Thailand

Everyday Thai Cooking offers recipes for staple dishes that include both homemade and store-bought options. From appetizers to desserts, each step-by-step recipe lists preparation times (most within thirty minutes) and alternates for less accessible ingredients.

In Thailand, migrant writers have documented the social and cultural impacts of fifty years of rural-urban migration through hundreds of stories, poems, and novels. Bangkok Bound is the first book to examine this body of literature and the messages that Thai migrant writers convey about their experiences. These stories powerfully describe the ways in which migrants who leave their homes bound for Bangkok are quickly bound to Bangkok through the transformative force of modern city life. And they show the ways in which those who remain behind in the village are transformed, too, as they struggle to maintain a rural way of life in a rapidly urbanizing world. Bangkok Bound will be of interest to anyone working on migration or urbanization, as well as to scholars of Thailand and Thai literature.

This volume is a sophisticated yet accessible study of the state of popular Buddhist beliefs as they are practiced in Thailand today. Using a combination of focused case studies and analysis, it explores the nature and evolution of popular Buddhism over the past three decades by focusing on those individuals who practice, popularize, and profit from it. It also explores the history of both popular and official opinion surrounding supernatural Buddhism and its clashes with the rationalist, modernizing policies of Thailand's monarchy and government.

This volume was published in conjunction with an exhibition organised by the Asian Civilisations Museum in collaboration with the Fine Arts Department, Ministry of Culture, Thailand. It explores the many forms of Buddhist art in Thailand through more than 100 important works. Buddhist art in Thailand draws on both Hindu and Buddhist origins and incorporates animistic traditions as well. Sculptures, paintings, ceramics, textiles, and furniture show the wide range and diverse influences of this artistic tradition.

The independent-minded Makansutra food pocket guides to Singapore and Malaysia are widely used and enjoyed. Now there is a Makansutra for Thailand which describes and assesses 480 restaurants and street food stalls in Bangkok and 271 in Chiang Mai. Each entry includes location details, a description of the place and its atmosphere and a grading. Selected dishes are recommended and/or illustrated. With recipes for three well-known Thai dishes and indexes.

The author's 20 years of varied life in Thailand flavours this travel guide for budget-conscious and more comfortable tourists and the selection of visits and experiences highlighted. In Chapter One, descriptions and practical guidance are given for some 30 of the country's "must see" ancient and modern sites and facilities. Chapter Two explores seven of Thailand's regions and in Chapter Three the author discusses his personal recommendations and sets out his "best" list of things to do and see. Basic travel facts, addresses and other information follow. With many photo insets, index and pull-out map.

This richly illustrated and comprehensive travel guide to Thailand features the megalopolis Bangkok and the many beaches and islands which draw the world's travellers and sun worshippers. After an overview introduction to the country, Bangkok's many sights and monuments are described with access details, indexed sheet maps, and a shopping guide. Then details are given of the resorts and the sights and facilities available on the Eastern seaboards, the Gulf coasts, the Andaman coasts and the Deep South. A general section on traveller's needs, entertainment and other facilities is followed by an informative "survival guide" for traveller. With glossary and index.

Most anthropological and sociological studies of Buddhism have concentrated on village and rural Buddhism. This is a systematic anthropological study of monastic organization and monk-layman interaction in a purely urban context in the countries where Theravada Buddhism is practised, namely, Burma, Cambodia, Ceylon, Laos and Thailand. The material presented is based on fieldwork carried out in Ayutthaya, Central Thailand. Dr Bunnag describes and analyses the socio-economic and ritual relations existing between the monk and the lay community, and she demonstrates the way in which the role of the monk is used by some men, wittingly or otherwise, as a social stepping-stone. Finally, Dr Bunnag places the material presented in a broader theoretical context by reviewing it in relation to anthropological discussions concerning the nature of Thai society as a whole. With bibliography and index.

