Weatherman

I don't believe jealousy is an innate trait of most Thais. Envy and greed, yes, but jealousy, no.

If you want to see jealousy in it's full-blown manifestation, start a relationship with a Filipina.

I've got scars that say otherwise. Not to the possibility that Filipina's aren't even worse mind you, wouldn't know and hope never to find out.

Just like merchants "aren't allowed" to have a surcharge on credit card transactions.

That would be in other countries, TiT.

One can desire money - ideally not directly but for the things it can buy.

One can even be "greedy" about that level of desire, what or who you're willing to sacrifice for that goal.

All without having any feelings of "jealousy" or "envy" behind your motivations.

Those negative emotions are indeed inherently harmful IMO.

When I learn that my friend or acquaintance has landed a great job I am genuinely happy for them. I may feel a twinge of "wouldn't that be nice" and yes that may inspire me to achieve the same goal, but I would only use these emotional terms for those who actually wish to deprive the other of their rewards or to to beat them in some kind of imaginary competition.

Sometimes fleeting is enough eek. Many a person will have suffered at the explosion of jealous rage. I wonder how many members have been of the receiving end of jealousy by their partners?

Exactly why we wouldn't want to put others through the same, and can see the harm it does to the person with those feelings too.

At their root is insecurity, the feeling that you're "not good enough", probably from poor parenting pattern in early life.

Used to be the case..., at least the ones in the CitiBank building @ Asoke. But they started charging the fee a few months back too.

Sigh. . .

OK, back to Aeon only then.

By ATM rate, do you mean the dollar-baht exchange rate I get at the ATM?

So you're saying when I use my MasterCard from a bank in San Antonio, Texas

the MasterCard company sets the ATM exchange rate of my withdrawal in Bkk.

I think I'm missing something here.

I think you got it. My understanding is that everyone using Mastercard withdrawing from a USD account with any bank anywhere in the world gets the same baht conversion rate at any machine in Thailand.

Visa's is a different rate, set by them.

And of course from one time to the next will vary given currency fluctuations.

So the only difference in the net result is the fees charged by your bank, or that of the one that owns the ATM.

Corrections if I'm wrong most welcome.

Well if none of a house's circuits are in fact grounded as you say 99% in Thialand, then what would be the point of using the third prong?

For myself I've made sure everything is properly done for all the locations where I have expensive electronics plugged in.

Worth my while living in a house for many years even though it's rented.

If you have sacks of money to throw - or more likely an employer who can write off your kids' tuition as a business expense for incenting you to come to Thailand (hey now there's an idea!)

Then the top half-dozen or so true international schools are really very very good, regularly send their graduates to the top rated unis back home - to me that's the bottom-line indicator of quality, with teacher salaries being a close second, percentage of foreigners in the student body also a good guide, teacher turnover also a good indicator of morale.

Just that the fees for a single student are more than what most of us could ever dream of affording.

You really shouldn't come to this forum with a question like that, the scare mongering and general negativity is on a frightening scale. I bet you feel ike hanging yoursef now.

Do NOT ask the question about buying a house in Thailand.

Best of luckanyway. The only post I would give any value to here is the one that said it's not as black and white as what country they go to school in, it also comes down to your kids themselves and you as a parent. My Thai wife went to Thai government schools and become a nurse at Bumrungrad hospital, is very smart and speaks fluent English. On the other hand some kids educated in private schools in the UK become total failure and coke addicts. It just isn't that black and white.

Just as with buying a house, one man's "negativity" is another's "realism", all depends on individual's circumstances, and many foreigners here make huge mistakes due to lack of knowledge and experience.

If you're OK with your kids achieving that level of success in the world then of course keep them here.

But if your child went through the training process that your wife did, and then at the age of 22 decided they'd like to be a registered nurse in the UK, I think they'd find they'd have a few more years of qualifications to earn to do so even if their spoken English was fluent.

And that's probably pretty close to the TOP level of ambition an ordinary Thai coming through the normal education system could achieve over there. How many of the western board-certified Thai physicians working at Bumrungrad came from non-rich families and only went to Thai schools until the later stages of their training?

Very very few, and they'd be very unusually bright and ambitious people too, probably have done OK from anywhere.

My kids seem to be pretty normal, so I'll try to give them every possible advantage possible to help give them a competitive advantage. Of course it will be up to them if they actually make use of it, but I'll be able to know that I've done my best and haven't sacrificed their odds for my short-term hedonistic happiness.

Hi all,

I come to thailand 3 or 4 months every year,

Having been had for fees every transaction for years one day i decided to do a bit of research into which would be the cheapest way to change from £s to THB..

