Patrick Winn's Notebook:

Video: Dousing Thai PM's Home in Human Blood

UPDATE: I've added some analysis from a  Thai academic sympathetic to Thailand's blood curse campaign below. Scroll down to read his thoughts on why the blood-splashing matters.

My recent "Blood Curse" piece explains why Thai anti-establishment protesters are drawing their own blood, emptying it into buckets and splashing it on various government offices.

In their campaign to drive out their government, they've already doused the prime minister's compound and the ruling party's headquarters. But this morning, they brought their blood curse campaign to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's home residence.

Here's the breakdown. Protesters turned out en masse to the prime minister's neighborhood, but were headed off by riot police. Shouting back and forth into megaphones, protest leaders and a police commander politely negotiated the terms: a few blood porters would be allowed to squeeze through the barricades and douse the PM's front gate.

As rain fell, the splashing began. The street became a bloody creek. Plastic baggies filled with more blood were chucked over the gate. Someone on the other side (the premier's gardener?) stage a futile counter-attack with a garden hose.

Once each jug of blood was drained, riot police began pushing back the crowd. Some tried to kick ugly, fist-sized chunks of coagulated blood away from the curb.

And with that, the protesters dispersed, marching through Bangkok's high-end backstreets to their rally site across town.

UPDATE

A close friend from back home e-mailed to suggest this whole exercise makes these protesters look like "savages." No doubt, many viewing this macabre images around the world will draw the same damaging conclusion.

When news consumers end up viewing any group of people are savages, that oftentimes represents a failure of of the media to surpass easy, shock journalism. Many will be left with the impression that a bunch of desperate Thai farmers went feral -- and miss the fact that these protesters represent a massive voting bloc that will very likely choose Thailand's next leader.

I've given you gruesome images and I've given you protest leaders shouting into megaphones that their blood will curse the elites. I've also given you the government deeming this stunt as a photo-op and the Red Cross declaring it wasteful and unhygienic.

Let me go a step further and give you Pitch Pongsawat, a well-known political scientist with Chulalongkorn University, Thailand's most prestigious college. When I reached him by phone yesterday, he explained that he'd also donated blood, meaning some of the blood tossed on Bangkok's government offices was his own.

He called the blood campaign a success. This is his rationale:

"This message of coming to the city and giving blood, it's very powerful. Rightness is abstract. But blood is very real. It's very sentimental, very spiritual as well.

See, they've hurt themselves, not taken blood from other people. This shows their audience that they're actually serious about fighting the government peacefully.

The big myth in Thailand is that the Red Shirts represent a small number of people. This is what the government and the media want to communicate. But the Red Shirts on the streets now, they're just small from this large population who're watching (the Red Shirts' satellite TV network) at home. They have millions of subscribers.

The media has not picked up on this issue. They only focus on the possibility of violence. They haven't listened to the millions of people who would give up their blood."

There's the perspective of someone who is definitely not a desperate farmer.

A Game of Chicken in Bangkok

UPDATE: Bangkok's unrest is definitely about to turn bloody. See the postscript for the latest.

By now, a sprawling, sweaty, anti-establishment protest faction -- the "red shirts" -- has gathered its forces in Bangkok. They've vowed to stay until the government dissolves Thailand's parliament and holds new elections.

This is an unfolding story, so I'm going to dispense with context and get straight to the updates.

(If you want the backstory to Thailand's unrest, including its tenuous connections to the U.S., please check out my previous dispatches: this on an American weapon's role in the conflict, this on a court ruling against Thailand's fugitive ex-PM and this on the Thai commander-in-chief's recent Pentagon visit.)

Disgruntled Thais have been pouring into Bangkok to drive out the Prime Minster, Abhisit Vejjajiva, who they insist rose to power through undemocratic maneuvering that ultimately traces back to Thailand's 2006 military coup.

Yesterday, I embedded with a group of 300-400 cruising into the city on a flotilla of 10 boats. That's me interviewing their leader on the bow. (Thanks to fellow journalist Oliver Fall for the photo.)



