chuckd

Come on, Johan. Surely you know what advantages we, as men, have over women.

1. We can scratch where it itches.

2. We don't have to own more than one pair of shoes.

3. Anything we wear is color coordinated (to us).

4. We don't have to carry a purse. (If you are a poofter, this doesn't apply.)

5. We understand football and actually played baseball.

6. We do not understand the remote control but accept it as it is.

7. We think Oprah is dumb, even if she is rich.

8. We know when we have had too much to drink. We tip over.

9. We can hit the golf ball farther than most women.

10. We can pee standing up.

11. We understand the internal combustion engine.

12. We know what the hood ornament is on a Mack truck.

13. We think Harleys sound better than Honda Waves.

These are just a few advantages we have as men. Add more as you see fit.

As for women, I leave you with this thought....."Can anything that bleeds for five days and not die... be trusted?"

meemiathai:

You wanna talk about owning property?

meadish_sweetball:

...Yep!

Now, as for you, MR. Samran:

Yeah, I have seen that family you describe. Ethel is shielding little Jimmy's eyes from the dreadful sight of a bar girl. Her husband, Fred, is falling into potholes in the sidewalk from ogling those same bar girls.

Then they go back to the hotel and watch television with the kiddies.

"What's on tonight, Ethel?" says Fred.

"Look, Fred. We are going to get the 'Michael Jackson Story', the 'Sopranos' and 'NYPD Blue'. And the movie on tonight is that one with Eminem as the rap singer. Won't the kids enjoy that?" says Ethel.

I ask you which is likely to have the most lasting impact on the little kiddies?

I have also seen those tour buses full of Taiwanese/Korean/Chinese/Japanese (choose one or all) tourists. They are usually playing follow the leader into a tourist type place (i.e. snake farm, crocodile farm, elephant show, aquarium,go-go bar) where they spend a total of 42 baht each and then trail each other out to the bus and go to the next stop. The only industry they will support is a limited hotel industry and a burgeoning bus industry.

In the meantime, what are you gonna do with the 30-50,000, or more, put out of work? Maybe your nuke idea wasn't so far off the mark. At least you won't have the unemployment to worry about.

Glad we got that gender thing straightened out.

MMT:

As I recall, the law was changed by Parliament in order to equalize it. As you say, men married to farangs could always own property. I am not an attorney, I am a rocket scientist, so I must work from memory here.

Now as to your critique on my supposition about unemployment should the bars be nuked. I am sure all of the Thais working in the bar industry are NOT happy. All of the Thais working at Big C are NOT happy. What does that prove?

If they are in agony as you suggest, then it appears to me they can make the difficult choice to go home. Again, you see, we are getting back to choice. What you seem to be missing is that Thailand is a relatively free society. People can do pretty well as they please. If they choose to go into the bar business and are miserable, they can then return home. Nobody is chaining them to the bar. As for my daughter, I plan to insure she will not have to make the choice. She will have adequate funds to obtain her education and this will open up other doors for her.

Please let it be known that I think it commendable that you and MsNina are going to save the world from starvation and depraved men. I also don't really give a shit if MsNina comes here or not. I am just being realistic when I say she ain't gonna do any good. She will bank that year's salary. She might get her degree if that is what she is working for and she will likely get published somewhere with an article or book about the downtrodden women of Thailand. Anything other than that, I would be skeptical of happening.

If MsNina can change a system that has been in existence for many, many years in the one year she will be here, then I will be the first to say she is a superstar. If, however, she has no impact on the situation (which is highly more likely) then she is just another farang woman that knows not what she is doing.

I guess I'm a little dense.

Exactly what rights are being infringed upon here? MMT claims the right of a Thai lady married to a farang to own property is being denied. My understanding is this law was overturned some two years ago and any Thai woman can now own property. Some of you legal eagles can better respond to this issue.

Other than that issue....what rights do Thai men have that Thai women don't?

Samran:

You had me there! I thought you were a lady. I do have a question for you.

Suppose the bar business in Pattaya does end and go away, exactly how do you expect all of these people working in the industry in Pattaya to make a living? I have seen estimates that there are between 20,000 and 30,000 girls working in the bars in Pattaya. Add to this the various support industries such as liquor distributors, ice plants, motorcycle taxi drivers, motorcycle salesmen/ladies, cell phone shops and you have another 10,000 to 20,000 people out of work due to your nuclear action. So what happens to them? Oh yes, without the bars, the farang tourist will virtually stop so that means many of the restaurants will close, most hotels will be shut down, the shopping malls will suffer greatly and there will be layoffs galore. Many of the farangs will sell their homes for huge losses and. without the farangs there, the golf courses will suffer financially and some of them will even close and they will lay off their caddies and grounds crew. Now you have made it personal for me.

