Robots plan won't fly
The idea of introducing technology to regional airports across country sounds good at first blush (PostBag, Dec 5).
Before the government rushes out on a spending spree, please consider whose money they will be spending.
Do we need to replace human janitors with cleaning robots? What is the rationale? If janitors are retained, what can the robots do that janitors cannot? When airport janitors are earning the minimum wage, it is actually costlier to replace them with robots. Think of maintenance costs, IT and engineer personnel costs that go with using and fixing these robots. And there will be glitches and malfunctioning using them, I guarantee.
The government ought to be creating jobs for low-income earners, not replacing them. Without jobs and skills training, these people will end up dependent on the very government that unwittingly destroyed their livelihoods.
Even Singapore's Changi airport -- considered one of the finest in the world, still uses janitors. Singaporean janitors certainly have far higher wages than ours, making their workers much more expensive, lending them the rationale to use robots. Not us. We are not short of minimum wage workers.
Far more important issues at airports exist than acquiring these gadgets. (1) Solve the long queues problem at immigration counters. (2) Cooperate and partner with low-cost airlines to allow for greater frequency of domestic flights, plus opening up new domestic routes. This will encourage domestic consumption across regions and increase revenue for government.
The only thing I support is offering free wi-fi in all airports across the country. It is cost-effective. It benefits passengers directly. It is practical and achievable.
Edward Kitlertsirivatana
Tone deaf with Thai
"Ashamed in Korat" (PostBag, Dec 6) should not be ashamed at his inability to speak Thai. He has made a valiant effort.
As a boy I started to learn the violin and scratched and scrapped away for three years before my teacher sat me down and advised me to give up because I was tone deaf. So it is with Thai, which is a tonal language, unlike English which is atonal.
As Louis Armstrong sang, "You like potato and I like potahto, You like tomato and I like tomahto, Potato, Potahto, Tomato, Tomahto". Despite the different accent and pronunciation we understand each other, but that doesn't work in Thai, where unless you get the tonality right you are doomed to be not understood.
I have built myself an extensive Thai vocabulary and understand Thai grammar. Given a moment to mentally compose what I want to say, I can normally ask for what I want and this helps me in my day-to-day dealings around the market, the shops, in restaurants and with friends until they jabber something back at machinegun speed and I am thrown off my perch back into a non-communicative world. My ears are totally incapable of picking up the tones and making meaning of what is being said. As for a deep and meaningful on the meaning of life -- forget it. And being fully away of some of the perils of mis-toning a word, in a restaurant I would never dare ask a sweet young waitress for a bowl of dipping sauce.
Unlike the title of Armstrong's song, Let's Call the Whole Thing Off, I shall keep on trying.
David Brown
Bad embassy move
If Donald Trump proceeds to move the US embassy to Jerusalem it is almost certain violence and death will result and any chance of a peace settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians will go down the drain. It could even lead to more terrorist attacks in the United States. How much longer is the rest of the world supposed to suffer because of America's support for Israel?
Eric Bahrt
A Trumpian odyssey
President Donald Trump will undoubtedly leave his mark on the world. It is good that he is not a typical politician, much less understands little about world politics. One way or another, the world is about to change yet again, this time in the Middle East. Whether or not the world will last long enough for anyone to enjoy it is another matter. But by that time, it wouldn't really make a difference, and mankind will return to the ending of the 2001 Space Odyssey, as depicted by Stanley Kubrik.
Charcoal Ridgeback
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