sonnyJ

Yep, no arguments there, as well as the very real influence that Japanese porn has in SEA, because a lot of other porn is banned. But, that is off topic.

I thought all porn is banned in most SEA???

Joking?! Illegal or not it is so vastly and readily available in Bangkok that it boggles the mind. I can't go to tech malls without scummy porn dealers fondling me and shouting SEXY MOVIE in my ear while I'm holding hands with my girlfriend..... Not only that but its sold on the street all over the tourist areas with graphic covers often openly displayed for all passerbys to see.

Damian

So are you saying the places you go don't have western, chinese or animal porn? Forgot to add thai and banana trees??

the avg tourist carries 3k baht?

try 30K. esp. japanese ones.

I intentionally made a conservative estimation.

Well there are many kinds of tourists. But very possible yes.

Nobody seems to remember the lost bag. Was there a bag is another thing.

It's sad to hear this kind of stuff all the time. But I guess there are lots of tourists ....fourteen million people come into Thailand each year; some don't make it out.

As for Japanese, I guess they are easy targets, girls even easier. In Cebu, Philippines just a week or 2 ago, a Japanese businessman was murdered on his way to the airport. But you don't (or didn't) expect this stuff in Thailand. I guess I'm not surprised anymore as I have waken up to the reality of that a nation who has such a massive prostitution industry (for foreigners, thais, malaysians in the south) would be run by the mafia, and everything just follows from that. Any nation who allows, organizes and encourages their children en masse to go into prostitution is a nation in serious need of help. Not money, but a complete scrubbing of the powers that be. According to Guardian (UK), 224 Britons died in Thailand between Apr 2005 and Mar 2006, 5 times more than any other country in the world. This is without the tsunami or the recent plane crash.

Truth is, Japan like Thailand, is making money from their business relationship, and nobody wants to rock the boat. Atleast if she died in Japan, she would get a proper investigation and funeral.

I thought there are serious statistical research made that a legal prostitution prevents rapes.

This is more a cultural thing, man-woman relationships within the society. Anyway there's no prove of rape.

Yep, no arguments there, as well as the very real influence that Japanese porn has in SEA, because a lot of other porn is banned. But, that is off topic.

I thought all porn is banned in most SEA???

Condolences to the victim's family and hopes for a peaceful hereafter to the victim

The standard of reporting in the news clippings was set by the statement that Sukhothai was Thailand's capital for a period....

Sukhothai was NEVER the capital of Thailand

- Thailand did not exist until 1938/39. Sukhothai was dysfunctional and absorbed into the Kingdom of Ayutthaya by the late-1300s AD much to the chagrine of the Kingdom of LanNa, which fought several wars with Ayutthaya trying to recover territory that LanNa considered to be theirs.

Ayutthaya too, was never the capital of Thailand, or even of all the territory now within Thailand - it was sacked and completely destroyed by the Burmese in the late 18th Century AD, and even at its peak, several major regions of current Thailand were never under its dominion.

Siam was a generic name for a region of kingdoms and principalities, formalised as a country name after the founding of Krung Thep in the Taksin / Chakri (Rama 1) period, due to the adoption of the name (by foreign emmisaries) as representing the new country around that time. Originally it was a Chinese-given name (Syam) for the Shan west of Nanchao, in what is now Yunnan province.

Gaz

Very interesting Gaz.

So, Shan simply means hills with many southwestern "Chinese" or "Tibetan-Chinese" dialects.

What did the Shan call themselves before?

What did "Thais" call themselves before?

People do have a habit to call their kind by a name.

If you solve this you're on a BIG breakthrough on many fields.

As it says (in the translation) Thanks to Meadish, Students don't require a uniform only a student card.

But what about foreign student in Thailand as me? Am I in Foreign or Thai child category?

Before I have always just paid the Thai adult fees. Or nothing.

Khao Sod newspaper article (in Thai) with photo of the murder scene (thankfully, not too graphically gruesome):

http://www.matichon.co.th/khaosod/view_new...HhNUzB5Tmc9PQ==

Another young life lost in Thailand. Very sad.

