Searching for the White Elephant

Let’s Thai this again - flood style

I had just recently returned to Bangkok five weeks ago. I was rattling off sawa de kas (hellos) and korp khun ka’s (thank yous) leo sai (right) and leo kwah (left) (I can at least pretend I know where I’m going)! I was eating som tam and morning glory like there was no tomorrow, and making plans to go travel.

I was staying with some kind friends in the old village I used to live in before and scoping out apartments and jobs in freelancing and business English. I was also preparing to go to China in 10 days. The last time I was there was 2008 as a volunteer for the Olympics - if you want to read about my previous exploits click here. For more recent trip exploits, look for my next blog post.

I’ve logged over 12,000 miles during the past five weeks between traveling to Bangkok, within China and back to San Fran again. So why am I back again you ask?

If you have been paying attention to the news over the last month, you’ll have seen that Thailand has experienced its worst floods in over 50 years. Bangkok is now right in the midst of this natural disaster, and in all events from afar it could look like falsely all is well or maybe absolute chaos (which may be partially true!).

My thoughts about the flood stem from me and my friends’ personal experiences, media coverage both in and outside Thailand, and Twitter. From these observations I have concluded that the flood situation is akin to a three ring circus without a ringmaster. Besides the real animals (crocodiles and snakes if you haven’t heard), the prime minister who gives orders to flood relief organization (FROC) and the Bangkok governor are vying for the position of ringmaster. The prime minister demands that inner Bangkok must and can be saved, so FROC just does what the prime minister tells it to while the governor feels quite ignored. The flood experts and academics, who turn out to be the ones with the most accurate information, say the flooding in downtown cannot be prevented. And low and behold, the sanctum of the financial center of inner Bangkok is now flooding even though large swaths of outer Bangkok (and the poor people living there) were sacrificed to prevent this from happening. And needless to say, poor citizens are not happy about it. They demanded a sluice gate be opened that the government insisted staying closed, and they eventually had their say.

Further proof of the government’s inadequacies can be seen in the lack of distribution of aid supplies and temporary shelters. A YouTube video revealed floating toilets, clothing and other wasted aid items floating by FROC’s old headquarters at the old Don Mueang airport. In addition, red shirt supporters (who were financed in the riots last year by the former prime minister and brother of the current prime minister) are getting preferential treatment in the number of sandbags and relief bags they can take back to their home districts. Citizens are now open to threat of water born diseases since the water is expected to last over a month, and have to live in temporary shelters like the old airport which don’t provide the proper supplies.

Is there really anything the government can do, you ask, to prevent such a natural disaster? The water is going to go where it needs to go, you say. Well, yes and no. Previously the flooding had been limited by natural forests that have since been cut down to make way for industry and housing. The water must get to the sea, yes, but the direction of the water and its volume is now altered by the use of man made instruments such as damns and sandbags.

And that’s when it becomes a political issue - what part of Bangkok do we let flood and what part do we let stay dry, and how much water do we let it flood in each area. Many say this situation could have been prevented if the government had let the waters out of the damns in northern Thailand earlier so the sheer volume would not cause the large amount of flooding it does now. Now Mother Nature is taking its course, not taking head to the demands set by governments!

The media hasn’t exactly been helpful either in this whole situation, but a lot of that has been miscommunication sent by the prime minister and other government officials. Misreports and misunderstandings have led to the spread of false information, leading to people not knowing the true extent of the flooding and if it is necessary to evacuate. These YouTube videos have been making the rounds, and they accurately portray and explain the flood of misinformation (pun intentional!) and that has caused these problems and provides real information to try and rectify that.

I was reliant on international media and local news websites for flood information because I had previously made plans to go to China, so I went thinking I would be gone for just 10 days. I made plans based on the information I received to stay away from Bangkok longer, turning my 10 day sojourn into a three week one.

Eventually I decided to return to Bangkok at the beginning of November at least to get the lay of the land in person. While I did not see any mass flooding while I was there, I was witness to numerous side affects. At the airport masses of cars were parked on the departure and arrival levels because the government had promised to keep the airport dry. On the train ride back to the city and on public transportation in general, everything appeared as normal, although the atmosphere was a bit more somber. Sandbags blocked the entrance to my building, and builders were busy making concrete walls to block other building entrances from possible flood waters. While the grocery stores were still stocked, they were not replenishing the shelves. People (particularly non-Thais) were filling their carts, but still looked rather casual about it like it was a power outage for a day and not a flood for a month. The main mall, Siam Paragon, however was like a ghost town.

There was no running water in my building, but luckily I had bought bottled water when I had first moved in weeks before and had enough to get me through. That coupled with the inevitable lack of food and water, paranoia (I kept waking up every hour the night before I left because of worry of flooding that would shut down public transportation or the airport) and welcome advice from a friend encouraged me to leave two days later.

Since I’ve left, news continues to come out of Bangkok that continues to get me angry. As a journalist, the story of exaggerated news coverage particularly gets my gullet. This speaks to journalism focused studies that negative news always gets the most attention from viewers. Also, now we can add rats to this mess of a circus that are eating rotting garbage and spreading diseases. And companies are shifting their business investments elsewhere thanks to the floods destroying their Thai interests. But the government may get its comeuppance - a professor is threatening to sue the government for flood mismanagement, a move I still don’t understand how it can be accomplished.

So one flood = one big mess. I heartily miss my friends and life I have there, and greatly hope that lessons are learned that will save Thailand from going through this again. Next up - travels in China, part 2…