February 2004 98th Issue

Gourmet in town

Hua Hin Restaurants Featured on National TV. Two of Hua Hin's restaurants will appear on Thai TV cookery programme hosted by the country's most famous chef and culinary expert, McDang.
The two restaurants both very different in their offerings are similar in one respect, people travel a long way to eat the top quality food they produce.
Meechai on Petchkasem Road opposite the day market, is famous for it's mango and sticky rice, the popular Thai sweet.
Lung Bung on Damrongrat Road, has a full menu of Thai favourites. The menu is only in Thai language, which makes it difficult for overseas visitors, however the owner has a good command of English and can help non Thai speakers with their orders. It should be noted that Lung Bung gets very busy at weekends.
We at the Observer were honoured to meet McDang and share a few of his favourite dishes. Good friend "Khun Nok" was on hand to ask the chef a few questions:
"When did you first discover your skill in cooking?"
McDang" "I probably inherited it, my father Khun Chai Tenanchi, has been in the food tasting and gourmet business since, my God, about 50 years. He was the original gourmet food writer. When I went abroad I started to cook for myself, that was when I discovered I liked to cook. When I was in boarding school in England, many many years ago - about the same time as you!"
K. Nok: "Have you written any books in English, if so can you buy them in Hua Hin."
McDang: "Unfortunately no. I do write a column every Sunday in the Nation Newspaper. It is about Thai food, recipes and Thai restaurants."
K.Nok: "What are your favourite Thai and western dishes?"
McDang: "Favourite Thai dish is a very difficult choice - depending on whether its' a snack, or a full lunch or dinner. I may get a craving for simple dishes like Neur Phat Krapow, (beef with basil and chilli) with a fried egg, sunny side up! Any ordinary Thai would appreciate that dish and you would know you are now home. With regard to western cuisine, I like both Italian and French food a lot. I particularly like duck and lamb, again very difficult to say. Something very rich that I like especially would be fresh foi gras."
K.Nok: "What was the most exciting meal you hosted?"
McDang: "I don't think any meal I hosted was that exciting because it seems more like work. I hosted a meal for a person who is a food personality on English TV. His name is Daniel Green and he has been showing his skills at a Hua Hin hotel. I enjoyed discussing his style of cooking compared with mine. His is light and very tasty and mine is usually very fattening! Anything that is bad for you I put in my food. That of course, is what makes it taste so good!
K. Nok: "Apart from me, who was the most interesting person you have cooked for?"
McDang: "I have had the great honour to cook for most of the Royal Family of Thailand. I have not had the opportunity to cook for His Majesty the King, but I would love to.

Foodland to open?

The famous Hua Hin rumour mill never stops grinding and the tom toms have it that Foodland purchased a site on Petchkasem Road, ready to develop into a new store. Word had it, that after completion of a new outlet in Thonburi in 2003 Hua Hin was next on the list. It now appears that Foodland are developing an alternative site in the big city and Hua Hin has once again been put on the back burner. Some of Foodland's fans here in Hua Hin are e-mailing foodland@loxinfo.co.th pleading with them to open a store here very soon.

Flights of Fancy

THAI AirAsia Company Ltd (TAA), the new joint venture between Malaysia’s AirAsia and Thailand’s Shincorp, will start operating low-price flights from Bangkok to Singapore in March or April.

AirAsia’s chief executive officer, Mr Tony Fernandez, told TTG Asia yesterday the fare for the new service would be under 2,000 baht (US$50), and similarly-priced services from Bangkok to Hong Kong, Cambodia and Myanmar would follow.

“Prices on the Bangkok-Singapore sector will depend to some extent on landing charges at Changi, but it is definitely Changi that we will be using,” said Mr Fernandez.

The flamboyant CEO, now dubbed as Asia’s Richard Branson because of his background in the music business, was in Bangkok to help launch TAA’s four new domestic services which start operating on February 3 from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, Phuket, Hat Yai and on February 12 to Khon Kaen.

Some 20,000 seats at promotional rates of 99 baht one-way were virtually sold out by this afternoon. But even the standard fares of 900 baht to Hat Yai, 800 baht to Phuket, 600 baht to Chiang Mai and 500 baht to Khon Kaen are going to give Thailand’s domestic carriers a major shock.