Their original goal was to summon one million protesters, a figure that many observers (myself included) believed was far too lofty. Such a huge turnout would have put tremendous pressure on the government, snarled traffic and legitimized the rural, working-class grievances against the state.

But as I write this, police and news reports suggest crowds of only about 100,000. Protest leaders contend that they've amassed nearly 300,000. Crowd size estimates are notoriously hard to confirm, and lacking a helicopter and lots of free time, I can't verify these numbers independently.

Worse yet, the figures often descend into a war of words between the protest faction and the government. Crowd size is "juice," a.k.a power and respect, and both sides have an incentive to inflate or deflate their estimates.

Now it's down to a game of chicken. The government has said dissolution isn't going to happen, so protest leaders will need to stage something dramatic to keep up momentum. (UPDATE: They've announced their next stunt, which is rather bizarre. Scroll down to read the latest.)

Right now, they've marched to the army barracks, which are symbolic of the last coup. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has also stayed overnight at these infantry headquarters.

How invasive are protest leaders ready to get? And can police and soldiers hold off on a crackdown until the rallies run out of cash and energy?

Ultimately, that will determine the outcome of this so-called "final battle." Thai public opinion has an incredibly low tolerance for violence, so the first side to broadcast images of a soldier or protester with a cracked skull can claim to the moral high ground.

That's the most unpleasant aspect of this entire game. Points are sometimes scored in blood, and it probably won't be politicians or protest leaders laid up in the hospital. It's more likely to be a 21-year-old soldier following orders or a taxi driver from the provinces convinced he's at war for Thailand's future.

As a counter-weight to that heavy thought, let me leave you with two scenes from the "final battle." The troops and protesters are hardly at each other's throats. It's a waiting game that involves, well, lots of waiting... in the tropical sun, on the sidewalk, with not much to do.

And here's the cabin of the boat I traveled on. That excited wailing in the background -- "We're going to go save the country!" -- was piped in through the intercom.

P.S. Well, the protests will definitely turn bloody. Protest leaders have asked that 100,000 of their faithful draw blood via a cooperating local hospital. Tomorrow morning, they plan to splash it all around the prime minister's compound so that politicians will have to walk through the people's blood to go to work.

If that doesn't force the government to quit, they'll take their blood-splashing campaign to the PM's house.

I'll be there with my camera to catch the action and possibly hepatitis. (Now I really regret delaying my vaccinations.)

Waiting to Exhale in Bangkok

For weeks, the Thai government has forewarned violent outbreaks and massive unrest tonight in Bangkok. We've got police in Robocop riot gear, checkpoints and soldiers on standby.

Why? The Thai Supreme Court just ruled to drain more than half of the $2.3 billion family fortune once belonging to fugitive ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra. His supporters -- Thailand's self-proclaimed "have nots" -- were expected to burn down Bangkok tonight.

From my window, nothing appears to be on fire. Geckos are chirping, babies are wailing and the factory workers down the street have been hammering whiskey since closing time. In short, everything is perfectly normal.

For now. Protesters promise to deliver in mid-March what was expected tonight: an all-out "final battle" summoning one million protesters to rally in Bangkok. (By the way, I think I'm on my fourth "final battle" declaration in two years. Rhetoric-wise, can we maybe get a little more Gandhi and a little less Monster Truck Rally?)

The have nots -- better known as the "red shirts" -- want to topple the government, force new elections and tear down what they call "rule of the aristocrats." That's what I heard from every single red shirt protester I interviewed today outside the courthouse.

One retired man told me he'd rather "accept death than be ruled by the elites."

Numerous academics have said reducing Thailand's troubles to simple have vs. have-nots class warfare is a cheap oversimplification by Western journalists. I mostly agree. But I'm hearing less and less about Thaksin and more about the "aristocrats" and "double standards" and the "elites."

