Neighbours set a better example

No dumping buckets of dirty klong water and itchy powder on them.

For foreigners who complain about Songkran in Thailand, this holiday is also celebrated in neighbouring Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. Year after year, the Thai government says there is nothing it can do about the reckless holidaymaking and road accident death toll. The hundreds of deaths each year are mostly from throwing water at motorcyclists and alcohol. In Cambodia none of this happens, since the government banned these activities. There is no throwing water anywhere, no drinking, and no assaults on people and laughing when they suffer serious injury. People are quiet and respectful. There are TV shows with people doing slow dances to traditional music.

I heard that Cambodia had been going down the bad road, with people throwing battery acid, but that the government has successfully regulated Songkran.

What is the Thai Ministry of Culture doing? This big bureaucracy was created by Thaksin Shinawatra in 2002 to supervise Thai art, culture and religion. But instead of solving the problem of Songkran it is telling people not to get tattoos, and taking topless celestial figures off its website.

Thailand’s bureaucracy should study a successful cultural policy from its neighbours, and if it cannot create any public policy, at least prevent problems like floods and holiday accidents instead of looking like mere occupiers of office.

It is not "sanuk" when people have fun at the expense of others. The Ministry of Culture could start by censoring Thai TV programmes where people laugh at others’ misfortune – which is the heart of the anti-social behaviour at Songkran.

Look at Chinese New Year; there is none of this stupidity.

Mai Dee

Chon Buri