come to an end. All the crew were in no doubt that the bad omen was caused by Chao Samee Ram. So they decided to send him ashore in a small boat to an island. While sitting in the boat, he put his left leg in the sea to soak it in the salt water and all of a sudden a miraculous event occurred. It was said that the seawater in that vicinity sparked with glittering and glowing lights. Chao Samee Ram then told the crew to scoop up water to drink and they discovered they were drinking fresh water. So they helped each other in fetching enough water for drinking. The Master of the junk then invited him back on board the junk once again and Chao Samee Ram continued to be the Cheeton or teacher of In, the owner of the junk ever since. The story of the supernatural power of Chao Samee Ram by turning salt water into fresh water has been talked about by everyone ever since until the present day

It can be said that very few Thai people nowadays would not have either heard of nor listened to the reputation and rumour in relation to the sacredness of Luang Poh Tuad by turning sea water into fresh water. Some believe that this sacredness can provide protection against horrifying accidents, fire and various types of disasters, and many believe that this sacredness is also attributable to the fortune, which is distinctly evident to those having faith in him.

The Wat is located a few kilometers from Hua Hin in the Tubtai sub district and visitors are welcome.

You can contact Wat Huay Mongkhon by telephone on 032-576187.

John Peel a legend in British radio

Most non-British people who read this will probably think ‘Who?' but John Peel has had more impact on the world of popular music than almost any other individual past or present. His untimely death on October 25th 2004 while holidaying in Peru , at the age of 65, has left a hole that could never be filled by anyone else. He was a champion of new music for nearly 40 years on his late-night Radio 1 show. He led the way in promoting new acts, from David Bowie, through Joy Division to the White Stripes.

John Peel was, at first sight, the antithesis of many of the bands he loved. Balding, bearded, softly - if hilariously - spoken, he was more like a favourite uncle than a rock fan. Yet Peel's uncompromising encouragement of new talent transformed the face of music all the way from hippy to house.

His Radio 1 show ran three nights a week and in 1998 he became the presenter of Radio 4's Home Truths, which won four Sony Radio awards in 1999. He also presented a programme on the BBC World Service, taking his passion for new music to the wider world.

He was born John Robert Parker Ravenscroft in Heswall, near Liverpool , in 1939. The son of the owner of a cotton mill, his childhood was blighted by his distant parents and he was brought up mostly by a nanny. He attended Shrewsbury public school, which he hated, an ordeal which was offset by the moment he first heard Elvis Presley singing Heartbreak Hotel.

“Everything changed when I heard Elvis,” he later reflected. “Where there had been nothing there was suddenly something.”

After National Service between 1957 and 1959 he went to America . He first worked as a DJ as “John Raven Croft” on Radio KOMA in Oklahoma City , Oklahoma . With Beatlemania in full swing, John Peel and his Liverpudlian connections proved irresistible and he soon became a DJ for WRR radio in Dallas . Peel recalled his start at WRR in a BBC interview: “I started off in 1961 in Dallas with WRR. I introduced the second hour of ‘Kat's Karavan,' a rhythm and blues program.” Peel also noted: “I got the job because I had some records [WRR] didn't, specifically an LP by Lightnin' Hopkins , a Texas blues-man.”

He also once said: “They'd got this idea that if you lived in the UK there were probably only a couple of hundred people and they were all bound to know each other”, referring to how the radio station believed that he knew the Beatles.

While he was working in Dallas , he was admitted to the press conference where Lee Harvey Oswald was shown to the press, shortly after the JFK shooting (he can be seen in archive footage).

Returning to England in 1967, he joined the pirate station, Radio London, with the celebrated show The Perfumed Garden, before transferring to the BBC's new national pop channel, Radio 1. He was to remain there for the rest of his life, the only survivor of Radio 1's first line-up.

Right from the outset, Peel changed the rules. He played every track without interruption, to the delight of those wishing to tape his show, while providing a witty and knowledgeable running commentary, seemingly a million miles away from the transatlantic platitudes of many of his colleagues. In the early days Peel championed acts like Marc Bolan, David Bowie and Captain Beefheart, as he did throughout his career, by giving them studio-time to record legendary “Peel sessions”.

But, in the mid-1970s, John Peel moved away from the mainstream rock of Jimi Hendrix and The Who to a new and radical sound, punk. Bands like the Sex Pistols and the Clash paved the way for new Peel discoveries like Joy Division and the Undertones, whose Teenage Kicks was his all-time favourite single. The 1980s brought further joy, most notably in the form of The Fall and The Smiths, both refreshing counterblasts to the increasingly bland fare of the charts.

