Ringmybells

I don't qualify as an expat since I am here with my family on a long extended vacation. I plan to be here 8 more months and then head to some European countries and then return home from there.

I have been here 6 months and I have given up driving. (Don't have a car here)

Central AC, clean and well kept parks that take 5 minutes to walk from my home.

Clean streets that don't stink, knowing the ingredients in my food, short walk to downtown, efficient and polite customer services, polite people who stand in line and wait for their turn, polite guests who always answer when you request rsvp, my friends and communities, clean drinking water out of the tap.

Thailand is nice for a holiday...but I still prefer to live in the west.

We came to Thailand knowing no one. We brought the whole family, stayed in a hotel for a week and then found a rental with a one year lease. Nowadays, with the help of the internet for reseach you can almost settle anywhere in the world with no body's help but your own.

Yesssss I am most of the time scared of what I eat. Sauces and food here in Thailand are full of MSG. I have no idea how much fertilizer they put in veggies. Not many organic veggietables are available here in Thailand.

If I understand correctly, you are a farang woman and you are trying to befriend Isaan peasant-class women who are married to farang men.

Thais are generally only comfortable with Thais. (This is a generalisation but...)

Even more so Isaaners are only comfortable with Isaaners.

Even more than that, Isaaners from the rice-farming peasant class can only be comfortable with their own.

Yet more, Isaan peasant-class women are even more uncomfortable in the presence of people not like them.

It is all too much of an effort, similar to working, to be the friend of anyone from outside of their society. Interact, yes. Be true friends in a relaxed and pleasurable friendship, not possible.

You are barking up the wrong tree. This is not Europe.

Got it and thanks for enlighten me. One thing I don't understand: Why do they keep inviting me to their homes, parties and to do things with them?

No, I am NOT a troll.

I have no idea why some people here think I am a troll. I found it here: http://www.thethailandlife.com/lower-class-thailand

Easiest way to solve the problem is to learn Indian cooking yourself. No, those Indians would not apologize to you because you are not Oprah.

I can't help but wonder why my Thai friends won't come to my house. These people would invite me to hang out at their homes, restuarants, parks etc but they came to my home once and that's it.

We are in Thailand on a long vacation. We have kids we send to an International school. We meet most of our friends through the school. These moms told me that they used to be poor but their social status are now way up because they are married to farang.

We live comfortably back home and we can afford to live a luxurious life here if we choose, instead, we choose to live in a quiet Thai neigborhood and without a car. Every household in my neighborhood owns at least one car except for us, we own none. We use songtheaw and tuk tuk...the kids love tuk tuk. My Thai friends pick me up to go to their house and then drop me back to my home but they would not socialize with me at my house. My house is not spotlless but it is not dirty or messy either. I have a nice house with AC in almost all the rooms. They all live in modern homes in gated community. I don't dress up when I go out but I guess they don't have a problem with that since they keep inviting me. Oh! I also don't have a maid here and they just can't believe that I pick up a broom and a dustpan myself to clean my house.

They all say what a sweet person I am but why why do they decline each time I invite them to come to my house and enjoy my cooking?

Here comes a younger wife of a very much older husband. 29 years between us....Yes that's right TWENTY NINE! He is 68 I am 39...been married almost a dozen years..enjoying and sharing our life together. There is LOVE and TRUST between us. We are financially comfortable. If my husband has to file bankruptcy would I leave him...HELL NO. I would ask him to stay home while I work three jobs to support my family. I don't know about other age gap marriage but there is deep committments and loyality in my marriage.

He was exotic to me and that was the thing that made me go WILD!

I was young when I met him but I had a college degree, real job and real salarie that supported my comfortable life!

If you think all age gap marriages are based on money and greed then do yourself a favor by judging less accept more and be happy!

Interesting. May I inquire as to your nationality? Your husband's?

Oh, you want me to guess? Ok, I'd say Ms. Momo is Filipino, and her husband, a retired American serviceman.

I'm guessing she is a white American and the husband is ??

