thailand

Tell me about the camels. The

Thailand

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Learning how to love everyone

Country of the Month         Restaurant

Jan 2003 - Armenia            La Mediterranee, Berkeley
Feb 2003 - Poland              Old Krakow, San Francisco
Mar 2003 - Ireland             Kells, San Francisco
Apr 2003 - Jamaica            Jamaica Station, Oakland
May 2003 - El Salvador      Balompie, San Francisco
Jun 2003 - Nepal                Kathmandu, Albany
Aug 2003 - Turkey             Bosphorus, Berkeley
Oct 2003 - Cambodia         Angkor Wat, San Francisco
Dec 2003 - Philippines        Aroma Cafe, Concord
Jan 2004 - Saudi Arabia      Rihab's Bakery, Belmont
Feb 2004 - Mexico             El Huarache Azteca, Oakland
Mar 2004 - Mongolia          Col. Lee's Mongolian BBQ, Mtn View
May 2004 - Switzerland      Fondue Fred's, Berkeley
Jul 2004 - Afghanistan        Da Afghanan Kabob House, Fremont
Sep 2004 - Morocco          Menara Moroccan Restaurant, San Jose
Nov 2004 - Portugal           Souza's Restaurant, San Jose
Jan 2005 - Thailand            Saysetha, Oakland
Feb 2005 - Tibet                Lhasa Moon, San Francisco

Home

Bhumibol and Adulyadej

The
Kingdom of Thailand

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www.fretnotgospel.com/thailand.html

Prathet Thai - The Land of the Free

Country of the Month by Noah Arthur

Why are there so many Christian orphanages in Thailand? There are so many orphanages because of children born from sex-slaves. A sex-slave is a person that is enslaved to have sex with people that they aren't married to for pay. Some of the sex-slaves are kids as young as 4. There are 250,000 in Thailand.

Are there Christians in Thailand? Yes, about 600,000 (1%). The Christians are mostly hill tribes. There are quite a few churches in the big cities because of foreigners. You are free to worship any way you want in Thailand. There are not many Thai church leaders but this is slowly changing.

The Tsunami. A tsuna-mi is water rushing in from the sea because of an earthquake on the sea floor. On the day after Christmas 2004, a tsunami happened in Phuket. Five thousand people died. Houses and buildings were destroyed by the waves rushing in and some of them were washed out into the ocean by the waves rushing back out. We did an experiment were we had a sink full of water, and a tilted brick on the bottom, and cheerios on the ledge to be buildings on a beach. We made the brick fall to make our tsunami.

We pulled out a stand with a thread from under a brick and it fell.

Water moved and rose up on the ledge wetting the first two rows of cheerios.

The water level dropped and washed some cheerios out.

What is Thailand most famous for? It is most famous for the movie 'The King and I'. It is about King Mongkut and a teacher from England named Anna in the times of the US Civil War. My favorite part of the movie is the King. I like the song that he sang about wanting more knowledge, called 'Is a Puzzlement'. I really liked the movie overall.
Why do you think the movie 'The King and I' is banned in Thailand? They love their kings and in the movie the king did many things wrong, like beating a runaway wife. No one likes to think of their king as doing many things wrong. The movie also made the king joke around alot. But people don't like that because kings aren't silly. Anna seemed to be as important as the king. I think that was not true and they wouldn't like that.

blue pansy

ashy drongo

hill jezebels

asian paradise flycatcher

golden birdwing

sunflower field

common jester

white-bellied sea-eagle

common tit

bangkok market and people

collared scops owl

common lime

elephant and mahout

bangkok

farmer and his daughter

FIRST IMPORTANT THING ABOUT THAILAND
Thailand is a Buddhist nation. Buddha was rich prince named Siddhartha Guatama. He taught that all life was suffering and if you ended people's desire there would be no suffering. He said the way to do that is to think everything is an illusion and to follow the 8-fold path of practicing doing right things like being compassionate. As a result, the typical Thera-veda Thai Buddhist has the philosophy that there is no such thing as a personal soul, no reality, and no God, but they do believe in spirits and luck (from spirit worship), and they believe in reincarnation (from Hinduism). That makes them sacrifice things like oranges at miniature replicas of Buddhist temples called spirit houses so that the bad spirits will not bother them and the good spirits will bless them. That also means that they should do what ever makes them happy. Buddha said that being wise would make them happiest. That also means they must do good or they'll come back as something like a worm. I believe these beliefs are false. They believe there is no God but all people see crea-tion and pray. They believe there is no personal soul but there are spirits. They believe there is no reality but all people live and love. I believe that praising God makes us happiest because the Bible says so and I know the Bible is true because of Jesus, who is God's Son. I also know my future. I'm not worried about it because Jesus said that all people who believe in Him will go to heaven, and I believe in Jesus.

Tell me about Thailand. Thailand is in southeast Asia. It is three-fourths of the size of Texas but it has 60 million people. Just to the east is Laos, The Land of a Million Elephants. Just to west is Burma which is now called Myanmar. To the southeast is Cambodia. Thailand extends down the Malay peninsula to Malaysia. The Gulf of Thailand is to the east. The Indian Ocean is to the west. Just a month ago there was a tsunami in the Indian Ocean. There are three seasons -- rainy, cool, and hot. Bangkok, the capital, is in the Central Plains which is a flat wet basin. Chang Mai is a city in the north where there are mostly mountains and hills. People love to find orchids and butterflies there. Both are raised in farms for export. The Pechabuns are a sparsely wooded mountain range in the northeast. Suren is one of the only cities there. Elephants are mostly in the northeast near Laos. Phuket is a city in the south on the long Malay peninsula that has rubber trees, coral reefs, jungles, beaches, and mangroves. In the south it is hot all through the year.
People of Thailand. There are 30 ethnic groups. The main ones are Thai (75%), Chinese (19%), Malay (4%), and hill tribes (2%). Kids usually have nick names that are shorter than their real names. Ninety-five percent are literate. They don't use English letters because they have their own writing. It is rude to forget to wai (slightly bowing and folding your hands) to people who are older than you, as a show of respect.
Wildlife in Thailand. There are more kinds of butterflies, birds, and animal there than just about anywhere else. The animals include Indian elephants, Bengal tigers, Sumatran rhinos, Chinese sun bears, many kinds of monkeys, dugongs, and the giant man-eating Mekong catfish. There is wildlife from almost anywhere in Asia. There is so much wildlife because it is hot, wet, and most forests haven't been cut down. It is illegal to cut down trees there.