Sterling travellers cheques is what i came up with...

1% to buy the cheques first of all and 33bhat to change the cheque up in thailand,,

Am i correct or wide of the mark and missing something?????

Cheers...

Have to factor in a different exchange rate as well, plus the inconvenience factor if bringing in very large amounts (sore signature hand).

Just because it's Centara-owned doesn't mean it's a hotel, that's just the parent entity within the Central development empire.

If anything I'd say it speaks to a greater chance of long-term stability than a smaller outfit.

But if your contract is with a company specifically set up to manage that one property, then you will most likely not have resort to the parent if they go bust.

In general my advice in such "investments" in Thailand is to choose ones that have been successfully operating for a while rather than new projects - much less those not even built yet as so many do.

But that's me.

As a parent first and a teacher secondly, I believe that parents have just as much, if not more, of a role to play in their kids education than the school they attend. Many parents simply plonk their offspring in an expensive school and expect miracles. You need to be constantly supporting them throughout this period of their lives. If your kids have a happy social life, go to a decent enough school ( not necessarily an expensive one) and the parents do their best to reinforce the educational aspect, your children will do well in life.

When I see kids that have only spent their short life in one town or country compared to a child who has seen the world and other cultures, I know which one has a better chance of becoming a more rounded individual. Sure we can travel as adults, but our prime personality development stages are long completed by then.

I completely agree with everything you say, except for perhaps a definition of "decent enough" but not expensive schools existing in Thailand.

I would very much like to be proven wrong believe me, and encourage anyone with positive examples to post them - not talking about kindies, I'm sure lots of those are great but full-range K12 schools. Shouldn't be against the rules as long as they're positive reviews.

I do think parents can always 100% compensate for however bad a school as long as it isn't actively causing emotional trauma. But few parents have the time, energy commitment to do so effectively, these days schools have to carry 90% of the load academically or you may as well be homeschooling, hiring live-in tutors whatever.

I think the root of the problem here is partly some parents just not putting as much value on the academic side of their kids' future, which is fair enough and a judgement call.

But the ones that really concern me are those that really do value this aspect and think that all but a few schools in Thailand actually deliver. They are accepting local word of mouth, everyone's comparing within Thailand not to back-home standards, and/or they just don't have enough background knowledge of educational issues to evaluate quality accurately.

And of course some unusually bright and motivated kids do very well despite the school not because of it.

You know you would think he was a scumbag but he was actually a pretty nice guy aside from the bank ripoff !

Yah, minor detail that. Choose your friends more carefully is what I'd say.

For everyone talking about one bank's rates being better than anothers, those are set by the VISA or MC network, not by the bank.

I would question their lack of refunding ..... I knew a guy who claimed that under 10,000 USD of fraud was not even worth their time to worry about , he bought 10,000 and claimed them stolen and spent all 20,000 and went back to Europe .... don't know if his plan landed him in jail or not but he did manage to spend them all in the US

I'm talking about after the first claim, they then of course make it much more difficult.

I used them over the past forty+ years, had some claims when I was a teen (not fraudulent obviously what a scumbag), but then once ATMs when international only used them for emergency backup.

Which means that my subsequent problems over the years, few checks here or there must have hit some ratio, I wasn't using them regularly, higher percentage of claims or something.

Which meant the last time I used them they flat denied a refund even though I met all their criteria, claimed there was no way to find out even whether they'd been cashed or not.

And a friend recently had a similar problem, didn't have all the numbers accurately recorded took him 18 months to get a refund.

The cheapest and safest way is to use Traveller's cheques. No skimming und pishing possible, very common in Thailand.

Just know that getting your cash back if they're lost or stolen isn't quite as straightforward as the ads would have you believe.

You have to be very well organized keeping track of which you've used and which numbers you have left, and God forbid those notes get lost along with the cheques.

And if you make a claim once, don't use the same vendor anymore, if they think you've claimed "too much" they flat out refuse to pay.

Maybe Thomas Cook is better than Amex, not sure.

Apparently all the profit margin on these come from people losing them, leaving them sitting in a file or drawer somewhere and forgetting about them.

There's also a per-cheque fee/tax, which makes a difference on small-denomination cheques.

And the exchange rate is different.

Good for backups in case the whole ATM networks go down for a while, given the above cautions.

Citibank has a once per month fee for the entire month not no fee at all. Meaning you can use it as many times as you want in a month for one fee or not at all for no fee , which if you used a lot is a savings but it's not "free".

The withdrawing part yes the Citibank fee not so much.

Sounds like something they could only charge people that were actually Citibank customers.

We're talking about using whatever-ATM card in their machines not incurring the usual B180 charge, same as Aeon.

