коли под наем

The image above is from a weekly Thai news magazine, what the text says really isn’t all that important, what is important the fact that it made the cover of the magazine. On the day of the election, there was Obama news on the front cover of virtually every Thai-language newspaper. The debates were on Thai TV, and there were multiple election returns parties going on. I was an a party put on my Democrats Abroad at a bar that I shared with about 200+ other expats and interested people. The USA embassy put on a huge party in a hotel ballroom which was attended by the Thai prime minister, the USA Ambassador to Thailand, over 1,000 interested college and high-school students, along with lots of expats and Thais.

I’m throwing this all out there, because I don’t know if the rest of the world knows how much people outside of the USA follow her politics. Part of the reason was the monumental fact that a black man had gone so far, but a bigger reason is probably the fact that USA politics both directly effect and indirectly influence virtually everyone in the world. Leading up to the election, random people would stop me and talk to me about the election, students at my university would ask me if I supported Obama. The blackness was likely an issue here too, darker Thais are often discriminated against and magazines are constantly pushing light-skinned Asians as the beautiful ones. To see a black man make it so far in USA, must in some ways be an inspiration.

About a week ago, I was talking with a boy who “works in a bar” (and yes that’s euphemism) and he started to tell me how he and his friends crowded around the TV on election day and were blown away that Obama mentioned gay people in his speech. He started telling me that how even in open-minded Thailand that gays are sometimes discriminated against and how he thought that Obama’s comments would influence politics here.

It’s going to be interesting to see where this all goes, he seems like he’s doing some really good stuff … He may just be able to reverse the reputation that the USA has around the world, and reduce the risk of terrorist attacks by making people not pissed off at us.