CMHomeboy78

I was in the market last Friday and this total stranger foreigner tried to engage me with the unsolicited 'hello!' What is it with the farangs that feel they need to acknowledge the presence of another farang like we are buddies or what? Total weirdo. Probably one of these born-again Chiang Mai'ers. Bet he can't speak Faroese either.

Lay off 'Chiang Mai'ers.'

We're a diverse lot, and we prefer to be called 'eccentric'.

Otherwise, I agree with what you say. Although some people are just gregarious by nature. A smile and a nod is a good response. If they persist, say you're pressed for time.

If nothing decisive happens on Thursday, these procrastinating clowns should be replaced.

They've had enough time.

.

EDIT: Oh yes, one thing. Before the hollering starts again, be careful what you wish for.

Because before you know it, buses (as a metaphore for Thailand in general) might look like they do in Europe.

Very sensible.

Very correct.

Very... very why I'm here and not there.

Boring Euro Bus.jpg

Perceptive post illustrated by some stunning visuals.

For god's sake man, smuggle in your own and beat them at their own game.

Stop complaining about petty things and learn how to live here.

The term 'Trashpacker' has recently been coined... you don't want to be tarred with that brush, do you?

This isn't the first time that a developer has taken deposits (sometimes very large deposits indeed) and not built the project. Sometimes they don't even buy the land on which the project is to be built.

The perpetrators often leave the country before being caught so it's good to see one getting caught before leaving.

Andrew Drummond is the go-to-guy for coverage of many - if not most - of these scams.

i find many of the answers confusing , i hear farangs constantly complain of how bad the laws are here , how the govt should do this , or do that , back home we do it this way blah blah blah ....how can we criticize the Thai people when we do not lead by example ?

And I find that your arrogance makes complete sense, in light of the fact that you...

1. ...like to call foreigners "farang."

2. ...think you need to "lead by example," when that example is a snitch

3. ...think you know someone is "laughing at the law."

4. ...feel "confused" over people offering less emotional/dramatic action.

5. ...have "no fear of consequences"

6. ...reference the all powerful "food off my plate" and affecting "my children's future" lines.

Shall I continue?

I'm not challenging your post as a whole, but allow me to take issue with one point...

The term 'farang' when used alone is not derogatory. It comes from the Farsi word 'farangi'; introduced by the Persians who were established at King Narai's Ayudhya court in the 17th century. It was derived from 'Frank' during the Crusades, and became their word for Europeans in general. Thus the Siamese acquired it.

The etymology is unambiguous and easy to access. It has never been used as an insult in the historical sources that refer to it.

Misunderstanding its meaning could lead to offence taken where none is intended.

I am familiar with the situation.

The farang teachers have a communal marker pen fund. One teacher (let's call him "Bad Boy") has been shafting (= rorting) the fund by expropriating a higher proportion of marker pens for "his company" than would be considered fair and reasonable. cdmtmdmcemd is on to him and has been tailing him and logging his marker pen use. cdmtemdmm now wishes to call in the police on the matter.

It sounds like a tempest in a teapot.

wrong side of the tracks = a crappy area. like there are none in thailand ? get a life, grow up, not everything is a insult to thsiness :-)

No big slums in Chiang Mai since the early 1980's when they bulldozed the one behind Wat Puak Chang.

The mixed neighbourhoods are one of the attractions of the city.

Spot on.

The diversity of our Wat Muang Guy/Sanam Golf neighbourhood is one of the things I've always appreciated.

It is where my wife's family has lived for generations and where we raised our children.

When I first came in the late '70s it was single family wooden houses - some very nice - and bamboo hooches. Then the building boom of the mid-'80s brought quite a few multi-storied concrete hawng pahks and ostentatious ban setee's. What didn't change was the different classes and types of people living together and getting along.

They wouldn't know what you were talking about if you told them they were living on "the wrong side of the tracks."

Why is this a bad idea?

Arrived in October 1978.

1st. Reno Hotel, near Siam Square. 250 baht. Stayed one night.

2nd. Asoke Motel, Soi Asoke. 200 baht Stayed about two weeks.

