Jawnie

I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but it is a violation of Buddhist practice to drink any day. It's one of the five vows for lay Buddhists, to abstain from alcohol.

Your re-entry permit will be valid only for the period of your current permission to stay, or three months. The re-entry permit will have an expiration date, ie.' it will read, "Valid until [date]"

It's heartening to know somebody has had a positive experience at Chaeng Watthana, but after many visits for many reasons over many years, my wife and I are still waiting for our first.

Maybe the congratulations should be put on hold until good service (if you can call three hours a good service) is the norm rather than the exception.

The Chaeng Watthana complex is rather impressive in it's facilities and seems to contribute the Immigration Service's efficiency in some ways.

However, more than 3 hours for processing a visa is not good and I'm sure it's considerably beyond their internal quality management guidelines.

It was for processing THREE different applications/items:

1) 90-day extension of my ED visa.

2) 90-day residency report (yes, I know I can to it by mail but I do it at the center).

3) Single re-entry permit.

Three different items....not only for the visa extension.

Credit should be given when credit is due. You should always say "thank you" when someone helps you, even if it is their job. This is not an exception and it's happened this quickly before - this is simply the first time I've posted for it. Don't be negative.

Excellent! Where you on a fast track?

Looks like they missed their set performance target.

Nope, just a walk-in.

I want to publicly thank Immigration Services at the government complex at Chaengwattana for their GREAT service last week. I completed an extension of my ED visa, my 90-day resident report, and a re-entry permit in three hours last Friday. In at 8:45am and out by 12:00. Great job!!

Stealing is defined as 'taking that which is not given.' Doesn't matter if it's digital.

A friend once found a check for almost $3,000US. He was a buddhist and a long-time friend. He was sitting trying to think of a way to cash the check even though there was contact information on the check. I said, '<deleted>, aren't you gonna return the check?" He got off into a rant that the person probably really wouldn't miss the money because it was made to a consulting business. I said, 'It's not yours to keep or your decision to make". He relented and call the person who wrote the check. Stealing is taking what isn't give, especially if you know it's not given.

I'm not worried about what the wacko Yellows do. I'll be watching for whether the police allow PMs in and out of the building or stop Yellows from disrupting the functioning of Parlament. That's where the real action is..

It's not just high school kids being tutored, either. I was on a date at the Terminal 21 Starbucks. We walked into the area, looked around and I saw one guy (an adult Thai in business attire) with a laptop using two tables. I walked over and began to sit at the vacant table. He said, "Hey, what are you doing?" It was obvious so I said simple that we want a table. He said I couldn't have the second table because he was waiting for some people to show up for a meeting. I started getting a little steamed, but my Thai lady friend called me off and we sat somewhere else. It doesn't just happen at Starbucks....MacDonalds is another place where one person will sit at a table for four zoned out on a smart phone while people with kids or couples search for seats.

In the US, squatters like this get moved out pretty quickly.

Pitiful. This is the main problem with capitalism, its unequal distribution of wealth. The exploitation of Thai workers is an abomination which this law was intended to begin to correct. How can the business owners and corporate executives sleep at night knowing full well they are maintaining the poverty life-styles of their fellow Thais? Despicable, selfish, and cowardly.

Most of the businesses in Thailand are small family enterprises, and quite often the nett income of the family workers does not equal the new minimum wage. Should we legislate fro minimum profits too, or simply allow the inflation caused by lump increases in wages to reduce the lifestyles of these people?

Other businesses have incomes that allow for the owners to have a reasonable income greater than the wage they pay their employees. They must be allowed earnings to compensate for their capital outlay and entrepreneurship, otherwise businesses will never be started. Why should they be penalised with a savage increase in labour costs, giving them the choice of reducing already slim margins or increasing costs so as to become uncompetitive?

The B300/day policy was not aimed at equal distribution of wealth but buying of votes from the uneducated and gullible who could not foresee the likely consequences.

It is not a "penalty" to require businesses with employees to pay employees a living wage. Yours is the same false "the sky is falling" scare tactic about lost jobs, businesses won't be started, etc., used by all pro-business people every time the topic of fair pay comes up. There is no proof of what you say, it is only rhetoric.

