boosta

Why thanks, particularly like the totally intended pun between the Thai sound and Cookie Monster's.

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dear Dom, you don't upset me if you are a doctor... i just said people have goals to feel vip or to have a better life . guys with cars and houses have never impressed me as we know most live with credit cards and plenty of debts and probably have children they never have taken care of plus 3 divorces... up to you to believe what you want, Buddhism say we go through many lives to reach heaven... you believe there is nothing, just black hole, well you will have a good surprise because your are totally right. you set your mind and it s where you will go. people goes where they want to go. if I go right, I turn right, you want go left you turn left. I think in India they have some kind of 14 levels where you soul will go and it s up to you to decide where to go. plus 7 is heaven, minus 7 is hell. guess where you are now? around level 0. I think it s important to respect religion and respect beliefs of others as long they don't hurt people like fanatics. Buddhism will not tell you are wrong, because at the end, it s up to you to believe what is good for you. so if you believe there is nothing and you are OK with that, why not? you can even say people are stupid and ignorant, that s OK too. I got many friends who think like you and I respect them but they got big problems when I ask them "... if there is nothing after life as you said , where do you come from in this case?" they answer" I come from nothing "or some guys say they come from their mother (eggs or chicken I could argue?) . then I answer" if there is nothing before and after life, you don't suppose to be here as there is nothing and your mother should not exist as well. right? " most will answer by ," yes but my mother exist and I exist" and I reply "you just told me you are nothing... so what you do here?" then they don't know what to answer... i just look at their reaction, they start to scratch their head or they go away... or change conversation...

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Pro tip - a bit of whitespace between thoughts makes the wall of text more likely to be read

Yes, most types of rechargeable batteries don't have this problem at all, which is why I recommended that, but only makes sense for devices you use regularly. If you're keeping torches in storage for emergencies, or a clock that only needs swapping once a year, much too expensive for that.

round and round in bloo** circles

????

Maybe this?

I completely agree that the statement "most Thais that farang encounter here aren't as sincere, honest and kind to strangers as people back home" is perfectly true.

I am also saying that the statement "most Thais are just as sincere, honest and kind to strangers as people back home" is true as well.

And I am suggesting, to those who are committed to staying in Thailand, that there are solutions to this gap, if you have the resources to pursue them.

No difference in our realities then is there? Just a question of whether or not it's worth your while to invest the time energy money etc to solve the problem. Many farang think it's not worth the trouble to learn the language, move to areas where few other farang live, get to know people with whom they feel they don't have anything in common etc. and that's a perfectly acceptable POV.

The price for that is you will continue to experience a sub-optimal reality in Thailand as a result

Or you may choose to go someplace completely different, lots of choices, we make our bed and then we sleeps in it.

OR, his sister, living in NYC, helps support the family or him! Please keep in mind, the LIES. As far as I know, EVERY Thai person, is only working to "support someone else in their family" never working to support themselves. It seems to be a standard line as far as I can tell. I think it is mostly a communication difference ...if you meet "ABC man" in the US, he may have a wife and children, and obviously has/had parents, but he will never say "I'm only working this job so that I can support these various people." He will just work and not say anything about it.

I mean, really, can you imagine meeting Western people, who tell you as a matter of course, that they are working for "other people" in their family? Some of us support "other people" obviously, but we don't feel the need to state that. I guess it is normally assumed that we support at least our kids, maybe our spouse to some extent or totally, and many of us do help out parents in later life. But for some reason, every Thai person I have met, is only working "for other people." They are so generous here, why aren't we all the same?

The Thai idea of the family unit to be much larger and stronger. Common Thais (dirt poor by our standards) don't have pensions or unemployment insurance or other formal support networks, they rely on each other and take those obligations very seriously.

The older parents may be making a little money, but all adult children are sending money home.

I've personally known hundreds of families where a younger sister is the ONLY breadwinner for more than six dependents back on the rice farm. Not falling for stories, personally known to me, verified in reality over time.

Very often a family will choose only one out of the four kids to continue with school past 12 years old, the others work the farm, get sent to the city to be servants or whatever, and everyone chips in so that one person can have a chance for reaching a decent profession like nurse or policeman. Once that person gets to that stage, they spend their life paying everyone back.

