Start with the small issues first
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We are bombarded daily with news about subjects that do, in a small way, affect us all, but mostly they are subjects about which we have little or no say - the rice scheme, the southern insurgency, corruption, errant monks. Sure, we want to know about the
Every day, 30 or 40 times, I must alter the TV volume because it screams or whispers when I change channels or a commercial comes on. This is easily corrected, but it gives the advertiser what he pays for.
The government should set standards and specifications for male-female electrical sockets and plugs. In nine years I have never bought an appliance that will easily and securely mate up with its counterpart. Sometimes I’ve had to discard a new purchase because I can’t plug it in!
Businesspeople, educators and Cabinet ministers are telling us that speaking, reading and writing English is the single most important need as the Asean Economic Community comes into being. Yet my Thai contacts over the past year haven’t changed one iota – as when I want to return a product I can’t open, plug in or operate.
One candidate to become Bangkok governor – maybe the one who won – pledged to install 4,900 public toilets, but not one has appeared.
Alleviating daily frustrations can open people’s minds about the more important and less easily rectified woes. I have to go now to find a you-know-what, but none in sight. I don’t care who has 22 or 222 Mercedes – when I have to go I have to go!
Don Aleman
Bangkok
