The Body Snatchers

Brent Lewin June 3, 2009 Meet the Buddhist emergency workers who outrace ambulances and police in hyper-crowded Bangkok.

TGIF, thinks Dai. After a full day working for an international bank, the petite and soft-spoken thirty-two-year-old races to the Lumpini Park gates where friends whisk her away for a night on the town. She will limp home at 5:00 AM, having seen four gruesome car wrecks and one suicide.

Dai is a volunteer for the Por Tek Tung Foundation, Thailand’s largest provider of emergency medical services (EMS). Created by Chinese immigrants in the capital of Bangkok more than one hundred years ago, Por Tek Tung began by offering free funeral services for the city’s poor, and …

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Winter

ISSUE 42 Winter 2011

online content:

also in this issue:

  • Getting Plowed

    by Selena Ross In this exclusive investigative report from Montreal, Maisonneuve exposes the bid-rigging, violence and sabotage at the heart of an unlikely racket: snow removal.
  • In the House of the Lord

    by Andrea Bennett The Jackson Avenue Housing Co-operative and the religious battle raging in one of Canada's poorest neighbourhoods.
  • After Jack

    by Nick Taylor-Vaisey Last May, Jack Layton led the NDP to the greatest victory in party history. Now that he's gone, will the party be able to maintain its momentum?
  • [see full issue contents]