Issam rider

I do not understand what you are driving at, although the tone of your OP speaks volumes about your opinion of Thai women; but that's your problem.

At each stage, initial visa, FLR after 30 months in the UK and ILR after a further 30 months in the UK (5 years after arrival in total) applicant and sponsor have to show that their relationship is existing and genuine and for the FLR and ILR applications that they have been and will continue to be living together.

Extending the probationary period for ILR for spouses and partners has surely made sham marriages less likely than before as the couple now have to live together in the UK for 5 years before the foreign spouse can obtain ILR.

If the relationship breaks down before the foreign spouse or partner has ILR they will have to leave the UK when their current LTR expires or remain as an illegal. Not sure if the word 'easily' would apply, though, to living in the UK as an illegal; they could not work, would have no access to health care or other public services, could not leave, even for a short holiday, as they wouldn't get back in and if found and removed, which happens more often than the right wing press would have you believe, their chances of ever returning to the UK in any capacity would be virtually zero.

Of course, no measure will eliminate sham marriages entirely.

But if you suspect that your new wife has only married you to get into the UK and will do a runner as soon as she can; why the hell did you marry her in the first place?

In a candid moment with some Thai friends, where I asked their opinions of farang attitudes, I was somewhat taken aback by their responses;

This is a brief summary of some of their ideas on the topic.

1. Farangs dress badly

2. Worse, many of them (especially men, but sometimes women) appear not to wash, are overweight, balding, crass and ugly

3. Farangs disrespect Thai culture with their boorish, superior attitudes

4. Why do farangs drink so much alcohol? They always seem to be drunk

5. Thai women are used and abused in the sex industry, much to their shame

They were also grateful for the income and job creation which came from tourism and farang spending.

The people who braved the above responses ( reluctantly in most cases) are smart professionals and high achievers.

I am interested to know what you Thaivisa readers and contributors think on the topic and the summary of these responses and if it might be time to reconsider our attitudes.

Give me strength it's not rocket science

From me to you - happy strength -

IMO this is scam activity and I'd say most of those here trying to trash this thread are bar owners trying to trivialise charging 3x the correct price for a sangsom coke.

He he he - how wrong can you be - otherwise your post contains a lot of good advice. I maintain though, that Soi Bukaho is a great place to have a few beers, at any time of the day.

Give me strength it's not rocket science

If you don't live in any other culture how can you have a point of view ?

I live at a small restaurant and bungalows owned and operated by my girlfriend's family. In high season there's lots of tourists and she works at the bar serving drinks and mingling. We've been together for about 4 months. With high season upon us, I'd like to know if anyone has been in a similar situation and has some advice.

There's not too many girls here for the tourists, so anytime there's a pretty girl and they're looking to get laid, they see her as an opportunity. She's very polite, friendly and smiles a lot and many people mistake that for flirting. She has a really hard time ending a conversation if someone keeps talking to her. I've told her she needs to be more blunt when she doesn't want someone hitting on her, but it's very hard for her. That's where my roll comes in. The problem is by nature I'm not a very confrontational person and I'm not exactly threatening in appearance, but if I know someone is going too far I have no problem saying something. What I'm nervous about is since I'm not confrontational by nature, sometimes I don't know how far I should take it and I don't want to start any fights at my girlfriend's family's resort. If I just say "hey man, that's my girlfriend" he'll probably say he wasn't hitting on her and then keep hitting on her all night. If I say "stop hitting on my f*****g girlfriend" obviously there's a chance that could escalate. I can't stay by her side all the time, so if I see someone hanging around her too much I need to step in.

In America I'd have a much easier time with this, but with all the different nationalities it's different. Hell, I've met some people who think saying "hi" to them is confrontational. Anyway, what I want to know is has anyone else been in a situation where they have a good girl who is subjected to constant hitting on by tourists? How did you handle it?

My wife speaks impeccable English national and regional and also cooks great Thai fusion food ( please don't close the site down after this post )

If you don't like Thailand pi.s off back to we're you all come from <deleted> wingin poms etc

I was visiting friends in thailand, my wife was introduced to me and we were friends only for several years.

we later got together, got married had children.

I love to cook and eat a boiled egg with a skeleton in it

It's cool it's quite, i've chilled and come to the conclusion that sons are held in high esteem in Thai families especially the eldest. Also in law! Thats why if the parents die everything goes to the eldest son unless a will is made.

