泰国华文词语使用状况述略

根据泰国华文语料来分析泰国华文词汇的使用状况,阐述了泰国华文语料中含有文言词语和潮州口语成分,并形成特有的区域性华文的情况。笔者据此提出泰国华文改进并逐步向普通话靠拢的意见。     

Reel Western Fantasies: Portrait of a Tourist Imagination in The Beach (2000)

Drawing on a number of sources, including social and cultural accounts of mobility, such as those of Sheller and Urry and by Zygmunt Bauman, car advertising, and focus group discussions with young drivers, the violence of the car and its shaping influence in contemporary life are considered through an application of the idea of articulation from Grossberg. Highlighting articulations of the car, particularly the dominant articulations of racing and rally driving evident in particular types of advertising, allows an examination of the destructive potential of particular driving cultures and also illustrates the meanings inscribed into the car, thus challenging its apparent neutrality. The racing articulations are connected to aggressive, competitive styles of driving, extending into competitive social relations and implicating an emphasis on aggressive individualism. There has been some dialogue in the road safety community about what counts as aggressive behaviour but these discussions often do not take into account the innate violence of the car itself and tend to consider only extreme behaviours as aggressive. The forms of self‐control that arise in relation to the dominant articulations and the desires appealed to in advertising are sketched. Focus group responses to two car advertisements emphasising social competition and extreme thrill‐seeking are discussed.     

泰国金融危机成因及其启示

二战后泰国由于实行较正确的发展战略,经济发展迅速,但近年来在信贷投向、国际收支、固定汇率、外资利用、外汇储备、资本项目对外开放等方面把握不当,导致了严重的金融危机。据此,我国应坚持适度从紧货币政策,调整产业结构,加强外资管理和金融监管,以保证经济持续、快速、健康发展     

The mechanisms of corruption in agricultural price intervention projects: Case studies from Thailand

In Thailand, agricultural price intervention has recently been under severe criticism for its ineffective management and proneness to corruption. This study focuses on the mechanisms of corruption and how such destructive activities might be minimized. Case studies of three well-known crops in Thailand, namely paddy, cassava, and shallots, were utilized as the main investigative tool. Findings suggest that government price intervention programs generate significant economic rents for various stakeholders (i.e. farmers, millers, warehouse owners, exporters, etc.). To deal with this problem, the magnitude of economic rents should be curtailed through strict quantity limits and monitoring needs to be enhance both through better human resources and integrated information technology. In the long term, such blunt intervention projects should be replaced with more sophisticated, market-oriented risk management techniques, and strict information transparency must be ensured.     

Factors influencing a firm’s decision to conduct remanufacturing: evidence from the Thai automotive parts industry

This paper aims to investigate the key factors influencing the decision-making process of firms in conducting remanufacturing activities, using the Thai automotive parts as a case study. Our results show that on average, business feasibility is the most influential determinant driving the decision-making of firms, followed by areas of the firm’s strategic factors, and policy factors. In terms of individual factors, product maturity is ranked first as the most important factor for a firm to engage in remanufacturing activities, followed by financial aspects, availability of skilled workers and technical aspects. Policies related to trade, intellectual property rights and the environment are identified as the least crucial factors in affecting the decisions of firms. Characteristics of firms and products matter in ranking the factors influencing a firm’s decision to conduct remanufacturing.     

Exploring the Quality of Life of People in North Eastern and Southern Thailand

The assumption that development brings not only material prosperity but also a better overall quality of life lies at the heart of the development project. Against this, critics assert that development can undermine social cohesion and threaten cultural integrity. Rarely, however, is the impact of development on well-being rigourously analysed using empirical data. This is what the Wellbeing in Developing Countries Group at the University of Bath aims to do drawing on fieldwork carried out in four developing countries, which addresses the themes of resources, needs, agency and structure, and subjective Quality of life (QoL). The first phase of the QoL research in Thailand aimed to explore the categories and components of quality of life for people from different backgrounds and locations with the aim of developing methods for QoL assessment in the third phase of the WeD QoL research. The study presents data obtained from rural and peri-urban sites in Southern and Northeastern Thailand (two villages in Songkhla and three in Khon Kaen, Mukdaharn, and Roi-et). Participants were divided into six groups by gender and age, and were divided again by religion (Buddhist and Muslim) and wealth status in the South. Data collection was conducted between October and December 2004 using focus group discussions, semi-structured interviews, and the Person Generated Index. Content analysis was used for data analysis. The use of a qualitative approach enabled the gathering of empirical data that reflects the sources of difficulty and happiness in the lives of participants. Respondents identified 26 aspects to their quality of life, including family relations, health and longevity, income and having money, jobs, housing, education, debt, and so on. The results reveal clear similarities and differences in the role of traditions, religious beliefs, and values in the lives of people living in remote rural or peri-urban areas in Northeastern and Southern Thailand. These results, together with the findings from Peru, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh, will inform the rest of the WeD research and be used to develop measures to assess the quality of life of people living in developing countries.     