It may well be true that TGs tell a lot of lies to their farang BF/sponsors, but this is one area where it's usually true.

Also, there are not many available men in Thailand so if a woman gets a man she wants to keep him.

In Thailand, the demograhics I looked up, if correct, are:

At birth, there are 1.05 males/females

At 15-64 years, there are .98 males/females

If many Thai men, have more than one lover, more than one wife, or some combo, plus there are some amount of foreigners coming here for women, how would that make a shortage of men for Thai women???

I think it might be quite the opposite.

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None of this has anything to do with who's having sex with how many partners, just the marriage market.

The problem is that out of kids going to school and then going to university and then graduating and pursuing professional careers, the vast majority of those who get all the way through that process in Thailand, excluding the upper classes but in the upwardly mobile growing middle classes, are WOMEN.

A woman working as say an accountant for a bank isn't willing or able to marry a motorcycle taxi driver or mechanic.

Plus I think it's very likely that there are a higher percentage of gay guys openly pursuing that lifestyle here than women (and perhaps higher than in the west as well).

So there just aren't enough men AT HER LEVEL to go around.

She was proposed to two weeks ago by the (wealthy) brother of one of her close friends. My point is I've wasted none of her precious time. She has never stopped entertaining potential suitors. (She is a beauty, truly, by standards Thai or western.)

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Did the suitor know she'd been sleeping with you?

Of course not.

I understand your reply will be he surely wouldn't want anything to do with her now that he knows about me, but that isn't true. He's loved her for years. Thais are regular people, like us they can't help who they fall in love with.

Sorry, I haven't gotten to the end of this topic yet, working on it ...but I just want to comment on this one.

It seems that I have heard this story, or versions of it, so many, many, many times here ...the "somebody else wants to marry me" ...oh, and don't forget in these cases ...the other person, is always "wealthy, or more wealthy" than you.

Since many of us seem to agree that Thai people often lie, about any and all things, do you guys never see that these comments are most likely lies?? Part of closing the deal, making you jealous, making the person/woman seem more valuable (because someone else, who is rich! wants to marry them), making you possibly also think "oh, she doesn't just want money because someone richer than me offered to marry her and she stuck with me." Not that I am saying that all these ladies only want you for money.

I mean, the very quantity of these claims, always included with the fact that the woman is currently "seriously" involved with you ...I don't know, have any of you guys proposed marriage to ladies who were living with other men at the time, is that very common? I think it is not. I know everyone isn't living together, but still?

I have to say, that I wish I could have read about Thai ladies and their ways when I was much younger! I might have learned some valuable lessons. Or I still might, if I decide to become a car salesperson or something. I really would have thought, that admitting (lie or not) that I was involved enough with another man, that he proposed to me, would have sent my Western male partners over the edge, and that I would be dumped as a cheating, whore. But it seems it doesn't work that way at all!! I never would have guessed this!!

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I'm not sure I understand what you're saying or asking here.

Putting aside Thai vs western cultural stuff for now, I think the issue is common for both.

It is rarely the case IMO that a man is out there actively pursuing the courtship racket looking for a wife. He's usually out having fun living his life and a big part of that is pursuing attractive females for sex and companionship, but getting married is something far from the forefront of most single guys minds.

However it is in my experience pretty common, both where I come from and here, for women to reach a certain stage where they feel it's time to settle down and get married and make a family. The clock is certainly ticking here sooner and with more urgency, but usually by the time a woman back home gets into her thirties, certainly long before forty, she's out there in the marriage market.

And most women will arrange things so they have multiple guys "pursuing them" at the same time, because these things take time and if you were do do this serially, you'd be wasting a lot of precious time, so you engage with the market in parallel. If a given potential partner is very very attractive but hasn't yet popped the question, you may well dither and dally with other keener but less attractive partners, putting them off in the hope that you can close the deal with your first choice.

Although this pattern is very common and totally accepted in my home culture, I find that Thai ladies have this game down to a real science, play it like their life's at stake, which I suppose it is. And while back home a guy may be perhaps a bit more likely to know about his competitors, or at least know that he has competition (part of the game), here I think girls try more to let the guy think he's the one and only prospect.

