JingerBen

Agreed. Once, on holiday in Bali, a local told me that even with out north east accents, we were easier to understand than Aussies. No idea why that would be, but he had no reason to lie about it, nothing to gain or favours to be bought. Always struck me as rather odd though. Irish is OK, Bog Irish is very hard, I think maybe even for other Irish.

This new form of speaking from the lower socio-economic groups in America is something I find difficult also - I'm talking about the high class types who go on Jerry Springer etc. Not the Afro-Americans specifically, because there are plenty of people a lot whiter than me speaking in the same manner. In their case, it's more fashion and fitting in than anything else, but it is difficult. And I have to say I've never met anyone in real life who speaks that way, although I had a laugh at the expense of the English equivalent.

A few years ago, I asked a young bloke, late teens or early twenties for directions, and in front of his friend he kind of told me in the heaviest gangster Jamaican accent you could imagine - again, whiter than white, full Anglo-Saxon if that is your preferred term (I hope I didn't offend any of the PC brigade by referring to whites speaking like the people of other ethic origin than Caucasian (not so sure how I refer to people who's ethnicity is originally African nowadays, so I'll give it a miss) because offence is not what I intended and I wholeheartedly and genuinely apologies I have). I asked him where he lived, he said Stainthorpe so I hammed up the Yorkshire accent as much as I could and said "Eee, bar eck. The dunt half talk funny darn Stainforth way naar". He was left a bit speechless, whilst his equally bad 'gangster' mates were trying not to snigger, knowing that they spoke in exactly the same way he did.

On the names thing, I have to say that when I first started high school in the mid 1970's, we called the West Indians Blacks, but by the time we left high school, they let us know that they didn't like to be called Black and wanted to be called Coloured. Fair enough, nobody wanted to do the wrong thing, even though we couldn't see why it mattered what we called them it obviously did to them so we all just went with it. I'm told now that Black is back in vogue as a general term and Coloured isn't seen as being very polite. (I can't verify this as we don't live there any more, and it's not something I've ever felt necessary to ask, and maybe it's a regional thing rather than national or it could have even been an American who told me that. I really can't remember, but it was here in Chiang Mai and it was recently; within the last couple of months).

"...it could have been an American that told me that."

Be careful what kind of Americans you talk to here. Many of them don't know their a** from their elbow.

As a kid growing up in the USA during the 1950s, African-Americans were called "colored", or "negroes", by most people. Only southern rednecks, lo-class northerners, and us kids would call them ni**ers - "Catch a ni**er by the toe, if he hollers let him go..." etc., etc.

The 1960s brought radical changes of many kinds - suddenly it became "cool" to be black, or to have black friends; and that's what they wanted to be called... black.

"Colored" and "negro" became demeaning and associated with characters like Stepin Fetchit and their abject servility.

"African-American" came along in the early '70s and has continued - along with "black" - to be their preferred names. Although among themselves, the N-word is still in use.

I sometimes get asked by thai people to speak English more like an american - I guess they get used to US accents and pronunciation from movies.

It always amuses me when I see the 'English' Language school here called 'Wall Street English' - not Oxford Street English of course.

But I often struggle to understand US 'english' in movies and ask my thai gf what 'they' said, as she reads the thai subtitles. Bizarre but true.

For most modern Thais, English is the language they want to learn, but the culture that attracts them more is American.

Like it or not, that's the way it is.

Remember the book published in the late '70's ? The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia. Great read, as I recall back in the late '80s when I first came to LOS and was in the north for a long period. The book looks mostly at time leading up to and including Vietnam War as I recall. I think the military and police may like to start looking at books like this to get some context at least for the drugs trade.

Alfred W.McCoy's book is a classic that documents CIA involvement in the heroin trade during the Vietnam War.

It's history now, and it doesn't really have much to do with the present situation.