Producing Thailand as a transit country: borders,advocacy, and destitution

ABSTRACT

The space of the ‘transit country’ is increasingly depicted in policy and NGO rhetoric as a taken-for-granted space where migrants pass through on their way to seek protection in the Global North. Yet I argue that the ‘transit country’ is a contested space, a space where ‘temporariness’ may be produced purposefully in order to limit opportunities for protection. In this paper, I argue that Thailand produces itself as a transit country in order to manage and control refugee and asylum seeker populations. Through several discursive and material tactics, including security spectacles, legal maneuvering, and migrant destitution, Thailand maintains and exploits the status of a ‘transit country.’ The purposeful construction of a place where ‘no one will stay’ challenges depictions of migration as linear movements defined by sources and destinations, where transit spaces become only more distance to traverse. While the production of transit countries has always been political, the case of Thailand suggests that the politics involved need not center the migration deterrence efforts of traditional destination countries of the Global North, but have implications within states and regions of the Global South as well.     

Umbrella for research into Human Resource Development (HRD)

This paper explores Thailand's ‘sufficiency economy’ (SE) philosophy and its impact on human resource development (HRD). The paper highlights the current attempts to achieve sustainable development, especially after the economic crisis of 1997. The philosophy introduces a great shift of conceptual thinking on the general development and administration in the country. This paper examines the importance of the SE philosophy and discusses its impact on HRD in Thailand at different levels of the society.     

Variables that influence stakeholder satisfaction with the creation of corporate images of Thailand’s National Housing Authority

ABSTRACT

The project output will assist with the strategic planning and determination of communication tactics, coupled with public relations, to establish a good corporate image under fluctuating global circumstances. Questionnaires and non-experimental, in-depth interviews were used for both quantitative and qualitative research, respectively. The main objective of this study is to explore stakeholder attitudes and satisfaction with the creation of corporate images by Thailand’s National Housing Authority (NHA). The investigation of NHA stakeholders’ attitudes and comments toward the building of this government entity’s corporate image strategy led to sustainable developments within the NHA by determining concepts and research methods, crafting a research plan, and identifying the characteristics of the target group. This study includes other sections related to measuring the attitude index, data collection and analysis, comparisons and interpretations of the target group and stakeholder perspectives. The target population is comprised of: Residents in 68 communities under the governance of NHA and Thai citizens, executive directors of the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security (MSDHS), board committee, executive directors, and general staff, companies, the private sector, entrepreneurs, and building contractors, public relations staff. Overall, 30 categories of stakeholders were interviewed. Secondary information, such as project documents, was collected and utilized for action planning, which reflects stakeholder opinions towards the NHA. The survey sample size of stakeholders was limited to 400 people from 12 districts, comprising 31,844 households under the 68 NHA projects in Bangkok.     

Air Male: Exploring Flight Attendant Masculinities in North America and Thailand

Flight attendant work, although now referred to with gender-neutral terminology, continues to be archetypically feminine. Male flight attendants are often assumed to be gay, which frequently includes an emasculated, hyper-sexualised dimension to the stereotyped minority within the female-dominated occupation. The ways in which straight men navigate this occupation and its gendered/hypersexualised connotations problematises both the notions of a gay community as well as flight attendant work as inherently or necessarily feminine. Based on ethnography amongst flight attendants who work for two international airlines, this paper considers how notions of masculinity and heteronormativity operate in a feminised occupational role and how workplace dynamics affect gendered senses of self and relations with others, including with coworkers and in the public.