"Be alert! Your country needs lerts" goes the silly old
joke. But it's not funny. Being aware of life's hazards can save life,
limb and lolly.
Safety and awareness, or rather the lack of it, seems to be a theme
this month, with Songkran's sad accident toll mingling with a relevant
reader's letter - and our main feature from a brave man who admits that
earlier medical attention might have avoided his double amputations.
And it's not just in the areas of going to the doctor and observing
road safety which keep us from harm. I have a public "thank you"
this month to Chiangmai resident J.B.Gross, American former military man
and self defence expert who saved my wife and I from being mugged in a
Bangkok park at 4.30pm on a sunny Songkran day. And until he reads this
he won't even know it!
I once worked with J.B. on the draft of a book, part of which preached
awareness of one's surroundings at all times. "The man came out of
nowhere!". "Suddenly they were standing in front of me"
and "The first I knew, I was on the ground" are statements that
police wearily write, all over the world all the time. So J.B. teaches
the Rule of the Seven Foot Circle (or for the metrics among us, let's say
2 metres): 'At all times be totally aware of anyone within a 7ft circle
of yourself. Within that distance, they can very suddenly do you direct
harm' says the Rule.
Well, the 3 scruffily dressed youths in Chatuchak Park only got to within
17ft by my estimate, but that was quite close enough for me to gather up
wife (totally absorbed in writing down the phone number of a closed museum)
and walk steadily towards 2 uniformed security men some 70 metres (or yards)
away. I reckon that in less than 30 seconds we would have been rushed -
and a lost wallet, hand phone and handbag would have been only part of
the aggro.
JUST LIKE THE REAL THING?
Click for larger photograph
Almost! This metal bas relief of a Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero-Sen actually
represents an aircraft of the 64th Sentai, wich was stationed here at Chiangmai.
Framed in dark Thai timber, each piece is numbered and only 1000 pieces
will ever be produced. Made by Thai craftsmen with care.
I'd noted the (for Thailand) unusually tatty trio 10 minutes earlier,
as we approached the rather sad looking transport museum in a corner of
this enormous green park. Kept a discrete eye them, noticed that the shortest
was playing with a sort of swagger stick to make him feel bigger. Each
time I glanced they were more than a little nearer. Then I realised that
the 2 security men in bright blue shirts - motionless and too far away
to help in a hurry - were keeping them under even closer watch than I.
Decision taken! We moved, walking not running, still seeming to ignore
them, and happily they didn't follow. We must all be alert, for our own
sake. Thanks J.B. Carlsberg, was it?
Two Thai soothsayers predicted massive death tolls involving
travellers at Songkran (..) likely to have "catastrophe level"
casualties "as serious as the Biblical Armageddon Day" (...).
Deputy
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