Not only is the dignity of the national flag lost in eyesore advertising, but the train's delightful and unparalleled view of Bangkok is impaired as well.

And what next? Make indebted Thais wear sandwich boards advertising foreign cars and motorcycles that pollute our streets? Exploitation knows of no national boundaries.

Just because this proud country is in an economic downturn it does not mean everything is up for sale. Resist globalisation!

Mark Witaya

Mark Witaya wrote (Postbag, Jan 6) complaining about a foreign bank logo draped all over the skytrain and other matters of national concern.

I couldn’t agree more with him and his super-nationalist views. I say it’s time to get rid of the foreigners, the foreign companies and everything else that wasn’t invented, designed or manufactured by Thais. I say we ban the BMWs and Mercedes, which are nothing more than Western icons of lust and greed. Develop a luxury model tuk-tuk instead.

French colognes, wines and fashions? We can make our own. Oh, and what about those whinging foreign tourists complaining about paying a few baht extra to enter places of Thai heritage? Ban them too. Who needs them and their foreign ways?

Don’t send our kids abroad to learn the language of the oppressor. Let the oppressor learn our language and one day the whole world will speak Thai.

Mark is right, we should just close up our borders and resist globalisation. However, Mark should really think about changing his first name. It's a bit too foreign for my liking.

Vichai B

Here’s a proposal that nearly no one will agree with: Have the powers that be redesign the Thai alphabet.

Okay, before they come to tar and feather me, let’s look at some of the realities. There are 45 letters and about 20 additional notations, mostly vowels, such as sela. Even the strongest boosters of Thai tradition can admit that there are many redundancies in the Thai alphabet.

For example, there are eight different letters for the "t" sound, six for "k", and four for the "s" sound.

First let me admit I am a rank beginner in the Thai language. My difficulty in getting a handle on reading and writing it is partly the reason I'm writing this note. Another reason is how much easier it would be for Thai children (and others) to learn the language if spelling words was made less convoluted.

I suggest eliminating 25 of the 45 letters. In a purely practical sense, the remaining 20 would allow all the sounds needed for Thai words. Most of the vowel digits (sela, etc.) could also be eliminated or replaced without affecting the sounds of the words they spell.

K.A.
Chiang Rai

A self-confessed "rank beginner in the Thai language", K.A. of Chiang Rai (Postbag, Jan 19) has the nerve to tell us to cut 25 letters out of the Thai alphabet. What does this brazen-faced neophyte know of Thai, of the relationship of written Thai to ancestral Sanskrit, Pali and cousin Khmer? What does K.A. know of Isan and Kham Mueang and the southern dialects?

If K.A. is an English-speaker, he would be better put to use his talent to "correct" some of the shortcomings of that mighty international language. He can start with the paucity of vowels – a, e, i, o, u – of the Roman alphabet and their torture to accommodate 40 vowel sounds.

Then students all over the world, not just Thais, would not have to worry about lice/police, polite/elite, or break/brake, bread/bred and bead/need. Or the horrors of "ough": in slough, rough, hiccough, ought and all the many, many others. As Bernard Shaw taught us, "ghoti" can spell "fish".

Is the tar hot yet? Get the feathers ready.

K.A., go learn something of the subject before you revise Thai.