Yes, while it is true that the primary focus of the book was CIA involvement... but documenting the heroin trade in Southeast Asia also highlighted Thailand's central role as the conduit for product to be exported out to the world. My point was that the role of certain Thai military and police officials was documented very well. This has been further documented in other academic works since then, including the increased production of meth. When (if) military and police are complicit in crime, such as the war in the south, it is increasingly impossible to capture, indict and convict the bad guys.

Point taken... you're quite right.

Remember the book published in the late '70's ? The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia. Great read, as I recall back in the late '80s when I first came to LOS and was in the north for a long period. The book looks mostly at time leading up to and including Vietnam War as I recall. I think the military and police may like to start looking at books like this to get some context at least for the drugs trade.

Alfred W.McCoy's book is a classic that documents CIA involvement in the heroin trade during the Vietnam War.

It's history now, and it doesn't really have much to do with the present situation.

Wasn't Bill Young  aka  "Hitman" Bill Young... "AirAmerica Bill" Young a son of Harold Young, the founder of the zoo?

If so, did he have any connection with it, or play a part in its development?

Now - you see - unwittingly you have just made a fool out of yourself.

Let me be kind to you and explain why.

For some reason you equated being degree educated with the common sense of Thai village life.

By doing so, you proved your ignorance of said common sense, the nuance of living in Thailand.

If you gave your girlfriend a choice, I bet you she would value her understanding of what goes on in a Thai village above any western paper degree.

As it can literally be the difference between life and death. Between living in relative harmony, or living in misery.

Idiot westerners turn up here and think the answer is to build themselves an eight foot wall around their village property, buy six ferocious dogs, and install electronic gates.

They install themselves in high-security prisons, and they are the inmates.

I told you earlier to sit back and watch the show. So what happened?

The delicate little dance of Thai village life happened.

So ram your talk of degrees and licences up your ...........

And learn how to live in a Thai village.

Do you publish your stuff?

No, its against the law in Thailand.

But once you can no longer pay for treatment....

Your second line, "But once you can no longer pay for treatment...." applies to the USA as well.

If you have never paid into Medicare or Social Security you will be refused treatment and support even though you are native born.

In Thailand, if you are married to a government employee you will be given medical care, and even medications. Foreigners included.

That's how things often work out in rural Thailand... to everybody's eventual satisfaction, more or less.

Are there any laws in Thailand regulating euthanasia/assisted suicide?

In cases of people in the last stages of a terminal illness, is it possible to get professional help in ending your life?

I'm not in that situation myself, and I hope I never will be. I've lived here a long time, and have a family with grown children who would take care of me; but if I should ever get to the point where I was too much of a burden on them, or too much of a burden on myself, then it is an option that I would consider as a last resort.

Has anyone ever heard of it being done here?

Thanks for any information.

OK - just to clear this up hopefully as I have somewhere here who supposedly should know about these things!

The problem is not with the carryboy as such but with the type of license.

If you have been registered as "work truck" or "people carrier" you need to have a higher carryboy with 2 rows of seats (tax is approx 1300 Bt per year)

If it is personal use you can put a carryboy on and not have the seats or the height, but must be able to separate the carryboy from truck easily (must have rubber seal layer in between)

There are some differences between single/extra/double cab.

Sorry in a hurry but that is the gist of what I've been told.

How simple that explanation is!

It plows through the mountain of garbage left behind by the authoritarian members.

You're obsessed with obeying the "law".

If Gandhi, King, and Mandela had followed your advice, Indians would still be coolies, and blacks would still be sitting in the back of the bus.

OK professor, I'm prepared for the lecture... but I think I'll cut class this afternoon.

Yes, those nasty laws should only be for the locals. We foreigners should be considered to be well above them.

There are laws, and there are "laws".

The distinction has to be made between the laws that are for the good of the public, and the ridiculous, pettifogging "laws" that are meant to extract money or keep people in their place.

The Americans wouldn't be celebrating Independence Day if the revolutionary generation of the 1770s had followed due process and obeyed the law.

