downtown

thai religion? do they have a patent over buddhism?

the prominent high ranking members of tesco and 7-11 who are murdered everyday as reported in BP. the inextricable connection between percentage of chinese people wearing glasses and china's majestic rise to superpowerdom

the mastermind behind it all is actually jimmy hoffa; also the head of the illuminati

chimney sweepers were great

well if it aint captain lenin himself

Well my little darling is chinese thai

Yes......of course she is....... (snigger).

No need to lie mate!!!! why you think otherwise?

( snigger 2 ) , you'll be telling us next you came to Thailand to visit the temples and learn Buddism.

i came for the ambience but stayed for the magnificient service standards

yes, thailand's gdp is much higher than the UK. thailand will never match the likes of south korea, japan, singapore because of the incompetence, laziness and corruption

slight exaggeration

very interesting post Jim and i agree with you to a certain extent. next month wifey and my 2 year old daughter make our annual trip to the village and for those few weeks i love it there and the different pace of life/different values. i know a lot of other foreigner husbands who wouldnt set foot in their wife's village because they're snobs=their loss

on previous two trips my daughter loved life in the village; nature, animals, playing outside(which she cant do at home). but by living their we would limit her future. it reminds of that english guy living as a farmer in issan(the one on youtube, speak thai fluently and advises on farming issues). his children are growing up in the village. some might argue he's denying them a decent education and deciding their future for himself but hey they're his kids

yes Bulgarian companies are world leaders in sustainability, fair trade, career development and vodka-filled turnips

I often get asked by expats in Ubon what is the best school to send their children to and what do I think of the education system here in town. I really don’t know. People say the YES school is good. Others prefer Thai government schooling.

I have decided to rather publicly state my thoughts and opinions.

Another motivating factor was that my 26 year old son was home last week from Bangkok where he works and he informed me that the Thai education system was useless and that he didn’t learn much at school. Rather, his learning came from his late mother and myself and his own studies. I was a little surprised.

We came to Ubon in 1994 when he was 8. In NZ he had gone to small Catholic primary school with 240 pupils. I was keen for him to go to Assumption because it looked good and was close to our old house. No way said my wife’s family who are all teachers. Aunubaan Ubon is the only primary school worth considering. So he went there. Thrown into the deep end with 2,000 kids cramped into a small space like chickens. Hardly any Thai language. Had to sit exams within 4 weeks of starting. Came bottom of his Bor 2 class. We hired a university student for 1 hour every evening from 6-7 to help him with his homework My wife was private teaching English at home and my Thai skills, while good, weren’t good enough to properly explain homework in Thai to him. The university student came nearly every school day evening for 5 years. My son slowly improved and by the time he got to the end of primary school he was top of the whole grade.

Then on to Benchamart High School. We lived just outside the school zone so he had to sit the entrance exam which he passed. He loved Ben. We then built a new home not far from Ben so he could walk to school. On weekends he went to tutorial classes in chemistry, physics, math and sometimes Thai language. But never English. We never worried about English. He learnt that at home. On three occasions he came first in Thailand in English competitions. He enjoyed army cadets-a break from sitting in a classroom.

From Ben he sat national entrance exams and went to King Mongut Institute in Bangkok (baan mot campus) to do computer engineering. Upon graduating he joined Reuters in their product development department. He now has his own business.

All his friends at Ben were slackers. They never seemed to work. The teachers hated teaching that class. But they were bright. All of them have now graduated from university and have got good jobs.

So when my son said he didn’t learn much I said, you and your slack friends have done okay. But Dad the Thai system is all on memory. We don’t learn to think, analyze and critically discuss. We only learnt Thai history from the perspective of Kings and learnt nothing about the outside world. However, we had a good time. (He said cheating and coping is a developed skill learnt from kindergarten).

Which brings me to the present day. If I was trying to decide what to do with my children’s education in Ubon I wouldn’t be able to give advice. I really don’t know. Traffic is horrible. Maybe try to live as close as possible to a school. Do a lot of educating at home and don’t be too serious about the school system here.

Maintain the English skills. With good English-Thai language skills finding jobs are relatively easy in Thailand. Get the children to read English books. Novels and world history.

When I look overseas, I see so many young people unable to get a job. Just look at Spain. Nearly 50% unemployment in the 18-25 year bracket. But here in Thailand, with education, jobs appear to be fairly easy to get.

Anyway, just my little story of having a son go through the Thai education system in Ubon. He did okay, even if his geography and world history need considerable improvement.

i would love to relocate my family back to ubon but this post correctly tells me to make sure my daughter gets a decent education in the UK

naturally no thai corporations enslave their own then, heaven forbid

i do but im in the uk.

her books, along with david smyth's, are the best books one can buy IMHO

i like uncle bulgaria if that helps

i wasted a few minutes of my life on this thread...now i want that time back

^ha ha ! ^that brings back memories. my old man has a poster of that writing in the loo, still makes me laugh even now

reminds me of a case a few years ago on the isle of wight. two women had ate poisonous mushrooms - one died the other severely ill. when the story broke, my missus said "probably some stupid english people", nope, it was two thais

good school and ubon? ummm malfunction

^good because it was badly needed. last time i went in there it was empty save a few mafiaoso types so i made a swift exit

^great stuff

wiggo makes us all proud and another brilliant win by Cav. happy and sad day for me, as i havent been able to cycle since 2007 because of a chronic ITB problem. for those of you who cycle, you are privileged

nearly had a tear in my eye as wiggo punched the air to confirm his victory. i see the wags are having their own tussle, as froome's missus has a pop at wiggo and wiggo's missus retaliates. ive stood twice on the champs elysees to watch the final stage and really wish i could be there tomorrow.

over the moon for Cav today and showed that he can do it on his own and launch from the back, the manx missile indeed. sagan isnt fit Cav's cleats

agreed. wiggins should have let froome go, im pretty sure he would have caught valverde who was slowing up.