Invented in Thailand: world's best tropical hat

World's greatest hat for hot weather. Perfect shade and ventilation. Additional bonus factor: the layered structure of the hat provides an extra R value of about 0.5, so that significant temperature drop occurs between the outside and inside of the hat. Example: today with an air temp of 30, the outside of the hat had a temp of 38 (from solar heating) and the inside surface was 33. Would addition of a little foil on the underside of the hat improve things?

Invented in Thailand: world's best tropical hat

World's greatest hat for hot weather. Perfect shade and ventilation. Additional bonus factor: the layered structure of the hat provides an extra R value of about 0.5, so that significant temperature drop occurs between the outside and inside of the hat. Example: today with an air temp of 30, the outside of the hat had a temp of 38 (from solar heating) and the inside surface was 33. Would addition of a little foil on the underside of the hat improve things?

Everyone smiles here -- even in the heat!

Today we visit our village neighbors near our Korat farm. A hot  afternoon – temp 35°C (95 F) – and we find them sleeping in hammocks underneath their house. Can they be comfortable? Well they look and act comfortable and according to my CBE Berkeley thermal comfort calculator (you can google this great tool) the average person, dressed very lightly as they are, sedentary or sleeping, with surrounding surfaces at less than 30 deg C (86 F) and with a floor fan turned to medium, should be happy with a temperature of 32 to 34° (91 F). But the saving fact is that the ground temperature, because of its high thermal mass, is only 29 C (84 F) and they are enjoying radiant cooling from underneath their hammocks, which according to the ASHRAE-based tool, put them right smack in the middle of the comfort zone -- with no aircon. We don't need to bring in any race-based factors to explain this("these people are used to it") to reach this conclusion. But we do have to permit a certain afternoon laziness; everything is quiet in the village at this time of day.

Bangkok woman turns on table fan

One night earlier this week at 9 PM a Thai woman (wearing a cotton nightgown and viewing a Thai soap opera on her ipad in bed) turned on the table fan in the bedroom, for the first time in weeks following a winter cold snap with temps often below 20 C (68 F). She had aircon available but did not choose this option, preferring the fan. The temperature at this signal event was 26 C (79 F) and humidity 60%. 

Research in Thailand done several years ago determined that this is exactly the temperature where Thai people prefer at least a little stir of air movement; in general studies have found that locals, both men and women, like air velocities between .5 and 1 m/s when the temperature moves much above 26 C (79 F). These breezy levels of air movement have traditionally been consigned to the word "drafts" in Western culture. 

Words do more than convey information; they transform it, sometimes in surprising ways. Sati ("mindfulness") becomes sloth. Kit mahk ("thinking a lot") becomes depression. When as I often do, say in Thai to a taxi driver it is cool today, I mean pleasantly so. He will reply with an agreeable shiver, taking my expression of satisfaction as an expression of disatisfaction. 

But not a complaint. Or, O my Buddha, not an opinion. For more on why elders should not hold opinions, read the sample of my forthcoming book which you can download for free by clicking to the right.

Bangkok man reports feeling chilly at 79 degrees F

The cool weather continues, average daily temps at Don Muang are about 21-22 degrees C. I've been feeling cold at 26 C (79 F) degrees room interior temp for three days now.

Is my perception abnormal?

I checked by the wonderful ASHRAE thermal comfort calculator at CBE Berkeley this morning and entered my conditions: boxer shorts (clo=.18), relaxed (met=.8), no fan.

Here in this psychometric chart (much more on this important tool later) my environment (blue dot) is much cooler than the yellow comfort zone, the temperature would have to be in the low nineties for me to be happy, according to ASHRAE standards. Conversely, we can say that most people dressed as lightly as I am, will be most comfortable with the temp around 95 F, or 35 C.

Twenty thousand days at Don Muang

This graphic shows the average daily temp at Don Muang since 1951 (top to bottom). Courtesy of the Thai Meteorology Department. 

Values to left are dips in temp, values to right are hot days. The year markers (white horizontal lines) are set to Songram which as expected is close to the hottest day of the year.

For larger size of this graphic click on "20,000 days in Bangkok" in right sidebar. 

I have several ideas about this record.