In Land and Loyalty, Tomas Larsson argues that institutional underdevelopment may prove, under certain circumstances, a strategic advantage rather than a weakness and that external threats play an important role in shaping the development of property regimes. Security concerns, he find, often guide economic policy. The domestic legacies, legal and socioeconomic, resulting from state responses to the outside world and limit the strategies available to politicians. While Larsson's extensive archival research findings are drawn from Thai sources, he situates the experiences of Thailand in comparative perspective by contrasting them with the trajectory of property rights in Japan, Burma, and the Philippines. With bibliography and index.

At the heart of the on-going armed conflict in southern Thailand is a fundamental disagreement about the history of relations between the Patani Malays and the Thai kingdom. While the Thai royalist-nationalist version of history regards Patani as part of that kingdom "since time immemorial," Patani Malay nationalists look back to a golden age when the Sultanate of Patani was an independent, prosperous trading state and a renowned center for Islamic education and scholarship in Southeast Asia - a time before it was defeated, broken up, and fell under the control of the Thai state. The essays in this book demonstrate that an understanding of the conflict must take into account the historical dimensions of relations between Patani and the Thai kingdom, and the ongoing influence of these perceptions on Thai state officials, militants, and the local population.

Who invented the dish Phad Thai and why? What is the prime minister's monthly salary? What are the most common nicknames in Thailand? What is the average IQ of a Thai? How many Thai women smoke tobacco? What will you be fined for the unlawful possession of an elephant? An illustrated collection of Thailand trivia, Thailand at Random is filled with fun anecdotes, statistics, quotes, idioms, cultural explanations, historical asides, facts, folklore and other unusual and useful tidbits. This veritable treasure trove of information on Thailand is arranged, as the title suggests, randomly, so that readers will come to expect the unexpected on each and every page. Designed in a charmingly classic style, and peppered with original illustrations, Thailand at Random is a quirky and irresistible celebration of everything you didn't know you wanted to know about this diverse and captivating country.

These seven essays are by the late and independent-minded economist Somboon Siriprachai (1956-2008) of Thammasat University. They address many aspects of the 19th-20th century industrialisation of Thailand and their interpretation with particular focus on: industrial policy; rent seeking; income inequalities; the role of the state and population issues. The author offers criticisms and reassessments of much previous analysis, including some by the World Bank. Bibliography and index.

This substantial volume with 540 illustrations explores early pre-Thai art works of the Mon and Khmer peoples who inhabited much of what is now Thailand from the 4th -13th centuries. These art works demonstrate both the Buddhism and Brahmanism which in their later forms underpin much of Thai society today. Chapter One explores the context from which the religious and building décor and varied art objects arose, and Chapter Two presents many examples of the artefacts from the various religious and art traditions , plus some examples of commercial art. Glossary, bibliography and index.

Dramatic new archaeological discoveries over the past ten years demand a new look at Thailand's past. Drawing on their previous work, Prehistoric Thailand, this substantially updated book covers the history of the Kingdom from the first human settlement to the earliest civilisations and gives a fresh appraisal of the early hunters and gatherers, and of the origins of the first rice farmers. A new chronology reveals the dynamic social changes that came with the Bronze Age, and the rapid advance to the foundation of early states that followed. The outstanding art of the Bronze Age, as seen in painted ceramic vessels a thousand years earlier than those from Ban Chiang is portrayed, as is the wealth of Iron Age chiefs who contributed so much to the foundation of the Kingdoms of Angkor and Dvaravati. In the far south, we find early cities founded along the Southern Silk Road, bringing exotic ideas and goods through seaborne trade. Most of all, the authors present the rich cultural heritage of the Thai people.

This book focuses on the multitude of elements and forms that go into Thai architecture. All the important features of Thai culture - its agrarian roots, its religion and monarchy, its rich mix of foreign influences - are embodied in buildings. As a result, this book also illuminates Thai tradition and history. Lively text and hundreds of photographs and illustraions explore Thailand's indigenous architecture, from the humble but charming field hut woven of bamboo to the splendid teak mansion built high on stilts.

