Left Hanging

Suicides in Thailand are not the sole domain of locals. Every month of the year you can read accounts in local newspapers about some distraught foreigner that decided to end it all while living or vacationing here in the “Land of Smiles.” They take flying leaps off balconies, overdose on drugs, or fire bullets into their head; the usual variety of popular choices. But if news reports in the Bangkok papers this week are to be believed, there is yet another popular method that foreigners use to off themselves.

An unidentified foreign man was found In Bangkok this week hanging from an electric power pole. The fully clothed gentleman’s head was covered with a plastic bag and tied with masking tape. A nylon rope was tied around the man’s neck, hanging from a 25-metre-high electric pole. Near the body police found three bottles of water and a plastic bag from 7-Eleven.

“We suspect suicide, partly because Westerners usually kill themselves like this,” said Lumpini police superintendent, Colonel Suphisarn Pakdinarunart.

Must have been that 7-Eleven bag that convinced them.