1. Bangkok weather is more variable annually than I once expected. Perhaps this is true of Thai people too.

2. There is a very sight rising trend to temps at DM, maybe a degree over the whole sixty three year period. Urban heat island effect (heat-gathering effect of urban development) is certainly part of the reason for this, perhaps the full reason. Hence significant global warming is not apparent in this record.

3. Some apparent changes can probably be explained by the re-siting of the measurement point or changes in immediate surroundings including construction.

4. The small gap at the bottom is due to absence of records during 2011 flooding. The record stops mid 2013, I will add more later.

In Thailand a Man Needs Three Things

A little background here. When I came back to live in Thailand fifteen years ago, I decided to do what Jim Thompson had done in the 1940s, move an old Thai house too Bangkok. This short video tells the story.

In Thailand a Man Needs Three Things

A little background here. When I came back to live in Thailand fifteen years ago, I decided to do what Jim Thompson had done in the 1940s, move an old Thai house too Bangkok. This short video tells the story.

Where did hot poverty-stricken Thailand go?

Wandering mid day through the sparkling Srinakharinwirot University which seems as luxurious as Stanford. What happened to the Third World? Hard to believe people are protesting about anything. And Bangkok heat: where did that go? Most beautiful day I can recall in fifty years here, low 70's  all day. Thank you China for your air.

Thaksin blasts protesters with stiff cold winds from China

Up before rosy fingered dawn this morning, air temp a fine cool 20 degrees here in downtown Bangkok and the same at Don Muang. The radiant temp of the sky is -7 C. Yes, that's below freezing! from the seventh floor I scan the city below with my thermal gun, temp is 18 C, knocked down by the cold sky. Photos last night show protesters bedding down at Asoke intersection, beneath the skytrain. A smart move, warmer without the cold overhead sky, that same sky that used so long ago to frost the pumpkin.  Back in my New England childhood.

Rough beast slouching toward Bangkok

Sparkling sunday in Bangkok, happy middle-class Thai flock to the malls with the temperatures in the high twenties (mid eighties F) blue sky, and a fresh NNW dry breeze coming down from Burma at 20 kph.  Pleasant walking the skyways downtown to Paragon, with the humidity dipping to a rare 24 percent. Hard to imagine the rough beast of civil strife slouching toward the capital, arrival tomorrow, Just as Cambodia seemed to me a garden of Eden when I visited there in 1966.

Down with democracy! Wear a hat!

It might surprise urban Thai, some of whom know more of cellphones and expensive cars than they know of the country’s history and traditions, that the village tradition is quite relaxed when it comes to bodily exposure. Many older women went bare-breasted even when I came here in the 1960s. The traditional “commoner” dress shown here suggests that the top may have been put on only for the purpose of the picture. Given that the face, neck, and chest is the hottest part of the body, exposure meant more comfort in the warm weather.

It is amusing to me that this old style was banned by pseudo-fascist political leaders in and during WW2 who aspired to a Mussolini  style of government within what they expected would be an Asian Japanese empire. Ironically “Proper” western style was required of women according to this government edict in 1941:

The people of Thailand must maintain national prestige ... by not dressing in improper manners which will damage the prestige of the country,e.g., wearing loose-ended sarongs, wearing only underpants, wearing sleeping garments, wearing loincloths, wearing no blouse or shirt, women wearing only undershirt or wrap-around ... and must maintain proper etiquette [by refraining from] unnecessary noise or improper language or behavior which ridicule those who try to promote national customs.

Some Thai history professors are claiming that the current call for "peoples government" is very similar to the call by Benito Mussolini in 1938, much copied and admred by the Thai Prime Minister Phibun in those same years.. What might the impact be in Thai fashion?

Dress required by law by royal decree in 1941. Bangkok Thai were to wake up one morning to face a government command that all women were required to wear hats like these. This is the same time as Thai were instructed to greet each other with "Sawatdee" an entirely made-up phrase previously unknown in the country.

Down with democracy! Wear a hat!

It might surprise urban Thai, some of whom know more of cellphones and expensive cars than they know of the country’s history and traditions, that the village tradition is quite relaxed when it comes to bodily exposure. Many older women went bare-breasted even when I came here in the 1960s. The traditional “commoner” dress shown here suggests that the top may have been put on only for the purpose of the picture. Given that the face, neck, and chest is the hottest part of the body, exposure meant more comfort in the warm weather.

