PeterRS

Looking through a list the other day, I was pleasantly reminded of David Henry Hwang's fascinating play based on real life subjects, M. Butterly. Friends took me to see it on Broadway all the way back in 1988 with John Lithgow and B.D. Wong in the cast. I always wondered why any actor would choose to be known by his initials rather than his full name - until I saw the play, that is. The extraordinary thing is that the play is based on the real life story of a married French civil servant René Gallimard who is posted to Beijing in the early 1960s when his wife has to stay in France. Fascinated by Beijing Opera, he finds himself falling in love with a Chinese Opera singer, Song Liling, playing a role similar to that of Puccini's Madama Butterly. Soon they start a romance that is to last for 20 years. Clearly something of an ingénue at the outset, Gallimard seems unaware that female roles in Beijing Opera are always played by men. But does he remain totally unaware that he is in fact being played by the Chinese government, when as he must he realises his lover is in fact a man? Was he in fact a homosexual desperately trying to play this down? David Henry Hwang stated in an interview – "The lines between gay and straight become very blurred in this play, but I think he knows he's having an affair with a man. Therefore, on some level he is gay.” When the truth is finally revealed, Gallimard is found guilty of treason and jailed. He claims that he was in love with the character Butterfly, not the actor. In jail, he has kept Song's kimono and wig. He dons them before killing himself, an echo of Puccini's opera, parts of which are played throughout the play. A few years later the play was made into a movie with Jeremy Irons and John Lone. B.D. Wong was wonderfully believable on stage. On film John Lone is wooden and remarkably boring as Song. While the play's first run had 777 performances on Broadway, not surprisingly the movie was a complete bomb at the box office.

Another nonsense post! No one even in the UK believes the garbage frequently printed in The Sun newspaper. Not only is that article more than 7 years old, it points out at the end that eating rat is banned in China. And your "news" about cats just took a dive given that the AFP article you posted to back up your preposterous claims is 10 years old! Again it states that the eating of cats is banned! Clearly you know you have disrupted the thread with garbage which can not be backed up since you end your stupid series of posts "let us return to the actual topic at hand." Who derailed it?

That may just be why the flight price is higher, as you stated in another forum. There are about 5 fare classes in business class. Generally I find that nearer the fight date, especially in business class, fares are higher because all the cheaper fares have been sold.

Last March my usual Qatar ticket to the UK was up by an even greater percentage. As reported elsewhere, I took a much longer routing via Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific for a considerably cheaper fare. Thankfully only a 2 1/2-hour layover. Yet in recent weeks I have had several emails from both Qatar and Emirates offering even cheaper fares to several cities in Europe valid through to next summer.

I can see you were waiting watch in hand for the rain to start. Or did you set the alarm just to make sure it was on time LOL

A ridicuous comment! As @khaolakguy is well aware having earlier criticised my posting of travel photos, I travel probably more than most. If I am travelling on my own I take a taxi. When a client has engaged me they provide an Airport limousine. But then this is not the first time @khaolakguy has been wrong in his assumptions re others' postings!

That is B/S. How come for the last 2 years I have had BMW's from the Airport Limousine Service? Never a Merc!

Thank you. I am sure that helps for those who do not live in the UK. Mind you, I have never placed any faith in the BBC's website weather service. I was once in Taipei during September. The BBC claimed the weather in Taipei was warm and sunny. Sitting at my hotel desk, I could see outside a major typhoon under way with tree branches and shop signs flying around amid very high winds and torrential rain! The following day i went to the hot springs near Beitou. All were cl.osed as the typhoon had ripped up all the water pipes!

It is not a Mercedes. It is a BMW. But then your facts are often suspect.

I usually get a taxi. At some times of day it is a reasonably fast and painless operation. If it is a peak time, though, you can wait in long slow moving queues in the heat and humidity for a good 15 minutes or more. The ticket machines only give out tickets when a taxi is about to arrive at its position. Quite often I have found the reason for delays is not just the large volume of passengers, it is the scarcety of taxis. Non peak times should be a breeze.

Who?

I would like to have read this, but I am not on Facebook and for a variety of reasons will not join. Not all readers are on social media. Also, The Times is behind a paywall. WIth all respect - and very many thanks for mentioning this - I do wish those who post articles would insert a link that can be read by others without trawling through the web. Something like these 2 which I found today - https://www.danielmendelsohn.com/book/the-odyssey

From my travels around Asia, I reckon that is a very accurate assessment.

Just take the official airport limousine service - website below. You can not book but they have a lot of cars, mostly higher end models. Details of pricing are on the site and should not be more than Bt. 1,200. https://www.aotlimousine.com

The usual dose of daily nonsense.