THAILAND’s first low-fare few-frills airline, Orient Thai, will inaugurate services from Bangkok to Chiang Rai and to Hat Yai early next month and says it is not fazed by the aggressive 99 baht promotional fares announced earlier this week by Thai AirAsia.

Orient Thai Airlines managing director,
Mr Udom Tantiprasongchai, told TTGTravelHub.Net this morning the Chiang Rai service will start on February 2 at a promotional fare of 1,598 baht one way and will be operated twice daily using a Boeing 757 configured with 233 seats.

The same aircraft will be used on the Bangkok–Hat Yai route which will be introduced on February 12. The fare will 1,598 baht. Thai AirAsia’s price on the same route will range from 900 baht to 2,400 baht.

Mr Udom said he would stick to his policy of offering seats at one price for all seats. “We think the travelling public wants to know where they stand. It’s all very well offering seats at giveaway prices, but so few people get them and that means disappointment for the majority,” he said.

CONGRATULATIONS

Hearty congratulations to Paul and Kwan on their marriage, which took place in Hua Hin on 20th January.A
Keen golfer Paul now expects to spend less time on the greens.
All the very best to you both for a happy future together.

HAGI ARRIVES IN HUA HIN
Sofitel Central Hua Hin Resort launches trendy Japanese eatery

Sofitel Central Hua Hin Resort has launched Hagi, a trendy Japanese restaurant featuring stylish design and an interactive dining experience.
Hagi brings the cooking experience to the guests, up close and in real time. This is done through an innovative live cooking concept, combined with the freshest possible ingredients, presented up close and personal to the customer.
Hagi's talented chefs will create any item to order from an exciting and eclectic menu, which features both traditional Japanese favourites and modern cuisine, right in front of guests.
This is done at one of two venues, either the 16-seat Teppanyaki dining area, which serves a selection of seafood, meats and fresh vegetables.
Or at the restaurant's 12-seat sushi counter, the social centre of any Japanese eatery. Here Hagi's sushi chef will please the palates of discriminating diners with the freshest imported fish and local delicacies based on a timeless preparation method.
The restaurant's design blends traditional elements with modern influences for a truly stylish dining experience. Inside the 31-seat dining area light cream colours are complemented by bamboo green woodwork. A large outdoor dining patio features beautifully landscaped gardens and a fishpond for a truly authentic Japanese touch.
General Manager Bernd Schneider said Hagi would appeal to both hotel guests and Hua Hin residents, while complementing the Sofitel Central Hua Hin Resort's existing food and beverage outlets.
"Japanese cuisine is already popular with Thais and hotel guests enjoy having a variety of concepts to choose from. As Hagi is located right on the intersection of Damnernkasem Road, in front of hotel, it should attract strong local business and give hotel guests the feeling of eating outside the hotel environment."
Hagi Japanese Restaurant open daily for snack from 3.00 p.m. to 6.00 p.m. and dinner from 6.00 p.m. to 10.00 p.m.
Other food and beverage outlets at Sofitel Central Hua Hin Resort include the Palm Seafood Pavilion (Fusion Cuisine), Railway Restaurant (Thai cuisine and international ), Salathai Restaurant (traditional Thai cuisine) and the Museum Coffee & Tea Corner (coffee and afternoon tea).

