Patrick Winn

Based in Bangkok, Patrick Winn produces written and video dispatches on Thailand and Burma for Global Post. By capturing street revolts, a gruesome Muslim insurgency and even transgender beauty...

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Patrick Winn's Notebook:

July 23, 2009 06:48 ET

Hillary and the junta

I wasn't sure I'd see this photo emerge from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's spin through Thailand.

Don't feel obliged to click the link. It's just Hillary shaking hands with some guy in a suit. Who happens to be the foreign minister of Burma, also called Myanmar.

To observers of Burma — the isolated, regime-run bad child of Southeast Asia — this could signal a shift in America's approach to this extremely troubled country.

Just two years ago, I remember then-President George W. Bush standing before a U.N. podium shouting, "Americans are outraged by the situation in Burma." My reaction: "Um, we are?"

Bush (and, for better or worse, the film Rambo IV) turned a lot of eyes toward Burma. So did his wife, who made Burma awareness one of her pet projects. Left-leaning Americans roll their eyes at Laura Bush, but many exiled Burmese don't. She was listening — and visiting the Thai-Burma border — when few others were.

What the Bushes didn't do was lend much change to the junta-run regime. American condemnation likely fortified the junta's paranoia, as did the capture and hanging of a once-powerful Saddam Hussein. Some analysts have said the junta may be constructing a huge network of underground tunnels with foreign jet strikes in mind. We know that's highly unlikely. They're not so convinced.

Back to Hillary. Just hours ago, members of her delegation actually sat down with Myanmar officials and talked shop. While here in Thailand, Hillary announced that, if the junta reverses its miserable human rights record, it may start seeing American investment.

In essence, she said that the door is not closed on U.S.-Burma relations. Though Burma frequently embarrasses its trading partners — notably China, India and Thailand — they at least have potential to sway the junta behind closed doors. More American condemnation from the podium will, in effect, cede Burma over to non-U.S. powers. Hillary doesn't want that.

Even Burmese exiles — though split on whether the U.S. should take a harder or softer line — hold out a little hope that the junta will someday play nicer to appease Western powers. They're actually more shrewd and attuned to diplomacy than many would believe, says Burmese exile Aung Zaw, who runs The Irrawaddy magazine.

"They're very clever and manipulative," he said. "They're well connected to what's going on ... even if they live in underground tunnels."

July 10, 2009 21:53 ET

Mee and My Dad

I tend to regard relationships between retirement-age foreigners and Thai "bar girls" as a tired subject. There are lots of (mostly lame) books on the subject — and even how-to guides for old white divorced dudes seeking love in Thailand.

Sure, it's an interesting phenomenon. And for many Westerners, it's easy to dismiss the whole lot as creeps or, at best, lost souls. The truth is more nuanced than that. But I've intentionally tried to avoid writing about foreigner-bar girl couplings. It's boring. It's been done.

But this short film by a 20-something British documentarian approaches these relationships from a fresh angle. What if the 60-year-old guy who takes up with a bar girl, who's barely older than you are, is your dad?

Mee and my Dad from UWE Bristol Media Practice on Vimeo.

The film is called "Mee and My Dad" and it's refreshingly poignant. The filmmaker flies to Thailand for his father's wedding to Mee, a young girl from Thailand's hardscrabble upcountry who met the retiree while, um, entertaining clients in a bar. It's only semi-acknowledged in the film, but Mee appears to be descended from the rugged Lahu hilltribe.

Some might describe the filmmaker's dad a lost soul, but he's also a gentle person. Mee, too, is likable and, by Western standards, alarmingly direct.

Perhaps the best sequence involves Mee explaining to her new son-in-law that the marriage has little to do with romance. She makes no pretense about finding the her dumpy husband attractive. (Shocker!) She unflinchingly explains that, if he were broke, the marriage would collapse.

Yet Mee hardly comes off as a gold digger. "My family comes first," she explains. And this marriage will offer security to her two sons and aging mother, who still prepares the family meals with a propane tank and a pan in an outdoor shed. It's a story of sacrifice.

Throughout, the young filmmaker swallows his judgment and attempts to understand his estranged father and the young woman, born worlds away, who is now his stepmom. In the process, he's managed to take portray these relationships in a way that's touching instead of trashy.

June 16, 2009 13:13 ET

North Korea and Burma: tunnel buddies

Run by elusive tyrants? Check.

Reviled by the West? Check.

Propped up by China? Check.