Some westerners consider this dishonest and immoral, but I completely accept it as the way things are, and think completely fair enough from the girls' POV.

Where the two cultures really differ is that ours considers it to be completely OK if the woman is sexually active with more than one suitor at a time, while here that's a real no-no, in theory any premarital sex is frowned upon, in reality most Thais will be OK as long as it's only one and there is a serious intention is to get married (talking here about publicly acknowledged mainstream, not what's actually done in secret).

Amykat, is any of the above in conflict with your view of things? Does it clarify the situation or just make it even more complicated?

New one: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/114063537/paravelo-the-worlds-first-flying-bicycle

Au contraire, many voluntary euthanasia advocacy organizations send their members to Thailand to purchase nembutal, one of the preferred exit strategies.

Ok did not know that what i had learned was that doctors here only do passive euthanasia not active meaning they just don't feed you anymore or give you medicine but do nothing to help you on your way.

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But I'm sure it's much easier to take matters into your own hands here, perhaps enlisting help if needed, than it would be in many home countries.

I interned at a hospital in Australia and learned that staff there had very enlightened views, sometimes patients were "inadvertently" given a bit too much morphine when it was obviously way past time, family all agreed no hope time to end the suffering.

But very few places are OK with explicitly allowing such measures, too many grey areas and possible confusion, mistakes.

Not to mention the influence of the religious right-to-life types. . .

Au contraire, many voluntary euthanasia advocacy organizations send their members to Thailand to purchase nembutal, one of the preferred exit strategies.

For those frustrated with the fast pace of modern life, nostalgic for the good old days:

http://xkcd.com/1227/

A real flying car: http://www.terrafugia.com/

A real jetpack: http://martinjetpack.com/highflight-demo.aspx

More stimulating alternative: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GFmvMHPQ1k8

A bit more prosaic but still cool IMO: http://mashable.com/2013/05/29/electric-skateboards/

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The Safe-T-Cut breaker he's talking about - the necessity of which is critical I agree - is a separate upstream unit, often installed at the breaker panel.

Sometimes in the bathroom where water could splash on it, defeats the purpose I think.

But nothing substitutes for proper grounding, not just for safety's sake but the longevity of your electronics - expensive ones should be on a UPS anyway as well, even if your house's systems are perfectly setup the mains supply quality here is uniformly poor.

Interesting stories on memory loss

http://www.vice.com/read/henry-molaison-thirty-second-memory-suzanne-corkin-interview

http://www.npr.org/2011/11/04/141993965/memory-loss-sparks-a-plan-for-running-and-living

And on improving/keeping it

http://lifehacker.com/5897708/how-to-train-your-brain-and-boost-your-memory-like-a-usa-memory-champion?utm_source=Lifehacker+Newsletter&utm_campaign=a3eed7ebd6-UA-142218-1&utm_medium=email

http://lifehacker.com/5746353/top-10-tips-tricks-and-tools-to-train-exercise-and-better-your-brain

Some of this stuff has turned out to be pseudo-science, but it sure doesn't hurt, just don't invest more time in it than what you'd do for other reasons anyway.

Brain fade has its advantages, can see all your favorite films read your favorite books and it's just like the very first time (echoes of Madonna in the background).

When I first came here I thought it very funny and primitive how cautious, even afraid, ordinary sensible Thais are around electricity.

Later I realized I was observing some rare common sense.

Brown bread and cream cheese sandwich

They don´t go anywhere, they just take it out on the ones closest to them

Who else would put up with it?

Look, I agree with you. But go ask a 15 year old what they're doing tonight? Not reading books.

It's just relative, not absolute.

None of my classmates read to the extent I did, some barely at all.

I probably have read relatively too much, time better spent in productive action rather than recreation and learning.

I don't believe anyone is claiming anything other than the obvious truth that on average Thais do read much less than westerners, and much less than they should.

It remains also true that some Thais do read a lot, a few as much as I did.

WRT the OP, the point of the "award" is to encourage increasing the habit, not claiming that such campaigns have been effective.