What is a revolutionary generation anyway? Isn't it one that simply has brains and balls? ...The brains to understand that they are being exploited, and the balls to do something about it.

............. can make his own choices in the little things in life, and yes if the police ticketed me I'd pay without any fuss.

...and this IS one of the major differences in the replies. Bravo!

The law is the law. Period. We have three choices; either follow the law, change the law through legal court proceedings, or break the law and risk getting penalized. But if we choose to break the law, we do NOT have a valid leg to stand on if we bitch about getting penalized! It was out choice to break the law, and not knowing the law is simply no excuse in any country. It we don't want to pay the cop on the street, then pay at the station. But if we get caught breaking the law we are going to pay. That's why they call them 'laws,' and not 'suggestions.'

You're obsessed with obeying the "law".

If Gandhi, King, and Mandela had followed your advice, Indians would still be coolies, and blacks would still be sitting in the back of the bus.

OK professor, I'm prepared for the lecture... but I think I'll cut class this afternoon.

Where is Jason?

Has he been overcome by smoke?

Good question.

Maybe he went out to toke-up.

Reading some of these priggish replies would make anyone want to catch a buzz.

I'm not sure what Kafka has do do with all of this, but if you ask me, he was never the same after he left AC Milan, and never lived up to his huge price tag.

If you're not sure what Kafka has to do with all of this, then read him carefully and judge for yourself.

Disregard his sad, later years when he became a mindless shadow of his former self... kicking around a little ball and making millions.

Rebel or blindly follow laws because they're laws? I"m happy with my pick.

But jesus man, stop projecting your belief system and assumptions onto me. I'm just a pseudonym here, working under the limitations that written communication pose its communicators, and you're creating a character profile out of me. And it's unlawfully incorrect.

Unlawful? Now you want to claim protection under these same code of laws that you've been choosing to ignore?

No... I won't waste any more time trying to explain to you what living within society entails.

You've been measured and found wanting.

Who did the measuring, and who found her wanting?

She made you look like a self-righteous prig.

Rebel or blindly follow laws because they're laws? I"m happy with my pick.

But jesus man, stop projecting your belief system and assumptions onto me. I'm just a pseudonym here, working under the limitations that written communication pose its communicators, and you're creating a character profile out of me. And it's unlawfully incorrect.

You've survived a tsunami of verbal diarrhoea... and you're still standing.

Congratulations!

I love these posts. Its a cheap personal validation of how utterly normal i remain after years in CM.

On what planet would anyone link Gandhi's campaign of civil disobedience for a free and independent India with car clamping for wrongful parking in CM?

And then there are reminders to read Kafka and how this might relate.......the only thing Kafkaesque is the suggestion itself.

Can we at least try and keep posts in the realms of reality.......or is Gandhi, Kafkha et al really that trivial.

You've failed the course!

Take off that silly crown and go sit in the corner wearing the dunce-cap.

You may not like the laws, but by living here you tacitly agreed to abide by them when you applied for your visa. In effect, you gave your word that you would live under Thai rules. Had you refused to do so, you would not have been granted a visa to live here.

Now you are breaking not only Thai laws, but your word.

The validity of these laws is completely irrelevant. They exist, and you agreed to abide by them.

Now you choose to break them because you don't like them and feel it's your 'right' to ignore them.

Sorry, but this speaks for itself.

This topic is about state operatives bending and breaking their own laws; not about individual posters and whether or not they are in violation of said laws.

As much as the wannabe lawyer in you would like to prove that and get a "lock-up".

While it's delightful to sit around with friends and compare the world to sci-fi books, worrying that Big Brother is watching you in your living rooms,

There you go again, professor...

The novels of Huxley, Orwell, and Kafka aren't "sci-fi" in the usually accepted sense of the term.

They are dark prophecies based on the state of society at the time they were written; and what kind of future we could expect if state power and control went unchallenged.

Much of what they wrote has already turned out to be uncannily prescient.

Thank you, Ulysses. Actually, I've taught university-level classes on both Thoreau and Gandhi.