We are talking about very violent society here. What I don't understand is why foreigners living here cannot adapt to Thai way of thinking and face the death as it IS. (Thankfully not too graphically gruesome)? Why you want to push your western values to Thailand? Scared of having a bad dream?

I just don't get people who cannot face the world as it is and then insult people who do.

Taxes have just gone up, don't tell me they are going up again. Strong baht, tourist numbers down, beer prices going up, again ! Not making it any easier to do business here are they ?

Why don't they actually go collect some real taxes, like income tax !

do any thais pay income tax? or is it only us farangs

By the law they do, it's 0% though if under 10,000THB/month or so.

How many times this year 2007?

I don't know if/why 1 year processing would take for so long. I used to get mine in 2 hours usually. But of course you need the correct papers from your place of study.

If I calculated correctly time between your arrival and end of studies is 92 days, so your school might give you another 90 days extension if lucky. Of course if you play by the rules you should go to cancel the ED-visa immediately after finishing studies and leave the country but I don't think anyone cares. What I understand EDs are always extended 90, 180 or 365 days per time. Well maybe depends on the type of studies, but there are many things you can study in Thailand.

edit: if you like to travel.

for a few year stay it's simplest to get 1-year multi entry ED.

I think too many people think there is a clear cut division between Chinese Thais and other Thais. I dont really see any 'model' Thais on T.V Just lots of standard Thai people that don't look too much like Lao or Khymer Thais.

Can you really be a model in Thailand if not thai-chinese or thai-farang?

You can be a model if the majority of the population finds you attractive. if they dont, then you cant. see if you connect the dots.

I don't get it.

What does this tell us about Thai ideology?

it doesn't tell us much but your question indicates that you are a troll

To be honest Mr. Naam you look a bit trollish yourself. No pun, by due respect.

Total bullocks , you guys are rationalising too much on something that is not there !

Why worry about something that maybe when this , or this and we become this and they think this ,

which we are not really sure about too , so I have too pick that and prepare for that !

Pwoh , got the point ? I do not say yoy cannot write what you think , but it is just a bit too much !

Forget to take our Xanax today?

I hope you understand that you speak to yourself .

Well, we need to as we have no idea what you're trying to say.

That was my intention , to show how ridiculous some comments were in this thread .

Just as wicked how I read it .

Who am I to say but I get you completely. Some call it TVS, thai visa syndrome.

I think too many people think there is a clear cut division between Chinese Thais and other Thais. I dont really see any 'model' Thais on T.V Just lots of standard Thai people that don't look too much like Lao or Khymer Thais.

Can you really be a model in Thailand if not thai-chinese or thai-farang?

If I may, as the OP, bring this thread back to one my original questions -

And I'll re-phrase a bit here - does anyone else get the feeling that the MEDIA (newspapers, magazines, TV commercials, Soap Operas, etc, etc..) are 'portraying' Chinese-Thais as the 'model' Thais that everyone should be yearning to be like - or indeed actually become?

Yes they already are. This has bothered me for ages as well. But have no idea what the guy in Buriram in his shack by the rice field thinks, probably that Bangkok is some kind of disneyland.

And yes, yes, TV portrays luuk kreung actors as 'models' but that's just cause their 'pretty' and have 'white' skin (IMHO...not because they want Thais to marry Farangs - to be sure they are not encouraging that).

Again, Thai logic is my guess.

Hope to see some thoughtful responses on the above question as relates Thai-Chinese in media portrayal. Thanks - TG2

Sorry about the fycked up coloring

The logic is this see:

Sex is bad, it increases population.

Death is good. It solves the problem

Where did you pull that one out? I thought we were talking about governments.

Rarely preserved after the 3rd generation. At that point, it's up to these descendants to seek out the culture on their own.

