Pixelated Semantics

A new terror is washing over western journalists: eastern cultures

There are some almost chilling "ghost stories" coming from Thailand in the wake of the tsunami, although the Courier Mail's correspondant describes them as "a type of mass hallucination" - which is clearly more of a rationalist convenience than any attempt at understanding the phenomena. He reports that "mental health experts would pay particular attention to people who claimed to have seen ghosts first-hand" - though those who have seen ghosts in other times and places have certainly not (at least in modern times) tended to have their sanity questioned. The Courier, with its trivialised approach to almost everything (except re-electing conservative extremists), is content to label a set of long-held cultural beliefs as "hallucination" and "insanity", from the imperially correct cultural view of a westerner abroad, though the writer manages a sensationalist opening line: "A NEW terror is washing over southern Thailand" [sic]. The writer and paper miss a serious opportunity to explore a fascinating, and very real subject, in favour of a quick tingle for the readers from the safety of a western point of view. For instance, there is a description of "Taxi drivers at Patong on Phuket island [who] swear they picked up a foreign man and his Thai girlfriend going to the airport with all their baggage, only to then look in the rear-view mirror and find an empty seat" - without the slightest comment as to how multiple witnesses are meant to have had exactly the same "hallucination".

Item posted by AutoEditor at 4:11 pm ::