Mong Thongdee prepares to let fly during the individual indoor flight competition
Posted on 09/21/2009 8:52:25 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
A boy with no official nationality who lives in Thailand captured third place in a Japanese paper aeroplane contest on Sunday after his tearful pleas to be allowed to attend prompted authorities to grant him a rare temporary passport for the event.
Mong Thongdee prepares to let fly during the individual indoor flight competition
Mong Thongdee, 12, won a national paper aeroplane championship in Thailand in August 2008 after he threw a plane that flew for 12 seconds, and was later chosen to attend the Japanese contest in Chiba, near Tokyo. But Mong, who lives in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, is the son of Burmese migrants who are stateless and so have no legal right to travel abroad.
His first application to leave Thailand was denied, but after national media coverage of him quietly sobbing after the refusal captured the hearts of many Thais he was granted a temporary passport.
Mong appeared on Sunday in a white T-shirt decorated with the Thai flag, whipping his carefully folded aeroplanes high into the air during the competition in front of hundreds of spectators.
He placed third in the division for elementary school students with a time of 10.53 seconds. In an earlier exhibition, Mong's aeroplane stayed in the air for 16.45 seconds.
After the event he said he wanted his family back home to know he got third place, and that he was grateful to the people who supported him.
On Saturday, his three-person Thai team won the group competition. Contestants quickly fold their planes at the event, then throw them into the air.
Mong's ethnic Shan parents have only temporary permission to live and work in Thailand, so although he was born in the country he has only temporary resident status. Under normal circumstances,
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Arm them heavily, train them well, and repatriate them in the dead of night, by parachute-dropping them into the expensive capital city their fascist leaders in Burma built. Make sure they have the means to take over the city and kill anybody who gets in their way.
We should demand that Thailand implement a government mandated health insurance program with a public option.
I don’t think it would be that easy. Burma has the best land route into China. They are not going to leave it unprotected.
China owns Burma or at least the thugs that pass for a Government.
INDEED.
However . . . Thais have an . . . almost genetic disposition to seek peaceful routes where at all workable.
. . . except for . . . speaking ill of the Buddha or the King.
Yes, of course. It may be their greatest vulnerability.
Thailand?
Thailand has been almost continuously at was with Burma for at least a thousand years. It’s one of those things that will probably never be resolved.
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