Am I in Denial About Bangkok Flooding?

The overflowing Chao Phyra River brings flood waters to Bangkok's Grand Palace, Thailand's main tourist site.

Bangkok, Thailand. October 29, 2011. Arising this morning to a bright, cloudless sky and streets totally dry, I could imagine that things in Bangkok were totally normal, but this euphoria did not last long. As I entered the elevator to pick up my two daily papers waiting for me in the lobby, a cleaning woman I ran into automatically gave me a flood report about the areas of Bangkok where I live as well as surrounding areas. The verdict: no floods. But her manner of greeting me was emblematic these days as everyone starts off every conversation with the questions “Are you being flooded? Where do you live?”

What started out being called Thailand’s worst flooding in 50 years, then Thailand’s worst flooding ever, and is now referred to as Thailand’s worst natural disaster in history, has gripped the capital city in fear and panic, which is felt everywhere, even though only seven districts in the northern outskirts (out of Bangkok’s 50 districts), have any water in them. The signs of abnormality are everywhere.

Even though I live in the core central area of Bangkok, which, by all accounts, is safe from flooding, my neighborhood has all the signs of a threatened city. My condo has built walls of sandbags, and a few of my neighbors, both high-rise residential buildings and single-family homes, have likewise put some sandbags and plastic sheeting in front in amounts that are guaranteed to be no protection in the event of a flood. On the main road, some of the shops have sand bags in front, while a very few have constructed barrier walls. Many stores are operating normally, but quite a few have curtailed hours, and fewer still have shut for the duration.

No drinking water has been available in any store for a week or more, many shelves are empty, and there have been spot shortages of some common products. For instance, regular sandwich bread as been absent for days now, but more expensive bakery bread is readily available at twice the price. Then, quite suddenly, a large shelf of common sandwich bread was delivered to one of my local 7-Eleven stores late yesterday. While I’ve had to make some adjustments in the food that I buy, there is nothing even remotely like a shortage of food in the inner city. Restaurants are open and no restaurant I’ve been to has been unable to deliver its regular menu. However, Bamrungrad Hospital, where I have all of my doctor appointments, has canceled out-patient appointments until Wednesday, but remains operational for emergencies.

Still, Bangkokians have fled the city in droves, encouraged, no doubt, by the government’s declaration of a five-day national holiday October 27-31. About 50% of the people I usually socialize with have left, some to foreign countries, others back to their villages, several to the beach cities of Pattaya and Hua Hin, and one friend has delayed her return to Bangkok from abroad. For those remaining in Bangkok, traffic is light, the Skytrain and subway have empty seats, a popular mall I visited was almost devoid of visitors, except for its grocery store, and a fairly large restaurant I patronize several times a year, had only two tables occupied for dinner the other night. According to news reports, Bangkokians have opted to stay at home.

As for activities, everything I had planned for the last several days and for this weekend, have been canceled, such as, concerts, events at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand, the local Chopin piano competition, and a crafts fair. Left with not much to do, I’m staying home, going out to eat, and visiting the Internet café several hours per day. My school was closed on Friday because my teacher was busy moving her electrical appliances to the second floor of her house located in an area which might be flooded; her movables reached the second floor several days ago. Fortunately, I have several projects that I’m working on at home, which are keeping me busy and far from being bored, and high on this list, is reviewing the first three chapters of the 6^th grade text book, which has me puzzled and challenged.

So, while I’m not bored, I am glum. While I’m not frightened, I am concerned that this will drag on for so much additional time that I’ll opt to leave Bangkok for Singapore or some other place. My drinking water supply will be exhausted in a few days and I’d like to know that purified drinking water will then be available, but I’m prepared to boil tap water to meet my modest needs.

Even though I’m comfortable and not afraid, I have great sympathy for the many Thais that have suffered from these floods, and by reporting on my enviable position, I do not want this to be taken as a lack of sensitivity to the suffering experienced by so many in this country, including several families I know in the provinces bordering Bangkok, who are under water, but coping with it with grace and good humor.