Not actually opening an account at Citibank.

All that exists must have existed "forever" in some form or another.

Problem with "forever" is that time itself is just an artifact of our own limited mechanisms of perception in this particular configuration of dimensions we call our universe.

All the other possible universes also exist with very different "laws" of nature, plus all the (15+ now?) dimensions that the normal parts of our brain can't really conceive of, just think about using basically pure maths.

Get out that far into science and it all seems much less plausible than all the other explanations.

Just to let you know the background Kids 5 and 8. I am divorced so no pressure. Solely my idea, although their mother is Thai so would probably live near her as better for the children to have contact with both parents.

Oldest boy not too happy living in Uk after living in Thailand previously.

I could perhaps home teach for 6 months but if the children are going to live in and work in Thailand then they would need to go to a Thai school and learn to write Thai as well as speak it.

I believe as well as education social wellbeing and happiness has to be considered also.

Whose happiness? From my POV you will be greatly sacrificing their academic education, and of course they will choose themselves where they prefer to live once they are adults, for their tertiary stage and early careers at least back home would be much better even if they plan to settle down later in LoS. I know lots of Thais that can only speak their language because they were mostly educated overseas and they're doing very very well, perhaps sometimes treated as "outsiders" a bit by their Thailand-educated peers but they seem to be much more respected than denigrated for their superior professional backgrounds.

So I wouldn't consider the trade-off worthwhile but they're your kids.

And just noticed this:

not so many restrictions and red tape of what can be achieved regarding running your own business.

Wow, that's not something I ever thought I'd hear from a foreigner's viewpoint, never imagined things were that bad for entrepreneurs in the UK. Unless you're talking about a somewhat "risky business" operating illegally of course, but that's got its own complications here, I would think also harder for foreigners than back home.

Sent my Filipina wife to the bank yesterday with a thai friend to open a savings account.

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three banks told her she had to have a work permit, which is not true. She has a retirement visa.

Not a customer service issue strictly speaking, they were following their branch's policies.

Go to other branches even of the same bank and you'll get different results, even with visa-exempt tourists.

Maybe more difficult for non-farang foreigners, might be easier if you go along with her?

The "Thai vouching for you" thing I never heard of.

4) Cash in at the bank counter

Often you read the advice: walk into the banks branch and cash the money at the desk showing your debit/credit card and passport (looking like no fee is charged).

Don't do that!

This is not an ATM transaction (but a cash forward?) and will always result in much higher fees (rude awakening when the statement comes in).

Apparently there are issuing banks that don't have such fees (as with Schwab and your German ones?)

Surely can't be a cash forward for a debit card?

Great post!

1) Thai bank fee:

all Thai Banks with the known exception of AEON keep a fee for each ATM transaction with a foreign card.

Add Citibank to that list now

I've heard Citibank ATMs don't charge the fee either - can anyone confirm that from actual usage?

Correct. I used Citibank ATMs at Asoke and Central World. No fees. But I believe there are no other ATMs except for these 2 places.

Sathorn near Naradiwas used to be their Thailand HQ, where did that move to?

And I've seen retail loan/lease shopfronts in Thai neighborhoods, most likely there as well?

I'll be here long long looooooooooong after you are gone and forgotten.

Mai mee krai roo anakot.

No one knows the future, any of us could have passed on from this earth between the time I wrote this comment and you read it - or didn't, if it was you.

Without side-tracking from my claim that the depression (OP - shouldn't say "permanent") is by far the more important aspect.

An interesting recent article on our food industries and obesity:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/07/how-junk-food-can-end-obesity/309396/?single_page=true

I don't agree at all that using this method to explain the fundamental questions about "reality" itself is chasing unicorns.I believe that scientists do, and will continue to, investigate these matters using the scientific method.

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In principle, a biochemical understanding of consciousness is possible. If that is achieved questions like this become ordinary scientific problems.

I am skeptical of both, but am open to the possibility slim as it may be.

If so, that would be magical, in the sense of Clark's "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

A responsible parent with your background and intentions can only afford to raise their kids in Thailand if 600,000 baht per child per year for school fees isn't that big a deal. There are only a handful of really good schools here and that's what they cost. Some charge almost as much but are much much worse, and the truly affordable ones are almost as bad as regular Thai government schools.

Assuming you don't want to put them in boarding school, this will also greatly limit your choices as to where to live.

Another alternative is home schooling, but that will be very difficult (or expensive) to do properly at the same time as earning a good living.

And you will have to ensure yourself that they don't adopt too much the negative aspects of Thai culture, although I agree they are outweighed by the positives.