Has the traffic got you down? Are you eager to go out and meet friends,
or make new ones, but just can't bear the thought of getting stuck
in another
jam?
The Internet may be just
the ticket for you. Fact is, if you
have a computer a modem, and a telephone line, you can travel much
farther, much faster
and meet many more people than you ever could by car.
Net activities are growing
literally by the second. Nowadays,
you can insult the opponents of your favorite sports team, send your
friends a picture
of your cat, discuss politics with militant activists and find out
about the
hottest night club in town _ all without ever leaving your room.
Of course, to those with
computer-phobia, entering the silicon jungle can be
every bit as scary as taking a motorcycle taxi across town during rush
hour.
But think of it this way.
The Internet is like a vast, worldwide highway. You
travel along it to get to some destination: a library, a fan club,
a classroom,
or a bull session with your buddies.
A computer is simply the
vehicle you use to get there. You don't need to become
a chiphead to navigate the Net, any more than you need to be an auto
mechanic to
drive a car. Once you've mastered the basic skills, there's a whole
new
expanding world out there waiting to be discovered.
As information technology
advances, we will move beyond the point of merely
sending words and pictures across the Internet. Soon it may be possible
to set
up a desktop TV station. Pundits even predict we will one day be able
to send
our virtual selves spinning through a virtual universe _ a place they've
nicknamed ``cyberspace'.
But that's the future. Meanwhile,
accessing the Internet costs money _ unless
you belong to a university or happen to work for an enlightened company.
So for starters, instead
of hitting the information superhighway, you might
want to travel down a country road and log on to a local bulletin board
service.
Bangkok alone has 45 or so, and Thailand's other major urban centres
have their share, as well.
Sala Thai is one of the most
popular sites. It is free to use, although
donations are appreciated, and has a handy graphic interface making
it easy to
move around.
Sala Thai now has about 850
registered users, with another 400 who pop in from
time to time. Founder Jamie Zellerbach, set it up so that those feeling
a little
lost and lonely would have a new community to turn to.
``A sala is a traditional
Thai open-air building that used to serve as a
schoolroom, a market, a meeting place,' explains the slender 33-year-old,
swivelling in his ergonomic chair in front of a row of blinking monitors.
``You
hid from the noon-day sun and interacted. But these traditional communities
have
fallen apart.
``So Sala Thai is a place
to come and talk politics, buy and sell, teach,
learn. It's an open public forum.'
There seems to be a roughly
equal proportion of Thais and foreigners, students
and professionals on Sala Thai, although men do seem to outnumber women.
Most users do have some interest in computers, and they are able to
download
software from the bulletin board.
But there is much more on
offer. In the ``What's On' forum, you can check out
what movies and concerts are playing in town, and what other people
think of
them. One recent posting, for instance, brought a bunch of Sala citizens
together at a line dancing jamboree.
Or you can move over to ``Athenaeum',
which has a map of the world. Click onto
a certain country or region to find some useful information when you
go abroad.
``Eventually, I want this to be like an encyclopedia,'
Jamie enthuses.
Next try out the ``Chat Room'
to have a real-time conversation with other users
currently logged on. One intimate feature about Sala Thai is that all
registered
users must fill out a resume telling a little about themselves. Many
declare
that they are eager to be ``chatted up'.
And then there are the discussion
groups, where you can send in a message, a
lecture, a screed, or a joke related to a certain topic, for others
to consider
in their own due time. Topics available so far include philosophy,
health,
environment, art and culture, telecoms and traffic.
In the `Philosophy' section,
for instance, people are currently probing the
scientific and religious meanings of consciousness. Meanwhile, in the
`Traffic'
section, Thaksin Shinawatra is getting severely abused for his suggestion
that
helicopters be brought in to lift out stalled cars on the streets of
Bangkok.
Many of the users simply
eavesdrop, and another nice feature of Sala Thai is
that you can click on a `history' function to find out who has read
a particular
message.
``It can be hard to get people
here to express themselves,' says Jamie. ``They
tend to get nervous and fear they may be be held accountable. But that's
starting to change, at least on line.'
Of course, sometimes the
chatter can get a little irate. Discussions about
religion get especially heated, Jamie says.
``I've told people that there's
no need to argue enough times that it has
started to sink in,' Jamie says. ``Of course, people are always going
to argue.
