The Elephant Story

KINGS, GENERALS, AND COMMONERS

Jun 04, 2023 | 0 comments

KINGS, GENERALS, AND COMMONERS I doubt that very few of us have personally met royalty so we can discard any firsthand comments on that category. On the other hand, I have known generals both in Thailand and the U.S. as well as commoners functioning in politics in both countries as well. My Thai general acquaintance was deeply involved in the Vietnam war as some 4,000 Thai soldiers fought in Laos. There is a photograph of him in his office next to U.S. General Westmoreland. What our Thai friend gave up in height to the American, he made up in...

WILL THERE BE MEKHONG WHISKEY WHEN THE MEKONG RIVER VANISHES?

May 29, 2023 | 0 comments

WILL THERE BE MEKHONG WHISKEY WHEN THE MEKONG RIVER VANISHES? Having just returned from Thailand, where a bottle of Thai Mekhong whiskey is present in most hotel rooms, I was reminiscing about Mekhong whiskey and the plight of the Mekong River. Note that the name for the river is spelled differently than the name for the whiskey which has been modified in some modern refinement in English. Mekong literally means the mother of water though the English spelling of the whiskey is more in line with the actual Thai pronunciation. Over the years, I have had my fair share of...

WE WILL ALWAYS HAVE THE SIAM

May 21, 2023 | 0 comments

WE WILL ALWAYS HAVE THE SIAM With the name “The Siam,” I am referring to the iconic The Siam Hotel in Bangkok which is our favorite hotel in the world and our principal home away from home. I first went to Thailand in 1968 to live and work in the Far East for seven years. After that period, it has become a major part of our lives as I use it as a base to conduct business all over Southeast Asia, most notably Vietnam. The Siam Hotel was opened in 2012 and, since that time, we consider the owner and...

RAND CORPORATION WAS RIGHT, THOUGH THE POLITICIANS IGNORED THEM

May 14, 2023 | 0 comments

RAND CORPORATION WAS RIGHT, THOUGH THE POLITICIANS IGNORED THEM Recently, we published an article entitled a Critical Voice in The Vietnam War Passes. We referenced Daniel Ellsberg who worked for the RAND Corporation and his role in the release of the Vietnam War research and evaluation by former foreign service officers Lowenstein and Moose in the late sixties. The research efforts directed by Senator William Fulbright were compiled in a document referred to as The Pentagon Papers. Ultimately, Senator Fulbright was unwilling to release the condemnation of the war and the actions of President Nixon. Lowenstein then passed the findings...

THE TWO LADIES OF BANGLADESH

May 07, 2023 | 0 comments

THE TWO LADIES OF BANGLADESH In the seventies, a fellow worked for me in Bandung, Indonesia with the almost impossible task of dressing up a bulk asphalt company for sale that had been mistakenly financed by my predecessors through an incompetent and corrupt Indonesian. During that period, we were both caught in Bandung, Indonesia amid rioters and gun fire in the streets as back in Jakarta one general was trying to overthrow another. Our transplant into Indonesia shared his experiences in Bangladesh with me which was previously known as East Pakistan. He gave me a vivid description of his period...

BAD NEIGHBORS IN THE STEPPE

Apr 30, 2023 | 0 comments

BAD NEIGHBORS IN THE STEPPE I have had an extensive involvement in Mongolia dating back to the country’s first elected government following the dissolution of the former Soviet Union. In fact, I just received my renewal U.S. State Department card recognizing my role as an Honorary Consul of Mongolia to the U.S. that goes back to that era. Accordingly, I have had the vantage point of witnessing the country’s continuous evolution into a democracy. Joey and I have a condominium there as the hotels were not quite Aman standard back in the old days. Therefore, the Mongolian people are very...

MAMBO IN MYANMAR

Apr 24, 2023 | 0 comments

MAMBO IN MYANMAR For those of you who are not familiar with the Cuban dance of Mambo, it is notable for the dancer’s directional change on a given note. What is happening along the border of Thailand and Myanmar is a series of directional changes in traffic flows much like that of the Mambo. During the Southeast Asia troubles of the Sixties, the directional flow was somewhat equal in that opium flowed into Thailand while guns found their way to what was formerly Burma. The opium bales supported the Hmong forces in their war efforts in Laos and the guns...

