In the huge variety of themes on Southeast Asia are always some extraordinary. It's for example certain plants or kinds of pollution, or trouble with the miserable buerocracy. Here a collection of themes who don't fit into the other categories is given.
Air Pollution in Southeast Asia /
The Southeast Asian Haze Problem
The Southeast Asian Haze, coming from the annually thousands of forest fires in Indonesia, makes it sometimes even into the world news. The problem is recorded since the early 1970s, but it's getting bigger while the last remaining tropical rainforests are rapidly shrinking.
Every year in the second half of the dry season, the air quality in the north of Laos, north of Thailand, north Vietnam, south China and parts of Burma/Myanmar is going very bad. That's due to large forest fires...
Chikungunya is a virus which was discovered in 1953, first documented in Thailand in 1958. Most of the populations in Indochina is probably immune against the disease. Though, tourists and travellers from other world regions are not immune. The disease is spreading out to the southern parts of Southeast Asia."
A mosquito which looks like an Asian tiger mosquito (aedes albopictus, potentially a dengue vector), seen in Kampot, Cambodia. Though, it's missing the typical white line on the back. Image by Asienreisender, 2013
Dengue Fever
Dengue fever is a very dangerous and painful disease. It is also an emerging disease, in fact the fastest dispersing disease transfered by mosquitoes in the world. In the fifty years between 1960 and 2010 dengue cases rose up thirty fold worldwide. In the ten years between 2000 and 2010 the number of cases doubled. For everybody travelling to Southeast Asia it's important to be informed about the health risks, for dengue is endemic in all Southeast Asian countries.
Dust pollution with it's fine dust (fine particulate) impact is a serious threat for humans and animals who are exposed to it. The concentrations in Southeast Asia are sometimes enormous.
A Garuda is a fable animal, a bird-human hybrid of the Hindu mytology. It found it's way to Southeast Asia by the first Indian cultures who settled here. It became then adapted to the later invented Buddhist religion. Garudas are a frequent appearance in Southeast Asian architecture and arts.
Let's assume that a biting mosquito is sucking blood. When the bitten human is malaria infected, the mosquito sucks with the blood the exciters which transfer within 8 to 16 days inside the mosquito into another phase and next to it's final stage. When it gets injected then into another humans blood circulation, reaching there the human liver, it's again breeding and spreading out into the vascular system. The perpetuation of the circle is then completed.
Tourists tend to avoid Southeast Asia in the monsoon months, for many expect it being rainy every day and all-day. They fear mosquito-born diseases and floods.
Well, in fact it's not all that bad. Rainy season can be a very rich and beautiful time in the tropes. There are many more animals active, it's all green around and it's considerably cooler than in most of the dry season.
The impact of noise pollution on humans (and animals) is still widely underestimated and / or seen as the price we have to pay for the development of our modern society. But there are serious concerns. Among them are sleep deprivation and disruption, memory deficits, stress, high blood pressure, dizziness, cardiovascular diseases, ringing ear, frustrations...
Rafflesia arnoldii is considered being the largest flower in the world. It grows in the tropical rainforests of the Malay Archipelago, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, south of Thailand and reaches a size of 1m in diameter and a weight up to eleven kilograms. Rafflesia arnoldii is named after Stamford Raffles and the botanist Joseph Arnold.
Homo sapiens derived from the animal world. From a certain point on in this development, the species became able to reflect itself. The great existential questions emerged: Why does the world exist? Where are we coming from, what's the meaning of life and what happens after our death? Spiritual leaders, shamans, gave the first answers. Mystical answers, who where developed into religious systems.
Tenthousands of different religions exist now in our world. Are they all right? Is only one the really right one, and all the others are wrong? Or are they all wrong? And which role plays science in our lifes?
The vast majority of the People of Southeast Asia is favouring religious ideas, spirituality, yes, superstition over naturalism. The article is reflecting the roles of religion and science.
The article has been written by Debnath Guharoy / Roy Morgan and published in the Jakarta Post on October 30th, 2012.
Radical Islam in on the rise in Indonesia. Not only that the sharia is the official law in Aceh, north Sumatra.
Influencial pressure groups gain more and more influence on politics in Jakarta. According to Watch Indonesia, 49% of the Javanese girls of the age of 15 years have suffered gender mutiliation.
The article debates the proposed abolishment of science in primary schools in Indonesia in favour for religion.
However, some of the view of the author[s] are not agreeable, in my view. "The planet itself is still in reasonably good shape" is a statement which couldn't be more wrong, and shows a deep alientation of the writer[s]. Particularly if you look to the ecologic development of Java. The Java of the times of Junghuhn, Wallace and Gerstaecker (mid 19th century), which can be described as a 'garden eden', has been turned into a big toilet in the time since. It's thoroughly degraded, including the remaining national parks who get plundered by poachers. Other points mentioned are as wrong as that, but the main topic, the replacement of science for the sake of religion shows exemplarily how mad this society turns...
Rice is the basic food for the People of Southeast Asia. Everywhere in the world region, the rural landscapes are coined by rice paddies. What's the origins of rice, and what for a role does rice play in nowadays Southeast Asia?
Songkran is celebrated in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, partially also in Burma/Myanmar and south China. In it's old, original tradition it was a custom to sprinkle people's hands or heads with a small amount of water. That happened in a very gentle way, meant symbolically, usually done by monks. Some decades ago it became more and more a popular festival and run wild in the way that songkran nowadays means, at least in Thailand, a national water battle.
For a foreign visitor, at least those from Western countries, it seems a bit peculiar to hear the national anthem played twice all around in Thailand. It's blasted out by public loudspeakers who are omnipresent in Thailand, as well as it's played on any TV and radio channel at eight o'clock in the morning and six o'clock in the evening. To get an idea what's it all about together with an audio file of the very piece of music, this webpage has been drafted.
Right: Making a hell of a din, one can see them as a major pollutant: public loudspeakers are everywhere around in Thailand.
Thai Silk
Thai Silk is a quality textile product from Thailand which has a long tradition as a rural product for local use. Thai Silk became a product for the world market only after the promotion by Jim Thompson, who 'reinvented' it and exported the textile into the USA. The page gives a brief introduction into the production process of Thai Silk.
For visa applications don't go to the Thai Embassy; it's elswhere in
Vientiane. Visas are given only at the Thai Consulate Office! Here you
find a map...