I noticed Glenn’s negative reaction to a post on Reason regarding some vacationers heading to Thailand in the wake of the tsunami. I think the Instapundit’s calling this one right. Charity’s great, but even better is ‘business as usual.’ And toward that end, I would just like to say that Phuket is the coolest beach I ever visited. The Thai seafood’s great too, much better than at home, cooked fresh under the palapas. (Spanish word, I know, but there isn’t a better one.) I was there about fifteen years ago and I’ve always wanted to go back. I know it sounds strange under the circumstances, but the water there is exceptional, almost magical. Think about it if you’re planning a tropical vacation this year.
And speaking of that… Happy New Year, everyone! See you next year, as we used to say when we were kids.
UPDATE: N. Z. Bear says we should buy Southeast Asian. Make that coffee Sumatran (if it really is).
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22 Comments
1. David Thomson:Happy New Year! Best wishes to everyone.
Dec 31, 2004 - 5:22 pm 2. Rick Ballard:Best wishes for a happy, prosperous and fulfilling New Year for everyone at Roger’s Place.
Marc at Winds of Change has a good post on FedEx’s efforts. I noted in the comments there that Asia is the low cost producer for almost all the items mentioned. I also noted a hope that FedEx could try and get their supply change gurus together with purchasing agents from Wal-Mart, Lowe’s and Home Depot to identify and publicize the low cost producers for the items.
Wouldn’t it be great if our corporate giants could get together and identify the most effective sources in Asia to provide relief goods at the lowest cost? If you know someone in a position of responsibility at a major corporation, please consider emailing a suggestion to them.
Dec 31, 2004 - 5:58 pm 3. chuck:Happy New Year, Roger. And to all the commenters, thanks for the company and conversation.
Dec 31, 2004 - 6:12 pm 4. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):Happy New Year, Roger and all. This is a warm and friendly place.
Regarding going to hard hit tourist areas, it sounds like a good idea but I wouldn’t do it unless the authorities there and here think it is a good idea.
For example, would your hotel room be occupied by a now homeless family if you weren’t there? Will you become part of the problem by picking up the sorts of diseases that may run loose?
The basic rule of disaster relief (or search and rescue, for that matter) is to never become part of the problem yourself. This would apply even if the relief is in the form of going there and spending your money.
Dec 31, 2004 - 7:18 pm 5. Solomon:Happy New Year, all!
I was also there in Thailand about 16 years ago. Never made it down to Phuket – Pataya is as far as I got.
There’s absolutely no doubt how much the tourist dollars mean to those people.
I remember how unbelievable the Thai people were. It’s called the “Land of Smiles” for good reason – smiles and friendliness everywhere, and not just people looking for your tourist cash. Walking down a street in Bangkok was like being a rock star.
Very, very sad.
Dec 31, 2004 - 7:18 pm 6. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):PS – I was advocating that our extended family Christmas vacation be held in that area this year, which might have put us in the middle of it.
Instead we went to Central America, and now home spent last night in a local ER getting rabies shots as a result of our trip.
Sigh.
Dec 31, 2004 - 7:20 pm 7. richard mcenroe:John Moore รณ Wow! My first genuinely rabid conservative! Thanks!
Dec 31, 2004 - 9:11 pm 8. thibaud:I’m not sure it’s such a good idea to go right back into a disaster area and party on. Here’s a flavor of what Phuket’s tourist scene is like right now:
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/266958p-228627c.html
An indignant Russian who arrived at the Novotel Phuket Resort on the day after the tsunami loudly complained that there was no champagne reception.
Other guests have pestered the hotel’s grieving staff with complaints that their rooms lack good views.
Belgian tourist Desmet Romain, 42, questioned whether he should have stayed on despite all the death and misery.
But the prospect of missing the New Year’s beach holiday he had been looking forward to all year was too much to bear.
“I didn’t want to go back to Belgium where it is so cold,” Romain said. “And in this hotel, it’s like everything is totally normal.”
Some Thais are amazed that the foreigners can be so insensitive to be sipping cocktails poolside while surrounded by death and grief.
“I think the people are good, but I don’t know why they stay, a waiter at the Novotel said, asking that his name not be reported out of fear of losing his job….
Dec 31, 2004 - 9:50 pm 9. TmjUtah:richard mcenroe -
Priceless.