According to an editorial in today’s Bangkok Post, I am in denial: “It is strange but true that despite repeated warnings, there are still residents of Bangkok’s inner city who remain in denial about the watery woes threatening to engulf them.” I guess that that’s me. However wrong I may turn out to be, my very low internal threat level is based upon my appraisal of what water engineers and experts have said at the FCCT and as reported in the newspapers, about the defenses that Bangkok has for my area of the city. I pay no attention to government spokesmen, who have proved repeatedly wrong and politically influenced. Instead, I’ve listen to academics and practicing engineers, and have followed their maps and charts to the conclusion that my exposure to massive flooding is somewhere between non-existent and remote. Only time will tell if my judgment has been correct.

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Sawadsee Woodwind and Piano Quintet

Siam Society. Bangkok, Thailand. October 25, 2011. In its on-going music series, this month’s presentation by Bangkok’s Siam Society, was a delightful group of young Thai musicians, who presented a pleasing and varied program of almost totally
unknown chamber music of Rossini, Sobeck, Faure and Duncan. It was a pleasant break from the general gloom in Bangkok occasioned by the descent of flood waters into the city, the exact extent of which is currently unknown. The combination of flute, clarinet, bassoon, French horn and piano was a beautiful blend of sound, which is seldom heard in public performance.

My Soi Takes Precautions in the Event of Flooding

I live in a mid-rise condominium in the central part of metropolitan Bangkok.

Yesterday, October 22, a delivery of sand bags was made to the condo.


Unloading each bag by hand is hard work and the workers take a deserved break.


The bags were used to construct a barrier in the parking garage to prevent water from flowing into my condominiums underground parking garage.


The new Ramada Encore hotel directly across the street from me, has a big problem if our soi floods, because its lobby is considerably below street level. The hotel has put up a flood wall to help stem any interior flooding.

Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia

Siam Society. Bangkok, Thailand. October 18, 2011. Burma is important in Thailand for several obvious and some not so obvious reasons. Thailand and Burma share an extremely long and porous border to the north and west. Burmese refugees from ethnic fighting and a repressive military regime, populate refugee camps in Thailand, and Burmese workers, some legal and many illegal, work in low paying jobs throughout Thailand, mostly in construction. Thailand is the world’s headquarters for NGO’s and human rights organizations which are seeking to restore democracy to Burma and to end the killing and rights abuses and jailing which are a daily part of Burmese’s lives. Yet, many Thais view Burma as an historic enemy due to many ancient wars which culminated in Burmese sacking and totally destroying Siam’s capital city of Ayutthaya in 1767. Because of strong Thai interest in Burma, about 200 people turned out to attend a lecture by Burma scholar, Dr. Thant Myint-U, at Bangkok’s Siam Society, on October 18, 2011.

I like to listen to authors talk about the subject matter covered in their books. Unlike so many of today’s so-called public intellectuals and media talking heads, the very act of researching and writing a book guarantees a high degree of knowledge, depth and thought. Dr. Thant Myint-U was educated at Harvard and Cambridge, where he later taught history as a Fellow of Trinity College. He previously wrote a personal history of Burma entitled The River of Lost Footsteps. His most recent book and the subject of his lecture, was Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia.

Dr. Thant’s lecture thesis was that Burma’s isolation was ending due to the great interest in Burma of both China and India, which see Burma as a link between those two behemoths. Exploitation of Burma’s vast natural resources is a large part of the picture, but, as demonstrated by the maps shown during the lecture, Burma occupies an important strategic geographical position between its two giant neighbors. While China and India vie for influence over Burma, how Burma manages this will shape Burma’s future.

Thant Myint-U is a member of the former Burmese elite. His maternal grandfather, U Thant, rose from being the schoolmaster of a small town in the Irrawaddy Delta to become the UN secretary-general in the 1960s. Dr. Thant speaks more than perfect English and at age 45, he could play an important role in Burma’s future, in the event that Burma’s entrenched military dictatorship is ever replaced. My interest in Burma originates in my two trips there. It is hard to visit Burma without falling in love with the country and its people. (Photo above: Dr. Thant Myint-U lectures as Bangkok's Siam Society).

Bangkok Is Not Out of Danger.

Flood water is being diverted to eastern Bangkok in order to save the inner city.

Bangkok, Thailand. October 20, 2011. This past Sunday, the government proclaimed that flood waters are receding and that Bangkok was out of danger. In other words, the worst was over. You could feel a collective sigh of relief that no new areas would be affected and that efforts could focus on helping the many, many Thais and businesses that were suffering. Anyway, that was the publicity. I fell for it.

