ippyevie

Excuse me, am I missing something here? Three hours is a norm at Heathrow for non-EU passport holders. I don't get what the fuss is about. Never occurred to me to complain because we're either immigrants and students. Although paying tax without any recourses to public funds, we are still treated as if we're coming to UK to take. So complaining is the last thing on our mind.

It's a propoganda news from Reds to Reds. No wonder, no grain of truth and reality.

I just have a question regarding my situation. I am a Thai national who got married with an EU-national. I have been living in London for 4 years, in the beginning with my HSMP and then currently on Tier 1 (General). I have been working in finance since HSMP until now. My Tier 1 will expire in Aug 2012 and I have to apply for indefinite leave to remain (ILR), which I am planning to. However, I would also like apply for a residence through my husbands' rights of spouse to live here. I know you must be wondering why am I doing that. I'm just afraid that something might happen in between and that if the rules change I can still fall back on my residency through this method. Also, I'm a couple of weeks pregnant and I will have to then apply for ILR in July, when I'm supposed to be heavily pregnant. You can see now that I don't want to be running around like a headless chicken when I'm due to give birth. So my questions are;

1) Should I apply for a Residence Card (using EEA2 form - an application used by non-European Economic Area (EEA) family memebers residing the UK)?

2) If I do that, would that affect my application for ILR later?

3) If I have a Residence Permit through EEA2, can I then still be able to apply for ILR using Residence Permit route after Aug 2012 (if for some reason I couldn't apply in July 2012) since I would be having been living in the UK for 5 years, however, not through family route but through HSMP/Tier1?

Thank you. I can't find these information anywhere in the internet. Help and suggestions would be greatly appreciate.

Pretty speaker especially in English - and I liked him because I don't speak enough Thai. But I'm not Thai - I'm a guest in this lovely country and the PEOPLE have spoken. So I must support an earlier member - Good Riddance.

If, like someone argued above - he was a real statesman and an honourable man - he should have called an election earlier and the Reds could have won it - (like they have done now) Instead of being stubbon and intrangient - which in the end resulted bloodshed and extra judical killings which have made this great country look like a banana republic. Without that we would already be well on the way to full reconcilliation and development. The troubles could have been avoided - people were angry because their vote for the Government of their choice was subverted - by court rulings (banning a guy who appered on a cooking program - really) and allies crossing the floor to join a group of people who occupied an International airport and got away scot free. I can tell you that little incident moved more airlines to hubs in Malayasia and Singapore than the occupation of a down town junction.

So bye bye Abhesit - I don't think there are going to be too many folk crying about your departure - remember you only really deserve what you WIN not what you grab or steal.

Just thought about that last comment - There are some folk crying for you but unfortunately they all seem to be expats on a very right wing site - who don't count politically because they don't have a vote - they like me should just be glad to be living here and be prepared to accept that the majority of the electorate have spoken and that they are sensible and reasonable citizens - and that they voted Red because they want someone they appreciate to come home.

2 threads with the same garbage. Please read the other and be a little better informed.

Agree. SIck of people not knowing enough facts and make rubbish opinion.

I don't know how cash rich they are - most Asian countries have a few holding the majority of the money. China has an average income of $5000USd per capita per annum. Not exactly cash rich. More likely, a few wealthy groups lending money on very long loans (you know, the less you pay on a deposit means a higher accumulation of interest of the period of the loan), which was also part of the reason of the collapse in the US housing market.

No, the collapse of the housing market in the US owes to the fact that the bank lends money to low earners with multiple credit cards on a 100% LTV and there's no way they will be able to meet their debt. They can probably pay interest rate that initially, which was at teaser rate of 1% and then after a few years, it went sky-rockketed, they started to default on payments. Pools of junk graded debts were in default and that collaps on the immediate better grade debts in domino effect fashion. The market was betting for the housing price will go up forever so the loan term make sense economically but it didn't. So this has nothing to do with loans being long at all. There's plenty of good quality long loans in the market.

The Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong markets are now on the same way, with most of the original owners now sold out (I have friends that sold all their property in China).

The new government rules in China to halt price inflation on housing sales is something that Thailand should consider, but won't because it is a source of positive income flow into the Kingdom - they will then complain in 5 years when even their top tier managers cannot afford to get even a mortgage on any of these apartments on Sukhumvit.. or they will just have a crack down on Foreigners owning and renting properties in Thailand, putting pressure towards a bear market in the condo sector.

