PaullyW

Pw....you say you are far richer here than you would be in other countries......obviously your definition of "richer" is based on monetary values, I feel sad for you.

I consider myself richer than you, because I am happy with my life, I am happy to choose to live in Thailand, I am happy with all the choices I have made to get me where I am today.

You may have more money than me, but if that makes you happy.....once again I feel sad for you.

Thanks, but please don't feel sorry for me. Save your sorrow for someone who deserves it. I'm quite alright.

I walked by Paragon california a few days ago and it was fully packed. I don't understand how they have gone bankrupt having so many paying members. The equipment is not of very high quality and it's not well maintained so that's not the biggest cost. Maybe it's all the discoballs and discolighting? Or maybe that asshol_e Eric Levine bought a few houses too many.

Another lie from California?

Or more likely the dumb @ss laws that require companies to employee poorly educated and largely useless Thais in massive numbers and the exorbitant rents charged by land owners who lease the land to companies and individuals.

Can any of you elaborate on WHY you "like" or "love" it in Thailand? I bet you can't. Your comments are no more useful than the guys who bash without solid argument.

@paullyW, tut tut, such cynicism.........I will grace your question with an answer at some point today. I fear though that anything I say won't matter to you, as you have obviously decided that you're right on every matter.

@whistleblower, we started in Chiang Mai, we're now in Koh Samui, and we'll be in BKK next Wednesday.

Thank you. I am looking forward to you answer. I really do want to know.

Can any of you elaborate on WHY you "like" or "love" it in Thailand? I bet you can't. Your comments are no more useful than the guys who bash without solid argument.

Well we all know that you do not like it here.........yet you stay..........because it is profitable for you, so why are you concerned about others who actually want to stay and live here?

You are correct. I LOVE what I am able to exploit here. I am far richer than I would have been in other countries I've lived and worked in. Not sure what's wrong with that. I'm interested for the sake of discussion.

Can any of you elaborate on WHY you "like" or "love" it in Thailand? I bet you can't. Your comments are no more useful than the guys who bash without solid argument.

Just curious as to your thoughts on this.

$167,000 USD? That will go far.

much further than countries offering $0.00

With that sort of apologist logic if a friend of mine's daughter was dying and desperately needed money for a life saving operation costing $50,000 and I gave him 5 baht it would go much further than someone who gave nothing.

Do you not have $50k because the Japanese do have the resources to deal with this.

If the person was considerably poorer than you and was simply showing you they cared, would you still have such an idiotic view that you need go to incredibly unequal comparisons to let everyone know how negative you are?

Why even have a comparison? The facts are very clear ... You have one of the most modern and richest countries in the world who suffered a natural disaster and a much poorer country steps up and offer a monetary gesture (only country to do do) to let this country know they care and appreciate the support the richer country has given them in times of disaster. And you have a problem with this.

No need to use analogies, this is a very easy thing to understand unless you are a miserable person who has miserable views.

Nisa,

Please stop. Please tell us more about how the Thai government is poor. I would wager that the Thai government holds a much higher percentage of its country's wealth than the Japanese government holds of its country's wealth. Further, high ranking Thai government officials are no doubt FAR wealthier than their Japanese counterparts.

What a ridiculous argument you're trying to make. Why do you feel the need to defend Thai acts that are so pathetic?

Must be a slap in the face to Japan. 5 mil Baht is like 300 USD or something. Totally ridiculous.

Yes I still like clubbing.

Loud repetitive music, associated laser mixed with scantily dressed girls gyrating their ass against your body makes for great foreplay.

It definately beats drinking at one of those street bars at four in the morning.

why not just skip the foreplay and dive right into the bush? why is you old guys like foreplay? i like <deleted>.

If you can explain in a language your maid understands that the money has no special attachments or expectations, she will be grateful. Focus on your language and communication ability. Tell her it's common where you're from to pay above and beyond to signify appreciation. Good Thais will often not be comfortable with this concept as it is not common in Thai culture (outside of "obligatory" giving).

Isn't it a guy's (or Thais lady's) right to leave if he wants to leave? I don't understand the support for law the props up relationships. If a Thai lady can't keep a man interested in the relationship, who is to blame for that?

I've always found guys that profess support for a woman in this situation, are more interested in shagging her themselves, than anything else. False sympathy closely followed by the attempted 'consoling shag'.

AGREED

Well,

@46; Som Tam

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Som_tam

Som Tam is probably heavily Lao/Khmer-influenced

@19; Nam Tok Moo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larb#Nam_tok

heavily Lao-influenced

@8; Tom Yam Gung

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_yam_gung

Probably Thai!!