Happy New Year, all.
Dec 31, 2004 - 11:15 pm 10. richard mcenroe:Happt 2005, everybody!
May we all get more of what we want
enough of what we need
and just maybe a little less than what we deserve…
Dec 31, 2004 - 11:57 pm 11. maria horvath:Happy New Year, everyone!
A hundred thousand welcomes! I could weep
And I could laugh; I am light, and heavy. Welcome!
~ Shakespeare, from Coriolanus, II,i.
Jan 1, 2005 - 4:31 am 12. Erik:Sweden had the most tourists in the area, current count is 59 dead and 3559 missing. Norway is missing 435 people, and Denmark 490. It looks like it’s going to be the worst disaster in Swedish history.
New Years celebrations was toned down considerably, fireworks cancelled, and today all flags are lowered.
Yet, it seems most opinions I hear is the same as Instapundit, they need the tourist industry to keep going. I hear lots of stories from the survivors of how wonderful the Thai has been, and I haven’t heard one word remotely suggesting not to go there.
A reporter said he was asked how long he thought it would be until the tourists came back “do you think they will come next month?”. I’ve also heard of a swedish family that didn’t want to return to Phuket and was promptly invited to stay in their cab drivers home until they could leave.
One survivor said that there is no way he could ever repay the Thai people for the way they helped everyone in the middle of the tragedy, and how they handled everything.
A lot of Scandinavians are staying there as volunteers, to help as much as they can. One man said he was supposed to be on vacation, but his boss had told him he could stay as long as he was needed and wanted to, and he intended to do that.
I’m with Roger and Glenn here. From what I hear, so are the people that was there.
Jan 1, 2005 - 8:36 am 13. ms anne:For our friends at roger’s place, and for those suffering from the tsunami and iraq:
may you be peaceful
may you be happy
may you be free from danger
may you have ease of well-being.
may we all share a wonderful 2005.
Jan 1, 2005 - 10:18 am 14. Charlie (Colorado):Anne:
Aha, you’re one of us!
*gassho*
Jan 1, 2005 - 10:43 am 15. Charlie (Colorado):I’ve heard it thus:
“This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech.
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied.
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
“Peaceful and calm, and wise and skilful,
Not proud and demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in safety,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born,
May all beings be at ease!
“Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings:
Radiating kindness over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
“Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.”
Thanks for the reminder, Anne.
Jan 1, 2005 - 10:50 am 16. Catherine:I have no idea what a person should or should not be doing, today, in terms of taking trips to Thailand.
I do remember the gratitude New Yorkers felt for the many gestures of ‘return’ made by Americans from all over the country in the months after 9-11.
IIRC, Rosie O’Donnell got together a busload of older people from CT to come in to the city together & attend a Broadway play. All those people had to be scared and nervous–everyone was–and I don’t think any of them were even people who normally went to a lot of plays.
But they all got on a bus and went to a play on purpose.
My husband an I did the same thing. We had every right to take a pass, since we’d been directly part of 9-11: my husband saw the first plane hit the first building and was trapped inside the basement of his office most of the day after a woman ran in off the street screaming that there was a man with a bomb outside. There was drama here in Westchester, too. I was told to come pick up my eldest from school because there had been an attack up north, at Camp Smith, I think it was. I didn’t even know there was a Camp Smith, or where it was located. The phones were dead, my one typical son was crying, BOCES couldn’t seem to get my second autistic son home from his school across the county, and the wait for him stretched on for hours. Meanwhile his teacher was waiting to find out if her brother was alive or dead, and the principal was waiting for the same news of her husband. (The teacher’s brother lived; he had one of those alarm-malfunction stories, and he’d woken up late. I never found out what happened to the principal’s husband.)
So, objectively speaking, we would have been within our rights to head north for a break, but we didn’t. We went to Broadway, then we went to Ground Zero.
Then, on November 11, we went to Washington D.C.
You want to talk about a ghost town. It was an incredible experience. The entire city was braced for an event. There was chain link fence everywhere, and I mean everywhere. There was so much chain link fencing we were trapped inside a real-life case of You can’t get there from here. All public bathrooms were closed and locked; public mail boxes seemed to have been removed—at least, we couldn’t find one, after driving for blocks and blocks searching, because my niece had a school project where she needed someone to mail her postcards from lots of different states, so we were trying to get something to her with a D.C. post mark.