3rd. A small, but very nice rented house on Klong Tan, off Pattanakarn, Suan Luang. 600 baht per month. In those days the countryside started just a little ways down Suan Luang. The occasional tour boat would pass on Klong Ton and every head would turn to look at me lounging on my porch in my pa-ko-mah with my arm around my new Thai girlfriend. Whenever I'd see a tourist boat coming I'd rush to get my bamboo bong so as to complete the picture and not disappoint the tour groups.

Wonderful memories.

Wait till you start noticing the mudflaps on decorated lorries. I know one of them is a Gibb but there's another one who is pointing a gun. I haven't worked out who it is yet.

Persico, I think... but whoever it is, most Thais wouldn't know him from Hitler, and wouldn't give a hoot.

Yes, you're right, 'oo-un mahk' means fat as in 'obese'.

But you should be aware that the word 'oo-un' used alone can have a positive connotation implying health and prosperity.

If you haven't seen someone for a while and they say you're looking 'oo-un', then it's a complement.

Cai Shen the Chinese God of Wealth - widely venerated in Thailand - is always fat, and the Thais call a big belly a 'tong settee' - a rich man's belly.

Something new this year.

My wife is having a Thai style house built in Saraphi. Acting as her own contractor, she bought two old teak houses and had three local carpenters dismantle them to build the new house. The place is about 70% finished.

On New Year's Eve we plan to invite the workers and any of their family members who care to come for a Thai/Korean/Farang barbecue with plenty of lao khao and beer.

We're planning to sleep there on a mattress under a moong because I will never be able to make the 1/2 hour drive back to Chiang Mai.

All the best in 2015!

For graphic design work in Chiang Mai, try:

Within Design

9 Charoen Prathet, Soi 9

A. Muang. Chiang Mai

Tel. 053-272111

If you have finished artwork and it's ready to be printed, save yourself some money, cut out the middleman. and go direct to:

Pattrara Prepress

242/2 Manee Noparat

A. Muang. Chiang Mai

Tel 053-210816

Both these places are long-established and staffed by efficient and courteous people.

Good luck with your project.

And is there something for the adults to do?

Doubtful, not many around.

Quite right, there probably won't be many adults around... that is, unless you consider Americans as being adults.

The hotrod and biker culture that dominated the country in the '50s, '60s, and '70s guaranteed that we would never mature into adulthood. It was just too much fun.

We loved our rods and bikes to an extent that would be incomprehensible to sane people. Our wheels represented many things to us, but most of all it was freedom in a very real sense.

Customizing motor vehicles became an artform, as the writer Tom Wolfe perceptively recognized in his book, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamlined Baby.

Another facet of American pop culture that still interests some people.

It was a great time and place to be young.

The day that Thailand declared war with the USA!

Both USA and Britain........anyone know if that's in the history teaching books here?

Don't know about the history books, but some of the information above is not accurate or is incomplete. Here's a decent summary from Yahoo with some added dates.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces invaded Thailand's territory on the morning of December 8, 1941. Only hours after the invasion, the then prime minister Field Marshal Phibunsongkhram, ordered the cessation of resistance against the Japanese. On December 21, 1941, a military alliance with Japan was signed and Thailand declared war on Britain and the United States. The Thai ambassador to the United States, Mom Rajawongse Seni Pramoj did not deliver his copy of the declaration of war, so although the British reciprocated by declaring war on Thailand [ and consequently considered it a hostile country, the United States did not.

[ On 25 January 1942, Thailand became a formal ally of Japan. On that same date the United Kingdom, New Zealand and the Union of South Africa declared war on Thailand.]

On May 10, 1942, the Thai Phayap Army entered Burma's Shan State, at one time in the past the area had been part of the Ayutthaya Kingdom. The boundary between the Japanese and Thai operations was generally the Salween. However, the area south of the Shan States known as Karenni States, the homeland of the Karens, was specifically retained under Japanese control. Three Thai infantry and one cavalry division, spearheaded by armoured reconnaissance groups and supported by the air force engaged the retreating Chinese 93rd Division. Kengtung, the main objective, was captured on May 27. Renewed offensives in June and November evicted the Chinese into Yunnan.The area containing the Shan States and Kengtung was annexed by Thailand in 1942. After the war, in 1946, the areas were ceded back to Burma.

The Free Thai Movement ("Seri Thai") was established during these first few months, parallel Free Thai organisations were also established in the United Kingdom and inside Thailand. Queen Ramphaiphanni was the nominal head of the British-based organisation, and Pridi Phanomyong, the regent, headed its largest contingent, which was operating within the country. Aided by elements of the military, secret airfields and training camps were established while OSS and Force 136 agents fluidly slipped in and out of the country.