He was an occasional presenter on the weekly television music chart shows ‘Top Of The Pops' but never seemed entirely comfortable doing so. However he showed glimpses of his famed dry wit, and a notable one was following George Michael and Aretha Franklin on Top Of The Pops when he said “They say Aretha can make any old rubbish sound good -- and I think she just has”. Peel was funny. One reason for this is that irreverence only counts when it's combined with honesty. Every pop presenter can “do” the irreverent-sounding voice, but it's only ever applied to the easy targets (primarily the washed-up).

For all of the talk of him playing weird music, Peel played ‘conventional' music too. He played music as it actually is: an unholy mess, a mixture of old and new, some bands having sold gazillions and some who've never seen more than a four-track. It made a lot of sense.

John Peel: I think I was a handy safety valve for some time. If people called up to complain about the safe and predictable nature of the station's playlist, someone could always tell them, “Well you can always listen to John Peel. He plays strange discs.”

If you were in a band, there was a chance your song could get played on national radio. On the BBC. And there was little point in second-guessing whether it was up Peel's street. Some school friends of mine formed a band called ‘Greenfield Leisure' and recorded their own single, which they sent in to Peel – and he played it! It wasn't that good but he still played it, and for me it summed up his attitude. He was such an enthusiast of music, at one point he possessed the largest music collection of an individual in the world – he had to build an extension on the side of his house to store it all!

Peel gave hope to new artists. Name any important band of the past 30 years and there is a decent chance they will say they owe part of their success to John Peel, or in the least, have some connection with him. He introduced Britain to Captain Beefheart, Jimi Hendrix, and the Velvet Underground. He boosted Rod Stewart, Pink Floyd and the Smiths. More recently, he played no small part in the success of the White Stripes. And anyone worth their riffs and hooks or electrobleeps has done a Peel Session, from Led Zeppelin to Aphex Twin and the Flaming Lips.

He was the champion of punk in the ‘70s. He embraced dub-reggae and New York hip-hop; over the years he played house music, techno music, garage rock, African and Asian music, alt-country, anything that interested him. Listening to his late-evening show was infuriating sometimes — there is only so much cricket-drone-pyschedelia or Japanese-metal-beatbox a human can take — but it was never dull. In the words of Billy Bragg, he “defined independent music.”

“Although he became an institution at the BBC,” said Bragg, whose career Peel helped to launch in the early 1980s, “he was, in effect, running his own pirate radio station from within the corporation.”

His unique approach included an eclectic selection (no playlist), a wry, warm and welcoming style and the occasional odd gaffe — he was known to introduce the record of an unheard-of band or bedroom artist, let 10, 20, or 30 seconds of garbled noise play, then stop it and announce along these lines: “I'm terribly sorry, I seem to have been playing that at the wrong speed. Let me try again.”

Peel had his World Service show as well as the domestic ones, of course, and he made us look good all around the world. Better than we are, sometimes. But exactly what you want the BBC to be doing. You hope there are people in Micronesia saying “yes, I know what they listen to in Great Britain : Dub Creator, Allen Shaw and The Woggles”

John Peel: I get letters from people who say “I hadn't listened to your programme for twelve years, and I was driving home the other night and heard something I thought was fantastic. I've listened every night since, and it was just how it used to be.” Sometimes kids write in and say, “I was listening to your programme in my bedroom the other night when I was doing my homework, and my mum came in and said, ‘What are you listening to?' I said, ‘John Peel,' and she said, ‘Oh, I used to listen to him when I was your age.'” It's nice being woven into people's lives in that way.

More recently, Peel had branched-out, presenting Home Truths, an eclectic programme about family life, and provided typically droll interjections for BBC TV's Grumpy Old Men. He received an OBE in 1998 and earned a place in the Radio Academy Hall of Fame. He continued to remain at the cutting-edge of popular taste, featuring ‘world' music and rap alongside good old-fashioned rock ‘n' roll. A lifelong fan of the Archers and a dedicated follower of Liverpool football club, he lived in Suffolk with his wife Sheila, affectionately known as The Pig.

When you first listened to Peel, you presumed that it was for some strange group of people whose favourite music was all this new stuff. Then you'd hear Terence Trent d'Arby and he'd read out a letter complaining that there was too much / not enough techno / indie, and you'd get it. It's not about liking it all. That enormous openness, sometimes scary, sometimes unlistenable, always there: making teenagers appreciate this and reminding his showbiz colleagues that it's there: that counts for more than any band's career. The only way to keep Peel's spirit alive is to, well, keep Peel's spirit alive. Don't put someone else who likes weird stuff into a ghetto slot. Keep broadcasting people who like music, who are unconstrained by genre, sales or cultural significance. And who are also superb DJs. Apart from the dead air. And the wrong speeds. And losing the record he'd just announced. That was John Peel and much much more.

