AnnaBanana

Welcome Hillary Clinton back home ... the white house.

Yes, she is inevitable.

You know it. I know it.

Resistance is pointless.

You're right, of course.

US presidential elections are personality contests, and Hillary looks like the most dominate of the lot.

Every POTY knows his POTUS.

Why you no ask them youself?

I prefer to concentrate on the good things in life.

Chiang Mai is a great place. However...

Papa swindles, Mama swindles

Grandma's a lying thief.

We're all quite shameless

yet we're blameless.

For you see it's our belief

that nowadays the world is rotten

honesty has been forgotten.

Fall in love, but after kissing

check your purse to see what's missing.

,

but perhaps he's not as daft as you eh.

You sound like someone who hasn't been in Chiang Mai long yourself.

If you want some experience of life here, meet me tonight on Loi Kroh. I'll introduce you to some girls I know.

Don't think my mrs in Ubon will let me. .................

I'll even forgive you for calling me daft.

Chiang Mai is a great place. However...

Papa swindles, Mama swindles

Grandma's a lying thief.

We're all quite shameless

yet we're blameless.

For you see it's our belief

that nowadays the world is rotten

honesty has been forgotten.

Fall in love, but after kissing

check your purse to see what's missing.

,

but perhaps he's not as daft as you eh.

It's good advice for anyone new to Chiang Mai - and a good many other places for that matter.

Chiang Mai is a great place. However...

Papa swindles, Mama swindles

Grandma's a lying thief.

We're all quite shameless

yet we're blameless.

For you see it's our belief

that nowadays the world is rotten

honesty has been forgotten.

Fall in love, but after kissing

check your purse to see what's missing.

Welcome to the New Asia.

While you were sleeping the little-people surpassed you in productivity.

The profiligate lifestyle you originated is about to be taken up with alacrity by Asia's billions.

Climb in the rumble-seat, this joy-ride to perdition is just beginning.

I didn't know him either, but judging by his posts and the few people I knew that did know him personally he sounded like a nutcase.

His own choice of Ezra Pound as his avatar photo speaks volumes.

The expression of concentrated venom and malice directed against farangs shows he was unbalanced.

Resident farangs can be divided into several groups.

The loners like Gringo see the others as destroying the old ways of life here. But it's more complicated than that.

The influence they have has been almost good in some ways and bad in others, and could be debated endlessly.

He lumped them all together like some little tin-horn dictator hell-bent on the ethnic-cleansing of Chiang Mai.

Tourists and backpackers are birds-of-passage. The farangs who stay, all or part of the year, impact the country and people much more according to the way they behave.

Gringo saw Chiang Mai change dramatically in the past 30+ years. What he saw more recently was the malaise afflicting the US and Europe that created refugees who have come down on Chiang Mai like a plague of locusts.

These people, are looking for the creature-comforts that have become too expensive for them in their own countries.

This development is relatively new and will likely result in a situation similar to the phenomenon of "gentrification" in the US where old low-rent urban areas are invaded by comparatively affluent newcomers who change the scene so much that the original inhabitants become strangers in their own neighborhoods and eventually leave because of higher prices for everything.

Maybe the Thais will take a lesson from Trink's Nite Owl and say "I don't give a hoot".

If not, the farangs causing these problems might someday regret ever coming to Thailand in the first place.

Read up a little on Thai history.

Every fox smells his own hole.

Is Chiang Mai a dystopia that needs an ethnic cleansing?

Have things really gotten that bad?

If so, let's snap to it and create an ultra-violent video game based on that premise.

An updated Clockwork Orange scenario in a real horrorshow Thai context!

The avatars would be the droogs Alex, Georgie, Pete, and Dim with their antagonist Billyboy. Throw in Anders Breivik for a modern touch.

They would prowl Chiang Mai by night looking for degenerate farangs to eliminate in creative ways.

Better living through chemistry at the Korova Milkbar, located... where else?... on Loi Kroh. Dirty, seedy, and squalid as it is.

A game like this would be the perfect outlet for those who are concerned about the present situation.

They could play to their heart's content and at the at the end of the day Chiang Mai would still be...

"Queer as a Clockwork Orange".

Bog help us all!

Wasn't a Clockwork Orange banned in Britain... maybe still?

If so, a lot of Brits won't know what you're on about.

Don't know about that marmite crud but good old Vegemite never goes off.

I have jars that are a good 3 or 4 years old. After a nuclear war there will be cockroaches and Vegemite, thats it.

What would off marmite taste like? How could you tell?

Cockroaches and Vegemite, that's it.

That would mean the end of cockroaches as we know them.

It would lead to virtual extinction from eating the Vegemite.

Any survivors among them will experience the all too familiar and tragic consequences of a Vegemite diet.

Extreme cultural decline. With their intellectual, artistic, and other higher faculties atrophied to the point of extinction.

I live in that area and somewhat regret it. I'll be leaving once my lease is up.

The jets from the airport fly over you (very low and loud) several times a day, which I find to be annoying and from what I've read living so close to the airport is pretty unhealthy for several reasons. I wanted to get a little quiet thus the move up north and out of the city, but didn't take the planes take off and landing path into consideration when I signed the lease.

We also get an incredibly amount of black dust in our place. Be it from the main road or from the jets, it's the dirtiest place I've ever lived in and we have to clean the rooms twice a day. You will clean literally black filth off of everything if you have your windows open and are unlucky enough to have whatever it is come inside.

Having said all of that, many people seem to live in this area with no issues at all. Maybe after so long you get used to the noise and dirt.

This sounds like the "smuts" that covered everything in England during the Industrial Revolution.

