Ajarn

Would anyone here feel safe in making a formal complaint if someone there did try to 'squeeze' you illegally?

I agree, but so many negative people in the world... I believe you do or say smth nice and you are paid back in spades. Good Karma!

I only wish good Karma would show itself a bit sooner....I already know my bad shit comes back very quickly, always!

But, according to rumour, you may have to wait until your next life to taste any sweet karmic fruits....

I'm very impatient.

Easier to slag someone off than say a kind word...

Why is it easier? That's the question to ask yourself (not you, personaly). I think the true answer is the first step to turning it around to the way it could be, and should be; That it feels better to say a kind word rather than a mean one.

Nothing better to do. But put down people on a forum. here they will probably never meet these people.

Yep, I agree. For some, that's true, and we can't change that situation, so it seems silly to give these people the power to bum your day

A couple of times, I've left this forum with a knot in my chest and feeling angry/upset inside for a few hours... More like frustration, maybe. Anyway, it felt like shit. A couple of times was all it took to teach me the pointlessness of those shitty feelings..Learning the hard way, again, - but learning, nonetheless, na'? Don't let these folks completely waste your time- learn from them, if you can

For some, it might be better to vent here than on their loved ones...

I would suggest finding another way to vent... other than being nasty/not nice to someone, whether it be a loved one or someone on a forum...

Some people here need to thicken their own skins, maybe, too. It's only an anonymous stranger in a forum on the internet, afterall. Better to get riled up about something really important in your life, in my opinion.

I think many might be surprised how many farang teachers, and others, have been working and living here for decades...Most that I know have families and lead quiet lives, blending for the most part into their academic/work worlds. You're not likely to see them much around tourist spots, either...

For some, it might be better to vent here than on their loved ones...

Ajarn I guess has done well for himself in Thailand from reading his post but not knowing, I

would say Ajarn never was much of anything back home before he left for adventures of Thailand

so he has nothing to base his claims to compare the two. This said, he is wise at how to be

successful and happy in Thailand.

Well, I was a public school teacher in California who also taught summer courses at Stanford. My take-home salary was about 40,000 per annum, of which I was able to save maybe 20%. My lifestyle has always been simple- but never a Pauper's life...Had a van, motorcycle, house in Marin county...

Anyway, like I said, my expenses now are aproximately the same as then, but for the first 15 years here, I lived much more frugaly, often below 25,000 baht per month. My first fulltime teaching job here paid 6,023 baht salary + 2,000 housing allowance.

Not drinking alcohol and not availing myself much of 'nighttime entertainment' made it much easier to live within a limited budget.

Trying to nail down any accurate figure for the cost of 'comfortable' living here is pretty futile, I think. Some 'couldn't ' survive on 100,000 a month, yet many are relatively comfortable on 20,000 or less....Apples and oranges...

Number one priority, in my mind, is to cover one's butt. Figure a worse case scenario, and have a plan for it. Lots of surprises in store for any newbie, so it's best to take care...

"We follow Benz or BMW driving with open window

Not any new ones I'll bet!

Was a nice enough and presentable chap when I met him some years ago. Can't speak to any possible 'darkside', but I've experienced no reason to want to trash him.

I think he fills a void for the needs of some seeking real-life experience and advice. I think his intention is to be as fair and balanced as possible. I have no idea about the accuracy of information, but much of his advice on dealing with some of the frustrations and minefields involved in living here is spot on, in my opinion.

He should have just summarized with, "I don't know"...Or, in Thailand, "Up to you!"

An abstract out of "A Brief History of Smile"©:

"...When in social situations we meet people for the first time, we notice if they do not smile, and may form the impression that they are unfriendly or cold. In some cases we will recognize that a painfully shy person finds this situation unbearably difficult, and does not smile for that reason. But if the person we just met does smile, we tend to accept it as an expression of good manners, and refrain from reading this smile in any particular way...This may or may not make a difference whether we like this person, find him or her attractive, or esle conclude that we have little in common. In other words, no matter what follows or how quickly, the opening gambit tends to be conventional".

Would you buy this (book)?

Only if:

1. I was lying on a beach and using it as a disguise to make people think I was reading it, when , in fact, I was staring agog at the beautiful thing in the water. just over the top of my book...

