keestha

For any Thai lady, the transition of settling in the Netherlands would be very difficult. If she would make a half hearted move after thinking about it a long time, than from the beginning on the problems of adapting to a completely different type of life would weigh heavily on her, and she might soon regret her decision.

It ain't easy, and if she wants it, she should want it 100%

Money of Survival is will choose number 2.

Not sure what you mean by that. In case it means that there is a second guy who could be an alternative for her, cut loose right away. You are not a piece of merchandise that has to be compared with other brands.

In case you mean something different, please accept my apologies for the misunderstanding.

Sterkte anyways,

Kees.

Your chance to contract dengue as a tourist or resident in Phuket or in Thailand in general is very, very low.

The profilaxis against malaria you only have to take when you go trekking in mountain areas in Northern Thailand, close to the Burmese border.

It would be more realistic to worry about traffic accidents.

the fact that Austrian government refuses to give citizenship to babies born to foreign mothers not married to the austrian father

Don't wait too long contacting Norwegian authorities about rules concerning Norwegian citizenship for children who have just one Norwegian parent.

In my case, I was too late. I am Dutch, and if I would have contacted the embassy to recognize the child as being mine before it was born, it would have had Dutch citizenship from birth on. Now, because I am not married to the mother, only after 3 years I can claim Dutch citizenship for the child, if I can prove that I am the one who has financially taken care of her, so I am carefully keeping hospital receipts and so on.

Congratulations anyway.

Have had good experiences with Thaksina, Phisit Karani Road, Tel. 076342820. They are open every day except for wednesday.

Glad I finally found the time&energy to read this thread. The subject greatly interests me, but it is always a bit difficult to get over the threshold to start reading a very long thread from the beginning.

Just a few loose observations:

1) Personally I couldn't imagine living and doing business in Thailand without speaking/reading Thai, but I know that there are many expats having happy and productive lives without speaking the language. Everybody has to make choices about what abilities to acquire. Many divers would probably hold me for crazy, living in a world class diving area but never having learned to dive, though probably using business leverage I could get a diving course for free.

2) Farangs who are oh so proud of speaking good Thai (or think they can) , really showing it off on purpose, just get on my nerves. When a farang starts speaking Thai to me, I immediately point out to him that my English/German is better than my Thai, that in his case this will be the same, and that I am not interested in a competition who speaks the best Thai.

3) Sadly enough, in my bar owner days I experienced that the ladies working for me received the rudest, least respectful treatment from Thai speaking farangs.

4) It is indeed a VERY difficult language. The muscles in these people's jaws have developed in a different way, and you never get the pronounciation right. To the tourists I am doing business with, my Thai seems fluent, but when they ask about it, I always say that even though I speak far better English and German than that I speak French, my French is still better than my Thai. In Thai I know much more words than in French, but my French sounds much better, much more natural. Speaking Thai, though I am understood well, I will always sound like an extraterrestial.

5) What about this "natural approach" the AUA applies? They claim you learn to speak EXACTLY like the Thais. Inside I was chuckling though, when this guy who had followed this course told me in heavily German accented English that he spoke Thai exactly like the Thais.

You'll be coming in the low season, it won't be any problem to find a suitable place. Joiner fee is mostly a problem in the upmarket places, check out less pretentious places which still have nice rooms, swimming pool and so on, and ask if they charge joiner fees. If I were you, I wouldn't book anything, but just come here and look around for something nice.

Go to your bank and execute a Power of Attorney on your bank account, in your wife's name.

Interesting, but most bank employees, even branch directors, wouldn't know what a Power of Attorney is. Does anybody know the Thai expression for this?

"Bai mop am naat" is the general expression for a document empowering somebody to do something on your behalf, but in this case ,authorizing somebody to get to your bank account, I could imagine you need something different, for which a different standard form is used than for the normal "bai mop am naat".

Can you just arrange this at the bank, or does a lawyer need to get involved?

Cultural differences make people stick to their own kind.

For 6 years, I lived in Hua Hin where there are lots of resident farangs. The English speaking community and the German speaking community hardly interacted ( though the cultural difference isn't really that big), so how can you expect them to interact with the culturally completely different Thais?

On another note, how many UK residents who have foreign roots (maybe even second generation) have mainstream British friends? I am just taking the UK as an example, it could have been the Netherlands, Spain or wherever.

Benefits: your Thai children can have your last name.

Not correct. Though I am not legally married to my Thai partner, my daughter, born in Phuket in 2007, has my last name.

It always puzzles me a bit when posters who claim to have a booming business, don't put a link to their website on their profile.

Oh well, they probably already have too many customers.

My impression is that the concept of "friendship" as it is in the West, doesn't exist in Thai culture. People seem to be very close with neighbours and colleagues, but out of sight out of mind. Often the person moving or quitting won't even bother to say goodbyes.

There seems to be hardly any such thing as long time friends staying in touch no matter where they move. I know that higher class Thais often stay in touch after graduating from university, but this is mainly because networking is good for the career or the business.

I get along very well with male relatives of my wife, but this I wouldn't call friendship, it's just that fate brought us together.

Also my relationships with Thai men I am doing business with are cordial enough, chatting together about the tourist business, but also this wouldn't qualify as "frienship" in the Western sense of the word.

Often Thai staff was amazed seeing me talking for hours with some farang friend visiting my place. Two Thai "friends" meeting would just finish a small bottle of whisky, and than go looking for ladies.

