Klong Toey

[reader]

The English language news cast of Japan's NHK Newsline program features an inspiring video about young man from Bangkok's Klong Toey (aka: Khlong Toei) slum who is on a mission to find his  brother. He pulls no punches about the education system or the discrimination he experiences.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/nhknewsline/eoabl/eyeonasia/

 

[reader]

Good Kids, Mad City: The Teenage Rappers Changing Minds About Bangkok's Notorious Slum

Eleven Fingers knows exactly what people think of his hometown. "Poor. Bad. Wicked. Criminals: This is the way people talk about us!" he raps on his song "Klong Toey, My City."

Klong Toey is Bangkok's most-notorious slum, a densely populated patchwork of illegal and semi-legal settlements that rose up in the space between Sukhumvit Road and the Chao Phraya River more than 60 years ago. It's home to an estimated 80,000 people and more representative of the Thai capital than most people would like to admit. As much as 20 percent of Bangkok's 8.3 million people live in slums like Klong Toey, which makes streets like the ones Eleven Fingers and his friend 19Tyger grew up on more common than the glitzy malls of Pathum Wan—only six kilometers away down Sukhumvit Road.

Still, the public perception of Klong Toey has long been associated with crime, poverty, and drug abuse. The slum began as a home for rural Thais who moved to the capital to look for work, most of them finding it at the nearby Klong Toey port. The port authority actually owned most the land where the slum currently sits, and a community of poor port workers soon sprung up on the port's peripheries.

Continues with pics and video

https://www.vice.com/en_asia/article/mbwgbq/good-kids-mad-city-the-teenage-rappers-changing-minds-about-bangkoks-notorious-slum

[DivineMadman]

For the ever-so-slightly adventurous, a visit to the Klong Toey "slums" is a fascinating experience.  There is a delightful cooking school in the slums, which is how i got there.  Highly recommended and the school benefits the Klong Toey community in many way.  The school is charmingly called Cooking With Poo.   CookingWithPoo

Like all Bangkok neighborhoods, I think it safe, but it is very confusing and even with GPS and google maps I probably wouldn't venture very deep there unaccompanied.  But the couple times I have been there I thought everyone was the usual nice and polite people we would all expect.  Somewhere in the midst of it all is a tiny sports field that takes clever advantage of a unique footprint and one some design awards.  I do want to get to see that at some point.

[vinapu]

17 hours ago, DivineMadman said:

 The school is charmingly called Cooking With Poo.  

thank you for a good laugh !

[reader]

On 1/25/2019 at 2:28 AM, DivineMadman said:

Somewhere in the midst of it all is a tiny sports field that takes clever advantage of a unique footprint and one some design awards.  I do want to get to see that at some point.

[ChristianPFC]

On 1/25/2019 at 2:28 PM, DivineMadman said:

Somewhere in the midst of it all is a tiny sports field that takes clever advantage of a unique footprint and one some design awards.  I do want to get to see that at some point.

I have been to both sport fields (there are supposed to be more, but the footage is fake or an artist's impression). One I passed recently, and it's a great example how something that was created with good intentions became a failure due to poor construction and lack of maintenance. About one year after construction, cracks appeared in the ground, and it turned into a giant dog toilet, and is now used as general storage area. The other one I have to check next time I'm in the area. Worth a full article with pictures on my blog some day.

The one in picture above is/was real, but now looks like a garbage dump.