Descendants may seek out there own ethnic identity, and certainly descendants of Sino-Thai parents may enter into a long term dialectical identity conundrum. But the bottom line is that economically and politically, Thailand is an ethnic Chinese colony. At some point in the future, Thailand will align itself more closely with China than with the United States and the west. This will probably happen when the Yuan is accepted as payment in exchange for oil in the Middle East. The question then become whether the Thai-Farang luuk khreung, like my own kids, will be allowed to stay. I am beginning to accept that I would be asked to leave at that distant point in the future.

West is west, East is east. What else there is to that..

Sorry Simon you are correct, this requirement was not thought of as important in more recent times when Phibun tried to integrate the different groups of people including the various Muslim groups. However, during the first period of integration of the Chinese under King Rama the fifth it was looked upon as important ( This is not as relevant to the subject as modern times though).

I don't know any Muslims with Thai passports but I do know few Sikhs and other 'Indian' people with Thai citizenship. Generally they don't consider them selves as Thais for understandable reasons, guess the problem here goes both ways. Thais don't like them, them don't like Thais so much. They are almost living in different worlds, I guess mostly due religion.

I must admit that after reading the Guru section of the Bangkok Post each week, I find a rather, how shall I say this - 'class-based' and 'ethnic-based' bias growing concern that does not reflect favourably on Thai-Farang or Thai-Indian.

I have NEVER seen the same type of articles written about Thai-Chin. And I must wonder why.

The great thing about Thailand is its ability to laugh-off differences between cultures in a light-hearted way, and exploit them (in a good way) for the benefit of the country's development. My kids are a mix of Thai-Chin-Farang.

But this raises a question. Are Thai-Chin being positioned (in the media - to be clear here) as more Thai than Thai-Khmer, Thai-Lao, Thai-Farang, Thai-Indian, etc? Afterall, they are no more "THAI" than I am..

This is NOT a racial question - it's meant to provoke some soul searching about why it's OK to satarise thai-indian and thai-farang (not to mention Burmese, Khmer and others) but not thai-chin (or others?)..

To prohibit this debate would suggest a fear...of what exactly? Let's see.. let me be clear, Anyone who uses this post to get racist is not welcome to reply (from my perspective) but that shouldn't preclude a healthy deabte about where we as residents of Thailand are right now -- and where we are heading. Those who would prohibit that kind of debate speak volumes - they think they already know the truth - but do they?

Just to correct the term used here. Chin are one of the largest ethnic groups in Burma(about 1.5 mil.people). There even is a Chin State, bordering Bangladesh. I think the term you are looking for is Chinese, which as well is even broader definition of someones ethnicity. And who is a full blooded Thai anyway? How could you define it?

Peace.

Holiday at Christmas. Sounds great. What about the booze?

this can easily be solved; make the people understand that they can take money from all the parties, then don't go voting at all ... total crash of this system

Or a genocide. But you do have a point there.. The crash could be the whole political system collapsing as never seen before though.

I view these pictures as a good reminder of the fragility of our life.

This is how it works for me anyway.

I find it more distasteful the way death is hidden away in many other countries and treated like something shameful.

I also realise that these pictures can be very upsetting for family and friends of the victims.

So they need to be dealt with carefully.

I fully agree.

And for the being upsetting to family thing, if the culture is like that and it has been the norm, they will be able to deal with it.

I dislike anything being hidden in a society. ANYTHING.

Here Here.

They are running some anti vote-buying advertising on some tv-channels, if I didn't completely misunderstand it. This guy tries to give money to people and everyone says 'mai au' and runs away.

running away to what???

The fact is over half of thailand needs cash and will take it.....advertising won't change that

Its the same in every country. people vote for where the money is. The money being thrown around by government in Australia now is crazy. Personally I'd prefer the cash in hand. I should run this past my local member in sydney!!!

What was your point to quote me? To state that Australia is in the same sad state as Thailand? :D

If you really believe in what you are saying I think your voting rights should be taken away from you.

Figuratively speaking I guess they would be running towards fair elections and democracy.

Over half of me needs money too..