macleans

Have you ever heard of Phanom Rung castle? That's a stone based castle, khmer style. It's in Buriram. More than 1,000 years old. already mentioned other 2 provinces in one of my posts above. but it really doesn't change the argument, does it? nowhere this will be built anywhere else in Thailand apart from those 3 provinces.

Who are they? Thai government or Thai people? The "Thainification policy" has done some damage to some people's knowledge about the "actual Thai history", which is taught at a university level, free from the influence of the government rubbish version taught at school. Trust me, social media and this feud with the cambodians over history has led many young Thais to question the history taught at school and done their own research on the Thai history (written by academics, not by government) and discussed it on various social media platforms. The outlook on this will be different in the future. As with cultural appropriation, i personally think that it really depends on the extent to which the said culture, practice, object, etc. depart from its original form. When the extent is very significant, it means the said X has gone through alot of development and idea generation, I don't think it's wrong to say that such object is Thai. For example, a burmese invented a pair of shoes and they look a certain way, if a Thai came up with a pair of shoes which look totally different from the shoes made by the burmese, i don't think it is wrong to claim it's a Thai style pair of shoes. And the burmese should not call it a pair of burmese shoes. Of course, we need to acknowledge that the burmese is the one that invented the first pair of shoes.

Buriram is where ethnic khmer Thais live. Unless you insist that only the Khmers who live in Cambodia have the right to practice khmer culture then ....

They did not develop in parallel. The modern Thai cuisine is heavily influenced by Chinese, Isan/lao, and indian/persian cuisine e.g., pad Thai, pad See-iew, and all other pads. The spicy salads like somtum, and various yum dishes are from Isan. A lot of curry dishes were inspired by indian/ persian curry. During King Rama 1-4 of Bangkok, there was a tradition that Cambodian prince and prices had to come and live in the royal Thai court for a lengthy period to learn the Thai language and customs. This tradition was implemented to ensure that future Kings of cambodia would be pro Thai (Vietnam was trying to exert influence on Cambodia during those years). When those prince and princes went home, they already had a palate for Thai food. The rest is history.

Can you please point out the link to that thread?

What is a Thai according to you? Thai is a nationality, not a race. Thailand is a multi racial country comprising various ethnic groups. The Tai-kadai live in the north and North and central Isan. I'm sure you are all familiar with them and their appearances. Three southern provinces of Isan i.e., buriram, srisaket, and surin are where the ethnic khmer live. Central and west Thailand is occupied by the Mon-khmer group, known as Siamese. This is the original Siamese of Thailand. They founded Ayutthaya. Why are they of the Mon-khmer origin? if you look at the map of ancient south east asia you'll see that central thailand was a big part of the Mon empire, but later became a west side of the Ankorian Empire. These people are Thais with a darker skin tone. The south was also home to the mon-indian and malay groups. Surat thani was a some point a mainland center of Sirvijaya empire (capital city on the Java island, indonesia). A recent DNA based study also confirm the history. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41431-018-0113-7. So, no culture has been stolen. The contemporary Thai culture has been developed through cultural exchanges between ethnic groups who have lived in this land since forever.

Then what it is? Do you practice any form of martial arts at all? Most SE Asian martial arts including lethwei, Muay Thai, and Muay Lao are similar in their looks, yet they are unique in terms of techniques used to apply moves. Of course, the origin is unclear since there were no borders or countries back in those days. Bokator, on the other hand, has its root in south indian martial arts, since the ancient khmer's culture is Tamil based.

Most south east Asian culture is. Not just Thai. SE culture is influenced heavily by indian, Persian, and Arab, except to the vietnamese.

This is bokator Does not look much like Muay boran (traditional Muay Thai) Muay boran This is Burmese lethwei And according to wiki, lethwei is as old as bokator. Many Burmese even claim Muay Thai originates from Lethwei. In my opinion, Muay boran is much more similar to lethwei as opposed to bokator. Sport Muay Thai is vastly different from Muay boran, as it incorporates western boxing techniques such as punching, dodging, stance, etc. kun khmer, the Cambodian version of modern Muay Thai, has just appeared for 20+ years. Many of kun khmer champs were trained in the Thai camps long the Thai-cambidian border.

I've always bought from iherb, paying around 1,400 to 1,600 baht for each order (not including shipping fee) and never had any issues with import taxes. I've also noticed that iherb doesn't include shipping fee in their custom declaration on the side of a box. As for buying supplements locally, Shopee has a much larger selection of supplements compared to Lazada, and they are generally cheaper on Shopee too.