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS— A THING OF THE PAST IN RUSSIA

Apr 17, 2023 | 0 comments

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS— A THING OF THE PAST IN RUSSIA After some ten years in and out of Moscow and Perm Russia, I can attest to the fact that there is no solid rule of law, even in an oil and gas joint venture with a Russian state company. We went there at the very beginning of the Yeltsin era facing rampant corruption and left under the Putin regime which was becoming much more uncomfortable and off the rails. The Russian state portion of our joint venture was privatized by a slick Russian, fluent in “no-accent” English, who happened...

MOTTO FOR BUSINESS IN INDIA—CAVEAT EMPTOR—BUYER BEWARE

Apr 10, 2023 | 0 comments

MOTTO FOR BUSINESS IN INDIA—CAVEAT EMPTOR—BUYER BEWARE Business in India is crony capitalism at its best. Over my long tenure there, we were largely beholden to the state enterprise bureaucrats who were slow and methodical but for the most part, all on the up and up. Moreover, energy needs in India take a visible priority that surpasses most personal interests on the part of the politicians. On the other hand, cronyism and deception can have a prominent role to play in other commercial and political endeavors. The friends of Prime Minister Modi are no different than those most anywhere though...

MODI HAS MOVED TO THE WORLD STAGE

Apr 03, 2023 | 0 comments

MODI HAS MOVED TO THE WORLD STAGE The most recent forward-looking development in India is that it has surpassed China as the most populous country in the world. Not only is India now the most populous of the largest countries, but it also has a younger population with a median age of 28 years as compared to that of China where the median age is some 10 years older. Moreover, China has ranked first in the world with the highest average age record of 12% of the population being over 65. It is the first change at the top of...

GANDHI'S TEACHINGS ARE LONG GONE

Mar 26, 2023 | 0 comments

GANDHI'S TEACHINGS ARE LONG GONE It seems like I have had a separate career of being on Indian oil and gas company boards for the past twenty-five years or so. What can I say, I like the people, the food, and the controlled chaos of life in India. Over the years, I have known many Indians ranging from wealthy oligarchs to fellow associates throughout India. The sad aspect of this period is the recent use of religion by politicians to strengthen their own personal positions. This trend is by no means unique to India but the degree of departure from...

KOREA FACES THE MUSIC OF VIETNAM

Mar 20, 2023 | 0 comments

KOREA FACES THE MUSIC OF VIETNAM Nikkei Asia recently published an article by Dien Luong entitled Vietnam and South Korea Have to Address Wartime Legacy Together. The article brought forward a situation dating back to the Vietnam War that few people outside of those countries had any knowledge. The two countries have become very closely connected through large Korean investments in Vietnam to manufacture a host of products including electronics. For example, Samsung Electronics, Korea’s top exporter and the world biggest seller of mobile phones, is building most of its handsets in Vietnam. Nonetheless, a ruling by a court...

WHO WILL TURN OFF THE AIR CONDITIONERS IN HONG KONG?

Mar 13, 2023 | 0 comments

WHO WILL TURN OFF THE AIR CONDITIONERS IN HONG KONG? Could it be the former cop, John Lee, who replaced Carrie Lam as the Chief Executive of Hong Kong last year, will be the one who turns off the air conditioners? Carrie Lam, shown below, was reviled by demonstrators as she followed the instructions from Beijing to dispense with the personal liberties that existed in the “good old days of Hong Kong.” That period need not go all the way back to the days of the British Raj control but only to June 2020 when the government in Beijing issued...