Oh well, probably lots of people will chip in who have loads of real Thai friends. They might even point out that after having lived here for 18 years, apparently my level of understanding Thai culture is still zero, and my integration level likewise zilch.

True some people do good business running a bar, but this is just a minority.

When I tried to sell my bar, all my friends (old Thailand hands) said: Oh but Keestha, everybody I know has had a bar already.

Still I don't regret the 6 years I spent running a bar/guesthouse. It was a very funny alcohol fuelled period.

Since you are a native speaker, you might be able to work as an English teacher. In Phuket it would be more difficult to find an opening than in Bangkok though. Go to the teachers forum for loads of information.

Good luck.

For some time it has puzzled me to (often) see announcements about former employees in the newspaper.

On top a picture of the person is shown, and under that a text which will run like:

XXX (Thailand) Ltd announces that with effect of 28th February 2009, Mr AAA BBB, a former (function), is no longer an employee. Mr AAA, therefore, has no right or authority to act on behalf of the company, or take any action involving the business of the company. The company will thus take no responsability for any activities that Mr AAA has engaged in on behalf of the company.

Does this mean the person in question has committed fraud, pretending to still represent the company, after having been fired or after having quit? Or is this just done to prevent this from happening?

I certainly wouldn't like to see a picture of my not so handsome anymore face in the newspaper, accompanied by a text like that.

When I was still living in Bangkok, I unexpectedly received a phone call from a young Thai lady I knew only vaguely, she wanted to come and visit me. It surprised me a bit, though in those days I still was a "hello sexy men" instead of the "hello pappa" I have developed into since.

She came with a friend, and very soon it became clear she wanted to talk with me about Amway, trying to recruit me.

On another occasion a German guy I was befriended with at the time complained his wife was heavily involved with Amway, rather spending money on it than making any.

Later, when I had a bar in Hua Hin, the Thai GF of one of my steady customers was continiously trying to flog Amway stuff to my staff. I was glad when the guy finally told her to stop to stop doing this.

A bit of simple internet research makes it clear pretty soon: the people way upline make the real money selling promotional material to those who are downline, the money mostly doesn't come from selling consumer products.

Possibly the land tax bill we have to pay now is for 2008, and there will be a waiver for 2009.

If I remember correctly, I read in the newspaper or maybe in this forum, that one of the measures to stimulate tourism would be a waiver for the land tax hotels usually have to pay. The Thai name for this tax is phasee rong ruean tee din (โรงเรือนที่ดิน).

So I was surprised to receive a letter from the OrBorTor (Tambon administration) this morning informing me that I am expected to pay the land tax for my resort before March 27.

Anybody knows more about this?

Might prove not so easy. When I bought a car on installments in the name of my company, representatives of the bank came to inspect my business (which has assets many times the value of the car), I had to show my bank book and so on, and still my girlfriend, who is a Thai national, also had to sign accepting co-liability.

From 1994 up to 2000, I owned a backpackers guesthouse in Hua Hin. The guesthouse only had a shared bathroom with a squat toilet. For quite a few of the arriving backpackers, it was the first squat toilet they had ever seen. Being in Asia for the first time, Hua Hin was only their second stop after Bangkok, where the guesthouse obviously had western style toilets.

Many times whilst showing them the bathroom, they pointed at the toilet, asking: "How do I use it?" Once, talking to a somewhat slow witted pair of backpackers, I even demonstrated it, but without pulling down my knickers and doing the real thing.

Trying to find an answer to a question many people asked me.

In Thailand, also if you are a foreigner, you can legally own a house/business premises built on leased land.(talking about the premises, not about the business, and please correct me if I am wrong) But what happens when the land lease expires? Difficult to imagine you remain owner of the premises then, so what happens? Does the landowner become owner of the premises then, and if yes, is he obliged to give you a financial compensation ?

There is a Dutch guy doing exactly this, his school is in Pak Chong, Nakhon Ratchasima province. Details you should be able to find over the internet.

Both with my present Thai wife and with the previous one, I have had differences of opinion regarding taking medicines. Being a European aged over 50, my whole life I have only taken medicines if it was strictly necessary, prefering to let the body fight off the problem the natural way.

But Thais want you to run to the doctor when you have a simple cold, and come back with at least three different types of pills.

Probably if a doctor from the west would work here as a general practitioner, he would have to order placebos by the truckload in order to keep his Thai clients satisfied.

People seem to have an unshakeable belief in the magical power of medicines, thinking they can make any problem disappear instantly.

Doctors also have a different intake. Once I got a headwound trying to walk without bending through a 1,8 meter doorpost though I am 1,95. The doctor stitched the wound, and gave me antibiotics which of course I didn't take.

Must admit the Thai way probably influenced me a bit though. Sure, if you have a cold or a hangover, taking a pill which contains besides paracetamol something else which you might not get over the counter in the west (pseudoephedrine?) gives you kind of a lift.

Your thoughts on this?

OP,

You could look into opening a language school in a city where there still isn't one. Higher class Thais are interested in having their offspring learn good English, which they will not in the regular schooling system. Could be difficult to obtain a licence to open a school though, posters in the teachers forum will know more about this.

Often airlines nowadays state there is no need to reconfirm, but I know people working in the travel industry always do it nevertheless, when they are travelling themselves. It can always be that something has changed, like the departure time of a flight.

If you are an employee and you have the obligatory health insurance, you will be entitled to a pension of 15% of your salary, if you have been insured long enough. (believe it is 15 years).