More on Thai blogs

After unsuccessful googling for some kind of directory of Thai blogs, I had to opt for the tedious work of going through pages and pages of google results of webpages that had the words "Thai" and "blog" on it. It took me a whole night to just get the links below. They are what I would call "preferential' links, by the way, since they are the ones that I liked. I have not included a number of other blogs which blogged about Thailand, mostly those written by foreignors who seem to mostly enjoy ranting about the negative aspects of Thailand.



Anyway, that tedious search turned out to be productive because some of these links have links to other Thai blogs, which requires more reading on another day. I'm so frustrated that there isn't an easier way to do this.



What I also discovered was that there are a lot of young Thai-"Americans" (a growing new generation of Thais) blogging in a blogging ring called Xanga. Interesting that there are some claims that Xanga is growing faster than Friendster. I liked the ecclectic mix of people they have there and there seems to be some sense of order and respect among its members. I have to see what they have to offer as a community and as a blogging tool and may just decide to join them.



Additionally, Ross Mayfield mentions a blogging programme being tried out in Thailand by think.com which I haven't had the time to investigate just yet.



My preferential link collection of Thai blogs:



blogwise: List of blogs in Thailand This was a directory, that actually didn't have many "Thai" blogs. But who knows, it might grow.



"The voices in my head" A bit slow to download the whole page, but worth the wait to see the pictures she's posted. Blogged by a Thai.



"Just my thought" Blogged by a Thai.



"Stories from the life of Stuart G. Towns" who is not a Thai.



by Ron Morris, great source of news, and good pictures. Not Thai, but passionate about Thailand and its mass transit system.



Piyawat's a new Thai blogger and updates slowly.



"The House of Random Crap", Thai-American who moved to Thailand. Actually not crappy at all, quite intense.



"Wanderlustress" I think she's Thai, she certainly travels!



SOMMAIRE Not a Thai blog, but a blog (of sorts) by His Majesty Sihanouk, King of Cambodia. I've put it in my links here in hope that maybe King Bhumipol or Princess Sirindhorn will eventually blog. It would really be the establishment of the Thai blogosphere.



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Oh, my God!

Yes, oh my god!!! I found a webpage that says everything I wanted to say! (So why am I, do I continue to write this?) Talk about endlessly walking, "endlessly pulling into the future". Talk about muses, and serendipity! Well anyway, the webpage is called, "Fractal Chaos Crashes the Wall between Science and Religion"



(Added edit: Be cautious with the site, many things written a bit loosely. But I still insist that they have many provoking ideas, just take them with a generous pinch of salt. I wanted to thank and acknowledge the good sense of my cyberfriend Flammifer for reigning in some senses to my impulsive, over-enthusiastic nature which had on many occassions caused me considerable embarrassment. It's good to know that I can count on my friends to give me a nudge when I am putting my foot in my mouth.)



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On question, questioning and quest of identity in cyberculture

The question of identity and its quest with myself and other members of cyberculture has been mentioned many times in my blog as well as many other blogs. It was enlightening for me to listen a classmate's presentation about her research and the model of media systems which she applies. She classified "identity" under "Communication as Social Knowing", as opposed to the opposite group of "Cognition as Individual Knowing". Of course, we don't know who we are until we can relate ourselves to somebody, and we start from the moment we are born with our mothers.

The revelation for me was to see the classification. It rang a bell with a recent paper I found through google. Anthropologist Richard O'Connor questions the assumption of anthropology and its method and retheorizes culture and said let's look at the sense of locality of the Tais and its relations in the definition of their identity. It's obvious that they have multiple identities and paradoxically a single, consistent identity.

Serendipity, Sibylle, and googling "Sybil", (a probe of her name), I found this webpage - about identity, saying exactly the same thing, that "personal identity is not singular".

The insight I gained in this mini-journey, quest of identity, was being able to see the unseen, how we lock ourselves in with fixed notions of identity thinking we are "..." by nation, by geographically location, by our job position, our position in family. We construct a sense of identity with a border. So we invented terms like "schizophrenia" and applied these distortions to those that didn't fit society's definition of how that person should be or behave. It really isn't like that.

Something about McLuhan's method also recalls to my mind Carlos Castaneda's work on shamanism, and recently I've pulled out my old book "Woman Who Run with Wolves" as well.