The reality is different. Three days later, as we see pictures of new areas being inundated around the capital, and read reports that flood waters are being released into north and eastern areas of the city in order to spare the densely populated city center, which is also Thailand’s economic hub, we know that the government is not to be trusted to give accurate information, a conclusion shared by the overwhelming number of people voting no confidence in a recent poll. Pretty Prime Minister Yingluck, the sister of fugitive PM Thaksin, gives daily feel-good photo ops and encouraging messages of hope, while her government is in disarray around her. Yesterday, she asked the people to extend sympathy, yes “sympathy,” to her government.

I live in inner Bangkok and there is no expectation that my immediate area will flood. I haven’t yet tried to buy drinking water, but from reports of friends, I expect that the store shelves are empty, but never mind, my neighbor has hoarded an extraordinarily large amount of drinking water, which he will make available to me. As for food, I’m not expecting to starve. Unfortunately, many, many Thais are suffering and my sympathy goes out to these good people. I’m in daily contact with two families, one in Pathum Thani and the other in Min Buri, both areas of heavy flooding, who will stay with me if they need to. I’m more than happy to have them.

Central Bangkok Escapes Flooding

The grand Chao Phraya River flows through Bangkok. It is the main drainage route for flood water from the north, which flows through Bangkok into the Gulf of Thailand.

Bangkok, Thailand. October 17, 2011. The flood danger to metropolitan Bangkok has passed and massive flooding has been averted, although localized flooding in some Bangkok streets did occur, mostly, however, from rain runoff, which usually dissipates quickly. Unfortunately, outlying areas, especially in eastern and northern Bangkok, were not so lucky and are still under water. My friends in Min Buri in eastern Bangkok, were flooded for about two days, but they were able to move most of their possessions to an upper floor, and now that the water has receded, the damage they suffered was minimal. My friends in Pathum Thani in northern Bangkok, live in one of the most heavily flooded areas, but so far their immediate soi has not been flooded. They are packed and will move in with me if water descends on their home, which is only one story high. They have placed their belongings as high off the floor as they can. Aside from the inconvenience of long periods of rain daily, I have not been affected. A very few businesses in my area have erected sand bag barriers, and my condo management has put in a supply of sand bags to use as walkways if the ground floor parking garage is under water. At least one of my neighbors has stockpiled a large quantity of drinking water, and there are reports that the stores are all out of drinking water, but I haven’t checked. I was never concerned for myself or for my area, but the situation for many others in Thailand is very bad. Throughout, I was amazed at the graciousness, the equanimity, and the lack of anger of the Thais I saw on TV. None of them had lapsed into a consciousness of victimhood that so often accompanies tragedies like this. In other words they are not blaming anyone. Good for them.

Floods Descend on Bangkok

Bangkok, Thailand. October 12, 2011. For about a month now, floods said to be the worse in 50 years, have been devastating upcountry Thailand. Since water naturally drains south into the Chao Phaya River running through Bangkok, before emptying into the Gulf of Thailand, metropolitan Bangkok is in danger of flooding within the next few days, as high tide approaches and the runoff gathers power. Some communities surrounding Bangkok are already under water, some of them very seriously. My immediate area in the CBD has not been identified by the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority as a danger zone and I’m not expecting any problems. Unfortunately, several Thai friends living in Nonthaburi, Min Buri and Pathum Thani are in great danger and I’m in contact with them daily and hoping for the best.

The Tsar’s Bride Comes to Bangkok

Thailand Cultural Center. Bangkok, Thailand. October 6, 2011. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride is seldom performed outside of Russia, where is remains a staple of that country’s opera repertoire. Quite coincidentally, I was in London on April 14, 2011, when The Tsar’s Bride had its UK premier at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, about 110 years after its Russian unveiling. I very much liked the opera on first hearing and the Royal Opera’s splendid cast, mostly Russian, sang up to international standards. The opera takes place during the reign of Ivan the Terrible in16^th century Russia, but in the Covent Garden production, the plot was updated to present day Moscow, a very common production technique in Europe, which I don’t particularly like, but in this instance, the Royal Opera’s modernization worked quite well, especially with its very creative set designs.