The movement appears to be ever so slightly putting distance between Thaksin, the ex-cop-turned billionaire politician who successfully tapped a vein of resentment running through rural and urban-poor Thailand. That's probably wise. It's easier to defend a movement for equality than a cult of personality driven by a guy that's legitimately connected to corruption and human rights abuses.

So how are the "have nots" going to live out their increasingly furious rhetoric? What does "toppling" the government really mean?

And will they resort to violence as they have in the past?

If they can actually summon one million people -- a huge logistical achievement -- then they won't have to. A million people don't have to torch buses and throw rocks at cops. They can sit down in the street, block Bangkok's already-miserable traffic and vow to remain until the government steps down and calls new elections.

Depending on your point of view, that's either civil disobedience or extortion. But would it work?

I'm not certain. What I do know is that this level of class resentment in Thai society won't go away with a "final battle" or a so-called "order-restoring" coup. It will likely come only with the prolonged changing of generations and passage of time.

Bangkok's Nazi chic

I remember the first time I brushed past a Thai teenager wearing a blood-red swastika on his T-shirt on the streets of Bangkok. I cringed with pity. Some creepy foreigner probably sold it to a second-hand shop, I thought, and now this Thai kid is unknowingly walking around sporting the brand of evil incarnate.

Then a saw a second swastika T-shirt, this one royal blue, worn by a different teenager riding the sky train. And then another. And then another. And now that I know to look, I see one of these T-shirts at least once a week. The T-shirt wearer is always male, always young and he's typically a little punky or scruffy looking.

The shirt designs range from your classic Third Reich rally backdrops — as you see in this photo snapped in Bangkok's popular Union Mall — to artsy renderings of Hitler's face awash in acid-trip pinks and glittery greens. (They sell that one in Chatuchak market.)

So what's the deal with teenage Nazi fashion in Thailand?

Well, I'm not willing to compose a (potentially career-destroying) defense of swastika T-shirts. To state the obvious, they're tasteless, ugly and low-rent.

But I can offer an explanation. To some Thai kids, especially kids who aren't terribly well-educated or well-off, swastikas just look bad-ass. They're sinister and tough in a comic book sort of way. Like the Jolly Roger. Like Darth Vader's helmet. Like the logo for the evil Transformers crew, the Decepticons.

And that's pretty much it. Dubbed copies of Indiana Jones and Inglorious Basterds have lent the impression that Nazis are just Hollywood villains — and, when you're 16, it's fun to dress up like the villain.

This Thai nonchalance towards Nazi kitsch has caused several uproars. Several years back, a school headmaster apologized for allowing students to perform a silly Nazi dance routine. More recently, a wax museum in Pattaya apologized for advertising their Hitler statue with a huge billboard claiming, in Thai, "Hitler is not dead!"

In the airport last year, I picked up a children's Thai-language comic book (translated from Korean, actually) in which adventurous school kids embark on a zany quest to find Nazi treasure.

Translation: "Even though most of the gold has been found, those who knew the hiding spots have already died ... so I shall search for Hitler's gold!"

Essentially, if you never went to college with someone whose grandmother didn't survive Dachau, and if your grandfather never woke up screaming from images burned into his head in North Africa, then you're left to construct your concept of Nazis from B-movies and comic books.

We're no different, of course. In the mid-1980s, after Karate Kid came out on VHS, my friend and I would tie on bandanas printed with the imperial flag of Japan, scream "Hai!" and practice crane kicking each other in the face in my grandmother's basement.

I'm assuming that if my grandmother was from mainland China instead of Hyde County, N.C., I might know to avoid donning the same flag Japanese invaders flew over Nanjing.

But I can say for sure that, if we drew swastikas on our foreheads and ran around squealing "Sieg Heil!", then we probably would have suffered much worse than a few poorly placed crane kicks.

Fear not the Bangkok scams

When my cousin inquired over Christmas whether she'd be held hostage by police-sanctioned bandits for shopping in the Bangkok airport's duty-free plaza, I knew another salacious Bangkok scam warning had become legend.

Turns out she's been reading Travel + Leisure, which just compiled the "World's Worst Travel Scams." Surprise! Bangkok makes the list twice.