ASIA TIMES online www.atimes.com

China
Sex in the Chinese city by Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING - A succession of "kiss and tell" books and "one-night stand" diaries, full of what officials call pornographic detail, have both fascinated and shocked Chinese readers in recent months, marking the emergence of the topic of sex out of the closet.
Long a social taboo, sex has somewhat overnight become a boldly public subject, drawing attention from university auditoriums to press rooms and publishing houses. Scholars on sexology and sociology have just unveiled their list of China's "top 10 sex-related news stories in 2003" and announced that they will make their evaluation an annual event.
University academics have termed the burgeoning changes in sex culture a Chinese "sex revolution", drawing parallels with the 1960s sexual liberation movement in the West. So as not to be left behind, publishing houses have scrambled to roll out a stack of sexually explicit books, which, much to their expectations, have scaled the bestsellers' list in Chinese bookstores this year.
Break-up Dawn, a book documenting 19 women's one-night stand experiences in search of sexual fulfillment, has sold nearly 200,000 copies in Shanghai alone since it was published in May. Two other titles are vying for the top spot on the same bestseller list - Happiness that Lasts Half-day Long and V-I Want to Lay You on a Bed of Roses, both unabashed erotica reads.
"Talking and writing about sex is no longer a clandestine affair," says Wang Ming, a university professor who teaches Chinese language and literature. "Students like to be different from their parents even if this means showing too much affection in public places. Writing about sex has also become a way of asserting one's individual freedom."
Fashioning herself as the Chinese soul mate of Catherine Millet, the French art critic who shocked audiences by graphically describing her one-night stands with a succession of men, a journalist in southern China has launched an online sex diary talking in detail about her multiple sexual encounters.
Mzimei's sex diaries, published on Blogcn.com beginning in summer, have become the talk of the town, setting off public debate about whether love and sex go their own separate ways. More than 160,000 people had logged on to the site by mid-November, and the number was growing by 6,000 a day, the Guangzhou-based Yangcheng Evening News reported. However, the links to Muzimei's diary have been shut down twice after thousands of the site's readers insulted the writer over the web.
"I record my life faithfully, despite disturbances and men's repulsion," the 25-year-old author wrote in one of her entries. A columnist with the Guangzhou City Pictorial magazine, Li Li - her pen name is Muzimei - claims to have had sexual relations with 65 men, both Chinese and foreign. "I have a job that keeps me busy, and in my spare time I have a very humanistic hobby - making love," Li writes. "The partner I take in my hobby is one I choose and always changes. I rely on a sufficient supply pool. I do not need to take any responsibility for them; neither should I give them love. They will not be trouble for me. They are like CDs, which will not make a sound unless I play."
News reports say that Muzimei's diary has attracted frowns from the government, and this month she voluntarily stopped uploading on the website and left her columnist job. Catherine Millet, whose 2001 autobiography The Sexual Life of Catherine M became a phenomenal bestseller in France and other countries in which it has been published, remained discreet about the real identities of her numerous lovers whom she met in the single clubs of Paris and in the Bois de Boulogne.
Li Li, however, caused a storm when she divulged details of her affair with the member of a popular Guangzhou rock band. Many felt betrayed that instead of remaining a warrior for sexual freedom, Li had sought cheap fame by generating celebrity gossip. An online survey by Sina.com, one of China's major Internet portals, showed that 22 percent of the people who visited Muzimei's site thought that she was seeking fame at any price. Some 18 percent of the 38,000 people surveyed condemned her behavior as shameful. However, another 23 percent thought that her attitude toward sex was nevertheless a demonstration of sexual freedom and a challenge to China's priggish moral standards.
Whether a true account of libertine philosophy or a straight-talking testimony of sexual exploits, Muzimei's diary is a reflection of a sea of change in China's attitudes and the country's behavior toward sex. There is no regret expressed about her life of sensual pleasure, not a trace of guilt in her accounts and no underlying chronicle of use and abuse. The diary also confirms new findings by Chinese sexual sociologists over the last few years that virginity has lost its traditional social value as a crucial part of China's sexual morality.
And as the country quietly copes with a subtle sexual revolution, premarital sex has become the norm rather than the exception. According to research by Li Yinhe, a researcher with the China Academy of Social Sciences, in 1980 the rate of premarital sex in Beijing stood at only 15 percent. But the same study revealed that by 2002 this rate has already reached 80 percent.
Li, who has been surveying attitudes towards premarital sex for more than 20 years, also found that China has overcome its preoccupation with virginity. Furthermore, a look through China's "top sex stories of 2003" reveals how liberalized attitudes towards sex, virginity and cohabitation are spearheading changes in law and education. One of the stories tells of a dispute between a local police station in western Shaanxi province and a couple who were detained for watching pornographic films at home. After a much-publicized lawsuit, the couple won the suit against the police, who were charged with intruding on their privacy at home.