King Mongkut. He is famous for moderniz-ing Thailand and keeping out the Dutch, English, French, Mus-lims, Spanish, and Chinese without fight-ing. He was Rama V.
King Chulalongkorn. He is Mongkut's son. He is famous for starting universities and public schools. He was Rama VI.

waterlilly field

gaudy baron

gould sunbird

green oak blue

rhinocerus hornbill

common birdwing

eyebrowed thrush

Elephants in Thailand. The ele-phant is a symbol of power and peace. There is a tale that find-ing a white elephant is a sign of good luck for the whole country. Trained elephants can play foot-ball. It takes 70 men to stop an elephant in tug-of-war. They love music and are trained to dance. An elephant can learn 60 commands. They carry logs and clear debris. They used to be used in war. They would charge the enemy when they were told. Long ago the more war elephants you had, the stronger your country was. King Mongkut had 20,000 at one time.

SECOND IMPOR-TANT THING ABOUT THAILAND
Thailand was never col-onized by the Europeans or Muslims. Colonizing is when you take a country by sending your people to live there and you keep them safe with your army. Some counties had a strong government and they weren't colonized. The colonnialists became rich off of their colonies. Some enslaved their colonies. Thailand avoided colonization by showing themselves to the colonnialists as a civilized country. King Mongkut toured Europe and made business agreements with the rulers. And so the Thai weren't colonized. But all the other countries around Thailand were.

Thailand's History. The Tai from China were the first to live in Thailand. They came before 800AD. From 800 to 1200 the Khmer-Angkor empire, from Cambodia, ruled. In 1238, the Siamese empire defeated the Khmers. From 1351 to 1761 the Ahuttaia empire ruled. In 1767 the Burmese empire invaded and destroyed the capital, Ayuthaya. One year later, Thai king Taksin defeated the Burmese. The Chakri Dynasty started in 1782 with King Rama I. Now King Bhumibol Adulya-dej is Rama IX. In World War II, the Thai sided with the Japanese but in 1944 they switched sides. Thailand and the United States are good allies.

flower field

elephant topiary

buddhists waiing

wat pho temple

buddhist monks

grand palace temple

elephant topiary

elephants working

swallowtails puddling

unidentified

mahouts taking care of elephants

king mongkut

prince chulalongkorn

THIRD IMPOR-TANT THING ABOUT THAILAND
Thailand is a modern country and one of the richest in Asia. They were not colonized and they are not communist and their kings wanted them to like a Western nation. The literacy rate is also very very very high in Thailand. They are free to worship any way they want. The result of all of these things is being more prosperous than the countries around them. Since it is free there and there are no wars, foreigners like to come and do things there, like building, vacationing, trading, selling, investing, and manufacturing. Thai-land gets the money.

How much do you like Thai food? We went to our family's favorite restaurant, Saysetha. I love the food there. My favorites are sauted chicken and peanut sauce, saffron rice, chicken-coconut and lime soup, spring rolls, sticky rice and mango, and beef salad. There are three men there who are good friends of ours, Eric, Air, and Kee. They are from Laos but they opened a Thai restaurant because Americans love Thai food and Laotian food is blander. I know they are Buddhists be-cause there is a spirit house on the wall.

What do you admire about the Thai people? I admire how happy the people seem there. I admire how good their country is run compared to the countries all around them. Their economy, literacy rate, and freedom of belief are much better than the other countries around them.
What do you pray to Jesus about Thailand? I pray that there will be more Thai church leaders in Thailand. I thank God that they have so many beautiful butterflies and birds there and that they preserved forests. I pray that they will become a Christian nation so that they will know God.

I am Bhumibol, a Thai boy learning to be a mahout. My elephant's name is Adulyadej. I am named after the King of Thailand's first name. And I named my elephant after the King's last name. When I was first learning about elephants I had to clean up Adulyadej's dung every day. It was too stinky for me to like. I have to wash him in the river and feed him a 150 lbs of food a day. I ride him behind his ears and teach him to pick up and carry logs. I touch him behind his ears with my feet to make him go where I want him to go. I also teach him voice commands. I have a stick to touch him on his trunk to make him pick up things. It takes 7 years to train a mahout and his elephant. We have to train together so that the elephant will know me. I have trained four and a half years so far. One day King Bhumibol was in our town! He came out with some elephants and mahouts including us. While we were walking back the King fell into a lake. A giant catfish came up and was about to bite the King's head clean off. But my elephant, Adulyadej, grabbed the king, Adulyadej, with his trunk and tossed him onto the shore. Some of the elephants and mahouts were still in the forest and one of the men next to the lake said, "Bhumibol and Adulyadej saved King Bhumibol Adulyadej." The King said, "What? That elephant there saved me." After this day, whenever we go out with the other elephants and mahouts, the people always say that the king who saved himself is coming.

tsunami rushing in

wreckage from water rushing in

wreckage from water rushing out

great hornbill

paris peacock

storks

indian purple emperor

lacewing

sulphurs

orange oak leaf

christian orphanage