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A Probe/ A Poem for Sibylle

It was a performanceneeded to be there in personcannot be repeatedthe song, the pictures, the way Sybil talkedthe way Sibylle moved us with her storyher personal style of soul searching

That communicatesthat made meaningwithout meaning to do so

You, me, us, the McLuhan coach house seminar roomMcLuhan methodsmade meaningsomething spoke

Wild Woman put me on a search for meaningbrought to this point at McLuhan's coach house

A cycle completed,the cybernetic feedbackin organic movement

A dialogue between Sibylle and Laurie AndersonSibylle and myselfmedia and me

My weblog, "Superway Mekhong"words with hidden images, googling linkedtook me to a group blogbeing created for a society that constantly questions itselfeternally redefining itself in the fade of modernity

The soul of a storytellerpassed on at that moment from Sibylle to meI pass it back, it completes another cycle in infintiymind making meaninga recollection of another ancient storytellerthe potter princess, her pots talkshe calls me to talk tooconnecting Sibylle, her desire of Laurie Andersonwith Nui, McLuhan, patterns of social change, to tell a story

"Sibylle", I say, "Look at your animated lead, the puppet of Laurie Anderson""You are the star, the dancing puppet in her shadow,""the Wild Woman, you, we have perceived your message yet cannot name it!"

I try to capture this all in these written wordsPah, written language, they don't really serve the purposethey hardly come close to that moment of enlightmentI lost from my dream last nightwhen all the connections seemed so clearthe connected whole felt for a fleeting moment of certainitythat moment I had felt a few times beforeand yearn so much to have it again

Mark, this is a must do tommorrow!Can I read a poem, can I read this probe?Did I evoke your memories with this piece?Does it meaning make?

I wish I could have recorded what I "saw" and heardadding annotated for each moment of meaningcapturing the special word in mediathe meaning making in actionmyself, tonight between Sibylle last night and tomorrow the dawnI have heard a life performing

I know a butterfly will fly before not too longThank you Mark, for MMS2Derrick, for MMS1McLuhan, for his messageThank you, Sibyllea cycle closes, I am happy.

The numbness at the end of the performancethe shock of it sinks in as I shiver homeI dreamit all come aliveI wake upHallaluyah! I try to write it all downand This is It!

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Chronology of an awakening

Sep 10- Dec 3, 2003: Mind, Media and Society 1, creating my weblog, Derrick.



Jan 14 - Apr 7, 2004: Learning "Laws of Media" tetrads with Mark, Mind, Media and Society 2, an anti-environment of mms1.



Fri, Mar 12, 2004: Foreground (another anti-environment) - Seminar on 17th century Spanish Baroque, UWO, saw applied complexity to literary criticism in action, a multi-diciplinary event, the start of the pieces falling into place. Background - the similiarity of viewpoints to McLuhan's media studies, "seeing" (hearing, and experiencing) the parrallel to complexity analysis in action.



Fri, Mar 19 & 26, 2004: "Merry-go-round disorient" and Superway Mekhong" - Changes in my blogging style.



Sat, Mar 20, 2004: Discovery of ThailandLife.com, insights into a culture that constantly redefines itself - the Tais (the sounds of legend, a memory of "Dear Moon", a lullaby sung by my mother, discovering that it is Laotian. Deeper memories evoked of a woman-making, Ban Chiang, the potting princess, the pots that speak. Understanding the effects of weblogs and my perception of its evolution into groupblog forms that are not blogs.



The week: Furiously Googling, learning how to ask the impossible, questions that I thought that couldn't be. Always amazingly suprised with Google's results.



Sun, Mar 28, 2004: A co-incidence, the storyteller, Marcela Romero's visit, a lead I followed and opened up to another world of discovery and re-discovery.



Tue, Mar 30, 2004: Sibylle Moser's presentation: In the shadow of Laurie Anderson. El duente the soul of a storyteller is blown softly into my face. Numbed by shock, I walk shivering home to dream.



Tue, Mar 30, 2004: (sometime around midnight) A dream of all the connections making a connected whole, I wake up frustrated because dreams are lost at the moment of awakening. I am transformed into la loba, the wild woman



Wed, Mar 31, 2004: later today - I try to capture it in words.



Wed, Mar 31, 2004: today, (4:04 am) - This chronology - "Thanks to McLuhan", showed me how we are all artists, craftsmakers with our electric world, we are shaping the world at every moment.



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