Stories centering on the lovelorn ghost (Mae Nak) and the magical monk (Somdet To) are central to Thai Buddhism. Historically important and emotionally resonant, these characters appeal to every class of follower. Metaphorically and rhetorically powerful, they invite constant reimagining across time. Focusing on representations of the ghost and monk from the late eighteenth century to the present, Justin Thomas McDaniel builds a case for interpreting modern Thai Buddhist practice through the movements of these transformative figures. He follows embodiments of the ghost and monk in a variety of genres and media, including biography, film, television, drama, ritual, art, liturgy, and the Internet. Sourcing nuns, monks, laypeople, and royalty, he shows how relations with these figures have been instrumental in crafting histories and modernities. McDaniel is especially interested in local conceptions of being "Buddhist" and the formation and transmission of such identities across different venues and technologies. Establishing an individual's "religious repertoire" as a valid category of study, McDaniel explores the performance of Buddhist thought and ritual through practices of magic, prognostication, image production, sacred protection, and deity and ghost worship, and clarifies the meaning of multiple cultural configurations. Listening to popular Thai Buddhist ghost stories, visiting crowded shrines and temples, he finds concepts of attachment, love, wealth, beauty, entertainment, graciousness, security, and nationalism all spring from engagement with the ghost and the monk and are as vital to the making of Thai Buddhism as venerating the Buddha himself.

Sex in the Village presents an overview of perspectives on and approaches towards the prevention of HIV/AIDS in Thailand within the context of the global community, drawing useful comparisons and contrasts between local and global situations. The study begins by discussing various secular and religious approaches to the prevention of HIV/AIDS, and highlights lessons learnt from the success of different strategies. It also examines how globalization has affected sexuality in Thailand from a historical perspective and discusses the dynamic interaction between Thai culture and globalization. The author interviews Buddhist and Christian religious leaders and villagers involved with prevention programs in two communities in northern Thailand. Their differing worldviews reveal differing perspectives on sexuality and HIV/AIDS prevention. The book concludes with an assessment of the effectiveness of religious interventions in HIV/AIDS prevention, and research findings on sex education in Thailand.

The Thai language has extraordinarily rich, varied, and multi-levelled vocabularies for sexual anatomy, sexual behaviours, sexual identities, and attitudes to sexuality. The authors of this in-depth study of 21 keywords deal directly and unflinchingly with the language of sex in Thailand in all its raw, sometimes humorous, and often derogatory immediacy. The registers of spoken Thai (phasa phut), the language of the marketplace (phasa talat), as well as official discourse (phasa ratchakan), literary usages (phasa khian), and technical and academic vocabularies (phasa wichakan) are all covered. Much more than a vocabulary list, this book engages the language of sex and sexuality in Thailand from critical feminist and queer studies perspectives. The authors take the positions of women, men who love men, women who love women, and transgenders as standpoints from which to critique the dominant male-centred and hetero-normative structures of Thai sexual culture. Thai Sex Talk showcases the path-breaking research that a new generation of Thai scholars is conducting on the country's sexual cultures, representing a direct challenge to the pathologizing, negative approaches that characterized much 20th-century Thai research on sexuality.

Red Journeys is a first-hand account of the emergence and expansion of the red-shirt protests in Bangkok that took place in 2010. It traces the origins of the protest, focusing on the unique voices, stories, and motives of those who participated in the movement. Sopranzetti vividly depicts daily life in the heart of the movement and when the peaceful occupation descended into violence and neared its tragic end, he describes the final moments of the protest as the red shirts faced the force of the Thai military. Styled engagingly between ethnography and daily blog, Red Journeys offers an unprecedented analysis of the biggest social movement in Thailand to date and highlights the discrepancies between the "official" media portrayal of the protest and the reality on the ground.

This dense study, based on field work and personal investigation, considers the context and nature of the political and other problems of the Muslims people of Southern Thailand and the state policies applied in the area since 1978. After overviewing the historical and organizational framework of the area, actual impacts of the different national policies are considered including major inconsistencies between official rulings and their implementation. The final chapter offers civil society perspectives on administrative and other reforms which could create a more constructive type of local and decentralized governance in the problem-ridden area. With tables, black-and-white photographs and bibliography.