Curiosity killed the cat....keep on guessing:-)

Here comes a younger wife of a very much older husband. 29 years between us....Yes that's right TWENTY NINE! He is 68 I am 39...been married almost a dozen years..enjoying and sharing our life together. There is LOVE and TRUST between us. We are financially comfortable. If my husband has to file bankruptcy would I leave him...HELL NO. I would ask him to stay home while I work three jobs to support my family. I don't know about other age gap marriage but there is deep committments and loyality in my marriage.

He was exotic to me and that was the thing that made me go WILD!

I was young when I met him but I had a college degree, real job and real salarie that supported my comfortable life!

If you think all age gap marriages are based on money and greed then do yourself a favor by judging less accept more and be happy!

My oh My I don't want to say goodbye to this thread but being the only woman here is hard....why oh why these young studs don't dare to qoute me..is it because they really think that when they become old and frail only gold diggers will give them lap dances?/??

Bumped!

I will indulge you in your little parlour games,

quoted from above,

We are financially comfortable.

Excellent stuff glad to hear it, its a bit of a turnaround from a post you made yesterday,

I don't have a lot of money.

make your mind up, which one is it, you cant afford to pay for 7 people to come to your birthday party.

Posted here,

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/642659-new-need-your-advice-on-thai-society/

Maybe just maybe you aint as financially comfortable as you claim, or have you just received an inheritance?

We don't have a lot of cash that's true.

Can I afford to take 10 people to dinner at a nice restuarant? hell yeah! Do I want a quiet party so that I get to know my new friends better? Yeah I do!

Just so you know.....my birthday party is now much bigger than I HAVE ORIGINALLY PLANNED.

The truth is: We are financially comfortable, we live well but not extravagantly, we don't want to pay more than we have too:-) Got it???

Thais are a little shy, when it comes to asking for more money.

What a load off Buffalo P@@,,,, they will soon let you know if enough, is not enough

Like the one who helped watch my kids for 3000 baht for 4 days about 3 hours each day! She was actually polite enough to ask me if I was okay paying her that kind of wages. When I said well...I would if you come in the weekend too, her answer was that she didn't work in the weekend but still wanted to get paid 3000 baht excluded weekend.

She didn't want to do it.

The kids were too much effort last time.

The BK trip fell through.

She wanted more money.

You will never know the truth so why worry, Thai's rarely like to say no, easier to lie.

Exactly so.

There are any number of possible reasons why she couldn't do it or didn't want to, no point in trying to guess what they were, though indeed it might have been the money. What is pretty sure is that the reason was not the one she gave, which is very typical.

Lying under such circumstances is considered quite acceptable in Thai culture and considered preferrable to saying anything that might cause disappointment or inter-personnel friction. It doesn't cause as much confusion to Thais as it does to us since they start from the assumption that whatever reason is given is likely not true and that whatever promises are made may not be genuine. For us, used to working on opposite assumptions, it can be very confusing.

In Thai culture, the goal of any conversation or encounter is to maintain the outward appearance of harmony and to avoid loss of face for any of the participants. It can be quite frustrating since in the service of said goal, things may be done and said that will cause the people involved to have serious problems in the long run, but that's considered OK as long as they experience those problems in private and the interpersonal interaction went off smoothly.

What you have experienced is just the tip of the iceberg. Just wait until a workman takes off part of your roof and for some reason decides he can't continue the job but lies and tells you he is going out to buy supplies and will be right back (omitting all mention of the exposed roof) at the height of the rainy season... because it was thought better to let your house be flooded and have you deal with that than to face giving you bad (but nowhere as bad as that) news.

Happens all the time. You just have to get used to it, and remember that "yes" may actually be "no", promised appointments may not be kept etc etc.

As regards this woman, Thai norms require that you just act as if the whole thing never happened.

Excellent post. I gave up on trying to figure out why Thais do what they do long ago. I still rather live here than in the West

I am enjoying learning Thai culture but when our one year visa expires we will be glad to get back to the west:-)

Here comes a younger wife of a very much older husband. 29 years between us....Yes that's right TWENTY NINE! He is 68 I am 39...been married almost a dozen years..enjoying and sharing our life together. There is LOVE and TRUST between us. We are financially comfortable. If my husband has to file bankruptcy would I leave him...HELL NO. I would ask him to stay home while I work three jobs to support my family. I don't know about other age gap marriage but there is deep committments and loyality in my marriage.

