City Buzz
• Ming Mitr Coffee Shop Ming Mitr is a coffee shop that was created by a person who loves, and has real passion for, coffee. He told us that this eventually lead him to opening up his own place, somewhere he could drink coffee himself and have a business at the same time. The owner is meticulous in every part of the process, by choosing the right coffee plantation, to roasting the beans just right … Continued
What’s Happening?
ARTS & EXHIBITIONS Now – 31st May FLORESSENCE EXHIBITION AND BOOK LAUNCH @ Tamarind Village Chiang Mai 053 418 896-9 Tamarind Village presents ‘FlorESSENCE,’ art of modern floral design by Thailand’s preeminent floral artist, Sakul Intaku. The Exhibition displays from 11a.m. – 6 p.m. as well as featuring of a series of striking photographs. Now – 4th MarchART THESIS EXHIBITION @ CMU Art Centr … Continued
City Sport
• FOOTBALL The Farangutans FC travelled to Lamphun in February to play an exhibition game with the Lamphun FC seniors before the big game that involved the new Lamphun FC team against CMFC. In a short game there was little action, though the large crowd did their fair share of laughing, booing and clapping. The result was 0-0. In the main game CMFC beat Lamphun 2-1. farangutans@yahoo.com • CHIANG … Continued
Community Service
• 01 Informal Northern Thai Group 8 March: Betty Nguyen on: A Sangha without a King: A Buddhist Millenarian Response to the Collapse of the Local Buddhist Kingdom. If you cannot attend and would like to write in a message for the tribute please send it by email to one of the organisers below and your message will be read during the programme on the evening of the tribute. For more information, ple … Continued
City Vibes
Artist: Iron and Wine Album: Kiss Each Other Clean Rating: Right, time to get serious OK? And I mean serious, because Iron and Wine have released another long player which means it’s actually time to shut up and listen for once. For those that recall the tempestuous triumph of 2007’s The Shepherd’s Dog you will already be salivating at the prospect of this release. For those that don’t, welcome to … Continued
Chiang Mai on the WWW
www.cmuexmba.com www.cmuexmba.com Ex MBA is a Chiang Mai University Education Centre that has been operating in Samut Sakorn province since 2001. The centre provides master degree education for business owners or students who are interested in business management. The centre’s emphasis is on developing executive officers to manage their knowledge in business and management fields. The centre ensur … Continued
This is Thailand
1. Please could you tell me where I can find the fixtures for the new season for Chiang Mai F.C.? Also which division will they be in? From what I have read nobody seems to know in advance where they will play each week. Sometimes it is the Municipal Stadium and sometimes the 700 Year Stadium. How can you find out in advance? James: The fixtures for 2011 season are not out yet. CMFC have now moved … Continued
Your Say
• Shakedown My friend’s business was shaken down recently by the authorities (I don’t want to get them into more trouble, so won’t say which authorities). Let’s just say that men in uniform came in and threatened and harassed them into a bribe even though all the business’s papers were legit. Why would they have paid you may ask? Well, they took the staff to jail _ again, legit staff _ and threate … Continued
Wine Culture
Only a few years ago getting your hands on a glass of wine outside of an expensive restaurant was no easy task. Wine was underground, limited to a few hotels, the odd pub menu, or hidden in the walls, covered in years of dust, in the backs of booze shops. Even then the selection was pretty poor, often the only wines available were those oversized bottles from California that only a builder’s wrist … Continued
The Best of Both Worlds
[i]Philip Wylie is the author of several books, including How To Establish A Successful Business In Thailand and How To Make A Living In Paradise; and he assists writers in their quest to get their books published.[/i] Hello, Chiang Mai! Thanks for being such a wonderful hostess, and for allowing us to experience the ‘best of both worlds:’ the comforts, zest and convenience of the West together wi … Continued
Out in Chiang Mai
Denny and I were sucking on fat cigars and sipping Scotch on his Floral Condo balcony with its panoramic views on another pleasantly cool Chiang Mai evening. This is a regular pleasure carried over from our days as legal eagles in Boston. “Ah!” he ejaculated with evident satisfaction, ice clinking in the crystal and a luxurious halo of expensive blue smoke about his noble head. “Ah, indeed,” I rep … Continued
Putting Down Roots: How the Tai Yai are making a home for themselves
s far back as history chronicles, the mountain ranges of northern Thailand and the surrounding region have been home to a complex and diverse mosaic of continually migrating cultures and nationalities, living off the hills, and avoiding the hundreds of lowland kingdoms that have grown and crashed around them. One of the most recent mass movements of these peoples’ away from war and oppressive stat … Continued
A V8-HEMI KIND OF THING
When I learnt that the theme of this month’s magazine was Subculture, I got very excited. I have a friend back in the UK who spent several years in the Navy as a submariner. Not in the large nuclear powered ones but in the old, small diesel-electric kind that date back to the Second World War. At over two metres tall, I could never quite understand how he could fit, let alone live in one and there … Continued
City Women
I’m sure there’s a few who will agree with me when I say that being a woman here in Chiang Mai certainly comes with its share of ups and downs. On the one hand, we choose to live here because we love the city, the culture and the general way of life, but on the other hand we are constantly brought face to face with beautiful, slim, cellulite-free girls who, without meaning to, make us take a long … Continued
A Connoisseur’s Resort: Four Seasons Samui
Resort connoisseurs will struggle to find fault with the uber luxe Four Seasons Samui. But I get ahead of myself. Needing a relaxing holiday, and wanting a night of fun in Bangkok, we decided to go Four Seasons all the way, and stopped off for two nights at the Four Seasons in Bangkok first. Living in Chiang Mai, surrounded by some of the greatest resorts in Asia, it is a struggle to be impressed … Continued
The Moviegoer
Any city worth the name has to have a cinephile community of some sort, a group of people who live and die by movies, all movies, any movies. Chiang Mai has such a group, but it’s very small – probably no more than a few hundred – and ‘community’ is a stretch. They’re not like Chiang Mai’s opera people, who all seem to know each other, or the local book crowd, who love to meet and discuss. Movie p … Continued
The Boiler Room Boys
“They had a picture on the wall with three brains, a big one, a medium sized one and a small one. Above the small one it said ‘this is the one we are looking for’,” Lee, a Scottish national who’s spent much of his life working in South East Asia, explained of his experience in a boiler room. For those unfamiliar with Lee’s past line of work, who may have not seen the cult 2000 Hollywood film ‘Boil … Continued
M.L. Panadda Diskul, Governor of Chiang Mai
Citylife: You have now been governor of Chiang Mai for four months, what was your mission and do you think you are satisfied with your performance so far. M.L. Panadda: When I went to pay my farewell respects to the minister of interior, he asked me to make sure that I worked hard to help unify the people of Chiang Mai and bring harmony back into society. It was such a great honour to be given thi … Continued
Police Colonel Prachuab Wongsuk, Deputy Commander of Chiang Mai Provincial Police
Originally from Phrae Province, Pol. Col. Prachuab has been a policeman in Chiang Mai for over twenty years, having worked in all four stations in the muang district and built his career from the bottom up to become one of the city’s more respected policemen. It is not often I interview a policeman, so I decided to go the informal route and invited him and a few of his good men to my house for fin … Continued
The Youth of Today
Many of us can identify with a particular youth subculture. My dad, proudly, was a beetle crushers wearing Teddy Boy, my brother (in his early teens) was a defiant Goth who got suspended from school countless times for dyeing his hair and defying an establishment who, in their time, had most likely rebelled themselves. Most of the people I knew in the early 90s were part of a ‘drug culture’ whose … Continued