Thai Websites
Thai websites. For those of you who don't read Thai (or, in reality, read at least one language other than Thai), you have probably not visited many Thai websites. Today I want to talk a little bit about Thai websites.
Given that Thailand is a country roughly the size of France, it shouldn't surprise that there are quite a few websites in Thailand. It probably also wouldn't surprise most people that because of the Thai character set and the way they write without spaces, doing Google searches in Thai does not always yield the impressive results that we are used to with English searches. Again, these things are to be expected: lots of websites, difficult to search.
What is surprising, however, is how dangerous Thai websites are to epileptics. Since I used to run a Thai website of my own, I have had the occasion to view several other Thai websites, and--I am not exaggerating here--I don't think I have ever seen another Thai website that didn't feature something blinking.
Here is a good example: http://www.geocities.com/makruks/. This is a website about Thai chess, which is a lot like Persian (International) chess, but with more restrictive piece movements that makes it a very interesting game. You can download a version of Thai chess for your computer here: http://www.geocities.com/makruks/ZIPCHESS.ZIP.
So, this is a useful website that I went to because I:1) wanted to check out some of the finer points about the rules of Thai chess2) wanted to see if I could download a version to play at home.I was able to accomplish both missions, relatively easy. Still...there is that punishment that comes with even going to a Thai website. It's the blinking, the flashing, the flash animation, the hideous roll-overs, the unnecessary animated gifs... So many ways to offend one's aesthetics, yet all done with the intention of looking good. It doesn't matter whether it is a small personal website like this one or one of the most popular websites in Thailand (like www.sanook.com), there will always be moving and blinking. Thais love that shit. Maybe it fits in with their "life as controlled chaos" approach to existing on this earth.
There will also always be a webboard on any website, usually on the first page. Thais LOVE webboards. They love expressing their opinions, whether well-informed or not. Even when they have nothing original to add, there will be lots of posts saying things like "I agree" or "I support you". I mean, it makes sense--Thais love to feel inclusion into a group--but it is still a little weird.
When I used to run my website, which was a website written by ethnic minorities in Thailand to document and discuss their rapidly vanishing cultures, it was pretty phenomenal the word-to-content ratio on those webboards. To invoke a Thai saying, they were like a curry with all water and no meat. There were, of course, many, many uninformed comments, but this is why we were running the website: to inform Thai people about things happening inside their borders. Despite my general disappointment with the commentary in the webboards, I always consoled myself that at least people were participating, even if, now, a year later, I feel like there were only three or four memorable things written in all the posts that I read.
Other common features: There are almost always one or two English words (usually written in a font much larger than the surrounding Thai) that seem completely incongruous. Advertisements for cell phone ringtones are also quite popular.
Given that Thailand is a country roughly the size of France, it shouldn't surprise that there are quite a few websites in Thailand. It probably also wouldn't surprise most people that because of the Thai character set and the way they write without spaces, doing Google searches in Thai does not always yield the impressive results that we are used to with English searches. Again, these things are to be expected: lots of websites, difficult to search.
What is surprising, however, is how dangerous Thai websites are to epileptics. Since I used to run a Thai website of my own, I have had the occasion to view several other Thai websites, and--I am not exaggerating here--I don't think I have ever seen another Thai website that didn't feature something blinking.
Here is a good example: http://www.geocities.com/makruks/. This is a website about Thai chess, which is a lot like Persian (International) chess, but with more restrictive piece movements that makes it a very interesting game. You can download a version of Thai chess for your computer here: http://www.geocities.com/makruks/ZIPCHESS.ZIP.
So, this is a useful website that I went to because I:1) wanted to check out some of the finer points about the rules of Thai chess2) wanted to see if I could download a version to play at home.I was able to accomplish both missions, relatively easy. Still...there is that punishment that comes with even going to a Thai website. It's the blinking, the flashing, the flash animation, the hideous roll-overs, the unnecessary animated gifs... So many ways to offend one's aesthetics, yet all done with the intention of looking good. It doesn't matter whether it is a small personal website like this one or one of the most popular websites in Thailand (like www.sanook.com), there will always be moving and blinking. Thais love that shit. Maybe it fits in with their "life as controlled chaos" approach to existing on this earth.
There will also always be a webboard on any website, usually on the first page. Thais LOVE webboards. They love expressing their opinions, whether well-informed or not. Even when they have nothing original to add, there will be lots of posts saying things like "I agree" or "I support you". I mean, it makes sense--Thais love to feel inclusion into a group--but it is still a little weird.
When I used to run my website, which was a website written by ethnic minorities in Thailand to document and discuss their rapidly vanishing cultures, it was pretty phenomenal the word-to-content ratio on those webboards. To invoke a Thai saying, they were like a curry with all water and no meat. There were, of course, many, many uninformed comments, but this is why we were running the website: to inform Thai people about things happening inside their borders. Despite my general disappointment with the commentary in the webboards, I always consoled myself that at least people were participating, even if, now, a year later, I feel like there were only three or four memorable things written in all the posts that I read.
Other common features: There are almost always one or two English words (usually written in a font much larger than the surrounding Thai) that seem completely incongruous. Advertisements for cell phone ringtones are also quite popular.
posted by Me, Myself, and Goo at 1:43 PM
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