As the war dragged on, the Thai population came to resent the Japanese presence. In June 1944, Phibun was overthrown in a coup d'état. The new civilian government under Khuang Aphaiwong attempted to aid the resistance while at the same time maintaining cordial relations with the Japanese. After the war, U.S. influence prevented Thailand from being treated as an Axis country, but the British demanded three million tons of rice as reparations and the return of areas annexed from the colony of Malaya during the war. Thailand also returned the portions of British Burma and French Indochina that had been annexed. Phibun and a number of his associates were put on trial on charges of having committed war crimes and of collaborating with the Axis powers. However, the charges were dropped due to intense public pressure. Public opinion was favourable to Phibun, since he was thought to have done his best to protect Thai interests.

Your source correctly states that Thailand's ambassador to Washington, Seni Pramoj refused to deliver the declaration of war, but it omits to mention the very important fact that a second formal declaration of war was sent via the Swiss Foreign Ministry and the American Embassy in Berne to the State Department on February 2nd 1942.

This was ignored by the US Government. The fact that no formal state of war existed between the two countries had an immense impact on postwar events. It gave the US a geopolitical base in the region, and an influence that was formerly held by Great Britain and France.

The conflicts that began in Indo-China soon after WWII ended were to dominate the second half of the 20th century.

There is no evidence that this operation even took place. Could Pichit be making this story up just to discredit those he see's as the emery.

Yeah, same as Taksin never existed if you read the latest history books....

No recent public figure deserves to go down the memory-hole as much as Thaksin...

but he keeps popping back up like a jack-in-the-box.

The day that Thailand declared war with the USA!

Thailand didn't [and did] declare war on the United States of America.

Thailand's ambassador to the US, Seni Pramoj refused to deliver a declaration of war and went on, with American government encouragement and OSS support, to organize the Seri Thai [Free Thai].

A formal declaration of war arrived on February 2nd 1942 at the State Department from the Swiss Foreign Ministry and the American Embassy in Berne. The American government officially ignored it, viewing Thailand's administration as Japanese-controlled and not representitive of the will of the people.

In the same way they ignored the declarations of war by the puppet governments of Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria.

The question of whether or not Thailand declared war on the United States can be answered by "yes"... but also by "no".

Like so many things here, there's a gray area between the black and the white.

I agree ...I don't have anything against a good festival but I think some festivals are not in sync with Lanna culture no matter how much fun it may be

As the world globalizes and every distance shortened ...we should leave some experiences for itself

I think a Mardi Gras parade is best experienced in Sydney or Brazil ...let's leave Chiang Mai alone for this one

Excellent point about globalization, Lawrence.

East is east, and West is west... etc., etc.

Historically, Mardi Gras was a bacchanal before the ritual fast of Lent, as practiced in Catholic countries all over Europe and Latin America.

Although the festival itself dates from the Middle Ages, the name "Mardi Gras" has traditionally been associated with the festivities in New Orleans since the city was founded in 1718 by the French. The first Mardi Gras carnival parade was held there in 1837, setting the tone for the modern celebration which has since been followed with alacrity by some other cities, notably Rio de Janeiro.

Laissez le bon temps rouler! ...but not in Chiang Mai. We have enough wild multi-day orgies without adding another one.

We got out of Europe and let Russia rape and kill who knows how many Germans. Hundreds of thousands? worse than the Rape of Nanking? doubtful, but who knows. I'm sure it was horrific.

or getting out of the pacific via blowing a few cities off the map? And that was interesting as well, since I think (honestly, nobody except very few know the real truth) Japan was going to surrender to Russia in a very short time. But we wanted to use our bombs, and I'm sure not let Russia get credit.

I'm not a historian, I just love trying to learn about things like this......especially from a nice warm house with a cup of tea with a mango slice on the side. i would love to visit a gulag, concentration camp, etc.....like pearl harbor, you can't forget about all those millions lost.

Agreed. It's all very interesting, and some of it is almost incredible... as the old saying goes "Truth is stranger than fiction."

Trying to find the truth among so many conflicting versions of it is what historical studies are all about.

Fascinating but often frustrating.