That's why I set up the traffic forum. People can come home and bitch
instead of taking it out on their wife and kids.'
In short, Sala Thai does
seem to be turning into an embryonic electronic
community. Monthly meetings now allow users to get to know each other
face to
face.
``Using the Internet or a
BBS doesn't computerize life,' explains Axel Winter,
Jamie's colleague who sits at a neighbouring terminal. ``You actually
learn to deal more with people.'
Jamie, who along with Axel
works for a software and communications consulting
firm when he's not busy tinkering with his creation, is building on
Sala Thai's
success. He has received funding from the US Agency for International
Development
to set up Sala servers (the computers which form the network's brain)
in Vietnam, Laos,
Cambodia and Burma; and he has set up a Sala Foundation.
``I want to bring the word to the people,' he says heroically.
``I want to convert them
into on-line users.
``I've spent a lot
of money building Sala Thai,' he reflects.
``But it's worth it to see
children _ even 30-year-old children _ calling up their
mothers. I've got parents talking to kids, boyfriends and girlfriends,
long-lost friends.
We've brought a lot of people together.
``It's a quick way to make
new friends,' he adds. ``A lot of the people who
built the Net remember what it's like to be isolated.'
Indeed, the stories behind
the success of digital communication can sound like
Revenge of the Nerds come true.
``My father was an aviation
salesman and I grew up in Thailand,' Jamie
explains. ``In 1976, I was sent to an elite private school in the US.
I didn't fit in...'
He pauses a moment, thinking
back to his tormentors in school, then rubs his
hand gleefully: ``Of course, heh, heh, I'm more successful than they
are now,'
he gloats.
``Anyway, there was a Teletext
machine at school with a direct link to the
mainframe computer at MIT. The computer didn't care what I looked like.
It
became my friend. I spent 3-4 hours a day with it.'
Jamie went on to study theology
at Oxford, then became a hotel manager in
Bangkok.
``I found I enjoyed typesetting
menus more than running the hotel, so I quit
and went to work in computer graphics. Three and a half years ago,
I set up a
bulletin board service called MacAttack, and then two years ago I changed
the
name to Sala Thai. I've built it with my own money, my wife's, and
about Bt150,000 in donations.'
``When I first set it up,
I never would have believed it would have eight
telephone lines running into it. Now all eight lines are busy until
the early hours of the morning.
I mean, when do these people sleep?!'
Sala Thai's popularity has
in fact become a (rather happy) problem. At the
moment, only eight people at a time can gain access. Yes, even the
electronic
roads in Bangkok are jammed, frustrating computer commuters.
On the thangduan khormoon,
increasing traffic flow isn't a matter of pouring
more concrete, however, it's getting more phone lines. Or, as techies
say,
``Bandwidth, we need more bandwidth!'
The good news is, Jamie just
got some. He will soon have 25 lines going into
his service, allowing many more users to log on. What's more, he is
setting up a
server near Washington DC which will allow the millions of Internet
users access
to the sala. But it will be a one-way street: logging on to Sala Thai
will not
give you access to the Internet.
``I'm an information provider,
not an Internet provider,' he explains. ``I want
information about Thailand and Indochina to get out to the outside
world.
Sala Thai HQ looks pretty
much as weird as you'd expect: a large cavern filled
with beeping machines and wires running everywhere. Jamie fidgets in
his chair,
moving and clicking his mouse as he explains his philosophy, his voice
rising to
a dramatic pitch to express some especially wry point.
In another life, you think,
he might have been a mad scientist. He obviously
enjoys his present vocation of system operator _ the sysop _ immensely.
But he
settles down and becomes serious when he talks about his responsibilities,
which
are growing along with the access to his bulletin board.
In the information age, the sysop is the closest thing to God.
``No, not God,' Jamie murmurs.
Ok, then, he's a traffic
cop.
``Cop has too many bad connotations,' says Axel.
Well, perhaps `editor' says
it best. He's the guy who comes in when an argument
gets overly heated, or netiquette badly bent. He wags his finger, or
if necessary, waves
the censor's wand.
Censorship? On the Net? That
last bastion of freedom of speech?
``It's an issue we don't like to talk about too much in public,' Jamie
agrees.
The Internet was originally
set up by the US Defense Department, but it
flourished in universities; anti-authoritarian sentiment is part of
the Net culture.
But this is communication
without face. Inevitably, like drivers hiding behind
tinted-glass windows, some users ignore the rules of the road.
