All the failure that's fit to print

This week the archives, library, and universities are closed in celebration of Songkran: the traditional Thai new year. Most of the people from the provinces leave Bangkok to spend the week with their families upcountry (which is why its so difficult to get a taxi.) Because traditional avenues of research were closed I decided to visit the headquarters of the Bangkok Post to gain access to their back issues. Part of my project involves the 1959-1963 border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia over possession of an ancient Khmer temple called Preah Vihear. I can't find any newspapers from that era at either the archives or the library, so I decided to go straight to the source. But like many things in Thailand, this sounded easy and ended up being very difficult.

First, I looked up the Bangkok Post on the internet, which gave me the address. But addresses are funny things here - they tell you the road, but not much else. In Thailand, buildings are not numbered in an ascending or descending fashion, with the odd numbers on the right and the even on the left. Buildings can be numbered according to when they were built, or sometimes owners just choose addresses that have lucky numbers in them. So the address does not help search out a building, it only helps you recognize the place once you're right in front of it. I decided to call up a friend who had been there before and ask him to go with me. This probably saved me an good half hour of searching in a taxi.

Once we arrived at the Bangkok Post we had to get past the receptionist. Despite several attempts to explain ourselves, she couldn't seem to grasp who we were or what we wanted. When we finally communicated our purpose, she wouldn't grant us access because the 'public hours' for the newspaper archives didn't begin for another four hours. It was then that my friend executed a diplomatic coup d'etat by pulling out his 'official letter'. It was a made-up letter of introduction from his 'advisor' that featured a forged signature and very smart-looking emblem at the top of the page (that he had also designed himself). Once he produced this lettre de cachet, we were given visitors badges and whisked up to the second floor. In this country, no one cares who you are, they only care whose signature you have. Osama Bin Laden himself could get access to the Royal Palace if he had the right paperwork.

Now came the most difficult part of getting the actual newspapers. At the Bangkok Post normally people research by topics, such as 'health care', 'Thaksin', or 'sex industry'. But they didn't have a file on 'Preah Vihear' and I was more interested in searching chronlogically so that I didn't miss anything. I asked for a CD-Rom for those years. They didn't have one. Microfilm? They had microfilm, but not a machine to view it. Could I buy the rolls I needed to view on my own? I would have to order them from London. It would take two months and cost fifty-five pounds per roll. (I would probably need to order eight rolls to get all the months I was interested in.)

So I decided to just start looking through the hard copies, one issue at a time. I wrote down the months that most interested me. September 1959, June 1963, November 1963....and requested them from a very polite and helpful archivist. After about fifteen minutes she returned with her supervisor. This is never a good sign. The supervisor explained to me that they did not have any of the issues I needed. They had everything before and since then, but every single issue in the five year block (1958-1963) I needed had recently been sent to India as part of their digitization project. She added that those issues were scheduled to return sometime in July, and that I was welcome to come back.

Thailand 1. Shane 0.

The truly amusing part is that if I were back in Madison I could probably get the whole five years on microflim on interlibrary loan from Cornell. It would take me about ten minutes to order it all online.