Methinks what you people need to do is to recognize that the bar/prostitution industry is here to stay and that all this chest beating and railing against each other does nothing but raise your blood pressure.

As for MsNina....she will come here, stay her year, do very little good and impact none of our lives, write her paper and return to her home for what could be a lesbian relationship. Thailand and most folks that meet her will be affected not at all by her appearance.

Samran:

Very good post. My congratulations.

You ask what would I do if given the choice between Prostitution and ???

I couldn't honestly say without knowing what the other options are. Perhaps I would choose any of the above to prostitution but I just don't know. All I know is that these girls are in the "game" because they have made the choice to do so. I have never said it was an easy choice nor have I said it was the right choice. Neither of those answers are for me to say. I have merely said it was a choice made by the person involved.

I guess your comments about Pattaya got to me. There are many good people in Pattaya and painting everybody with the same broad stroke is not right. I live in a mixed Thai/Farang estate and the Thais there are good, honest, hard working people. Your inference that Pattaya should be done away with does not sit right with me.

I moved to Pattaya from BKK in 1992. I moved because the traffic in BKK was driving me nuts and, believe it or not, so I could get to a golf course in a reasonable amount of time.

I guess, Samran, you are a perfect example of what I have been expounding. You are obviously well educated, comfortable in life and you must have a good job. You have had some opportunities that most other Thai girls from Issan or BKK have not had. You have been blessed but you have also not had to make the choice.

I hope my daughter has the same opportunities. I am sending her to an English curriculum school and intend to send her through to college so she will not have to make the choice of one or the other.

In the meantime, we in Pattaya would appreciate not being nuked.

samran says...."Live and let live, I say (although I'd drop an atomic bomb on Pattaya and sections of Sukhumvit, Phetchaburi and Silom, if I could)."

Now that is an interesting remark. You are ready to condemn the entire city of Pattaya and large sections of BKK for what reason? Because there is prostitution and you don't think there should be? Or is it because you have this not well thought out idea about legalizing prostitution? If you think you are going to cut out government officials, police and the so-called mafia, then you really are an "economist"....certainly not a "realist".

I guess you could put me in the old boy network. I first came to Thailand in 1976 and have been coming ever since. I lived in BKK in 1987-89, moved to Pattaya and bought a home. Got married to a Thai, divorced and got custody of my daughter, now aged 11. We now have a new home. I am raising my daughter as best I can and still working in the Middle East. She is with me here at the present. I will be retiring in 3 months and living in Pattaya (if it is still there after your nuclear attack!). I play golf, have many old friends (thus the old boy network thingie), drink very little and have a semi-regular TGF.

It is obvious you know as little about parts of Thailand as MsNina does. Perhaps you should come down from the ivory tower you are in and really "live and let live".

MsNina:

In spite of your emotional response, exactly what has the "trillions being spent by the military-industrial complex" have to do with this?

That sounds like a knee-jerk liberal reaction to everything. Blame big business...blame the military...blame everybody that is nameless and faceless.

I think you should blame the Psych 101 professor in college that has screwed with your mind, not everybody else. You seem to have some personal issues you should resolve before you ever think about coming to Thailand.

MsNina:

Let's examine your last post a little more closely and discuss it.

Obviously your only contact with working girls has been of the Aussie variety. I am not a fair evaluator of that venue, never having been to Australia. I have, however, utilized the services of working girls wordwide over a thirty year span so I am, while perhaps not considered an expert, am certainly knowledgable about the business. But let's look at the Thai p4p scene.

You state you do not see a choice being made between the rice paddy and the bedroom as being a real choice. Well, what would you call it? If the young lady can either work in the rice paddy to make some money or work in a bar to make some money and she chooses to work in the bar, that is a choice she has made. You dismiss the discussion on choice by saying if all options are bad, then there can be no choice? Pshaw! I say. She looks around her in the rice paddy and sees women, old, long before their time from the sun, water, constant work and unpleasant conditions. She then sees Noi or Nit just back from Bangkok with a pocket full of money, helping to support her family after working in the prostitution field. Now, put yourself in her place and tell me you would not make a choice, one way or the other. Rice paddy or the bedroom?

These girls have little formal education. You are obviously college educated, have a Western upbringing and are now coming over here to work with these girls with which you will have absolutely NO common ground. They do not have the opportunities for a career that you have. They can work in the rice paddy or the bar and that is it. They normally can't even get a job at one of the better restaurants unless they present their school papers and have the proper education.

As you look at the structure of their lives, you will rapidly see that education and poverty are the primary reasons they make the choices they do. Please don't bring any N. O. W. issues to the table. That isn't an issue over here. The issues are money and support for the family and how best to do this with what they have to work with.