He was exotic to me and that was the thing that made me go WILD!

I was young when I met him but I had a college degree, real job and real salarie that supported my comfortable life!

If you think all age gap marriages are based on money and greed then do yourself a favor by judging less accept more and be happy!

My oh My I don't want to say goodbye to this thread but being the only woman here is hard....why oh why these young studs don't dare to qoute me..is it because they really think that when they become old and frail only gold diggers will give them lap dances?/??

Bumped!

Here comes a younger wife of a very much older husband. 29 years between us....Yes that's right TWENTY NINE! He is 68 I am 39...been married almost a dozen years..enjoying and sharing our life together. There is LOVE and TRUST between us. We are financially comfortable. If my husband has to file bankruptcy would I leave him...HELL NO. I would ask him to stay home while I work three jobs to support my family. I don't know about other age gap marriage but there is deep committments and loyality in my marriage.

He was exotic to me and that was the thing that made me go WILD!

I was young when I met him but I had a college degree, real job and real salarie that supported my comfortable life!

If you think all age gap marriages are based on money and greed then do yourself a favor by judging less accept more and be happy!

My oh My I don't want to say goodbye to this thread but being the only woman here is hard....why oh why these young studs don't dare to qoute me..is it because they really think that when they become old and frail only gold diggers will give them lap dances?/??

Firstly, are you even sure that money was the reason she backed out of the job?

Even if it was, I would think most people would be apprehensive about bringing up their dissatisfaction with the amount you were willing to pay. Not only do they not want to appear greedy, but they don't want to insult you by implying that you're cheap.

If you really didn't know the going rate, I myself would have guessed on the high side. But that's me.

If a live-in maid gets paid 5500/mo I thought 1500+dinner for four days, 3 hours each day is on the high side. I also asked a few Thais and they said that was a fine offer.

Here comes a younger wife of a very much older husband. 29 years between us....Yes that's right TWENTY NINE! He is 68 I am 39...been married almost a dozen years..enjoying and sharing our life together. There is LOVE and TRUST between us. We are financially comfortable. If my husband has to file bankruptcy would I leave him...HELL NO. I would ask him to stay home while I work three jobs to support my family. I don't know about other age gap marriage but there is deep committments and loyality in my marriage.

He was exotic to me and that was the thing that made me go WILD!

I was young when I met him but I had a college degree, real job and real salarie that supported my comfortable life!

If you think all age gap marriages are based on money and greed then do yourself a favor by judging less accept more and be happy!

My neighbor was excited to help my husband watch our twins for a few hours a day for 4 days while I was in bangkok getting my Malaysia visa. We only needed her help in the afternoon after school hence, a few hours only! Since I was new in Thailand I didn't know what a fair wage was so I asked her how much I should pay her. She said whatever I wanted to pay her. I asked around, my Thai friend said she pays her live-in maid 5,500 baht/mo so 1500 baht should be a fair wage for 4 days and only about 3 hours a day. I made an offer of 1500 baht, my next door neighbor readily accepted. I asked her twice if she is happy with my offer her answer was 'YES' both times.

A week before I left for bangkok I went and chatted with her. I told her how happy I was that she would help my husband watch the kids during my absence. Her response was, 'oh I can't I go Bangkok'. Then I asked her why she didn't tell me as soon as she knew the changes in her plan. Again, her response was 'I go bangkok, my daughter go too, she work Bangkok'. I got a little upset and stressed out but I tried to appear pleasant and I didn't say a thing more. I got busy finding a new helper. I found one who wasn't so shy so she asked 3000 baht for 4 days about 3 hours each day. I felt she was asking way too much but I knew she was good with kids so I pay anyway. Everything went well and I paid her 3000 baht as soon as I returned from Bangkok.

