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Thai Inventions.


zappa

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Who invented the Thai language? or does languages and sript just evolve?

For the most part, languages just evolve. Scripts tend to become worse and worse as languages change. Bold spelling forms can make a difference, and even reset the clock. Consider the introduction of tone marks. They were a fine invention when Thai had three tones.

Now Thai has 5 (4?) to 7 tones (depending on dialect), you have an unnecessarily complex system except in so far as Thais can use the historically correct system for their dialect. I have a suspicion that teaching children to write their local dialect has been banned.

For an even better example of degeneration, consider English and French spelling!

Language invention can occur to some extent. The greatest extent is when it is revived as a a mother tongue, e.g. Hebrew. One can also have the deliberate introduction of vocabulary with language purification policies, as has happened in German (ejecting the French element), Welsh (reducing the English element), Thai (attempting to keep out Greco-Latin elements by coining words from Sanskrit, whence the Thai words for 'bicycle' and 'telephone'). I wouldn't count these sorts of 'invention' as 'invention' in the sense intended.

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What about corruption? The Thais may not have invented it but they have reached supreme efficiency with a Ph.D. in criminal justice at the helm....

Dutchy

This sort of remark is considered extremely provocative.

Not saying I don't disagree with you though.

But we musn't say negative things about the head waiter musn't we?? :o:D

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Ok, I think the toilet seat was invented in Thailand. Possibly in the early Auttaya period. The name and place, I am not sure of. It turns out that the toilet seat was later modified and improved by a falang in 17 something to include the hole in the middle.

If they invented them why dont they bloody well use them, what a load of cr#p :o

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carrying the busfare in the earhole ??

never seen it done anywhere else

I have seen this in Singas, but I think it is for luck rather than covenience. The coin eventually sends the ear black :o

It's a Chinese thing. Hokkien or Tewchew if I am not wrong. In the old days the loan-sharks used to walk around with coins in their ears as a kind of advertisement. (The coins had holes in the center, so hearing wasn't really a problem). Those with good business obviously had more coins in their ears than those with lousy business. In fact, in Singapore and Malaysia today, if someone calls you a "Big ears", it means you are a charging exhobitant rates, or actually is a loan-shark.

ASIC

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They invented the art of making fat,butt ugly,hairy,smelly slobs with no life think that they are handsome and important.Pure genius.

Now why are you talking about me :D:D:D:D:o

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  • 4 years later...
Ok, I think the toilet seat was invented in Thailand. Possibly in the early Auttaya period. The name and place, I am not sure of. It turns out that the toilet seat was later modified and improved by a falang in 17 something to include the hole in the middle.

If they invented them why dont they bloody well use them, what a load of cr#p :o

It was a drunk who invented the type of toilet seat with the front cut-out....he got tired of getting hit in the back of the head......

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The lampshade hat!

Drunks used to put lampshades on their heads for a laugh, the Thais turned it into a fashion statement.

A few decades ago a US comedy show had a skit about a product that was a both a dessert topping and a floor wax.

The Chinese are hard at work at such products these days. The things may kill you, but they'll get a few dollars off of you on the way out, that's the important thing.

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As for practical use, that waste bin made out of old rubber car tyres may rival a couple of Einstein's achievements. :-)

Cheers,

Chanchao

thanks for reminding me, Chanchao - this is recycling at its best

Hom mali rice - a consistent strain of viable, relatively disease free and delicious and most importantly readily available at a reasonable price

Things Thailand did not invent -

1. a rapacious method of copyrighting food - put your hand up Monxxxxo

2. nuclear weapons

3. television (but they have refined it, lol)

Thailand wins!!!

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King Bhumibol Adulyadej's "sufficiency economic theory" being living a moderate, self-dependent life without greed or overexploitation of, for example, natural resources.

It is a very Buddhist concept that Wall Street and "the shafters of the universe" should have followed.

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King Bhumibol Adulyadej's "sufficiency economic theory" being living a moderate, self-dependent life without greed or overexploitation of, for example, natural resources.

It is a very Buddhist concept that Wall Street and "the shafters of the universe" should have followed.

Yes, it has done wonders in Thailand!

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OK, this is not really invention, per se, but modification.

We buy some very sophsiticated machinery from Japan and Austria.  But our engineers are always surprised at some aspects of the machinery, so they engineer some modificatiosn which speed up the process, either by increasing the rate of production or by decreasing the set-up time.  They have also made modifications which work to better our quality.

Each time reps from either of the two companies come to see if we want to buy more machines, they are amazed by these mods and try to incorporate them into their lines.

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I work with thais who over the years have come up with many cutting edge innovations and approaches in high technology..although not formally patented, the "inventions" get swallowed up and built into the larger product. None the less, I have experienced and witnessed first hand the thai "inventive mind" , which is the important thing given that all inventions start off as a thought.

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Is there anything in this world that has actually been invented, discovered by the Thai's? I've been asking a few people, Thai and foreign and have yet to come up with anything from technology to food. As soon as someone comes up with something others can find a different source.

One of the funniest I've heard was from a Thai friend who's convinced Thailand invented the spoon, and is very proud of the fact.