I am happy to say I have contributed indirectly to many a family dinner up north over the past 25 years or so.

PS: I told you I was sarcastic. I see you chose not to forgive me in advance. Not "abusive", "fornicating".

Mango Head:

MsNina says there are billions of dollars being spent to solve the problems but very little is getting accomplished. Now they will think laterally (whatever that means) and come up with the solutions.

The billions being spent are probably going into the pockets of those that are spending it. NGOs are bad about that sort of thing. MsNina will be paid a year's salary and will come up with nothing too, despite all this lateral thinking. I hope she knows what she is in for.

I just hope she doesn't come to Pattaya and make me give up my fornicating ways.

Johan:

I don't know where you got the idea I thought the p4p scene was a "risk" to me. Far from it.

I have had a bad marriage from which I got a lovely daughter, who I am raising now. I got custody of the daughter and the debts. My ex-wife got the assets. This can happen anywhere and is not a product of the p4p scene. My ex-wife has paid a much harder price than I have. She had wasted the assets on her motorcycle taxi boyfriend in a matter of three months, was pregnant and he had kicked her out. My daughter and I now have a new home and we are fat, dumb and happy.

I no longer look for any relationships that require more than a few hours of committment. That's about all I am capable of.

natee 1:

Exactly what has your panties in a twist about my post?

If you don't like it, just say so. You might offer some constructive remarks but from what I have seen, you are only capable of the one liners.

I am a relative newbie to posting on this site but we can start a flaming war if you wish. If you decide to have a little get-together, try to use two or three syllable words. They make you appear so much more intelligent.

MsNina:

Thanks for the reasonable and unemotional response. I will try to do the same but I am caustic by nature so some sarcasm might leak out. In advance...please forgive the sarcasm.

Please do not come over here with the attitude that every lady in the p4p business is downtrodden and forced into the business. I do not frequent the lower end brothels where instances such as these may occur. What you will find is that the local population is the primary user of these type facilities. The expat community generally shuns it for various reasons but shuns it nevertheless. The lower end brothels are frequented by Thais and if you try and change this playground, you will really be "fighting city hall", so to speak.

The problem begins up-country where the people live at poverty level. They have few options to gain ground on their poverty other than having their daughters go into the business. This is where you should be working. Improve the level of income for the people and they will not send their daughters South to make the big bucks. The alternative for these girls is working a rice paddy or sewing up soccer balls for Nike at a minimum wage.

Now, to my personal experiences. I have frequented the p4p business on the upper end scale...the go-gos, massage parlors, bars, etc. The girls I have taken out have all been agreeable and willing partners in the experience. They have been well recompensed (by me, at least) and we have, in all cases save one, parted on a friendly note. The one instance was my ex-wife but that's another story. These girls are earning in one night what their parents earn in 10-15 days so I think you can see the allure. The girls I take out are happy (or I won't take them), fun to be with and glad to go with me. By the same token, many of these girls are players and can get blood out of a turnip, as the old saying goes. They are experts at giving the punters the story the guy wants to hear, provided he is willing to part with some baht on a regular or even partial basis. Don't think this is all a one way street of being exploited. We, the Westerners, are more book wise but some of these girls could teach a New York taxi driver a few schemes. You say prostitution is exploitation. After you see the scene locally, you might ask yourself who is being exploited.

One last thing you should consider is the act of sex as viewed by these girls and, in most cases, their families, is not a dirty or obscene thing to do. It is as natural as eating a meal or going shopping and carries no more shame than these acts do. They have no compunction against having sex with their boyfriend in the morning and going short time in the afternoon with another man and cannot understand why Western men see anything wrong with it. The man cannot do the same but they certainly can. Strange set of values in this respect.

Anyway, this is entirely too lengthy and is probably worth what you are paying for it, but you need to be fairly open-minded when you arrive and please don't come in with the attitude that all is wrong in Bangkok and you are all proper and correct. You will find that not to be the case. I hope your year will not be a waste of time but fear all you will do is write a report to GreenPeace or some such NGO and it will come to naught.

As for paedophiles...nail their ass to the barn door on Saturday night. They are the sickos.

MsNina says...."Believe it or not, getting a man is not a top priority with me."

I don't think you are going to find anybody that will dispute that statement.

I do have a couple of questions, though. As I understand it, you are planning on a trip to Thailand, right? Why? What do you propose accomplishing? Are you going to save some TBG from a life of sin and depravity and get her to follow the Gloria Steinem school of thought? Can you convince her she would be better off doing something you would prefer she do, and not the career path she has chosen?

I am relatively new to posting on the board although I have been a long time member, so please forgive me my ignorance in these matters...but, have you ever been to Thailand before? If so, can you recap a little of your experience from your previous field trip.