Most Thai people driving their brand new Suzuki Swifts etc, did not pay cash for them - they have them on 20-30 year loans. Just creative accounting, in a society which is from what I have seen just as over-leveraged as Hong Kong or Shanghai.

There's a huge segment of rich Thai that are truly cash rich. You can't look at average income per capita to make sense out of property prices in Thailand. Look at land prices as an example. One rai in Pranburi costs as much as the ones in Cannes. It's a rich people's game. They don't need cash, they only will sell at the price they have in mind. But they don't need to sell... hence the price level being sustained despite the lack of transaction flow.

What about the availability of books? I see a lot of bookshops but they don't seem to have large sections dedicated to indigenous literature; mostly periodicals, Educational/Self Help books and the small paperbacks targeting younger people. Books that are available tend to be rather expensive and out of the financial reach of many. Libraries might help on that issue but there isn't a large body of Thai work and I don't know how available translated editions of foreign lit might be (or how well received). I suppose before or as part of promoting reading the gov't needs to promote the creation of reasonably priced works with mass market appeal. There doesn't seem to be much of a market yet but maybe that's a lack of product? or a lack of market hence no product?

I disagree, do you read Thai? In book stores like Dok Ya and Nai Inn chain, they have a lot of books from various categories. They're all affordable. Maybe their bookstores are not as large as Kinokuniya or Asia Book, and this is because Thailand is a small countries with yes, less writers and less readers, whereas, Kinokuniya and Asia Book stocks books from English writers, that will effectively expand the number of books being stocked. Just simple logic really - more English speakers in the world, more English books published. Ok, multiplied by the factor of more readers in English speakers then there's more English books to be sold, hence bigger section and bigger stores.

Have you ever read comic books? Not all of them are for children! Most of the comic books in Thailand is Japanese, licensed and translated into Thai. And in Japan, cartoons are also for adults. A lot of them are very complex, almost like a novel. There are lot of crime investigation comic books that I read that I think is very complex and intellectually stimulating. There's also Japanese chef comic that are very educating. It essentially teaches people how to cook, to know the history of sushis, how they're made, how they're developed. They're also science fiction cartoon like metrix, some are even better. This type of cartoon doesn't exist in English speaking culture, hence you look down on it.

Japan use comics to educate their children. I remember when I was young I bought a Japanese comic encyclopedia translated in Thai and read them. It looks like a silly cartoon but it actually teaches me a lot about history, science and many other things that I wouldn't have enough efforts to learn if it wasn't in form of cartoon.

I think you dismiss cartoon too quickly, hence your wrong judgement about Thai people reading cartoons means them not developping in the literal world. People from different culture learn differently. Just because they don't read a book, doesn't mean that they're not learning in other forms.

But yes, you're right about people don't read enough and don't have enough culture of reading. But to think that we perceive reading as deviant, is over-doing it, really. Unless you're really surrounded by those type of people, which is rather unrepresentative. And you're right about Thai authorities come out to say things like saying it meaning becoming it. This is sickening, it's almost as if they don't have a logic to seperate imagination from the reality. Thai are particularly good at self-delusionning, I think it stems from saving-face culture. If you believe in something hard enough, you'll end up seeing it - the problem is only you that sees it.

... how very amusing ... would you look at that, they are trying to read ... just like people do ... God bless their totally corrupt, incompetent little hearts.

... I am actually not so cynical, but I've been here over 10 years now and I have just had it with this inferior culture ... need to let off steam every once in awhile.

Inferior? Poorer maybe, less organised and critical, yes. But growing up from another culture with your own standard and references, doesn't make you a fair assessor, does it? Really, sorry to be such a cliche but why are you still here?

Ok nobody put a gun on your head to marry her and make babies with her. Sometimes you have to admit that you've made the wrong decision and that evil girls can be Russian, Ukranian, Latvian, Bolivian etc. There's no such thing as free lunch. If you think you're running away from Western girls to find comfort from Asian girls and that's the solution to your problem, it's a bit too fairly tale is it? Everything held equal, there's no 'better' deal per se, just 'different' deal.

Deal with it.

Hi,

I'm a Thai citizen, living in London with my French fiancee. Can you please clarify what document I need to marry and/or legalise the marriage in France? Who should I turn to in terms of getting the Thai document translated etc.? Thank you very much.

I couldn't really find info from anywhere. Thai embassy in London don't deal with this. French embassy in London don't deal with this. Thai embassy in Paris, noone ever never pick up the phone. French embassy in Thailand don't give out numbers.

Eve