Having thought that seeing The Tsar’s Bride in London was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, I was excited to learn that, as part of this year’s Bangkok Festival of Music and Dance, the Ekaterinburg State Opera Theatre visiting from Russia, was going to perform this quintessentially Russian opera in Bangkok on October 6, 2011. The Ekaterinburg State Opera Theatre hs made several visits to Bangkok and from my prior experiences, I knew it to be a very professional and excellent company. I was also looking forward to seeing The Tsar’s Bride performed in a traditional way, absent the 21^st century transplanting of the Covent Garden version.

I was not disappointed. The four-hour length of the opera passed quickly as the Ekaterinburg State Opera Theatre production brought more than competent singers, a superb orchestra, and a production steeped in Russian culture and performance norms. I liked the period costumes better than the business suits of the London production, but the sets and the lighting were not up to, say, the Metropolitan Opera or Covent Garden, which is understandable given that this was a road show. While the Ekaterinburg State Opera Theatre may not inspire, it does satisfy.

Three Piano Recitalists in Two Evenings

Goethe Institut Thailand. Bangkok, Thailand. September 29 and 30, 2011. The Goethe Institut holds an annual Beethoven competition for young pianists, and in alternate years, for young string players. It assembles an excellent jury, who give nightly recitals during the competition, which, in the words of Goethe’s director, Dr. Norbert Spitz, are designed to show the young pianist-competitors that the jury members know what they’re doing. And, indeed, show them they did! (Photo left: Prof. Glemser).

Prof. Wolfgang Glemser from Germany, charted dangerous territory by performing an all-Liszt program. Let’s face it, some of Liszt is simply dreadful, either tedious in the extreme, or filled with bombast bordering on noise. A whole evening of it can be trying for the listener. But, some of Liszt is beautiful, profound, creative and transcendent. Glemser, to his credit, was looking for soul and he mostly found it. His tone on the mediocre Bosendorfer at the Institut, was the most beautiful I remember hearing from this instrument. Glemser’s playing was both introspective and exciting. His technique, while not colossal, was more than adequate for the fiendishly difficult Liszt he selected, which means that it was very, very good indeed. I spoke with Prof. Glemser the following evening, and during our conversation, he made clear to me that what I heard was what he intended, that is, beautiful music focused on tone, rather than an acrobatic exercise at the piano. In short, one of the very best recitals I’ve attended at the Goethe.

Prof. Woohyung Yang of South Korea performed the first half of the recital program the following evening, September 30. This attractive pianist has mastered the art of playing the piano, is proficient at what she plays, but, alas, she has no musical personality. Playing the six well-known Schubert Moments Musicaux Opus 94, it was unclear that Yang understood that each movement has a different character and that it is the job of the performer to have some conception of what they represent. In Yang’s hands, all of the movements sounded the same and very bland. Not that they were badly played; they were simply boring. Her Chopin Fantasia, which I like a lot, was similarly unexciting and dull, as if played by a mechanic. (Photo above: Prof. Arens (right) and Prof. Yang (middle)).

I have heard Prof. Rolg-Dieter Arens from Germany, play twice before in Thailand, and I know him to be a magnificent pianist. Yet, I was somewhat disappointed in his playing this year. He began with the Bach French Suite in G, which I know well, and gave a very excellent account of it, with the right attention to the dance character of each movement, and the clean lines that good Bach performance requires. Arens followed the Bach with a Liszt transcription of an obscure Bach prelude and fugue, which was interminable. With all the wonderful Liszt Bach transcriptions available, I question why Arens felt compelled to play this one, for which he uncharacteristically needed the score in front of him to get through the performance. The three short Liszt works which followed were marvelously played, but I missed Glemser’s gorgeous and luxuriant playing of the night before.

An Evening of Baroque Music in Bangkok

European-based musicians of Il Gardillino acknowledge the applause of the enthusiastic Bangkok audience.

Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. September 25, 2011. Il Gardillino is an ensemble of seven European musicians who specialize in music of the Baroque period. In a beautiful performance in Bangkok, they played works by Marcello and Janitsch (both of whom I didn’t know) and by Vivaldi and Bach. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 was particularly interesting and surprisingly fulsome, because it is usually played and recorded by much larger ensembles. With so few instruments, it was easy to hear all the voice lines and to appreciate the clarity of this well-known magnificent work. Il Gardellino played to a full house, which was generous in its applause, and which brought on an exciting encore.