Middle East
THE ROVING EYE THE RAT TRAP
Part 1: How Saddam may still nail Bush By Pepe Escobar

BAKU - The Christmas blockbuster from the Pentagon studios was a dream. This was the new Roman Empire at its peak - better than Ridleys Scott's Gladiator: a real, captive barbarian emperor, paraded on the Circus Maximus of world television. The barbarian was not a valiant warrior - but a bum. He was not hiding in a nuclear-proof bunker armed to his teeth - he was caught like "a rat" in a "spider hole". He was nothing but a pathetic ghost taking a medical for the world to see. What the bluish pictures did not show, though, is that former US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) asset Saddam Hussein is a reader of the great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky. An Arabic copy of Crime and Punishment was found in a shack near the "spider hole" where he was captured.
Saddam surely now know very well what he needs to do. He won't be consumed with remorse like Dostoevsky's character Raskolnikov, who committed murder. For the moment Saddam may be "taking the Fifth" - in the words of an American interrogator, referring the the fifth amendment of the US constitution under which a person has the right to remain silent until charged in court. But Saddam will wait until he gets some rest, a very good lawyer, and then he will start talking.
The capture of Saddam was the best Christmas gift that President George W Bush could expect from his foreign policy adviser - God. Or was it? AlJazeera television has quoted Egyptian writer Sayyid Nassar saying that "by shaving his beard, a symbol of virility in Iraq and in the Arab world, the Americans committed an act that symbolizes humiliation in our region". Revenge could be imminent - and it will pour in avalanches, not from Saddam of course, but from wounded Iraqi and Arab pride.
Holes big enough to accommodate armies of spiders remain in the carefully-choreographed Pentagon screenplay. Suppose Saddam - well versed in the treachery levels in the Arab world and well aware that a close family friend had denounced his sons Uday and Qusay - had indeed chosen to hide in a hole in the ground only a few hours before his capture. It's still remarkable how the "rat" managed to elude capture when thousands of American soldiers were combing every inch of the Sunni triangle for months. And if he really had US$750,000 with him in $100 bills, it wouldn't take a lot of human intelligence to just follow the money.
It's also remarkable that someone who foiled all sorts of assassination plots chose to be holed up in a farm near his hometown - the most obvious place where he could be found - and without any protection. Only two of his cousins from the al-Douria tribe were with him at the time of the arrest. Unlike the Pentagon version, sources tell Asia Times Online that they were simply peasants, not Saddam's bodyguards. Where were the protecting hordes of paramilitary Fedayeen of Saddam, and the still-loyal Mukhabarat intelligence agents?
Not only one of his daughters, but local villagers, are absolutely convinced that he was drugged before the capture, a vital element in the Pentagon choreography to show to the world - especially the Arab world - the picture of a disoriented bum. Saddam was carrying his pistol. So no one will ever know whether he had any intention of using it - against his attackers or against himself. The "documentation" found with Saddam is also very suspicious, as it might conveniently contain a list of names of people leading the Iraqi resistance in the Sunni triangle.
But all of this is speculation. The reality is that Saddam is in US custody, so what now? From Saddam's point of view, he has a better chance to tell his side of the story - including the real circumstances of his capture - now that his legacy as a courageous Saladinesque warrior facing up to America is in ruins. Living the rest of his life as a nightmarish remake of The Fugitive was definitely not an option. He may not have chosen it, but he may not regret public humiliation in an American commercial instead of doing a James Cagney in White Heat under a hail of bullets.
Only three months ago, this correspondent met scores of people in Baghdad and the Sunni triangle whom were absolutely convinced that former CIA friend Saddam and Washington were still involved in some sort of secret deal. Now European, Asian and Arab diplomats and businessmen are commenting off the record that there's every possibility that the CIA, or even Bush himself, may have struck a deal with his number two embodiment of evil - number one being the still elusive Osama bin Laden. They are all suspicious of the impeccable timing: and if a deal was not in the cards, then the CIA knew exactly where Saddam was for days or weeks, and were just waiting for the moment of maximum impact. Saddam was captured exactly when Halliburton was under extreme pressure for effectively swindling American taxpayers. Bush himself said on the record that if there was any proof of wrongdoing - and there is conclusive proof of overcharging - the company would face consequences. It didn't: the story - too dangerous, too close to vice president and former Halliburton boss Dick Cheney - simply disappeared from the news.