Back to my next door neighbor. A few days before I left for Bangkok I asked her if she was going to fly/drive/train? She said she was flying. 'What time is your flight'? I asked. '10 AM'. She answered. 'Oh bummer' I said, 'Mine is at 2 otherwise, we could ride together to the airport'. Yes', she said. One day before I left for Bangkok, I asked her, 'So you are excited to go to Bangkok'? 'No, I wait my mother to call', 'oh so if your mother didn't call you wouldn't go'? 'Yes' She said.

When I came back from Bangkok I found out that neither she or her daughter ever left their house for the whole week I was in Bangkok. I asked my friend if it is possible that my next door neigbor lied to me about the whole Bangkok trip, my Thai friend said 'YES'. She said she actually knew right from the begining that there is no such thing as a trip to Bangkok. She said that it was quite possible that she wasn't happy with the 1500 baht I offered her.

'Then why didn't she ask for more', I said.

'Because that is not Thai way', my friend said.

'So she rather lie to me than tell me she needed/wanted more money'? I asked.

My friend said, 'yes, that's just Thai way and you have to get used to it if you plan to live with Thai people.

I feel that white lies are ok, like, when someone gives you a gift and you say you like it even when you don't like it but when people you rely and depend on lie to you it is a big problem and such a turn off.

I pay two thousand per month.

Usually involved evening + overnight stay 5-6 times per month.

Our son is 1 year 9 months.

if you want, I have 2 babysitter here in Chiang Mai, both with university degree, 500 baht for evening, (about 3-4 hours) more you can discuss, good english, ver kind to kids and take care, if you want the telefon number, tell me how to post here, never made this

I am not sure if you can PM me here...I desperately need sitters who charge me a reasonable rate. We usually go out less than 4-5 hours and would love to pay 100 bt/hr + food and cab fare. Thanks.

Sounds a bit expensive at 300/hr. Those are the rates you pay at a hotel when they arrange babysitters at short notice and there are 2 or others in the food chain such as from hotel staff that find the sitter from a friend of a friend etc, all of whom get their slice of the action. Seen it happen when you pay the girl 300 baht and then see her give 100 baht to the receptionist and then been told not to forget to give 50 baht to Kuhn Na that is the girls aunty.

We've gone out for an evening and paid 300 baht for the 6 or 7 hours to girls 20+ years old here in Jomtien, and they really appreciate that much, believe me.

I don't think a college degree makes any difference and can't understand why that point has any relevance to employing a babysitter.

I find it expensive too that's why I post a question here. I pay almost the same as in the US ($10?hr) and my sitter in the US works in a community college day-care.

I pay two thousand per month.

Usually involved evening + overnight stay 5-6 times per month.

Our son is 1 year 9 months.

Are you in Chiang Mai? How can I find a sitter that charges resonable rate? Thanks.

I don't have/need a regular babysitter so I am wondering how much one pays a sitter in Chiang Mai if they only hiring them sometimes.

I usually hire sitters who speak some English and have a college degree. They charge between 170 baht to 300 baht/hour. Is that the going rate?

My twins are 3.5 years old if that makes a difference.

All our visa have been extended. Kids ED, husband Retirement and I as dependent. We also got our reentry permits the same time. Tm 7 for extension Tm 8 for reentry. I saved $500 by doing it all myself...yipee. Thanks guys for all your help, guidance and valuable informations!

You are already living in one of the least expensive cities in the world that offers a high standard of living, good medical care, and low crime. Personally, I'm mystified why anyone would move a young family to Thailand, unless you are making good money. I agree with some of the other posts about feeding your kids street food. I won't even eat street food, because most of the vendors don't have access to clean running water. Start cooking at home and take advantage of the fresh fruit and vegetable markets. Also, get those kids out of here during the smokey season for a little fresh air.

We are travelling the world and stopping by Chiang Mai for one year. We like it but we are going back in May next year stopping by Europe for a few months on the way back home.

I agree I should start cooking my own food even though it is more expensive to cook than to eat at my next door neighbor restaurant.

well very best wishes if you're stopping by Europe things can't be that bad (thankfully) good luck

Thanks! Life is actually quite good...but if possible, it doesn't hurt to save for rainy days:-)

Ditch the kids - they are very expensive and often not worth the money.

I certainly hope you are not a parent.