Now, lest you think I know not of what I speak...I first visited Thailand in 1976 and now live here. I have owned a bar, had a Thai wife and a Thai girlfriend (not at the same time) and am now, alas, single and happy. I am presently working outside the Kingdom but will retire within 90 days or so. I have enjoyed many pleasures of Thailand, the women being one of those pleasures. Golf is another but that's beside the point.

I apologize if my questions are too personal and am not trying to delve into your personal life. Just a little curious about what your aims are.

It comes with many years of practice, Mr. ...er, Mrs.....er Ms....Bluecat. What are you anyway?

When you have seen as many moons pass as I have, then deciphering who to open the door for becomes automatic. It takes many years of practice and more than a little whiskey.

Primarily if the Lady smiles and nods her head at the open door, it remains open. If not....not. If she has a little twinkle in her eye, the chair is pulled back for her. If not....not. It is not a precise science.

Well, you get the picture. Don't you?

Mrs. Cutie:

I will assume since you have a darling, you also have a marriage certificate, thereby earning you the honored title of "Mrs.". You will be addressed appropriately by me in the future.

I must admit, however reluctantly, that I am one of those dinosaurs known as a "male chauvinist pig". I think women, much as children, should be seen and not heard most of the time. I have been unlucky in love, thereby causing me to have this somewhat archaic attitude about the fairer sex. I enjoy opening doors for ladies, holding their chair for them and arising from the dinner table when they enter or exit the scene. I will also refuse to open those same doors for a woman that is not a lady, thereby causing them consternation. That having been said, I tend to scratch where it itches and have been known to pass gas in an elevator for a little excitement (I lead a dull life).

The ducks can forage elsewhere for dinner tonight.

Yohan:

If you want to cut and paste this to your thread, please feel free to. I don't know how.

Boon Mee/Goat Roper:

Don't forget the Grand Prix and Cloud Nine.

Zmegs:

You know I don't speak German.

I'll be back in three weeks. Will call you when I get there. Do they allow you to hijack threads over here?

I recently bought a house in Pattaya and put it in my 11 year old daughter's name. I have no wife. I had to sign for her at the land office but the Chanod is in her name and I have no ownership rights. She cannot sell it until she is 21 years old.

Oddly enough, she cannot go on the house book though without an adult Thai citizen going on it first. She can then be added if I so desired. I do not wish to add an adult Thai to the house book, so have decided to leave her registered where she is.

She has dual citizenship.

Hi, there, Ms. Cutie: (Or is it Mrs, Miss or what?)

I guess if I said it about women, then, gee...I must have meant women.

I would never take my kitty cat to the golf course either.

Just my two baht worth....

Women should be kept at home.....barefoot and pregnant.....and OFF the golf courses.

Except for those girls that work in bars!!!

epc

Zmegs:

What am I gonna do with you? A perfect chance to fob DG off on another board and you blew it. If he had another interest, that would distract him from posting those inane musings he goes through. He can't walk and chew gum at the same time. You know he couldn't keep up with posting on two boards.

I am just now catching up on this board.

By the way, all the avatars are blocked over here

epc

Zmegs:

Hi! Is this you?

I took my 11 year old daughter out of Don Muang on 16 April 2004. She had overstayed some 3 months on her US passport due to schooling.

When we reached the overstay desk at Don Muang, I noticed a large sign behind the desk that says "Children under 17 traveling with parents are not subject to overstay fines."

I paid NO fines and she left with me.

EPC

I just brought my daughter (age 11) out through Don Muang in April. Traveling on her US passport on which she was in an overstay position due to her schooling.

Large sign at the overstay desk says children under the age of 17 are not subject to fines if they are traveling with their parents.

I paid no fine for her.

Let me throw a new one at you. The last time I was there (Jan), I found this new place two minutes from my house. The food is terrific, both Farang and Thai. It is well prepared, inexpensive, the pepper steak is something to die for and the beer is cold. Now if I can just vector you in.

Go out Soi Nern Plub Wan (aka Muslim Road, aka Old Soi Formosa) heading away from Sukhumvit and toward the large temple and Siam Country Club. Almost exactly three (3) kilometers away from Sukhumvit, there will be a slight curve to the right in the road. It is in the apex of this curve that the restaurant is located.

It will be on your left heading away from Sukhumvit, has a wall around it, is well lighted with parking inside the perimeter wall. You will see some dining tables under the roof so it is recognizable as a restaurant. It is new, clean and the service is friendly and good. I highly recommend it.

I do not know the name of the place. It is owned by a Brit and managed by his Thai wife. I will be back in late March and will eat most of my meals there again. Here is the phone number for your taxi or if you should get lost:

09-062-1060

Good luck and enjoy.