2. It was Nap Time.

3. I had no tv or internet...or ears.

Studies have shown that smiles are contagious.............so try SMILING first.......

sometimes people are shy and need warming up first.........some women are afraid that if they smile at you first, you may think they were trying to pick you up! (and vice versa....the men too)

Yes, a smile is also sometimes a 'salesman's' calling card

Thaksin booming economy is like a house built of playing cards , one puff and it will come tumbling down , just like 97 .

bird flu and numerous  bans on chicken exports , daily killings in the south and it being a relative no-go area for civil servants .

and surging oil prices causing a trade deficit and cutting thais spending power.

if these oil prices keep on going up things can only get worse as Thailand has no natural energy resources .

and how long before the early clsoing times will deter tourists ?

If the tourist is to be deterred by earlier closing hours, I hope they stop coming soon

Thailand could use more tourists of higher quality, imo. There is a lot more to Thailand than drinking, partying, and whoring....

Should have sold yesterday

Famous last words

I'm convinced the only way to play and make money in the short term is to day trade, buying maybe 1000 shares, waiting to gain a few cents, then selling. Maybe only a 1-2% gain, but that's the only way I've made any money this year and last. The buy and hold strategy has my accounts down 34% to date...The companies are strong and will eventually regain the losses (I think!), but I'm not sure I'll live that long.

If the market was reacting to normal business forces, I wouldn't have any worries. But the market is reacting almost exclusively to bad news. Even when a company releases quarterly earnings that are above the analysts estimates, the stocks don't go up as they would in the past. But, if that company posts earnings even a penny off of Wall St. estimates, the stock drops like a stone....

No invester confidence at all. Maybe the American elections will help. On any case, even if the market drops, money can always be made. It's just that judging whether to go long, or short, is strictly a gamble. And I'm a terrible gambler

Chiang mai: Brit arrested in child sex allegation

CHIANG MAI: -- Police yesterday arrested a British man for allegedly keeping a hilltribe boy as his sex slave for more than two years.

Clive Mark Feinson, 41, initially offered financial help to the boy whose parents were prosecuted on drug charges. The boy was later sexually abused and detained at the suspect’s riverside condominium. The victim, now 14, said he had been abused for over two years.

Police said Feinson had more than 30 pieces of pornography in his condo when nabbed. He also faced charges of sexual abuse in his home country before he moved to Thailand.

-– The Nation 2004-10-21

Law of the Land: Might is Right.

Pedestrians are always at the bottom of the Totem pole....

My advice is to figure a work-a-round, physically- and mentally

Why should it only be farangs who have to respect Thai laws?

I doubt last year's phenomenal numbers were based in any sort of reality. 

I hear ya'... I just can't envision ever trusting statistics coming from this government

Southerners have never been known for easy smiles. Call it a cultural thing among many southerners.

Some of my students used to tell me (with a bit of seriousness) that people in NST (Nakorn sri Thammarat) only smile when they're angry at you...

Actually very warm people after you know them. Once you've established yourself, it's not easy to get them to stop smiling, in my experience

Smile first, and see what happens

and there is no pension system

Sure there is, but it's only nit noy

Food/chemical allergies can also manifest as acne. That's how I learned about my allergy to chlorides... And there is no real cure for acne. That's a fallacy.

Docs recommend a peroxide-based creme to get rid of most of it, but it can take months to work fully...PanOxyl AcneGel 10 is what was prescribed for me..40 grams for 190 baht...Though the doctor had repacked it in 5 gram tins for 210 baht each and with only the main ingredient written on it. A bit of internet research gave me the exact same thing in the 40 gram tube- available at most pharmacies here, it seems.

understand the blanket ban on discussing the Royal Family is to avoid any confusion, after all one person may say something totaly out of innocence and another reader would take that comment as unacceptable. Its happened in the past.

I personally have been in that situation on this very forum. A member made a post about the Royal Family, i didnt find it insulting, derogitory or unpleasent in any way. Within 1 hour of the post being made i recieved a number of complaints from some of our Thai national members... so what are we to do?

