We all know that many western European countries were colonialists, occupying and messing with indigenous cultures all over the world.
In Southeast Asia, Vietnam and Laos were occupied for years by France, Singapore and Malaysia by the British. The Dutch controlled Indonesia for a long time. Interestingly enough, Thailand was never colonized by the Europeans. Maybe that’s why it’s a bit more foreigner friendly. Who knows?
The Bangkok Blog is thankfully not a political blog. It’s an experience and fun blog, so colonialism will not be discussed. However, the reason I bring this up is that we have a long standing contract with the French Embassy in Bangkok to take care of all Embassy staff as well as all French expatriates and visitors to Bangkok. It’s a nice contract, partly won because one of the partners (me) is from Canada and born in Montreal no less. (Although not really bilingual.). They liked the Quebec connection. After all, they tried to colonize Quebec until the British sort of put a stop to that.
Anyway, this contract got me thinking about the Alliance Française building I pass every day on my bike ride to work. (The first photo in the slide deck above.) It’s a pretty nice and fairly large building designed by a well known Toronto based architecture firm. So after a tiny bit of digging, I discovered that Alliance Française also has a very big presence in Bangkok.
The building, which is not very far from the main hospital campus, is big and nicely designed. It turns out that all employees of this organization also use our healthcare services.
It appears that there’s a fairly long history of Thai-French relations that goes back to the 16th century. You can read about it here.
My interest is obviously in the business relationship with the French government that we have. However, I have to say that the Alliance Française building in Bangkok, designed by Thai architects, is very cool. I was happy to see that a Thai architecture firm and not a French one was involved. They did a great job.
Notwithstanding the thorny history of Europeans in Southeast Asia, the fact that a Thai healthcare company along with a Thai architecture firm can be involved in taking care of and designing stuff for the French government is a nice post colonialism move.
You can see a short video of the Alliance Française being below.
It is amazing how these European nations embedded themselves globally and still retain some presence, whether positive or negative
In St Vincent & the Grenadines as a very small nation (pop 114K) this is clearly evident with pockets settled literally by people jumping off ships over the centuries
For example there is a small town where everyone looks very Portuguese and speak a patois that includes much Portuguese, as a ship crashed into that small port during a storm in the 17th c
Hence a weird feeling when looking and listening to locals
Another village looks entirely Italian, but not just Italian but Italian with Sicilian characteristics
I once had a lively conversation with a guy there who looked exactly like Dean Martin and who can easily trace his ancestors back to 1720
My point is that they assimilate and yet not
So my point is …… beyond Thai architects helping build and now maintaining healthcare for expats and tourists, I wonder if cheese making has been impacted in Thailand?
I will leave it there other than say I once owned a Citroen SM for years, lovely car but has no connection to this line of thinking other than as an Italian/French co venture, the French insistence on so darn many innovations, bankrupted the company
Again I digress
I note with interest the Thais welcome such cultures into their midst with being consumed by them
A lesson here for Canada I would think
Quite lovely. Looks like a Snohetta design, like the student building at TMU.
Cheese, Ron?
Maybe going to Bangkok will help our French….