Really, how could Burma and North Korea not get along? They even share the same taste in dated, highly starched uniforms. (Though North Korea arguably has nicer hats.)

Well, get this. Among North Korea's fields of expertise — notably cigarette smuggling, nuclear secret swapping and counterfeiting — the isolated backwater possesses a lesser-known skill. They're experienced in digging extensive tunnel hideouts for military leaders. And Burma's junta is buying.

This is the latest from journalist Bertil Lintner, among the most authoritative voices on Burma. His latest piece, Tunnels, Guns and Kimchi, asserts that North Korean technicians are building an elaborate tunnel network to help Burmese leaders withstand domestic or foreign attacks.

The how-to of tunneling comes from experience, as much of North Korea's defense industry lies beneath deep, bomb-resistant bunkers.

Lintner even suggests the tunnels could be linked to the Burmese junta's wish to acquire nuclear material. This is a red-alert nightmare scenario and there's no smoking gun evidence to substantiate that fear. (Still, if you're prone to panic attacks, don't read this.)

Historical side note: Burma hated North Korea's guts after a bizarre 1983 assassination attempt against the South Korean president on Burmese soil. During an official South Korean visit to the Burmese capital, Rangoon, North Korean spies set off explosives in an attempt to wipe out South Korea's president. They failed, but ended up killing more than 20 people, including several South Korean government ministers.

But Burma and North Korea just couldn't stay mad at each other. Relations were repaired in the 1990s. And now, according to Lintner's report, Burma's leaders are quite jealous of North Korea's leadership for standing up to the United States.

There you have this report's other surprise revelation. Someone out there actually looks up to Kim Jong Il.

June 11, 2009 05:23 ET

How could Thailand's press obtain grisly Carradine photos?

Less than a month ago, I wrote about Thai newspapers' penchant for front-page gore.

Now this industry standard practice — of publishing mangled corpses on the front page — has Thailand's most popular daily paper and "Kill Bill" actor David Carradine's family in something of a culture clash.

First, a disclaimer. The recently published photo of Carradine, suspended from a clothes-hanging bar in a hotel closet, is possibly fake.

Legit or not, it's important to understand that the Thai press could quite easily score this type of photo.

How? Through the backdoor trade of crime scene photos, from law enforcement to reporters. Thai Rath, the outlet that published the photo, is already an impressive news-breaking paper. But when it comes to crime scenes, they're guaranteed to get the photo scoop — likely from the digital camera of an officer in their employ, as is often alleged. 

Like so many front-page crime scene photos, this shot has no cutline.

The family of a Thai star would likely feel dismay if their loved one's corpse was published on the front page — but they wouldn't be surprised.

P.S. — Just as I'm finishing up this post, I've read a column in the Bangkok Post about a prior Thai Rath transgression: printing a photo of nearly nude murder victim. Columnist Sanitsuda Ekachai writes that readers flipped out, demanded an apology ...  and got one. She adds that the front pages of Thai papers were actually much worse in prior years.

June 5, 2009 05:27 ET

Carradine's passing and other confounding deaths

Something sounds oddly familiar about the recent death of "Kill Bill" actor David Carradine in Bangkok.

Why? Because there's a perception in Thailand that an unusually high number of foreigners' lives end here in odd suicides.

Several months ago, the Thai press published front-page photos of a man's head dangling from a rope fixed to one of the city's most-trafficked bridges. Suicide? Murder? Theories drifted back and forth — and police eventually settled on suicide.

The nearby seaside town Pattaya is thought to have lots of "jumpers," lost souls who leap from the resort city's high-rise condos. Often, these tales are told with an undercurrent of suspicion — a hunch that that the "suicides" involve something more sinister. (See blogger and Thailand veteran Bangkok Dan's musings on this here.) After a fellow journalist nearly witnessed a Pattaya suicide firsthand — in a public bar — she said she was told "it happens all the time."

So what happened to Carradine, reportedly found by a hotel worker in a closet with cord tied around his neck and genitals? The first reports said suicide. Newer reports touch on the possibility of auto-erotic asphyxiation. His friends and family insist Carradine wouldn't have killed himself — and question the absence of a suicide note.

Honestly, I haven't seen any figures to substantiate this perception about foreigners dying in Thailand. (Have you? Please comment below.) But the belief that foreigners die here under odd circumstances — true or not — is likely stronger after Carradine's death.

P.S. The "Kill Bill" series features Carradine at his late-career best. It's a shame that we'll be cheated out of seeing him in "Stretch," the film he was filming here in Thailand.