Our cover story in July 1999 was on the opening of the Chiang Mai University Small Animal Hospital, which was fairly exciting at the time.
However, our main feature, ‘Spin me a Web’ is about the excitement of the then-newish internet and our publication’s first foray online with our website, www.chiangmainews.com, still the number one English language site in the north of Thailand today. Excitedly, editor Pim Kemasingki wrote, “2,500 accounts have already been signed up for Loxinfo North Thailand…and there are over 35 million web sites in the world.” How fast, and to what extent, these figures have grown is mind-boggling.
The British Council also had an announcement in the magazine this month ten years ago about the opening of the new Honorary Consulate on the grounds of the British Council on Bumrungrat Road. Shaun Waller was the first British Council Director to have been appointed to the title of Honorary British Consul. Panita Inthasan was the first assistant – and has remained at her post ever since, keeping at the helm as consuls came and went. Funnily enough, ten years on, the British Embassy has announced that they are looking for a new British Consul, for the first time in a decade, not affiliated with the British Council. Citylife has heard that numerous upstanding British citizens have applied for the job, and we wait, with bated breath, to find out which resident of Chiang Mai is to be the first locally appointed Honorary British Consul since Citylife’s founder John Shaw MBE was appointed (1991-1995).