In addition to potentially scaring my cousin from ever visiting, these panicky travel warning lists build an impression that Bangkok is a nest of pick-pockets, hustlers and conmen.

Maybe I'm a Bangkok apologist. Maybe I've just been lucky. Maybe the hubris of tackling this chaotic city’s ins and outs has caused me to forget my first day here, when I was enamored and intimidated all at once.

But I'm insisting that Bangkok is quite safe for tourists. The predators here seem gentle compared to Rome’s aggressive street kids and Rio's stick-up gangs. (I've yet to hear of a stick-up here, ever.) Moreover, I often feel these scam warnings are overblown.

First, let's dissect what Travel + Leisure calls ...

THE AIRPORT ZIG-ZAG!

Travelers in Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport duty-free shops browse then leave. Police falsely accuse them of shoplifting, then request a hefty fee — or else the traveler is bound for prison.

This stems from an incident last year, first made famous by the BBC. A British couple was reportedly falsely accused of lifting a Givenchy wallet, stripped of their passports and holed up in a pink hotel near the airport until fines were paid. This was, at one point, the top-read story on the BBC’s web page.

Guess what received far less attention? The duty-free operator's surveillance footage which appears to show this lady stealing the wallet.

Sadly, the couple's wacky account of their police treatment — involving extortion and a Sri Lankan middleman — is plausible. I have no doubts that, if tourists fall into police custody here, life will get very weird very fast. But, hey, the cops let them stay in a run-down hotel instead of prison. I wonder if every Thai suspect is given the option of hotel or cell.

So now the "Airport Zig Zag" has inherited a cute name and it's accepted as an entrenched scam. Even though the most notable victim appears to have shoplifted on tape. (A similar case, against a Malaysian man, was also refuted by the duty-free operator with surveillance video.)

I say that if you're not a shoplifter, fear not the Gucci outlet and browse freely the racks of discount Marlboros. Besides, they're selling twin bottles of Jack Daniel's for $33 over there. What a steal!

Next up, the gray lady of Bangkok cons ...

THE GEM SCAM!

Friendly stranger or tuk-tuk driver insists that a popular attraction is closed for the day. Instead, they offer a tour of local gem shops hosting sales. Buy as many as you can here, they say, so you can sell them for a profit back home!

Somehow, this one has been around for decades. Really, gem scam victims, how gullible are you? Perhaps you've got a sweet payday coming from that estranged prince you've met via Hotmail? And you thought you'd splurge early on a Thai holiday? If that's the case, I'd love to interest you in this new property I've just inherited. It's simply grand. Cash only, please.

I won't argue that the gem scam isn't widespread, because it is. I won't argue that it's easy on the wallet, because it probably isn't. I'll just argue that it's 100 percent avoidable. Besides, what do you need a bunch of loose gems for? To festoon your scepter?

THE TAXI DRIVER'S METER IS RIGGED SCAM!

A favorite of paranoid expats. Maybe I have meek powers of perception. Maybe I’m not smart enough to calculate velocity-per-Thai baht algorithms in real time. But I just don’t believe rigged meters are rampant. And anyone who wants to use their engineering savvy to squeeze me for 70 cents might as well have it.

And lastly, a travel warning rather than a scam ...

DON'T WEAR RED OR YELLOW ON THE STREET!

Adopted by Thai political factions, these colors invite harassment or beatdowns from Thais who support the opposing camp.

No one will ever mistake a tourist for a Thai politics diehard.

In fact, after the yellow-clad People's Alliance for Democracy seized the premier's compound in 2008, I toured two college friends through the occupied grounds. And I watched with embarrassment as they bought "NEW POLITICS!" T-shirts as souvenirs. The vendor was equal parts confused and amused.

Even if you're Thai in appearance, please note that Bangkok is not a Grand Theft Auto-style nightmare where partisans regularly accost political rivals on the street. Thais of all stripes wear both colors without thinking much of it. You'll be fine.