Any ideas?

With a question like this, you are bound to get another thread where Thais are lampooned as complete idiots incapable of inventing anything. And this is often from farangs who take credit from what their predecessors supposedly invented. Often the boasts are misleading or simply untrue. For example, the Scots like to claim that John Logie Baird invented the TV, when all he did was invent an unusable one that was not good enough to be commercialised, or even used as the fore-runner of the modern one. Another fallacy is that James Watt invented the steam engine, that Alfred Nobel invented gunpowder and that football was 'invented' in England. All used to show how western inventiveness is superior.

What the Thais, and many developing country nationals are better at than us is adaptation and recycling, and I don't mean copying. They can make repairs on many things with the minimum of tools that farangs, with their throwaway cultures are now simply incapable of. I've seen small groups of Thai workers sink huge metal fence posts without any digging or hammers - using just a simple plank of wood - literally in seconds.

I once tried to run a thread on examples of improvisation in Thailand, and it died a sudden death - the few responders simply assumed the thread was about invention, commercialisation and patenting, which shows the mind set that many farangs suffer from. I see lots of clever improvisation like this around Thailand, but I suspect many farangs never really open their eyes to such things. OK, bring it on........

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The King of Thailand has invented numerous things!

One of them: http://www.chaipat.or.th/journal/aug03/aerator_e.html

Rather an innovation than an invention. Something which I think the Thai's do extremely well. And before anyone gets on my case for saying bad things about H.M. Bhumophol, I think he's one of Thailands greatest attributes and a good argument for monarchy over democracy, especialy of the Thai style.

mmmmmmmmm......democracy too good for the Thais? As Churchill said "democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried"

Edited by Tyke
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Is there anything in this world that has actually been invented, discovered by the Thai's? I've been asking a few people, Thai and foreign and have yet to come up with anything from technology to food. As soon as someone comes up with something others can find a different source.

One of the funniest I've heard was from a Thai friend who's convinced Thailand invented the spoon, and is very proud of the fact.

Any ideas?

With a question like this, you are bound to get another thread where Thais are lampooned as complete idiots incapable of inventing anything. And this is often from farangs who take credit from what their predecessors supposedly invented. Often the boasts are misleading or simply untrue. For example, the Scots like to claim that John Logie Baird invented the TV, when all he did was invent an unusable one that was not good enough to be commercialised, or even used as the fore-runner of the modern one. Another fallacy is that James Watt invented the steam engine, that Alfred Nobel invented gunpowder and that football was 'invented' in England. All used to show how western inventiveness is superior.

What the Thais, and many developing country nationals are better at than us is adaptation and recycling, and I don't mean copying. They can make repairs on many things with the minimum of tools that farangs, with their throwaway cultures are now simply incapable of. I've seen small groups of Thai workers sink huge metal fence posts without any digging or hammers - using just a simple plank of wood - literally in seconds.

I once tried to run a thread on examples of improvisation in Thailand, and it died a sudden death - the few responders simply assumed the thread was about invention, commercialisation and patenting, which shows the mind set that many farangs suffer from. I see lots of clever improvisation like this around Thailand, but I suspect many farangs never really open their eyes to such things. OK, bring it on........

In developed ares of the world.... time is money.... real money, lots of money, labor is not cheap, so in those areas of the world, it is cheaper to have one machine loaded with hydraulics, micro chips etc, to do the job that would require an army of people. The utilization of a machine will, in the long term, cheapen production costs by 1000s fold.

But in Thailand, time is cheap, labor is cheap... and a lot of times so are the results. (but that is another topic)

Repairs, there again, time is money, and in a lot of cases parts have become obsolete.... so it is tossed

Boo hoo

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Certain musical instruments such as the khaen originated in this region, various fish traps, etc. I agree Thais are excellent at modifications, the 3 wheel skylabs on Ko Si Chang near Si Racha with their Ford V engines, the ones in Prajuap where the passengers sit on a bench at 90 degrees to the driver, delightful contraptions to sit in.

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It was a thai man who invented that computer program you can download from the internet which keeps biting mosquitoes away??

A Thai site has launched a downloadable

which it says will keep mosquitoes at bay by emitting a low-frequency

sound from computer speakers.

Thaiware.com programmer Saranyou Punyaratabunbhu said his

Anti-Mosquitoes , which has been downloaded 15,000 times,

produces a sound which is inaudible to humans but which hampers the

irritating insects' ability to fly.

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  • 2 months later...
All innovations and clever gimicks so far, but no real inventions :D

List of notable Thai "Inventions":

explanations of hidden assets

missing forests

personal property in excess of declared income

reasons for not catching absconding politicians/civil servants /policemen/ oh and criminals

reasons for not solving crimes

university qualifications

inability to clamp down on human trafficking/drug trafficking/intellectual copyright/human rights abuses/

Inability to uphold various constitutions

justifications for coups

justifications for territorial disputes

social and political history

genetic/migrational history

family tree/pedigree

written language development

explanations of use of housekeeping money

need to pay for extended family illnesses/damaged motorcycles

new family members

reappearing family members

:)

Please feel free to add more....

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