Sao Lao

Episode 1 of Ray Rai Louk Sao Pa with Alexandra Bounxouei, Cee Siwat, and Nam Rapeepat. So far three episodes have been broadcast since Friday 04. We will have to wait till the next Friday for three more installments of this Thai lakorn series. There are mixed feelings to the role of Ray Rai, played by Alexandra Bounxouei but the final verdict is not out.

I have to confess that I have not seen the three episodes because I didn’t like the character of Ray Rai. She’s too annoying to me and it’s not much different from the type of character that I’ve seen in Viva Orawang (something like that) which I only watched a few episodes because the main character was rather annoying. She often fought pa ek or talking back at him, or daring him from the first minute she met him, just like Ray Rai with Thavanh.

I think Alexandra chose the wrong lakorn to play and it doesn’t suit her at all. I don’t expect her to play the role of Champa all the time with being sweet and proper but the role of Pood Mae Nam Khong would have been better for her. It would have been more challenging but more rewarding because the story line is better than Ray Rai Louk Sao Pa. If Alexandra would have spoken Thai in Ray Rai Louk Sao Pa, then it would have made it more enjoyable for me since I am used to hearing a female Thai characters spoke like that before.

To hear a Lao girl talk like that, which I have never met anyone carrying herself in that manner in real life is rather annoying and unbearable. To hear it in Tai Viengchanh accent is what made it annoying (lum khan). I understand the character of Ray Rai with having brought up without a mother. She has a strong personality and sort of like a Tom Boy, but I have never met a Lao Tom Boy that would speak like that. You can be tough without talking and acting like that. So it was a bad role for her and I don’t like to see Alexandra doing the eyes (tha kung) at Thavanh or other characters. I just couldn’t imagine meeting someone that would behave like that and would find it pleasant and wanting to fall in love with if I was a man.

Of course others would not feel the same as me and I don’t expect anyone to agree with me. Please leave the hate message below. Don’t be too harsh on me though. Even though I don’t watch the lakorn, I still leave the recording on while I’m doing something more important like reading my text books. I only have so much time and have committed myself to one Thai drama already, and that is Nang Tad because it makes me laugh and cry.

This part of the clip was already posted in Sen Thang Bun Theung April 05, 2008 post. It was about the hardship Alexandra and Cee had to endure on the set for the shooting of the second episode of Ray Rai Louk Sao Pa Thai lakorn.

During our Christmas break we had to read two books as an introduction to the International Relations (International Politics) MA Thesis. One book was assigned to the entire group and that was Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order , written by Robert Kagan. We were required to write 2-3 pages summary of the book, including criticisms and suggestions for further research. It was a good way to start Christmas vacation.

Of Paradise and Power: American and Europe in the New World Order Summary

Americans and Europeans no longer share a common understanding of the world. Basically, Americans are mired in an anarchic Hobbesian world while Europeans are entering the postmodern paradise of Immanuel Kant’s perpetual peace. Kagan argues that America and Europe are divided by a gap of power and ideology that are self-reinforcing. One of the causes for that is the decline of military power in Europe.

The early promise of a “new Europe” was created through the European Union after bonding together into a single political and economic unit with the treaty of Maastricht in 1992. During that time it was widely believed that Europe would be the next superpower in economic, political and military terms.

However, the “new Europe” did not fulfill its promise. In economic and political terms the achievements of Europe were high. However, Europeans discovered that economic power did not necessarily translate into strategic and geopolitical power. The Balkan conflict in the 1990s revealed European military incapacity and the unwillingness to deploy decisive force into regions beyond the European continent.

Kagan posits the question why Europe hasn’t fulfilled the promise of the European Union in foreign and defense policy away from US dominance. The answer lies in the realm of ideology and European attitudes not only towards military spending but towards power itself. Europeans have developed a genuinely different perspective on the role of power in international relations. This perspective stems directly from post WWII experiences where power politics, which has brought such misery upon European people over the past century and more, was rejected.

Military, Europe is much weaker than the US. This weakness has produced a powerful European interest in building a world where hard power and military power matter less than soft power and economic power. Europe is seeking an international order where international order and law and international institutions matter more than individual nations. The “brutal laws” of an anarchistic Hobbesian world where power is the ultimate determinant of national security ad success is simply not congruent with the new European style of politics.

For Europeans, ideals and interests converge in a world governed according to the principles of multilateralism. Europe exercises an emphasis on negotiation, diplomacy, commercial ties, on international law over the use of force, on seduction over coercion and on multilateralism over unilateralism. However, after the post Cold War era, the US was becoming more unilateral in its approach contrary to Europeans who sought to build a more comprehensive international legal system in order to avoid such unilateralism.

To Europe, the power of the US and its willingness to use this power, unilaterally if necessary is considered a threat to Europe’s new sense of mission. Americans believe that their power politics made it possible for Europe to think that power was no longer important. US military power has solved the “German Problem” and allows Europeans today to think that US military power is outmoded and dangerous.

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