@1; Mussaman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massaman_curry

Massaman is probably Malay. Certainly Muslim, so not really Thai.

I won't be a hypocrite, yes I understand the Thai attitude to land ownership, I have no problem with that, ( although I think it could be tweaked to allow a married man to own his own home, as long as he sold it within one year of any subsequent divorce ).

I disagree, what will The Thai woman do when she gets older, lose her home to some Farang who has just met an 18 year old in the Bar ?

No , Farangs come to Thailand to take advantage of what they can, in many cases it's getting poor women easy cos you promise her security, so she should have that security.

I knew a Thai woman that had lived with a Farang for 10 years, rented apartment, she gave him the best years of her life only to be left when he met a younger girl in a bar, he took his belongings and left, all she had was the rent to pay, the guy must have been 65 she about 35, after 10 years in a Relationship with so many broken promises, she was left with nothing to compensate her for the 10 years with a man older than her father.

See it don't matter to the Farang, had has money coming in every month and he was always gonna take care of her, the usual <deleted>, " When I die, you'll be ok, I'll look after you"

Happily the young girl he met fleeced him good and proper, left Thailand with nothing.

Many Farangs ONLY stay with their older Thai wives BECAUSE she owns the house.

Isn't it a guy's (or Thais lady's) right to leave if he wants to leave? I don't understand the support for law the props up relationships. If a Thai lady can't keep a man interested in the relationship, who is to blame for that?

^^ To answer your question, yes I did, and, seems I nailed it.

You did what????

It think he thinks he nailed something, not too sure what it is yet.

??

^^ To answer your question, yes I did, and, seems I nailed it.

A ladyboy told me he loves me, what should I do ?

Tell it you don't have much money.

Did you set out to use the word 'it' intentionally or was that just a lapse in concentration, either one, it's not nice and quite demeaning, an inanimate object can be an it, but a person is always a person.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/it

it

¹    [it] Show IPA pronoun, nominative it, possessive its or ( Obsolete or Dialect ) it, objective it; plural nominative they, possessive their or theirs, objective them; noun

pronoun

1.

(used to represent an inanimate thing understood, previously mentioned, about to be mentioned, or present in the immediate context): It has whitewall tires and red upholstery. You can't tell a book by its cover.

2.

(used to represent a person or animal understood, previously mentioned, or about to be mentioned whose gender is unknown or disregarded): It was the largest ever caught off the Florida coast. Who was it? It was John. The horse had its saddle on.

A ladyboy told me he loves me, what should I do ?

Tell it you don't have much money.

Many years ago I had a friend who's kid had been in the international school system in Bkk. At 17 years old he was good on English speaking, good at written english, good at spoken Thai but could hardy read or write Thai. Thats not a good education in my thinking

Everyone is missing the actual language factors. In fact, Thai -- especially the writing/reading -- is an order of magnitude harder to become proficient in than is English. Linguistic studies offer that Thai, even when spoken as a native language, requires comparatively (with many other languages) more time for children to become proficient in.

This is especially true where the reading and writing are concerned as Thai reading and writing is really quite a mess once you step back from it and try to see it as objectively as possible.

The written script is chock-full of irregularities (not unlike English, but probably by a (much) higher percentage),

writing most often (when done as per Thai traditional standards) does not offer words breaks (spaces), so readers of Thai must know all vocabularies (since also it's often nearly impossible to pronounce a new Thai word due to so many words not following the complex spelling rules); to watch native Thai speakers/readers/writers reading is like watching someone performing brain surgery as Thai requires so much brain concentration

With respect to speaking Thai, well, it's rather dissimilar from English, so it might be frustrating for young people to learn both if they are not interested in language. The Asian languages, as a whole, are more similar to each other than English is to Thai, for example.

Breadth of information is another important area. I would imagine that these kids are enamored with the sheer volume of information that is in English which could lessen their interest for Thai as Thai language is known to be bereft of written works as compared to English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, most all European languages, etc. With respect to written texts, Thai could almost be seen as a dead language. If you remove the Thai language books that were just translations of works from English and other languages, you'd have a rather paltry set of texts. And, those of us who can read Thai (and many who can't) are aware that the Thai language web is critically lacking as compared to other languages and especially English.

Language of education itself. Thai kids must at some point become aware of the advantages of learning certain kinds of subjects (any science, philosophy, for example) through English rather than doing the same through Thai. The reasons for this are apparent as English evolved to incorporate these concepts/studies more precisely than Thai really could hope to.

Thai is a beautiful language, but it is really ill-suited, in my opinion, to many modern activities. If these kids want to express emotions of the heart, "jai", or express precision in their respect for social structure, then they can use Thai.

