doji

Yea I once saw this weird looking farang constantly giggling at the corner of a coffeeshop with his thai young lovebird while I was trying to enjoy my favorite ladnaa. He looked like one of those atomic scientists who just got released from the Iranian prison after had been kidnapped and held for40 yrs in captivity by the Ayatollah Khamenei.

Geez at least some of these old geezers would have thought better to groom themselves up first before a date!....like a smart dress, pressed shirt, a bit of face moisturizer ,a few tweezies here & there around the eyebrows / mustasche etcs….

Actually it's not an uncommon sight with many farangs in Thailand really. Why do many farangs in Thailand are so down right dirty or unkept looking?

The rules were in place waaaay before your kid even borned. Why are you sending your kid to a cheap public school, if you don't like the rules?

Take him out to a private school, simple as that……..instead of ranting that you don't like that and this. Are you trying to teach your kid to be a whiner?

I have no problem about the enquire wants to know about street lights.

However by adding the implication if this a "cultural thingy", it soon became apparent to me that this is not simply a fact finding inquiry only, but opening the door for another yet again thai bashing thread.

Don't you all get tired doing this over and over again, day in and day out? And don't you all have nothing else better to do than thinking up mostly negative things to say about Thailand, its people and culture?

I'm not implying that everything in Thailand is all soo goody goody or rooosy roooosy. All countries have its own flaws.

But to get up everyday and only see and want to talk about all the negatives (or imagine it to be like that/ or use your one time negative experience to blanket everything else to be the same)…it's just weird and twisted. I hope you guys are not the unified leaders of the majority of expats here in Thailand.

I like chatting up with many expats here in Thailand so I can learn a thing or two about them/ their life experiences, their country, or why did they choose Thailand…etcs. There are many good bunches out there, I was fortunate enough to have came across. But in thaivisa….well what can I say. I didn't know before that so many expats that live here have so much dislikes about the place and people.

Or it could be only me that have the problem, or making the hill from a mole( so to speak)…..pls accept my advance apology if this is the case.

PS...My previous reply was based on the similar experience that had happened in my neighborhood in bkk around rush hour traffic, to ease the congestion in certain direction. Sometimes the traffic police programs the light differently in duration/ or shut them off completely. Don't ask me why, they just do it that way.

Instead of so quick in making up another "yet again" unfounded judgment about Thailand and thai people. Why don't you all move your tootsies down to the nearest traffic police station and ask the question?

You will be quite surprised of how logical the answer it can be… as why it happened. Easy as that.

I thought the so called "first world" education supposes to teach you to think more logically first as what might be the cause(s) of it, instead of being so quick in making another racist comment.

.............6 of you up there, except mr. Slapout who is at the borderline & appear to be the least of all the 5 evils above.

Clue: ….Most major cities in Thailand, at some point during the day, will use this method. Unless it's really a mechanical malfunctioned, then what I just said …doesn't apply

Well I'm a thai, and I do tip regularly......(only to selected groups tho)

Taxi......don't normally tip,unless I have to stop at several places for a few minutes along the way.....just a courtesy for waiting for me

Songtheaw......never

FoodStalls...... never,.....unless I eat there, so normally about a few baths to a busboy/girl (feel sorry for them, such a low paying job)

Massage......I don't frequent these places

Mae ban..... me too, small gifts from time to time,... esp during holidays and newyear time - a few hundred bahts extra

Waiters in real resturants........normally about 5% + any coins left over

Barber......never, I cut my own hair and do my own nails

fyi......Mostly I see tipping as one of the ways in helping those who are less fortunate than me, for most part......(not really for serving me tho).

Natchainuk,

I'm also a thai woman……I know what you're trying to convey.

However…….I don't agree that foreign men only meet bar girls. Rather, at bars and pubs are where most foreign men tend to frequently congregate. And these places are where most opportunist girls know that they can find "more of" gullible men who are clueless about Thailand/ thai girls/ thai cultures…..

But if these men have their wits and commonsense as parts of their personal trait, then less likely they will get scammed by those girls. The same is also true wherever they happen to be a world over or whatever they choose to be doing at any given moment. Not all girls there are bad of course, but the majority of them are already shaped up by that bar scene environment and barfriends to be that way….like a majority.

In my general opinion,…..if you're looking in a gutter, then you will find "more of" a gutter rats...(for both thais and farangs). Not necessary only in bars, it could be any places with a like kind environment, if you don't pay careful attention with whom you have chosen to surround yourself with.

Generally ....Like kind attracts like kind…..that's what I think

About HISo vs LOSo…

I think these terms are over used and over simplified among many thais and farangs here. Just because a person with higher education, white skin, more money….don't automatically make a person a HISO or vice versa. It takes much more than those surface attributes to make one a true hi-so or lo-so, in many thais' eyes. Only those that are less shallow mind (both thais and farangs) know the differences and be able to identify and label a person as such and such.

Just my 2 satangs here

FYI

Most thais are quite a nationalist, so be sure to have plenty of positive things to say about Thailand.

In the mean time….keep practicing on the thai national anthem, you might be asked to sing that too eventually.

Choke dee

Yes on the ground floor, their counter is inside the terminal door "NOT outside the door".

I hired one to HuaHin for 3500 B, just to give you some price idea.

what smell ?...

Thais have seen farangs, white people for more than 20 years wlaking up and down on sukhumvit and gradually also spreading out in the rest of the country, still they see no difference whatsoever.

I think it is more to their own disadvantage than ours.

As a generality, Thais are just not an intellectually curious people.

