Panchalie Sathirasas and the People Who Love Quiet Club

More information on Khun Panchalie's quest for noise abatement can be found here:

http://www.ihtthaiday.com/IHT/ViewNews.aspx?NewsID=9480000131920

There's a good 'noise map' on there was well.

Unfortunately, no info on how to join. I think a lot of people would be willing to fork over some membership dues. No doubt a better use of money than, say, joining the Siam Society.

A google search also reveals that she is a ceramic artist of some renown.

Her quest for enforcement of noise laws in Bangkok apparently stems from the severe, permanent, and totally preventable damage to her hearing she has suffered while living in Bangkok, a fact which saddens and enrages me to no end.

from today's letters to The Nation:

Carry anti-noise campaign right across the country

Re: Three (silent) cheers for the People Who Love Quiet Club, Letters, June 23.

Panchalie Sathirasas and her "PWLQC" are terrific news for Thailand. I had always thought the Thai people had some hereditary condition by which they were unable to survive in ambient noise levels less than 80dBA. Happily, I was wrong.

When Khun Panchalie has sorted out Bangkok's transport systems, I would invite her to tour up and down Thailand's coastlines to explain to resort operators that holidaymakers do not want to hear "Hotel California" or Thai pop divas singing down their noses while they are eating their corn flakes. Actually, they prefer to hear the sound of waves lapping on the beach.

Then she could turn her attention to inland waterways, starting at Kanchanaburi. To have garishly-lit barges decorated as steam locomotives, floating in a river, blaring out amplified "chugging" noises at a thousand times their natural volume is not only absurd, it is probably disturbing to the families of victims of the Death Railway who have come to pay their respects. [ed. tourism in Thailand is not about what foreigners want, it is about what Thais decide foreigners want]

As a longer-term project, perhaps she could help the government draw up an enforceable Noise Abatement Act. I am sure it would be welcomed by the foreign property owners of Phuket and elsewhere whose quality of life (not to mention property value) has been wrecked by noise from adjacent karaoke bars, mafia-run and therefore "untouchable".

How do we sign up to PWLQC? I want to be part of the (silent) action.