*Sent from mobile device; apologies for brevity or lack thereof and/or any mistakes.

HeavyDrinker,

Great post! You gotta admit, though, that it IS often terrifying to have to work with Thais to solve something. Not many things scarier (excepting for physical assault/injury).

However, let me just add

Not everyone aims in their lives to be happy or have fun or go out to bars or to have an interesting life. Some are perfectly content sitting at home with beer, reading, watching TV, looking out of the window, etc. I almost never go out, and I love it that way. I had plenty of fun as a younger man, so I am into different things now. Higher order stuff.

As you previously stated You profit here. There is a word I would use but it may be interpreted as trolling

Is the word "opportunist"?

Relax guys. I have disagreed with both of you; both Nietzche and PaullyW. Since I disagreed with both of you I think I have a reasonably good idea of your reactions. No offense meant but both of you acted like sociopaths. I mean really nothing we have discussed was worth getting worked up about. But both of you became rather agitated in you responses. Hardly an adult like trait. I just wrote it off to you being in Thailand for a while. A good example will be your reaction to this post.

Will you intrepret my words as good natured fun or think I am trying to insult you?

Hmmm.... Actually, I'm quite calm and peaceful. I also don't think it's likely that nietzche is especially worked up over this. Perhaps you have read in a bit too much emotion?

the age old "face loss" situation is the #1 obstacle which holds this country back. believe it.

I think you are both selectively pinning this on Thai's.

Have you ever worked in corporate America? I never met a single human being in my professional life who wouldn't hesitate to throw the next guy under the bus.

It's not a "Thai thing", it's a "human thing".

I think Thai's handle being challenged a lot better that many westerners. From my experience the typical Yank will turn violent a hell of a lot quicker than a Thai.

Did you work in Walmart while in the US? I worked in corporate America, and my experience was the exact opposite to yours. People easily admit when they have done something wrong. In fact, at some firms (that I worked with/for), people's willingness to apologize was almost too high. I cannot recall meeting more than a few people who had similar Face issues that I observe with MOST Thais I encounter and who work for me and who I work with.

It is far more common here.

I worked as a software engineer on Wall Street. I'd say around 90% of the people I worked with were borderline sociopaths.

I'd like to know where you worked. Was it by any chance "Sesame Street"? If not, I can only assume that it was somewhere outside of a major city.

Clearly you did not work in a very competitive environment.

I have nothing against those who can thrive in such an environment, but it's not my style.

Back to the issue. Whether it's Thai, American, Brits, etc. It's human nature for people to lash out when confronted.

I worked in Midtown at UBS for two years after grad school (just one example)

Anyway, are you saying that these things occur in the same percentages across cultures?

Hope you have found your peace.

Yes, he is at peace. He is in a better kingdom now. The kingdom of heaven with God. May God bless you sir.

People that commit suicide do not get to enter "heaven". Sorry.

And, while we're clearing things up, heaven is, in fact, completely made up. Like Santa Claus and Thai Buddhism.

With the exception of bytebuster's, all of these opinions reflect a truly depressing degree of ignorance. If you want to theorize about languages why not read a book about it instead of inventing subjective types of distinction and then theorizing ad hoc about the cultural implications that follow, notably to the benefit of your own culture?

The Thai language is not inferior because it borrowed an alphabet. Since writing was only invented three or four times, nearly all writing systems are borrowed. It is not inferior because of the number of words in its lexicon. English has more words because they borrowed both from their conquerors (French-speaking vikings) and their conquerees as well as trading partners. French has fewer words because they didn't have much of a global empire and anyway preferred to discard synonyms for aesthetic reasons. Thai is not inferior because of the number of exceptions to its pronunciation rules. English has more exceptions while Chinese has no pronunciation rules based on writing at all. And so on.

Yes, I have now changed my mind after all this education.

Thai language is no better or worse for ANY PURPOSE than English or any other language.

Thai culture has no common characteristics that make certain parts of it better or worse for ANY PURPOSE than any other culture.

All people are exactly equal in ALL WAYS; none inferior or superior to any others in any respect.

There, you guys happy now?

Sincerely,

Likely PRIVILEGED Endlessly Apologetic Idealist

HeavyDrinker,

Great post! You gotta admit, though, that it IS often terrifying to have to work with Thais to solve something. Not many things scarier (excepting for physical assault/injury).

However, let me just add

Not everyone aims in their lives to be happy or have fun or go out to bars or to have an interesting life. Some are perfectly content sitting at home with beer, reading, watching TV, looking out of the window, etc. I almost never go out, and I love it that way. I had plenty of fun as a younger man, so I am into different things now. Higher order stuff.