Whatever his ghastly criminal record, already debated to exhaustion, Saddam understands power extremely well: that's how he managed to keep it for three decades. He had plenty of time to prepare his exit - before the "fall" of Baghdad - and he certainly had plenty of time to prepare his re-entry in case he was caught. He may well have piles of compromising documents to use in his defense in what will certainly be the trial of the centuries - current and previous.
World leaders are now falling over themselves calling for a fair trail, in Iraq, under international standards. The Iraqi occupation is absolutely illegal, so Washington will not even consider trying Saddam in the Hague, like Slobodan Milosevic.
Unlike George W Bush - whose Texas state allowed executions when he was governor - United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan was quick to say that the UN never sets up a court which carries the death penalty. Amnesty International insists that Saddam should "not be subjected to torture or ill-treatment" and must "receive a fair trial". An Iraqi version of the post-World War 2 Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals will be totally illegitimate and a political disaster for the Americans. So the consensus is moving towards a public trial, in an Iraqi court, conducted by Iraqis, with some international judges, and meeting international standards. The Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) is also in favor of this latter option. But there's a huge problem: a tribunal in Iraq, like everything else at the moment, will have no legitimacy in the eyes of the Iraqis and the Arab world because it will be subservient to the occupying power. One can already see the daily guerrilla attacks outside the courtroom. The trial will only make sense if there is a real representative Iraqi government in place, which will not happen until June next year at the earliest.
Saddam's j'accuse
Saddam then will finally have an international platform. Everybody knows in advance the heinous crimes of which he will be accused. But at least then he could finally expose the hypocrisy and double standards of the West as a whole, and specifically America.
With the help of a battery of legal eagles, he can prove that there were never any weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and he can prove there's no evidence to support Bush's claims, last March, that he had "trained and financed al-Qaeda".
He can expand on how, in February, slightly before the onset of "shock and awe", his negotiators were delivering everything to Washington on a plate: free access to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to look for WMD anywhere in Iraq; full support for the American-penned road map in the Middle East; and the right for American companies to exploit Iraq's oil. The neo-conservative "Prince of Darkness" Richard Perle, who had been calling for an invasion of Iraq for years, was one of the contacts of Saddam's negotiators. The defense will certainly call Perle to testify.
On March 17, Bush said that "should Saddam Hussein choose confrontation, the American people can know that every measure has been taken to avoid war". Bush lied - and it would be very easy for Saddam to prove that he did everything to find a diplomatic alternative, while Washington did everything to prevent it. He can prove that Bush and his European allies - Britain's Tony Blair, Silvio Berlusconi in Italy and President Jose Aznar of Spain - lied to a world public opinion which was overwhelmingly against the war.
He can talk of endless collusions with Washington, right up to the day he invaded Kuwait in August 1990. Still today, nobody has told the real story preceding the invasion of Kuwait. He will say how at the time Washington led him to the conclusion that an invasion was "acceptable". The defense will certainly call April Glaspie, the American ambassador in Baghdad and the last American official to see Saddam eye-to-eye five days before the invasion. She was "retired" by the State Department and has been conveniently silent ever since.
Using equipment bought from National Security Council chief Brent Scowcroft's company, Kuwait was involved in slant-drilling in Iraq in 1989, and was pumping out something like US$14 billion in oil from underneath Iraqi territory. The territory from which Kuwait was drilling had indeed been Iraqi territory. Saddam will say that Glaspie told him the US was neutral in the dispute. Saddam will also say that in 1989, while the CIA was advising Kuwait to put pressure on Iraq, a CIA-affiliated think tank was advising him to put pressure on Kuwait. And at the same time, Bush senior's administration was issuing a secret directive that resulted in billions of dollars of arm sales to Saddam.