JAPAN CRISIS - LONGEVITY GROWS WITHOUT EQUIVALENT REPRODUCTIVITY

Mar 06, 2023 | 0 comments

JAPAN CRISIS - LONGEVITY GROWS WITHOUT EQUIVALENT REPRODUCTIVITY For some time, it has been apparent that Japan has a rapidly aging society. Japan’s life expectancy is among the highest in the world with 1 in every 1,500 people in Japan over 100 years old of age. Smaller villages have shrunk into oblivion as the younger Japanese are attracted to jobs and activities in the bigger metropolitan areas leaving only a few behind in more remote areas. All of that has been recognized for some time but the fertility rate, which indicates the number of children a woman will have during...

A CRITICAL VOICE OF THE VIETNAM WAR PASSES

Feb 27, 2023 | 0 comments

A CRITICAL VOICE OF THE VIETNAM WAR PASSES The New York Times recently published an article entitled James G. Lowenstein, Whose Reports Questioned Vietnam War, Dies at 95. Included in the article were references to updates of articles published over fifty years ago in The New York Times which I had never seen as it was not delivered to Southeast Asia at that time. I was clearly aware of what was being concealed by the establishment as I was in that arena over much of that seven-year period. James Lowenstein, along with his globe-trotting partner Richard Moose, produced the...

DO NOT MESS WITH MUAY THAI BOXERS

Feb 20, 2023 | 0 comments

DO NOT MESS WITH MUAY THAI BOXERS Cambodia will host the 32nd Southeast Asia Games in May for the first time in 60 years. Therefore, it is a recognition that the country may have gone legit after all this time. I can attest that it was a very dangerous place during the Khmer Rouge era though it has now become an economic force in the region because of foreign investment and cheap labor. The personal freedoms have certainly improved from the days of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge leader who is associated with the deaths of some two...

THANKS TO OUR TEACHERS IN BAN TA KLANG, THAILAND

Feb 13, 2023 | 0 comments

THANKS TO OUR TEACHERS IN BAN TA KLANG, THAILAND Some years back, The Elephant Story began funding a program to support the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation to teach English in the small village of Ban Ta Klang in Surin Province, Thailand located near the Thai border with Cambodia. We had been visiting the village and engaging with the three hundred elephants that resided there. The involvement of the villagers with elephants goes back thousands of years representing a separate ethnic group called Kuy with their own language and customs. Accordingly, the language complexities of Thai, much less English,...

FROM SOAPY MASSAGE PARLORS TO SLIPPERY CHINESE INVESTORS

Feb 06, 2023 | 0 comments

FROM SOAPY MASSAGE PARLORS TO SLIPPERY CHINESE INVESTORS The Bangkok Post has been a treasure trove of material regarding the underbelly of life in free and easy Thailand. You should recognize that Thailand has been a significant part of most of my life ranging from making a living to playing with the elephants. I have many close Thai friends and am about as near to being a Thai in terms of culture, language and thought process as possible. Therefore, I have looked forward to the daily press releases that define the place and the behavior of a famous Thai...

WE SAY GOODBYE TO NATE THAYER HE FINALLY WORE OUT THAT BODY OF HIS

Jan 30, 2023 | 0 comments

WE SAY GOODBYE TO NATE THAYER HE FINALLY WORE OUT THAT BODY OF HIS A family friend sent me a text advising me that Nate Thayer had passed away at age 62. She said she was not certain that I knew Nate but could not imagine that our paths had not crossed over the years. She was “spot on!” I believe I first met Nate when he was somewhat focused on Mongolia as the Mongolian democratic youth movement had brought the communist government to a halt and created a democracy in the early 90s. He was most likely working as...

AN INDEPENDENT LOOK AT THE SCOREBOARD OF TRADE FAIRNESS

Jan 23, 2023 | 0 comments

AN INDEPENDENT LOOK AT THE SCOREBOARD OF TRADE FAIRNESS Reading newspapers that only fit one’s political and economic interests can be rather shallow and potentially hazardous to one’s economic health. Granted, it is always more comfortable to live in a world that ignores views which differ from yours but that is not unlike “drinking your own whiskey.” Recently, Nikkei staff writers published an article entitled Fairness, Not Just Democracy, To Be Key for Sailing Divided World. Whereas globalization has come to a screeching halt thanks to the old commie ugly ducklings of China and Russia, trade and business seems to...