OPINION

Bowing to bad tradition

Re: "Thailand 4.0 not quite as we imagined", (Opinion, Aug 8).

In her succinct opinion piece, Atiya Achakulwisut correctly notes that prostration in Chulalongkorn University mode is "a newly invented tradition". She might usefully have given a bit more historical background. In 1873, the great Thai king Chulalongkorn, Rama V, in his wise efforts to break with the bad old ways of the past, to end bad old traditions and bring in modernising reforms, explicitly abolished prostration, describing it as "severely oppressive" and unable to "render any benefit to Siam" (Royal Siamese Government Gazette, 1873). This begs the obvious question: if the modern lights at Chulalongkorn University and elsewhere dictate that students or others prostrate themselves, what are they saying when they seem to directly disagree with the wisdom of the great King Chulalongkorn?

Personally, I think the great Thai king of more than a century ago was wiser and better in tune with good morals than the modern rulers of the university that takes his name.

Thankfully, there are bright young citizens such as Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal to help his elders correct their mistaken notions of good morals.

If the needless brawling between students at rival technical schools is to cease, "Needless brawling deaths must stop" (Opinion, August 8), perhaps the death penalty needs to be instituted for those students convicted of murder. It seems that when all else fails, the extreme is the only way left. Public executions are a way of life in Saudi Arabia and Iran. Perhaps if these brainless twits who attend these vocational schools were to be made to witness an execution of one of their peers, it might, (then and again, might not), give them a pause for thought.

Try it. You might like it. And, before those who jump on the bandwagon calling me all sorts of names for suggesting the death penalty, perhaps you'd like to propose a better, more workable solution. And, yes, I also support the humane euthanasia of stray dogs. It is better then letting them die a slow inhumane death from disease, starvation or being run over, with their carcasses left to rot on roadways.

I got a good laugh out of the Aug 10 letter, "Fired up over ice cream".

Yes, Thailand is drowning in a sea of paper trivia. I needed to deposit a bank draft issued by a bank not 100 yards from my own bank. The paperwork to deposit the cheque took nearly 10 minutes. Forms, forms, forms and yet more forms. It was mind boggling. It would have been easier to walk across the street, cash the cheque at the issuing bank, then make my deposit in cash, T/G only one form.

As an adventure tour leader I spent many hours in the past dealing with immigration and the sometimes difficult officers that manned the desks. But having entered the new era of computers and automatic machines I am left wondering why it is still necessary for real people to sit at that desk hour after hour repeating this boring job.

Surely this is something crying out for robotic engineering, a machine much like a passbook update outside a bank. Open to the visa page, feed into machine, visa scanned, barrier opens and visitor passes. Any irregularity and a red light flashes and the barrier stays closed while a human official intervenes. No more human error from fatigue or boredom.

Is this an impossibility, am I dreaming? Surely if Visa and Amex can control the world's bank accounts by machine, something can be done for tourist travel.

Re: "On good form", (PostBag, Aug 10).

The point about householders submitting to immigration a TM30 for their foreign guests is because the latter can't be trusted to tell the truth about their accommodation. Is it a useful exercise providing instant data on wannabe bombers or boiler-room fraudsters or suspected paedophiles? I thought you'd never ask!