As a generality, from a Thai middle class point of view, foreigners are rude, loud, uneducated, sex obsessed and cheap.

Not exactly the kind of people you want to associate with.

As a generality of course ...

+1 ..........I would say mostly farangs tho....generality of course

.... the type of tourist is changing. Chiang Mai is loosing it's appeal to the sex pats.

Glad to hear that ......

I thought farang = foreigner ? Non Thai !

This is not the same as

(A = B , B = C),………therefore (A = C)

Ordering 3 large meals?..............got to be at least 1/2 farang !

Ban Sang Thai Daroon Orphanage (บ้านแสงไทยดรุณ)

Huen Nam Jai Orphanage, Chiang Mai, Thailand

Baan King Kaew Chiang Mai Orphanage Foundation

------------------------------------------------

A few suggestions here......Check these 3 out on Youtube,.....very sad

I will also give them a visit when I'm up there this coming Feb

Does anyone know....where is the biggest and best value for moo-kata place?

Thxs in advance

^

Haha… "perfect timing" really, as no better time to know if one can live there or not during the worst time of the year.

And also to see what makes some of the expats there ticked about bangkoknians.

My wife is a real estate agent and her phone has been ringing non stop this last week with people calling from BKK. One women came yesterday and put a down payment down the same day. She has shown quite a few people around and a lot of them talk about getting away from the floods. Also people looking for a place to rent.She took two couples around this week that are talking to the bank about loans both from BKK. How many will buy I dont know,but the floods are making people think about moving up here.

I don't know about a mass influx of other bangkoknians, but as for me I need to get away from the ever increasing pollution level, traffic, and having to deal with constant flooding more or less year after year.

Of course I can always shell out the expense of redesigning / lifting our house up to keep us safe and dry, but you then still have to deal with how to get your food supplies when everywhere else is flooded.

A friend of mine who just bought a house in Rungsit -klong3 area recently, had thought she was quite safe from the flood......but noooooooo. She will have to pray hard next year and the next....'cause she doesn't have a luxury of be able to move out after just spent 6M. Chaingmai, and Bangsaen are the top 2 places I have heard many of my friends are talking about.

Yes count me in, as another bangkoknian who will be looking for a house up there soon, luckily I can work from home. Don't know if I will buy or build...or even the city is interesting enough to move up there permanently. I like Chiangmai due to having cooler weather, many night markets, friendly atmosphere, still well preserved local culture..etcs However I know that being there as a tourist is much different than as a long stayer. I will be there the whole month of Feb checking it out....so will see

To Ajarn

haha ....quite funny really___Because I have been asking myself the same exact questions about your home country US of A ....." should I stay.....or should I leave?

Working expat here is not having an easy life either.

Most Ferangs Marry Bar Girls, then regret it.... then slag off the Chinese cause their tarts do....

As for Hate,its just that most folks get pissed off by P.C. Cowards. and Lefties telling them what to think.. They wouldn't take a Prostitute back to see Mom, or blow their life savings on one. Make yer Bed , lie on it.

also slagging off all thai men...'cause their tarts do

^

Some may be driven by poverty, but I think most of them were driven by the easy lifestyle and fast money because they're too lazy to do a honest hardwork. There are more poor girls selling foods ..etcs at the markets all over Thailand than those in the sex industry, because they have higher moral std and self respect of themselves and nothing to be ashamed of flipping noodles. I have more respect to the later kind.

This is seen as insensitive to *western* culture, ... et alors? WWII for Thailand was all about Japan, not Germany and the holocaust.

Now for a catholic school, certainly the teacher(s) following the students' work should have known better.

It is a good lesson for the Thai students in cultural sensitivity, but the outrage seen here is, perhaps, overdone. (IMHO).

Others have made good points, Japan/China/1930s, religious symbols, etc...

True at that....WWII was all about Japan. To the thais, what happened at Nanking is more shocking than the holocaust.

I wonder, how many westeners, kids or adults, have even heard of the name Nanking.....talking about the knowledge of world history from their education system...hmm

Chinese will take the average man forever to master.

With an English background, a good and easy language to master will be bahasa Indonesia.

It is romanised pronunciation similar to English and very useful in south east asia, indonesia alone is massive and you can use it in countries like Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei.

Yup - fully agree, I really struggled with Mandarin Chinese (and Thai) due to the tones, but Bahasa Indonesia is really, really easy to pick-up and it goes a long way in SE Asia.

If you do not fancy Indonesian / Malay then have a bash at Hindi - I enjoyed learning Hindi and you'll find that a lot of people from S Asia can speak it.

Londo

Yep I'm learning the Bahasa Indonesian currently, it's quite easy to pick up. This will be my third....beside the Thai and English.

I have heard after china, Indonesia is suppose to be the next big thing, so I'm learning it now........and along with how to cook their diff types of SATE

I don't know about learning the Mandarin, most chinese businessmen/ tourists nowadays can speak and understand english quite well actually.

I'm surprised at the outcome of the poll - seems like posters are walking around with their eyes and ears closed.

Do you actually live in Thailand?

Full time since 1986

It's not the length, but the "strength"

The poll's result so far is correct.

Agree with Richard, it's unfamiliar to 99% of Thais, and does have a unique aroma and flavour.

Nothing to do with cute fluffy lambs, they have all just told me they don't like the smell or the taste

yep.......

....Tell me, where the heck else in the world are you gonna get all those gorgoeus sceneries/ and girls too plus the thai food all so cheap!?

+555

I too will be enjoying Chiangmai great foods and gorgeous sceneries this Feb................but not into the girls tho