gearbox

Working well into my seventies...what a bright future! Looks like I still have more than 10 years working life left. However in 10 years maybe working until mid eighties may become popular, so who knows.

Sorry to hear you got slurred as a "Chink" but can assure you this happens fairly rare in cosmopolitan cities like Sydney or Melbourne. Probably very rare compared to Pattaya. In Australia there are 1.4 million people from Chinese descent, including my daughter in law. That's higher proportion per capita compared to the number quoted above. The main "fault" of the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and the Jews is that they value highly education and hard work, and slowly manage to move up the ladder in most countries they migrate to. The Chinese in Australia are 5.5% of the population, but probably 25-30% of the graduating doctors and engineers these days are from Chinese background. This doesn't go well with the low class which feels falling behind. Especially age 60+ which are living in the fifties of the last century. Somehow low class taxi driver or bricklayer thinks they stay above a PhD from Chinese background. Here comes the yellow peril. The young generation 35 and younger are much more tolerant.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westie_(person)

Chinks and Lebs terms are often used by the Westies.

Are you certain that this is going to happen in any branch/any place in Thailand?

The corruption proceedings are probably split between the agent and the bank officer. In many countries it is a criminal offence to offer or receive a bribe.

In theory it is an account forever, but I don't know what happens when your debit card expires...I don't think they mail cards here so you may have to turn up in a branch, and they may check your visa. However if you don't need the card you can operate it remotely as long as you have Thai Sim card. Or a mobile app. But rules change all the time wrt AML/KYC, so they may need to verify you every X years, if they can't reach you they may freeze your account. CBA in Australia told me every 2 years although they admitted they may skip it, esp for retail customers. With another bank my business account was blocked because they wanted to refresh the KYC data and they couldn't reach me, again in Australia.

5 years ago all the branches I visited refused to open an account although I had O-A visa, residence certificate and 12 months lease. Then I brought my gf which deals with them very often and the staff became very friendly. I opened accounts with Krungsri and Bangkok bank. Didn't have to pay anything or buy insurances. At that time I didn't really care too much, as with O-A one doesn't really need bank account at all, but later when I converted tourist visa to Non-O retirement they came very handy. Later I got a credit card with Bangkok bank, no issues at all as I had an account already. As this is Thailand, it would vary between the various provinces and branches. For Samui I would recommend Krungsri at Central, upper floor. I had to visit the branch a few times last 2 weeks, every time there were some Russians (or Ukrainians?) opening accounts.

They will gladly sell you at the normal price if you tell them "no coupons for me"

Pork products are now prohibited item, 200k baht fine and up to 2 years in prison. This was valid last year, not sure what's the situation now. https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3639027

No they won't fine you as you submitted documents and you are "under consideration". I was in the same boat a few years ago. Came with 2 months tourist visa after my O-A visa expired and proceeded to do visa change from tourist visa to Non-O retirement. "No possible mister!" It took me quite a few trips to the immigration office, the last with my gf "to convey the message" as I wasn't sure they understand me completely. In the end after a bit of "tea money" I was OKed, then it took them probably 6-7 weeks, I probably called them more than 10 times as it seemed I overstayed quite a bit my 2 months tourist visa. Since then extended 3 times for 1 year, no problems with the extensions. Needless to say my paperwork was meticulous and everything was done on time, probably the only mistake was that I had twice the required retirement extension amount in the bank book, around 1.6m, and it was early covid times, the hunger times at the Immigration..????

Sure...this is only an option to consider if he goes back. In his current circumstances a corrupt agent would be probably the cheapest way to open an account.

It did make a difference in my case, however I had the right visa and all the required documents. However this was 5 years ago and I see the requirements have changed: https://www.bangkokbank.com/en/Personal/Save-And-Invest/Save/Savings-Account For foreigners For more information, please contact any Bangkok Bank branch. This is under the required documents, there used to be a clear information here, with the list of the documents required. Looks like the things are getting worse in that aspect.

I do understand the requirements because I already had one - 800k baht equivalent in Oz bank account with visa issued in Sydney. This amount in Oz bank account currently can bring around 35k baht on term deposit per year, enough to cover the O-A cost including the insurance requirements, with some change left. If I start again from scratch it would be probably my preferred initial option again.

There would be nothing funny if he doesn't manage to open a bank account in his 60 or 90 days on his tourist visa. Having said that O-A would be probably the last option to consider, as he is already here. TiT so eventually he'll probably find an accommodating branch.

Maybe true in Bangkok or Pattaya, but I never had to present a 90 days report to get a certificate. In fact I did my first report Feb this year...The Samui immigration required only a lease.

I opened my accounts when I had O-A visa, even then most of the branches refused to open an account. Bringing a Thai who had substantial amount of money in the same branch made all the difference.

If that proves too difficult another option is to get O-A visa with minimum insurance, and during the visa period to sort out all banking etc. Added benefit you might get better interest on your 800k in your home country.

https://www.desklessnomad.com/buy-two-airline-seats-or-entire-row/ It is hard to get extra baggage with full service economy tickets. Apparent exceptions are airlines in the US. The best for carrying extra luggage are the low cost airlines, but is hard to get tickets to Europe, there are only a few routes. Let us know whether you managed to do it.

The Germans are getting angry again...AFD is apparently now polling better than any of the three ruling parties. https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/germany-afd-ahead-of-scholzs-spd-in-poll/

The expensive LNG only accelerated the trend. Germany is rapidly deindustrializing, due to massive competition from East Asia - Japan, South Korea, and the worst is now coming from China. There is a panic now in EU how to prevent the Chinese to take over the EU car markets with their superior EV car offerings. Higher tariffs are increasingly rumoured. Germany is a resource poor country and relies on high value exports, which experience ever increasing competition. Importing expensive resources like LNG only decreases further their competitiveness.

https://mronline.org/2023/05/23/peak-china-a-new-low-in-western-attempts-to-persuade-china-to-commit-suicide/ In the meantime China climbed to be the top car exporter in the world in the first 4 months of 2023.

Well...one can't expect to see a positive article about the Chinese tourists from an American government propaganda outlet. At the moment in Samui there are quite a few Chinese spending well in the restaurants and shops. Quite a bit of help during the low season.

As usually rubbish reporting from ThaiExaminer, FB level and below. There is already a departure tax of 700 baht, so the passengers won't pay "1000 baht more" As far as the apocalyptic tourism picture painted by some is concerned, the departure tax is implemented by a lot of countries: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Departure_tax Would any government slug you with extra tax if they can? You bet. There are rumours that the Australian departure tax is going to go up in the next budget due in a few days. It would be really stupid to levy 500 baht tax for land border crossings, it would kill the inbound land tourism from Malaysia.

Air is good if you live in Phuket or Samui. No air tax there, on the opposite less stress, add a few extra years.