Last week I quoted Friedrich Nietzsche (via Bent Flyvbjerg) about power, in a blog “Are There Two Kinds of Stupid?” here at Ethnography.com. Nietzsche (and Flyvbjerg) made the point that “power makes stupid” for the simple reason that people in power come to see themselves as powerful, and therefore usually right and more clever than those around them. Flyvbjerg describes how the process of possessing power means that you can ignore appeals to reason if you wish, because you are powerful.…

Did you know about the Myanmar Earthquake of April 13, 2016? Neither did I, until I woke up that morning, and saw on Facebook that there was some question if I was ok.  My Facebook says (accurately) that I am in Chiangmai, Thailand, which is about 500 miles form Mawfalk, Myanmar where the earthquake occurred. I was of course ok, so clicked the button asking if I was ok And then I clicked my daughter’s FB page saying she was ok because well, FB asked, and I was being dutiful and considerate of our hundreds of FB friends who must have woken up to headlines regarding the earthquake, and then immediately wondered if I was ok.…

I was finishing up my Thai language lesson last week, when my daughter came in the room with a harried look on her face. “The car won’t start, and we need a translator to talk to the people in the parking lot where we are stuck.” Immediate end to my Thai lesson.

The car was stuck in one of Chiangmai’s large mega malls. The uniformed parking lot guard had come over to help, and Kirsten couldn’t figure out what he was saying—though she said that it was apparently helpful.…

We pulled into a big shopping mall here in Chiangmai today on our way to the immigration office. We found a parking place quite quickly which was good, but then I saw something peculiar. Our parking place was a standard issue parallel parking job. But right behind our car was a horizontal parking spot fright behind our car. If someone took that, we could never back out.

Then a woman came near to where she was parked.…

Want to know what doctors might think of nurses, and vice versa? And how this might effect the rights and privileges between each group? You have to read down to the middle of our article in a recent issue of Palgrave Communications “Are the terms ‘socio-economic status’ and ‘class status’ a warped form of reasoning for Max Weber?” Here is a brief hint from somewhere in the middle of the article.  

Last weekend, I visited a Karen refugee camp on the western border of Thailand with Myanmar. The invitation was for a graduation at the Kawthoolel Karen Baptist Bible College and Seminary (KKBBCS) in Mae La Refugee camp.   The Baptist Church is very important in Mae La Refugee camp, as well as in the larger Karen Community. Many of the Karen speakers in the world are Baptist Christians, an identity that has been important for 200 years, and is in contrast to the vast majority of people in mainland Southeast Asia who are Buddhist.…

“Good Guys In, Bad Guys Out” was the banner heading on my visit to the Thai Immigration Office last week. That in a very blunt way is what every immigration office in the world is about, I guess. In this case, quote was attributed to a Police Lieutenant General whose whole job is to sort us foreigners out. They get to figure out who the good and bad guys are, and the bad guys.…

We have rented a small two bedroom apartment for our time in Chiangmai, Thailand. Now the utility bills have started to roll in. Here are some samples

Two months use on my cell phone for calls and text: 200 Baht (about $5.75)

Internet service: about $21 per month

Water bill for one month about $4.00 per month

Electricity for February (not much air conditioning) about $12.00. (I’m told that this could quadrulple or quintuple now that the hot season is upon us!)…

This is the first in what might become a series. The series is called surprises in Thailand, and includes things that are just surprising. I don’t have any explanations, just musing.

One of the surprises though is the fact that Chiangmai in Thailand has over the last five or six years become a mecca for Chinese visitors. They seem to come for many reasons. The woman in the apartment across from us married a Thai, and moved here.…

Let it be heard first on Ethnography.com! 60 years of social science research on the measure is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Ok, that’s and exaggeration, but my wife and I think that the term Socio-economic Status is a bit of an oxy-moron, at least in Max Weber’s world. How can you mix a term which is related to honor (that’s the status part), with a measure of the marketplace (that’s the economics part).…

I had a long talk with a Thai colleague the other day about the nature of freedom. She is convinced that Thailand is freer than the United States, and has visited the United States many times. She, and other Thai I’ve met always point to all the rules that govern behavior in the United States. How you can build, where you can park, what you can do, what you can buy, what you can sell, where you can sell, and on and on.  …

I thought that our move to Thailand at the beginning of January would provide me with much blog material. Much is different here, of course, and difference and contrast can lead to an awareness of the wonders of cross-cultural experiences.. I already wrote about the driving and traffic habits, but of course the differences go much further. The university hierarchy is different (why does Bangkok and the central government get involved in classes we offer?),…