My God, what is Chiang Mai coming to?

The enemy aren't just at the gates anymore, they've breached the walls.

I thought for most of us living in Thailand its easy to get our heads around oddities...i mean, just about everything "odd" happens here, does it not..lol

Anyway, i found the movie intriguing. It really compartmentalised sex from emotions, in a clinical non-erotic or sensual way. (I realise people can of course have emotionless sex, but this was presented in a very different kind of way).

Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd weren't in it were they?

I've heard excellent things about the guy called 'Ugly' opposite Chiang Mai Saloon on Loi Kroh road. My daughter also had a tattoo done there whilst she was over and she was quite impressed.

Are you getting her ready to enter a profession?

The oldest perhaps?

Anyone know how much it is?

As Commodore Vanderbilt said about his yacht, "If you have to ask, you couldn't afford it".

Not surprised, Mae Hia is a very up-and-coming area.

There is massive development going on.

So the more the merrier IMO

Will they allow the Thais to stay as hired help? Just wondering.

Why are you seeing so many expensive cars?

Because you are in a prosperous city located in a prosperous country.

You can tell your friends all about it when you return to whatever Outback or Boondocks you came from.

Your first opportunity to display your Line Dancing technique may be at the local Immigration Office.

It's a gig with guaranteed repeat performances.

Boogie on Bro.

What about those long long Immigration lines at Swampy?

The sight of a once docile line suddenly gone jiggy with it would light a fire under those guys and gals who welcome us here and stamp our passports.

Line Dancing. OMG!

Didn't the Chiang Mai Chronicle predict some kind of cultural apocalypse around this time?

What a wonderful idea!

Bedlam in Chiang Mai.

Thais have co-opted our pop-culture already, so why not give them a taste of our classics?

Old mental hospitals would be just the start.

From there we could go on to building workhouses to get their shiftless layabouts out of sight of the quality tourists.

Oliver Twist era orphanages for the kiddies.

Prisons like old Newgate and New York's Tombs to raise mortality rates and reduce overcrowding.

The possibilities are almost endless.

We've only just begun to share the bounty from the cornucopia of Western Civilization.

Overpopulated, foul polluted air, prone to devistating floods,.

The main entertainment street exposed as "dirty, seedy, and squalid" on a recent thread.

Are you planning to come here to improve things or are you going to lower yourself to our level?

What's it going to be then, eh?

Make up your mind before you come.

Devastating floods? This wasn't the central region, a bit of flooding for a few days around Chang Klang road! Overpopulated? by who's standard, someone from Bangkok?

Loi Khro road ( he one someone thought was 'dirty seedy and squalid')is about 1 km long, hardly representative of the whole city! It's not obligatory to go there at night and it does have at least two good restaurants and several good pubs.

But yes you are right around this time the burning makes the air polluted- I can't see the mountains at the moment.

Sounds like you've lost your sense-of-humour.

You're not posting from one of those "4X8" places Gringo mentioned are you?

Overpopulated, foul polluted air, prone to devistating floods,.

The main entertainment street exposed as "dirty, seedy, and squalid" on a recent thread.

Are you planning to come here to improve things or are you going to lower yourself to our level?

What's it going to be then, eh?

Make up your mind before you come.

Put an end to these inane posts and let the thread go dormant again until the next person gets locked up for not being able to show their passport.

The fact that the Dutchman was fined ["fined"] 1000 baht for not having his passport on him suggests that there may indeed be a law to that effect.

But to find out you would have to inquire somewhere other than Thai Visa.

Well, we DID have a good time tonight and it was still happening when I left at 11:30. Nice to see Winnie the Kwai there enjoying the fun. Aussies and Brits DO like to rib each other, and any bystander could be confused into thinking they actually meant what they said. One fellow brought his young son of about 7 or 8 years old and the kid seemed to enjoy himself. I sure envy the energy of youth. They go full bore until they finally drop from exhaustion. Then they sleep like angels.

If you think the Poms and Aussies like to get stuck into each other you should see what happens when the Aussies get together with Kiwis - a lot of discussion about Kiwis sexual preference for sheep.

Also, I don't know why a Yank should be getting stuck into Australians. We have fought beside them (often foolishly) in just about every war since independence. Most R&R boys during Vietnam, the American War as the Vietnanese call it, thought Australians OK as they turned up in their thousands and were made welcome.

"often foolishly", shouldn't that read "always foolishly"? Think about it.

With the possible exception of the American War of Independence that is.

Were Australians really involved? I didn't even think Australia existed as an entity in the 1770's. I thought it was called New Holland or something like that, with a few scattered outposts of debauched Dutchmen brewing their own schnapps and getting it on with Abos of both sexes. Anyway, maybe you know something I don't.

You could have used some homegrown freedom fighters of your own by the 1870's and 80's when Australia developed into a country.

A revolutionary generation is simply one that possesses brains and balls.

The brains to understand that they are being exploited, and the balls to do something about it.

But you, like your colonail cousins all over the world allowed yourselves to be emasculated.

And following generations compensate for it by mouthing-off in pubs by night and by trolling internet forums by day.

"Male Chauvinist Pig" was a phrase coined back in the 60's.

"If the shoe fits wear it" is another one that goes back even farther.

That said, I was amused to read your little thesis, ajahn.

Overgrown children predominate expat communities everywhere and they don't all come from Down Under by any means.

There are attitudes and types of groupthink , Siberias, Canadas, and Australias of the mind that stunt the growth of even the most intelligent and talented of people who allow themselves to fall under their influence.

These clueless farangs have come down on Chiang Mai like a plague of locusts.