A business in not viable if it can not pay its employees a working wage. If a business can only exist by paying workers subsistence (or lower) pay, it isn't a viable business and it is taking more from society that it gives through the devaluation and de-humanization of its employees.

Great - the business that WAS viable yesterday gets a wage hike of 50%+ and is no longer viable so it shuts down. The employees that WERE getting B200/day now get SFA as they are unemployed. I wonder which way they would vote in your little morals crusade.

Give me one good reason why the minimum wage couldn't be increased over a period of time, say 10% every 6 months, to allow businesses time to adapt.

I agree with a slow increase...as long as it is going up for grossly underpaid workers. Currently, they are being unabashedly cheated and robbed.

More to the point is the poor pay for college-educated although I disagree that they should get the first increases over others, such as service workers. Sounds like a recipe for accelerating the income gap. And, as soon as those higher-paid, educated workers get into management and ownership positions, they will scream the same "sky is falling" rhetoric when they are asked to raise wages. This is one of the main problems with capitalism.

The convoluted tale of Mr. Jatuporn is a perfect exemplar for Thailand's self-dug grave.

"The Land of Smiles": one of the most successful marketing slogans of all time.

Pitiful. This is the main problem with capitalism, its unequal distribution of wealth. The exploitation of Thai workers is an abomination which this law was intended to begin to correct. How can the business owners and corporate executives sleep at night knowing full well they are maintaining the poverty life-styles of their fellow Thais? Despicable, selfish, and cowardly.

Most of the businesses in Thailand are small family enterprises, and quite often the nett income of the family workers does not equal the new minimum wage. Should we legislate fro minimum profits too, or simply allow the inflation caused by lump increases in wages to reduce the lifestyles of these people?

Other businesses have incomes that allow for the owners to have a reasonable income greater than the wage they pay their employees. They must be allowed earnings to compensate for their capital outlay and entrepreneurship, otherwise businesses will never be started. Why should they be penalised with a savage increase in labour costs, giving them the choice of reducing already slim margins or increasing costs so as to become uncompetitive?

The B300/day policy was not aimed at equal distribution of wealth but buying of votes from the uneducated and gullible who could not foresee the likely consequences.

It is not a "penalty" to require businesses with employees to pay employees a living wage. Yours is the same false "the sky is falling" scare tactic about lost jobs, businesses won't be started, etc., used by all pro-business people every time the topic of fair pay comes up. There is no proof of what you say, it is only rhetoric.

A business in not viable if it can not pay its employees a working wage. If a business can only exist by paying workers subsistence (or lower) pay, it isn't a viable business and it is taking more from society that it gives through the devaluation and de-humanization of its employees.

Pitiful. This is the main problem with capitalism, its unequal distribution of wealth. The exploitation of Thai workers is an abomination which this law was intended to begin to correct. How can the business owners and corporate executives sleep at night knowing full well they are maintaining the poverty life-styles of their fellow Thais? Despicable, selfish, and cowardly.

The guy has been eating too many Freedom Fries.

"Land of Smiles". One of the most successful marketing slogans of all time.

I certainly am not having a go at HH Dalai Lama, quite the opposite. I was merely trying to point out that, in the face of Thai criticism of farang Buddhist that, I as a farang Buddhist, note some questionable leanings among Thai Buddhists. Cheers!

Women are women, wherever you go and you've got to mind your manners regardless. Just learn what goes in the culture you find yourself.

My pet-peeve with Thai women is that they give, even offer, their phone number upon meeting them but they really had no intention of ever seeing you again. It's been explained they do this to save face, my face, so that I won't feel bad. But, I have never taken it like that...it's lying, pure and simple.

We are usually asked to learn the local culture and respect it. However, it's really a situation involving two cultures - mine and hers, not just hers. I think Thai women need to understand this, that the cultural impulse to tell me something I want to hear to spare my feelings doesn't translate well into Western culture. Again, it is simply lying.

Lying to a guy the first time you meet him makes him feel much worse than refusing a phone number.

Better yet, if the the woman feels the need to lie, er...uh, I mean, save my face, she should have a more plausible lie in hand for this such as, "Sorry I'm married/have a boy friend" etc. This gets everybody through it without offending anyone. I will never know that she does not have a bf or husband, but I will certainly know that she was lying to me after she puts me off endlessly during phone calls and ultimately never sees or speaks to me again.