A final quote from the man on why he continues to seek out weirdo underground music even into this 60s really sums him up: “I don't read the same books I did when I was 20, I don't watch the same films I did when I was I was 20, why would I listen to the same music?”

The very first John Peel Day will take place on Thursday October 13th. The day will be a celebration of John's life and massive contribution to music and broadcasting with as many venues as possible staging gigs across the UK under the banner of Peel Day. It is being organised by BBC Radio 1 in collaboration with John Peel's wife Sheila.

Asian news and current affairs

Book Reviews

Dynamic Diversity in Southern Thailand.

This book features twelve diverse chapters written by a wide variety of Thai and Western scholars, two of whom are expat residents of Hua Hin, and was compiled from papers delivered at a conference held in 2002. Southern Thailand is now very much in the news, and although most of this book was written before the current major crisis, which escalated in 2004, it reveals much about the unique regional problems, politics, economics, religions and cultures of the South, giving invaluable insights into and academic perceptions of a wide range of Southern issues from many knowledgeable viewpoints. If you are interested in the real background to the identity, or many fluid identities of the Southern Thai region and subculture(s), this book is an excellent source for finding out why the South is causing Mr. Thaksin such a headache, and consequently may also suggest that divisions between religious persuasions are unlikely to be the sole causes of unrest in many other areas of the world, despite the common presumptions of the multinational media and their corporate stakeholders. Bookworm

Bangkok 8, by John Burdett.

Bangkok and bad novels: the two just seem to go together. Set a random number of Westerners down amid the steamy weirdness of the bars, the over-abundance of cheap sex and the smilingly enigmatic Thai people, and an alarming number of them decide to give hard-boiled fiction a try. The city should be a natural. It's weird and wonderful, slightly dangerous and amusingly hypocritical in all the right places. I suspect, however, that the real appeal for many would-be Raymond Chandlers of Bangkok is a desire not so much to immortalize the city's many charms and sinister corners as to capture their own peculiar love for its rampant strangeness.

The fact that questionable novels have been written and published about Bangkok does not mean, though, that this is not fascinating literary territory. Like Chandler 's Los Angeles of the 1940s, Krung Thep , the “city of angels” as the Thais call it, is complex and compelling. Finally, in John Burdett's riotous novel, Bangkok 8, the city may have found its Chandler . Attuned to the local tolerance for delicious ambiguity, Burdett explores crime, Buddhism, crooked cops, perversions of the flesh, sex-change surgery and the business of love for rent in a glorious stew that calls to mind the masters of the crime genre. This is a book that is right at home on the shelf with Elmore Leonard, Carl Hiassen, James Ellroy and, yes, Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammet. It really is that good. The story unfolds through the eyes of Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, a devoted Buddhist who, along with his partner, is the last honest man on the Bangkok police force. The pair are ordered to track a suspicious American marine who is soon murdered in a locked car by a clutch of maddened cobras and a python. Sonchai's partner coincidentally catches a snakebite to the eye, and the detective vows revenge for the murder of his brother policeman. This is only the beginning of a suitably sinister plot leading the reader to meet police colonels on the take, Russian hookers, speed-crazed slum dwellers, an FBI agent and elegant massage ladies. It is all made, if not believable, at least plausible by Burdett's gift for getting inside the head of his Thai characters, especially Sonchai. The detective is walking testimony to Thailand 's ambivalent contact with the West. The son of a semi-retired hooker and an unknown American GI, his reaction to the sex business that fed and clothed him is to seek Buddhist enlightenment and forswear the temptations of the flesh but in a very non-judgmental, Thai way.

In addition, the detective is tuned into many frequencies. He lives in past and present and is able to carry on dialogues with his dead partner, the spirits of his ancestors and the present incarnations of those he has met in previous lives. Sonchai is matter-of-fact about the magical Thai reality he inhabits. This is not weird, it is Thailand , he seems to be saying with a wink at the many earnest foreigners seeking to make sense of his homeland. In this world, no one is truly guilty and no one is really innocent. The bad do good and the good face temptation. In short, this book is a delight. If you have ever wondered, while deep in your cups with a teenage village lass perched on your lap, whether you should write the great novel of Bangkok , read this one first. John Burdett has set the bar pretty high. (Copyright Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved.)

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