``Users do say things they
wouldn't normally say face-to-face. That's why I
don't allow anonymous users. People should stand by what they say.'
Jamie says he hasn't ever
had to out-and-out censor somebody. He prefers to
``give guidance'.
``I intervene quietly and
rarely, but people know they better listen.' Donning
a smile, he adds, ``Even so, they still argue.'
A light touch may be sufficient
for Sala Thai. But its discussions are (so far)
rather tame and articulate compared to the trash talk that can come
over the
Internet, which brings together millions of users from a multitude
of cultures.
Jamie describes the Internet
as ``controlled anarchy'. It makes Bangkokians
feel right at home.
How long it will remain so
deliciously libertarian is another matter. The vast
majority of users are good digital citizens, Jamie points out. But
the media
have lately been harping on all the pornography available in this new
medium.
The most well-known electronic
forum on Thailand is a newsgroup
called `social.culture.thai' (sct). Most of the traffic on sct is quite
pedestrian, and useful, especially for Thais living abroad and foreigners
living in
Thailand.
But it's also a free-for-all, famed for its bickering.
``Sct is becoming Thailand's
worst enemy,' says Jamie. ``It's an
uncensored bitch session.'
Frustrated Thais post slanderous
accusations against politicians. Farang men
write in looking to meet Asian women, sparking off furious debates
about sexism
and racism. Others try to goad Thais by attacking their sacred institutions.
Enraged responses are met
with libel suits.
``The easiest way to deal with
people who want to fight is to ignore them,'
Jamie counsels. ``I learned that at school. Let the bully beat you
up; he'll
lose face and interest.'
Authority on the Internet
is so decentralized, nobody is sure who should be
held responsible when the talk turns nasty. Jamie tells the story of
a Thai
official worried about information on Thailand's sex-for-sale scene
being spread
over the Internet. The official ordered his secretary to find out who
was in
charge. But she gave up after seven days of fruitless searching.
Global discussion groups
like sct belong to no one. ``That's the Internet's
saving grace,' Jamie points out. ``We want to keep it that way.'
Thai telecom laws, however,
seem more suited to the Jurassic Age than the
Information Age. Simply placing a fax machine on a phone line without
permission
is technicaly illegal.
There is a growing fear the
authorities may clamp down. In one case, a user
reportedly lost his logon for a week because he unwisely included a
copy of a
vicious attack on a sacred institution in his vituperative response.
Meanwhile, access to the
Internet is becoming increasingly commercialized. And
hardcore users sniff a conspiracy, because gateway providers are now
being held
accountable for what their customers say.
``I'm very upset with the
commercialization of the Internet,' Jamie says.
``Companies [that provide access to the Internet for a fee] like CompuServe
and
America On-Line are taking over, and now Microsoft Net is moving in.
Governments
love it because now they have someone to blame if a user commits some
anti-social act, [such as spreading libel or child pornography].
``But the Internet has so
far been run through a tacit agreement that the
infrastructure costs are shared. For these companies to make money,
it's in
their interest to kill off the shared-cost deal. The Internet should
be an
educational and research tool, but the techies are making way for the
financiers.'
On the other hand, commercial
gateway providers such as Internet Thailand and
KSC ComNet have also allowed the Internet to expand rapidly. The line
between
commercial use and educational use is in any case a thin one. The company
Jamie
works for runs a server on which private firms can display information.
``They're not really advertisements.
They're more like infomercials, or
catalogues. There aren't any prices listed.
``It's just a service we
provide to level the playing field. Unless the system
is liberalized here Thai companies are in danger of losing out to companies
from
Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. The governments in Laos and Vietnam
are so eager to be hooked up their molars hurt.
``I will never, ever charge
for access to the sala. It should be run as a
public service,' Jamie says as he clicks on to an Internet website
for the
Pattaya Orphanage, which describes its activities in both pictures
and words.
``This is cool. I mean,
kids did it!
``Bangkok can be very cold
and lonely if you've just arrived.
The cliques can get very clique-y. But for some unknown reason, if
you get on line you
have immediate friends. It doesn't matter what colour your skin is,
or if you're
handicapped. You're only as important as the information you know.'
The image of Internet users
as lonely, anti-social recluses may be outdated,
however. They are physically alone, but they are interacting electronically:
digital citizens creating a much-needed new community.