He can talk about how, why and by whom the Shi'ite intifada was betrayed after the end of the first Gulf War in 1991. He will give American names. He will detail the American deal under which the US was to have helped the Shi'ites. He will prove that those exhumed bodies incriminate the Anglo-American alliance as much as himself.
He will keep talking all the way back to 1989, to the famous meeting on December 20, 1983 in Baghdad with his friend Donald Rumsfeld, now Pentagon chief. The fuzzy photo of Rumsfeld eagerly shaking hands with Saddam Hussein, observed by foreign minister Tarik Aziz - which simply vanished from corporate media - will be one of the stars of the trial. Rumsfeld was sent by then president Ronald Reagan to mend relations between the US and Iraq only one month after Reagan had adopted a secret directive - still partly classified - to help Saddam fight the Islamic revolution in Iran. Saddam will detail how this close cooperation led to Washington selling loads of military equipment and also chemical precursors, insecticides, aluminum tubes, missile components and anthrax to him. Of course he will be condemned for using the lot to gas Iranian soldiers and then civilian Kurds in Halabja, northern Iraq, in 1988. But he will also prove that the selling of these chemical weapons was organized by Rumsfeld.
He will prove that American - and European - companies exported biological viruses for at least four years to various Iraqi government agencies and other companies, with licenses from the US Commerce Department, and thus helped him to build up his crude weapons of mass destruction program - totally dissolved after the first Gulf War.
He will prove that Washington was perfectly aware at the time that he was using chemical weapons. He will remind anyone how, after the Halabja massacre, the Pentagon engaged in a massive disinformation campaign, spinning that the massacre was caused by Iran. He will prove how Dick Cheney, as Pentagon chief from March 1989 onwards, continued to cooperate very closely with him. He will prove how the military aid - secretly organized by Rumsfeld - also enabled him to invade Kuwait in 1990. He will remind anyone again of how, between 1991 and 1998, UN weapons inspectors conclusively established that the US - as well as British, German and French firms - had sold missile parts and chemical and bacteriological material to him.
He will recall the Iran-Iraq war in great detail, and how, during the war, the CIA always sent him a team to deliver battlefield intelligence obtained from Saudi AWACS surveillance planes. The defense will call CIA officials who signed documents sharing US satellite intelligence with both Iraq and Iran - so Washington could be sure of a permanent military stalemate.
Incriminating evidence against all levers of power in Washington will be immeasurable. There will be a non-stop roll-call of civilian deaths and non-stop supply of arms. It will go all the way back to 1959, when a young Saddam was part of a CIA-authorized six-man squad which botched the assassination of then Iraqi prime minister General Abdul-Karim Qasim.
Saddam on his way to the courtroom does not mean democracy has arrived in Iraq. Let's make it absolutely clear. The last thing that the White House, the euphemistic Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and the ICG (dubbed "the imported government" by Iraqis) want is real democracy in Iraq. Shi'ite and Sunni alike are in the streets shouting "free elections now!" - leading to the formation of a constituent assembly. The occupiers and their local collaborators know very well that an elected constituent assembly would naturally demand what the overwhelming majority of Iraqis want: the immediate end to the occupation, total Iraqi control of Iraqi oil and first choice for Iraqi companies in the rebuilding process.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the top Shi'ite religious authority, also wants direct elections. In an unprecedented move for someone as "beyond politics" as Sistani, he accused the CPA of being non-democratic. Sistani is totally supported by Shi'ite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of the rare members of the IGC not suspected by ordinary Iraqis of being a crook. Al-Hakim's official position is that a provisional national assembly should be elected by the Iraqi people, and this assembly should choose the government. The credibility of the IGC is less than zero. Iraqis, Shi'ite and Sunni alike, are convinced there is absolutely no difference between Saddam's former thugs and the current, power-hungry majority of IGC members.
"When the heat got on, you dug yourself a hole and you crawled in," said Bush of his public enemy number two. Like Shi'ite and Sunnis all over Iraq, former CIA asset Saddam Hussein is also plotting his revenge. One can bet he is sure that when he talks he may be able to hurl George W Bush all the way back to his ranch in Crawford - along with Saddam's close collaborator Dick Cheney and Saddam's old friend Donald Rumsfeld.

NEXT MONTH: Part 2 - why the resistance will increase

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