'Civil Disobedience' was his take on the thinking of Emerson put down on paper, and related to the slavery issue, a major political debate at the time. However ever since, people have been 'quoting' it for everything from illegal parking to topless dancing...

So that explains it... you're an academic!

My first guess would have been that you were a lawyer. "Slippery as an eel" was an uncharitable evaluation that I couldn't repress.

We have your take on Thoreau vis a vis the current scene, could you continue on with Orwell, Gandhi, Kafka, and Huxley?

To turn them all into colourless nonentities of the middling sort so that they fit right in with the CM expat community would be a scholarly achievement; and timely as well, on the eve of Independence Day.

folk guitar, you fail to address the post and instead attack the poster. I acknowledge this, but cannot therefore continue debating with you. I see this is the second time you've done this on this thread. I think i'm right in saying this is flouncing. Argue the points instead of defending your ego.

You're right. I apologize to you. Please forgive me.

The point; There are laws. The laws are in place to protect the safety and welfare of the society as a whole, rather than catering to individual choice.

If someone chooses to willfully break those laws, they are selfishly placing their own personal desires ahead of the safety and welfare of others. Period.

There is no justification for this sort of behavior, regardless of the motives of the individual. It's called 'breaking the law,' and the punishments for it are in place. If a person feels that these laws are unjust, they have the right to bring the issue to the courts and let the courts decide. They do NOT have the right to take the law into their own hands. Doing that is also breaking the law, compounding the problem.

This isn't some cloudy issue. The law exists. It's really pretty simple.

What you need is some remedial education.

Orwell; Gandhi; Thoreau, and Kafka would do for starters.

I know FolkGuitar and would guess that he has read all of them. He has much more than a "remedial" education.

If his posts are anything to go by, the time is ripe for a rereading... and the next time you see him, ask him to include Aldous Huxley. I reread Brave New World recently, and it's incredible how much of it has, or is, coming to pass.

Incidentally, we could all do with a little remedial education. The point is, some places are better to receive it in than others. For instance, a great little used bookshop on Chang Moi Khao would be preferable to Guantanamo Bay.

folk guitar, you fail to address the post and instead attack the poster. I acknowledge this, but cannot therefore continue debating with you. I see this is the second time you've done this on this thread. I think i'm right in saying this is flouncing. Argue the points instead of defending your ego.

You're right. I apologize to you. Please forgive me.

The point; There are laws. The laws are in place to protect the safety and welfare of the society as a whole, rather than catering to individual choice.

If someone chooses to willfully break those laws, they are selfishly placing their own personal desires ahead of the safety and welfare of others. Period.

There is no justification for this sort of behavior, regardless of the motives of the individual. It's called 'breaking the law,' and the punishments for it are in place. If a person feels that these laws are unjust, they have the right to bring the issue to the courts and let the courts decide. They do NOT have the right to take the law into their own hands. Doing that is also breaking the law, compounding the problem.

This isn't some cloudy issue. The law exists. It's really pretty simple.

What you need is some remedial education.

Orwell; Gandhi; Thoreau, and Kafka would do for starters.

My son is a police officer in Chiang Mai and asked me to inform the OP that the police have not been made redundant yet and it`s business as usual, so for the OP`s own benefit he is advised to abide by the laws at all times.

No, the Thai Army hasn't made them redundant.

A large percentage have made themselves redundant by failing the public trust and becoming an alternative form of criminality.

Spot on.

Some of the responses to this topic show very clearly the mindset of so many farangs here.

These mealy-mouthed goody two-shoes' with their supine acceptance of state-extortion have made their own countries unliveable with their petty rules, regulations, permits, and licences for everything.

Where I grew up in Westchester County, north of New York City, you now can't do even minor repairs to your own home without a village permit, and the work has to be done by a licenced contractor at grossly inflated prices.

Is that what we want Chiang Mai to become?

Stand up on your own two feet and do those things yourself.