I appreciate those comments, and those potentially rock vs hardplace scenarios for mods at times. Not knowing the particulars in the issue you referred to, I can't really comment on that, but my general tendancy is to bring everything out in the open. Some may see that as being like a bull in a china shop, but I see it as a way to learn and educate others in an open, supportive, and transparent way. By hiding something, I feel we often give it way more power or fear than needed. So much miscommunication and misunderstanding can come from hiding stuff and not being transparent, in my experience. And Thaksin's experience, too, no doubt!

An interesting idea, and certainly one i would put forward to the Administrators. Lets see what happens

Thanks for your efforts on this. I think it would help a lot.

Thanks, too, Wolfie, for your thoughts and comments. I, too, appreciate the civility of open and honest discussions.

Still, Panthip.com is a lot more high-profile than this site, and they discuss a lot more controversial subjects, but they've never had any problems, right? I would think that the current moderators here should be able to do their jobs at least as well as those at Pantip.com....

Is there some reason why they can't?

The moderators are doing their jobs, but most of you forget sometimes that being a moderator is a volentary postition, we do it out of love, and therefore you cant expect us to be able to view every single post made. Personally i think we do a good job at filtering out most of the crap that some of our trollish memebers like to post.

If you have a problem with the work that we, the moderators, are doing, please feel free to discuss it with an Administrator, George, Huski or Dr PP.

As for Panthip.com being more high profile, i might be inclinded to disagree, its a known fact that ThaiVisa.com has government people reading the forum daily, not to mention the high profile people who read the site that we dont know about.

Panthip.com never had any problems with thier content? Your a moderator there? so your privvy to insider information? no? Do you scan every single post made? Do you catch the posts that the moderators delete/edit, before they get to them?

Its quite possible that problems are kept behind closed doors or they are dealt with before becoming a problem... its also quite possible that they havent had any problems... i dont know, i dont post there.

It was not an attack, it was a simple question, which you answered. No need to get in a huff

but they've never had any problems, right?

I meant that they've never had their website shut down, right?

I'm sure they have internal problems just like you do here. And every website has the Thai kid spies looking around...That's been announced by the government some time ago.... Pantip.com comments are quoted and referred to in the media constantly, and that's what I meant about 'higher profile' than here.

It's simply that I've never seen a post here that would indicate a problem, nor have I heard mention of any by the mods (who, generally, do an excellent job- as volunteers). My only point is to look a bit more closely at the censorship issues here in an open forum of discussion, which, to my eyes, has been missing-- Sorry, but the reaction I've seen from mods so far on this issue sends up many red flags for me...Why no reasonable discusion allowed in, or even around, this topic? How can people learn about Thailand life without having a basic understanding of the The Royal Family?

It's really a part of Thailand that is unique in this world, it seems to me. Of course there is interest.... I really enjoy talking about the history of the Kings, and their impacts on history and society- and vice-versa. Of course it's polite, because I DO respect the Royal Family. I simply don't like censoring all due to the lowest common denominator among us.

When I lectured courses on 'Critical Thinking', discussion on many aspects of the Royal Family was common. These graduate classes often contained government officials, and every other student was highly respectfull of issues and comments made about the Royal Family. I even received official permission from the President of my university to show the Hollywood movie 'The King and I' with Yul Bryner...Because it was for academic purposes. The comments and discussions in class that followed were great, and extremely educational and enlighening to me, personally, as well as the other students. For many, this was first time they'd ever openly discussed the Royal Family in a group. Nobody had any negative comments because nobody felt negative about the Royal Family.

Now, the big difference here is that this is mostly made up of farangs...Is that the real issue for some? Frankly, that would be an issue of concern for me.... Some people simply like to be rude, and some simply have no clue about how to properly be repectful... But cancelling all discussion of the Royal Family isn't how it's done in the Thai society, so a false impression could be made by its complete censorship here.... I would like others to learn the reality, not the irrational fears..

Is it possible to make a seperate, moderated, section for Royal Family discussions, like the history, societal impacts, etc.? Maybe the posts would have to go through a moderator first, before being posted? I feel that would be a reasonable and realistic way to alleviate any fears.., And discussions outside that section, or outside any other set parameters, would be censored, or moved by the mods as they do now on any other topic...