One of the most popular topics on the timelines of Thai social media users over the past week is how areas in Bangkok were inundated after hours of rain on Monday night.
Many shared pictures and updated on the flood situation. However, Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra was trolled after he asked the media not to say Bangkok was facing floods but to instead call it “water waiting to be drained”.
The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration’s agency @BMA1555 quickly toed the line and tweeted, “Lat Prao District Office is expediting solving the problem of water waiting to be drained in Sena Village and other areas.”
Not surprisingly, many made fun of the semantic spin.
TV presenter Chake Rattanatangtrakul wrote: “I have some thoughts in mind waiting to be drained. Dear audience, what else do you have waiting to be drained?”
Wongnai.com posted, “Don’t say [I am] fat, [my] fat is waiting to be drained.”
A Tale From Hospital posted a picture of crowded hospital and wrote: “Don’t say we are flooded with patients, our patients are waiting to be cleared.”
Penrada Paraden joked: “Once it rains, Bangkok is flooded because Bangkok has ‘Khlong Ton’ [district name which means clogged canal] and ‘Huai Khwang’ [district name which means obstructing creek].”
On Twitter, @bkksnow wrote: “From now on, Thais can be more optimistic. Overwhelming debt = debt waiting to be cleared; overwhelming assignments = assignments waiting to be drained.”
@LLTD_TU: “In the case of expensive microphone procurement, don’t call it corruption, call it ‘large margin’.”
@BangkokWatchdog: “Don’t call Thailand a military dictatorship.”
@tpagon: “We don’t say the rain is coming but the rain is waiting to be drained from the sky. We don’t say the Bangkok governor is just taking his salary but we say he is the Bangkok Governor waiting to be drained from the post.”
National Artist and writer Makut Onrudee posted on Facebook, “Thai people are masters of language. They use language rationally. For example: ‘contained water’ cannot be called ‘flood water’. Considering the words and the meaning, it was believed that the water will not become flood or be contained. It must be drained unless somebody becomes nasty and puts a couch in the Giant Tunnel [Bangkok’s drainage tunnel]. In future, we might learn new words, ‘water overflowing the tunnel’, that’s not flood, not contained water, or ‘water waiting to be drained’.”
Besides Sukhumbhand, a quote by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha was also talk of the town. Some said the media did not fully quote him so the public got him wrong.
Many social media users, though, discussed the problem seriously.
Voravan Tarapoom posted pictures of recent floods in London and wrote: “Look further, why is there flooding in so many places, Paris, Bangkok, London, etc? What are the causes?”
Is This Thailand posted pictures with the caption: “In case of flooding, Thais blame the weather, the governor, the PM, but they forget to blame themselves for littering and blocking the drainage.”
Kritsada Wiset posted pictures of mountains of garbage and wrote: “Too much dramatised discussion about the flood. Now do you know why it is flooded?”
Lek Parinya posted a drawing comparing the floods in 2011, the drought since last year and the current flood and asked, “What should we do?”
Yesterday, the phrase was still popular.
On Twitter, @ArPaeDotCom: “The rain + water waiting to be drained + the crowd at Don Mueang, please spare some time so that you don’t miss your flight.”
Read also
Tornado kills 58, injures 5000 in China
Man drives SUV into floodwaters to prevent 3 persons from being swept away
AFP, Reuters