Wise up, girls.

I was Buddhist long before I came to Thailand. I follow Tibetan Buddhism with its Mahayana and Vajrayana teachings. Tibetan Buddhism is not well accepted in Thailand. I've heard a few reasons. One, Thais (Theravadins) say the Buddha did not teach Mahayana and Vajrayana. But, they are mistaken and simply missed it (like the Jews did not recognize Jesus). Second, because of the sexual imagery in tantric Buddhism, Thais are somehow 'offended' by this saying it is disrespectful of the Buddha - again, they miss the meaning even when it is explained, over and over. Moreover, a Theravadin 'scholar' once described the Bodhisattva Vow of the Mahayana, ie., the vow to renounce personal enlightenment until all other beings achieve it first, as nothing more than attachment to the world, calling it a sin. This was one of the most perverse understandings I've ever heard from a fellow Buddhist.

It is telling to me that HH Dalai Lama has not visited Thailand in over 40 years even though Thailand is a Buddhist country. This is such a glaring hypocrisy to me. I've got issues with monks who smoke and own guns, too. But that's just me.

Respecting (or disrespecting) images of the Buddha is not about the Buddha. It's about maintaining and extending mindfulness of the Buddha and his teachings. As one progresses along the path from Theravada to Mahayana and Vajrayana, devotion to the teacher (in living form or as an image) becomes an "escalating" requirement.

Hi Jawnie - maybe I ate too much somtam this morning and the peppers are messing with my head, but I'm confused.

What exactly do you mean by 'As one progresses along the path from Therevada to Mahayana and Vajrayana'?

Do you mean that each branch is a step higher than the other, or holds practices that are more refined than the others? Or did you mean 'as one progresses along the path following the teachings of his/her respective sect'?

Yes, Mahayana and Vajrayana practices are more 'refined', more direct, and work more quickly than Theravada. Theravada does not have the guru-disciple relationship; Mahayana has the relationship; and in Vajrayana, one surrenders completely to one's guru as being a living embodiment of the enlightened mind of the Buddha.

Does anyone else remember the early "lack of toilets" and "lack of seating" problems?

When there was only ONE male and ONE female toliet area for ALL passengers waiting in the check-in area?

And when there was only one seating area for your Thai family and friends to wait while you cheked in for your international flight?

I've seen my family wait for over two hours while I slowly shuffled toward the check-in booths in a queue for more than two hours just to check my one single bag.

I remember those days,

I remember too the Thai airport official....but unfortunately I can't recall his name now....who when asked about the lack of seating said,

"We don't want passengers to sit in this airport....we want them to be in the shops buying things instead of just sitting and waiting".

For once, perhaps unintentionally, he spoke the real truth about that airport.

That airport was designed and intended from the very beginning as an expensive shopping mall, not as an airport first. Selling expensive items to tourists was it's primary concern.

The profit, and the corruption and kickbacks were in the business of "arranging" the best locations for wealthy shop owners who coild and would pay for preferred shop locations.

That's where the money was...and that was the primary interest of airport officials who had the authority to "arrange" things.

The shops generated money for them....toilets, seating, and also safe and well-constructed runways DIDN'T make money for them.

That fact, right there, is at the heart of the problems with the airport today.

The same "seating issue" is in place with the train stations: MRT, BTS, Airport Link...no places to sit. Ugh!!!

Respecting (or disrespecting) images of the Buddha is not about the Buddha. It's about maintaining and extending mindfulness of the Buddha and his teachings. As one progresses along the path from Theravada to Mahayana and Vajrayana, devotion to the teacher (in living form or as an image) becomes an "escalating" requirement.

"Ombudsman Siracha Charoenpanij said the new law would comprise punishment for companies offering advice to foreigners on how to hold Thai property by disguising their legal transaction. This would include law firms and consultants."

Question: how will the Thai authorities find and prosecute lawyers and real estate agents when they can't even stop the cops from shaking down motorcycle taxi drivers?

You might try to find a Thai historian to look at it for you....at a university.

Or, carry it to Wat Phrakaow, the National Palace, ask around and show it around. Someone there might be able to send you in the right direction.