My dad and mom were with us, and my dad just kept saying, “This used to be such a beautiful city. This used to be such a beautiful city.”
None of us was able to articulate what we were seeing; we just kept saying things like ‘the city used to be beautiful’ and ‘turn around, we can’t get through that way’ and ‘this bathroom is locked,’ as if being-locked was an attribute unique to this particular bathroom. We were reduced to a kind of defensive literal-mindedness, just reporting to each other the ‘facts’ of whatever physical situation we were trying to negotiate at the moment.
Needless to say, we were the only tourists visiting with 3 kids in tow.
Later I told all my friends: I wanted to visit a place that has even more anthrax than we do.
But when I got back I realized that the reason I went–and we’d made the trip on the spur of the moment, when we realized my mom and dad and my husband had all gone to conferences in Virginia, close to D.C.–was that I, too, was braced for an event.
I wanted to see Washington before it disappeared.
Just in case it did disappear.
OK, this is not a cheery post.
I guess my point is: play it by ear.
It may be a good thing for some to travel to Thailand, or it may be a bad thing this week.
But very soon, I imagine, it will be the right thing to do.
Jan 1, 2005 - 11:28 am 17. PeterUK:On the topic of holidays,this is where the UN Secretary General was,http://www.un.org/apps/sg/offthecuff.asp?nid=660
A Very Happy New Year to you all!
Jan 1, 2005 - 11:36 am 18. mudmarine:Just wanted to thank all of you (especially Roger, of course) for your writings. Change is the only constant, and this site is helping my necrotic old brain to keep up.
Best Wishes to all for the New Year.
Jan 1, 2005 - 12:01 pm 19. Terrye:Happy New Year and my thoughts and prayers are with all the people who lost loved ones in the tragedy in South Asia.
As for going there, I don’t know what to think either.
I think they might need the tourist money, but the smell of death is not conducive to sun bathing.
I heard the president has ordered the flags at half staff.
When I think of the Swedes, I think of that big man holding the child he thought he had lost. He cried like a baby himself. It broke my heart.
Jan 1, 2005 - 12:36 pm 20. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):Richard McEnroe
Good point! A rabid conservative I am.
Jan 1, 2005 - 7:18 pm 21. Tagore:First off, I’m not saying anyone is bad or good for vacationing in Thailand/not vacationing in Thailand over this. It does seem that vacationing there would help the local economy, and I’m sure that economy will need it. In that sense I’m sure that people who ignore what has just happened will do more actual good than the rest of us.
But I can’t imagine going there for a vacation right now, despite my libertarian instincts. A girl I knew, when she was little, the daughter of some friends of mine, is among the missing- they’re still hoping, but I think it is a slim thread of hope at this point. Not that that is relevant to the above- had she been killed in a car accident in Thailand it would not dissuade me from vacationing there- but for some reason finding that out finally brought the scale of this catastrophe home to me- multiplying that concrete fact by 100,000 or so is different than having an abstract conception of that 100,000. For that reason I think that the disdain people show for western media concentrating on western casualties is somewhat misplaced- the devil is in the details, as any poet will tell you.
And I guess that that is what I think about vacationing in the immediate aftermath of this event- if people were purely rational actors it would be the right thing to do. But I’m afraid that I am not rational enough that I could enjoy sunning myself on those beaches right now. So kudos, in a strange way, to those who _are_ capable of it- they are doing a good thing in the utilitarian sense. All the same, I don’t understand it.
Jan 2, 2005 - 2:30 am 22. Kathy K:Tagore,
I lived in Phuket for two years. A friend died in the tsunami. If someone handed me a plane ticket and some money today I’d be over there tomorrow. Yes, to some extent, I could help because I know people and where to go to ask where help is needed, and I probably would do some of that. But mostly I’d visit restaurants and bars, shop and take taxis and spend every cent I have (and even what little I have would help).
The Thais, you see, are (mostly) a proud people. They don’t like taking handouts. They’d much rather be paid for doing something or selling something. And the people themselves would be getting the money… not some government project.
So, please, y’all… go to Phuket on your next vacation. I promise you’ll have a great time, and benefit some very nice people. Even if your next vacation is next week.
See here how much they’ve cleaned up already.
Jan 2, 2005 - 11:27 am