Engrish in Thailand, Funny Signs

McDonald’s is an international corporation. We have McDonald’s here in Thailand. I was eating my big BIG fries when I noticed a sign being placed on some chairs in front of me.

For the LIFE of me I could not figure out what the sign was talking about.

Here’s the sign >

Finally after a few minutes of trying to figure it out I took some photos and asked my girlfriend to tell me what the Thai words meant.

She said, TEMPORARY CLOSE

Oh my, so at Thailand McDonalds, “Tamper During Close” means Temporarily Closed….

Wow, that’s a new one.

Isn’t McDonald’s standardized so they all must have things make sense – even in Thailand? WHO is keeping track of this stuff?

It’s almost as funny as the ocean going ship I saw on a beach a while back… What on earth do you think the name means?

I was going to get some ROTI with banana – one of my favorite foods, and saw this sign…

The funny thing was, there was a sign on the other side of the cart – that had Lemon, Fruit, and Orange spelled correctly! Hmm… There’s not that much attention to detail with spelling in Thailand. I wonder if they spell in Thai incorrectly a lot too. Is it a cultural thing where they just aren’t that concerned with it? If so, I like the idea!

Meditation Calling… Is Vern home?

Over the past few days it’s been in my mind. Part of the reason I came to Thailand was to talk to some senior English speaking monks at Wat Pah Nanachat and Suan Mokkh about the process of “jhana” and losing the ego and other things that appeared to have been going on while I meditated so long ago.

I also came to see if Thailand’s culture – which accepted Buddhist meditation as normal, unlike the USA, would facilitate the process if I chose to go forward with it again. I’ve been here for a while now and just not felt the urge to go back and start the process again. Until recently.

Over the last days and even some weeks there have been times when I’ve felt like meditating again. I’d pretty much stopped cold 10 years ago because the process, once it kicks in is so overwhelming, and the changes it makes so profound… So hard to explain anything about it.

I’ve written a little bit about it on my other blog (www.aimforawesome.com) and thought I’d keep the topic going here as well.

I’m planning on going to a mountain-top temple in a day or so and meditate for a day, 2 days, 3 days. I don’t know how much I’ll post to the blogs, depends on the phone service up there and if I’m able to upload the photos to the blog or not. I’ll need to do a test to see if posting works since I’m FTP’ing my blog to my own hosting plan at Godaddy and the usual functions of Google’s “Blogger” may not be functional.

If anyone is interested in meditation – a simple meditation without following Buddhism or any other religon or “ism” I created a free e-book on my www.aimforawesome.com site that is in the “Pages” link in the upper right hand side of that site. It’s a PDF file and it covers about 22 days of meditation. The meditation is very easy, and it’s basically all I did. I took it from a few sources… SN Goenka’s Book on Vipassana Meditation primarily.

Ok, I’ll be testing the upload photos functionality to see if it’s working and then maybe one more post before I go to my meditative retreat on the mountain.

Thailand Apple iPhone Vs. Nokia e70

The Apple iPhone is NOT a phone that I would buy – even if I could get it here in Thailand. Supposedly availability of the iPhone in Thailand will be 1st quarter of 2008. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Here’s a very brief rundown of the Apple iPhone vs. Nokia e70 which I have now and use daily.

I don’t know what features the iPhone will have when it hits Asia – but it needs to make some serious changes before I’d purchase it for $599 USD. (19,257 b).

Price:
The iPhone is priced the same as my Nokia e70 according to today’s exchange rate (32.70/1). The e70 was 19,200 at Telewiz when I bought it in March. That’s expensive as hell, but it does so much that to me it was well worth it. I think the prices have come down a thousand or two by now. Don’t quote me on that.

Keyboards:
Apple’s iPhone has a virtual keyboard as part of the software. A number of people testing have already said that they can’t seem to “get it” when trying to type out a paragraph or so. There is also a hard to find comma – which is stupidity defined. I use commas EVERY time I write, and it’s making me wonder where the dash (-) is because I use that 9 times more than commas.

The Nokia e70 has a full QWERTY keyboard with comma that is large enough for my big fingers to type on. It has a full row of numbers at the top and full shift capability. It even has a Thai Keyboard written on the keys as well.

Storage:
The Ipod comes with 4GB or 8GB of storage. I have a whopping 1GB plus another 64 on phone so my phone is lacking in storage, BUT I have the opportunity to expand it at any time since there is a memory slot. The iPhone HAS NO MEMORY SLOT for additional storage.

Camera:
The iPhone has a 2MP camera. So does the Nokia e70. The iPhone takes photos, but NO VIDEO! WHAT? Yes, it’s true – the iPhone takes NO video. The Nokia e70 has 3 different resolutions of video available and it works incredibly well. There is also a zoom on the video – and none was mentioned for the iPhone in the review I saw – but it MUST have one right?

Connectivity:
With the iPhone you can use WIFI, EDGE. With the Nokia e70 you can use WIFI, EDGE, CDMA, 3G, Infrared, BlueTooth, VOIP and use your phone as a modem connection for your laptop so you don’t need to buy one of those stupid PCMCIA EDGE cards for your notebook – which are 10,000 baht and don’t give you any additional functionality over that of a 4500 baht Nokia phone with EDGE.

Display:
The iPhone has a resolution of 320 x 480 for it’s very large screen. The Nokia e70 has 352 x 416 which, without doing the math I’m going to guess it pretty close.

Weight:
The Nokia e70 is 129 g. the Apple iPhone is 135 g.

Battery Life:
The iPhone claims 5 hours of talk time and the Nokia e70 claims 3.2 – 7.7 hours – depending on how I’m connected.

Operating System:
The Nokia has a Symbian operating system for which many applications have been developed already – like VOIP with FRING for instance (free). Apple’s iPhone will have software developed but give it 6 months to have anything decent. And, give it a year or more before it has anything approaching the amount of programs already in existence for the Nokia e70.

I’ve used the Nokia e70 for about 3 months. It is very stable and works very well with EDGE service in Pattaya, Bangkok, and other areas on both AIS and DTAC SIM cards. The phone has not locked up on me EVER, though I’ve turned it off and back on 3 times to get it working faster. I’ve never lost data. I’ve never scratched it – so the exterior can be called “tough”. The web browsing is easy with the joystick and the keyboard is heaven compared to the Nokia e65 that didn’t have one.

Overall I think the iPhone is an OK device, however, it has some serious shortcomings. Lack of 3G, lack of video capability!, lack of a solid keyboard, lack of a memory slot and lack of availability for another 7 months (or more) is just too much for me. Add to that there will be software problems for a while and other things to work out in Asia because the phone was really made for the USA and the networks and users there.

I will stick to Nokia e-series while I’m in Thailand.

By the way, I’m selling my Nokia e70 if you didn’t already know. I’m moving back to the states at some point and I won’t need all the functionality it has back there. There are NO scratches and it works perfectly. All original paperwork and the box included.

Photos and full specs:

Nokia e70 for sale in Thailand > (11,900 baht)

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