Younger siblings are further down the pecking order, with daughters last.

off topic - Yet why is Thailand the only country in the world that has sin sot for daughters if they are so low in the pecking order?

We don't visit very often that is probally why they refer to us as falang.

As for money i paid several years ago to upgrade/renovate their house and nothing since.

The good thing about the in-laws is we don't understand a word each other says, how many people would wish for that scenario in the West,lol.

So you were taken to the cleaners by a woman you met in a bar in London.....

Maybe she was the kind of woman that was going to take anyone to the cleaners come divorce time? How does that relate to some naive old fart of 50 / 60 marrying a 22 year old Thai prostitute and actually thinking its true love? Maybe I am the naive one but meeting women in bars in london really cant be compared to specifically going into a go go bar in Bangkok and thinking a working girl is genuinelly interested in you for your personality? Some actually do and I call that pure stupidity, am I wrong?

My in-laws have my pictures all around the house ( they say it keeps the flies off the food )

playing devils advocate:

you bought the place and now come over and tell them how to decorate it, whats next?

such generosity will lead to power and control issues in even very wealthy families. it changes things. just thought id mention it since nobody brought it up.

Plenty of men in Thailand that shouldnt have trusted in their girlfriends/wives mainly because they were naive idiots that let their small head do the thinking. You wont hear many success stories on this forum as its a place for old farts to vent their spleen. If you are 50 and marry a 22 year old chances are the relationship is not built on anything more than a sad gullible old mans last stand, and a conniving little crumpets greed. In this case buying a house in the other halfs name would not be recommended...and yet you hear the same stories again and again. They will be on here soon enough, telling all and sundry that all Thai women are money grubbing whores, that you cant trust any of them...you read it on here all the time.

Anyway on a more positive note. There are decent women in any country( along with a smaller pool of bad ones with a steady supply of idiots to prey on). I trust my wife and her family as much as I would if she were born in my own country, its no different. I choose to associate with decent people, I have a good bullshit detector. If you are a naive that goes there to find love in a bar then you reap what you sow.

Falang

Just returned from a visit to the wifes parents house and i'm fuming.

We gave them some framed pictures of their grandchildren and some family pics of us and our children together. So they could hang them up next to their other family pics.This was a few months ago when we stayed for the weekend, they ended up in the bottom of the wardrobe covered with various household items. I offered to hang them next to the pics of the 3 eldest sons on the wall in the main room as they are a similar size picture and frame, which they agreed to.

We visited them this last weekend and guess what my kids pics are back in the bottom of a cupboard, my missus was shocked but kept quite. I feel hurt and insulted but kept quite.

Is this a culture thing? Because the pics were placed next to the pics of the 3 eldest sons, i don't know!

They are good quality portraits but the in-laws dont wish to have them on their walls which incidently i paid for along with the rest of the house. They call our children,their grand-children farang and not by their names.

Are they taking the mick or have i blown this out of proportion? Letting off steam!!!!

After all the scandals regarding green energy companies and the gunrunning scandal to Mexico by the Justice Department as well as an abysmal economic record, if Obama still gets re-elected he will be able to get away with murder this time. If Obama wins I wonder what America will look like four years from now. ?

If romney wins I wonder what the world will look like four years from now?

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as 'Euro-English'.

In the first year, 's' will replace the soft 'c'. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

The hard 'c' will be dropped in favour of 'k'. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome 'ph' will be replaced with 'f'. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent 'e' in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing 'th' with 'z' and 'w' with 'v'.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary 'o' kan be dropd from vords kontaining 'ou' and after ziz fifz yer , ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

EIN VOLK! EIN REICH! EIN FUHRER!

Now they know what Custer must have felt like but surrounded with blue instead of Indians with the outcome ........inevitable lol

You can run around whooping , hand slapping and high diving but it ain't over till the fat American sings

Give over not having it a bright day in Glasgow

While working in America I strangely picked up some Yankee slang I hope that does not imply I too was in the entertainment industry ( all be it the moobs are coming on grand )

Using slang is not all about swearing its also about being regional and part of some ones identity don't really see why the bar girl PALAVER always rears its ugly head ???