Hurricanes hardly ever hit Europe. In the US they are mostly driven in from the Atlantic and so it is those states and Caribbean Islands that suffer. But in the USA wildfires are mostly affecting the west. Again hurricanes rarely ever hit the west and Pacific Northwest. Praying for more rain may help in dousing some fires. But global warming is resulting in it falling much more heavily resulting in severe fooding. All this is going to get much worse until world leaders do their jobs and get to grips with global warming.

32 or so years ago when the Narita Express started, I was in the bowels of Tokyo station awaiting its arrival. Being the first day of operation, there were little red carpets where the doors would stop and a bevy of smiling dolly birds ready to help passengers. With the ticket all in Japanese, at that time I had no idea how to interpret the information. Thinking I was in car 6, I showed it to the vivacious girl. "Hai", she said, indicating I wait by that door. When the train arrived I tried to find my seat. Someone was stting in it. Kindly he explained that I was not in seat 1 in Car 6 but in seat 6 in car 1. Knowing the train stopped only for maximum two minutes, I got out, shouted something at the girl and raced down the length of the train. As I reached car 2, the doors closed, the girls bowed and off went the train. I was furious. The only way I could get to Narita on time was a taxi. That cost around ¥26,000 or $200. Today it would be considerably more. On my return to my office a few days later, I wrote a letter to Japan Railways explaining what had happened and enclosing copies of receipts. I assumed that was that. Lesson learned - know how to read train tickets! Imagine my surprise when about four months later my secretary told me there was someone to see me. It turned out to be a man from JR in his hideous green uniform. After some explanation and apologies which my secretary translated, he handed me over an envelope with cash. It was all the expenses I had incurred after missing the Narita Expres, including the taxi fare! I thought - only in Japan!

Sorry error

I thought of including this under the HOT SPOTS thread, but that's a different kind of heat!! The sad fact is that even with huge fires burning in North and some in South America, it is Europe that is heating up faster. We've seen previous year's videos of fires in Greece. They're back - and again close to Athens. Some of Turkey is on fire. Spain is now battling fires, one less than 36 kms from Madrid. Parts of it's neighbour Portugal is also in flames. In one week the south of France has seen as much destruction as in the whole of 2024. And that year saw twice as much as the year before. The French Prime Minister has called it "catastrophic on an unprecedented scale." And still the world's leaders sit back and, led by the tyrant Trump, do almost nothing about global warming. In one breath he calls climate change "mythical," "non-existent", "an expensive hoax," while in another he states it is a very "serious subject". In 2009 he joined other business leaders by signing a full-page ad in the New York Times calling for legislation to combat climate change. In 2012, though, in typical Trump fashion, he reversed course by claiming climate change is a hoax "created for an by the Chinese to make US manufacturing non-competitive!" https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/c8ryvxlr6dlo

I think this is relatively common, unfortunately. I just checked a fare for mid-September on a popular inter-Britain route where BA has the monopoly. Of 15 daily flights, the one way fare ranges from £53 to £226. But the return sector is even more expensive ranging from £79 to £253. And that is without baggage or seat selection. With the most expensive return, you are close to the price for a return ticket London to Bangkok - 350 miles round tip v. 6,000 miles round trip. Hardly makes any sense!

I would recommend you try one of the Siam Roads Guides based in Ho Chi Minh. There are three currently listed as being based in HCM and I am sure at least one will be happy to travel down to meet you and show you around. Vietnamese friends tell me that Can Tho can be quite gay. https://siamroads.com/#Vietnam

@Keithambrose and other other poster tried that trick in other posts which the moderator promptly threw out. Seems that will be the destination of this one. Danang and the entire area from Hoi An in the south to Hue in the north is perfectly beautiful. Sadly my Vietnam friends tell me you are not going to find any beach resort in Vietnam with the sort of beach gay community like Pattaya. Besides you have the Vietnam visa issue to consider.

Does that mean that Le Continental still exists?

And @Department_Of_Agriculture clearly knows virtually nothing about Myanmar. The majority Bamars in Myanmar number roughly 68% of the population. The Rohingya population less than 2%. @12is12 is perfectly correct when he claimed that the vast majority in Myanmar did not object to the genocide in Rakhine State. That is precisely why Aung San Suu Kyi refused to criticise the army junta when she appeared before the World Court. The majority Bamar population have never liked the Rohingya in the south west of the country largely because it is a legacy of British colonialism when they imported vast numbers of Muslim Indians from Bengal, many of whom then took over jobs occupied beforehand by Burmese, always at lower wages. As for Israel, @Department_Of_Agriculture is the one being hypocritical. He drags up a post made in November 2022. Yet he fails to point out that this was made 11 months BEFORE the Hamas incursion into Israel and Israel's subsequent genocide in Gaza. Hypocrite!

https://www.thaiembassy.com/travel-to-thailand/travel-to-thailand-from-australia It's perfectly simple! And you could have just checked on the internet before posting.