It is amusing to me that this old style was banned by pseudo-fascist political leaders in and during WW2 who aspired to a Mussolini  style of government within what they expected would be an Asian Japanese empire. Ironically “Proper” western style was required of women according to this government edict in 1941:

The people of Thailand must maintain national prestige ... by not dressing in improper manners which will damage the prestige of the country,e.g., wearing loose-ended sarongs, wearing only underpants, wearing sleeping garments, wearing loincloths, wearing no blouse or shirt, women wearing only undershirt or wrap-around ... and must maintain proper etiquette [by refraining from] unnecessary noise or improper language or behavior which ridicule those who try to promote national customs.

Some Thai history professors are claiming that the current call for "peoples government" is very similar to the call by Benito Mussolini in 1938, much copied and admred by the Thai Prime Minister Phibun in those same years.. What might the impact be in Thai fashion?

Dress required by law by royal decree in 1941. Bangkok Thai were to wake up one morning to face a government command that all women were required to wear hats like these. This is the same time as Thai were instructed to greet each other with "Sawatdee" an entirely made-up phrase previously unknown in the country.

In dress, the land of the free

Today at opthamologist Samtavej hospital. Pictures in the waiting area showing happy Thai sporting around in semi-undress. I asked the nurse what time period in Thai history this must be.

"Must be before Rama 5 because after, no can do like this." She is referring to the topless dress. King Rama 5 along with his father was  an Anglophile especially after his visit to London in Victoria's time. Now both are widely revered by Thai. They say Rama 5 modernized Thailand (then called Siam), freed slaves, abolished interogatory torture, introduced public sanitation.

The doctor says I have cataracts. Happy birthday, mid seventies. I feel like the captain of a rusty old freighter plying the tropical seas, only three cylinders firing and bilge pumps going below. My eyes dilated, the colors seem accentuated and beautiful. I walk from Samitavej back to my condo, the Christmas lights are still up, a wonderland of sparkling color, car headlights with angelic rainbow halos. Warm pleasant evening, I stop at a pub and treat myself to a Belgian brown ale.

Dull haze, delicious garlic, and aroma of woman's shampoo

In the hot season I dream of a cool season with its slab of cool bright air moving from China down over the kingdom. True enough, there are days like that, but it seems to me that the cool season is more a series of cycles with the condition I've described deteriorating into something else, such as the cool, dull, hazy day yesterday, January 8.

I am no atmospheric scientist, but it appears to me that what is going on is as shown in the sketch. The cloudless winter sky with a radiant temperature often below 10° C is a sink for outward radiation of heat, and the ground surface is pulled down a degree or two below the air temperature.

With the lower air becoming cooler, we have an inversion layer that traps everything, the aroma of freshly shampooed hair from the girl standing next to me on the skytrain platform to delicious garlic cooking smells, to automobile exhaust. Further, the early morning air temperature is very close to the dewpoint, so I speculate that some of the haze is condensed moisture from the air. You can see that the wind starts to shift from northerly to the east and then toward the south, perhaps accounting for the rising dewpoint as moist air begins to move him from the gulf of Siam. This process has gone on for several days, increasingly dullish times for us on the ground, and we wait eagerly for a new arrival of cool fresh air from the north. Interior slabs and walls in my condo, having bottomed out at a chilly 26°, start rising back to 28° or so, and it's time to turn on the fan.

Let's hope for another blast of Chinese air!

Global Warming in Bangkok? Take a second look

For years we have been seeing graphs like this one for Bangkok, showing how the city is going to get insufferably hot in the coming years becuse of CO2 induced global warming, with frightening rises in sea level. My village neighbor way up on the Korat plateau even asked me if he should be worried about the sea rising that high.

But wait a minute here... a few years back the Japanese researcher Taniguchi had been doing some careful measurements of ground temperatures over the years and he raises some questions about all of this.

For example in this graph he compares Bangkok temperatures at Don Muang airport -- the usual historical measurement spot -- with temperatures in Lopburi. Seems that the airport temps are rising, but not those in the countryside. Think about that for a minutes. Aren't airports where most temperatures showing "global warming" are measured?

Here is a satellite image of the ground surface temperature of Bangkok in 2009.

So the question is, is most of the alleged "global warming" in Thailand (and elsewhere?) really just urban heat island effects around old airports where temperatures are measured?