steveromagnino

I think he plays at the Glass Home each week; that is a place on the Pracha Utit Road if I remember correctly; on the opposite side to Caribbean and a bit further down towards the Ram Intra intersection....

I don't think that is his club though.

Someone told me there is a new nice place on Lard Prao 64 which plays jazz; maybe it is there?

Both would be arguably a few minutes from Central Lard Prao; maybe 60 minutes in peak traffic worst day, or 10 minutes on a clear day.

You cannot ask someone with no experience and limited knowledge of the world to come up with the plan for say a worldwide free internet service subsidized by selling life insurance or the like.

Look at the stats for business ventures in the west; what average of like 80% failure rate in the first 5 years or something? All I can suggest is that people get some experience and additional skills in something. Otherwise you have to do a business that is easy to learn. Such as selling clothes, mobile phones...all the things everyone else does.

And there is not much money in that unless you get in early and even then there may not be much money.

Made even worse when you are saying to someone with no business knowledge or experience - have all this money, and see how you get on with something you know little about. Would you give $100k to a 10 year old who came up with some idea to copy someone else's business model?

Probably not.

So possibly not best to do this here.

At least not until you manage to educate a bit. THe labour department have various courses on raising cattle for instance; send them on one of those, then see what they think.

They also have all these books and courses about other jobs and crops. There may just be a knowledge gap here.

But if you are paying for it, you BETTER make sure they are enthusiastic about whatever you want them to do, otherwise it is a no loss sitation for them; they didn't front up with the money, so silent investor did, and who cares if you lose their money>?

Tons of books available on just about all these topics.

Interestingly, lots of studies show that owning I think it is less than 20 rai of land, makes many people poorer than the people who own no land at all....the lack of scale vs. effort involved.

I'd say the returns generated by foreigner contributed cash would also be substandard, because so much of it is invested in the idea without scant regard to the people involved. Management is about getting something done through others; take a good look at the people involved and you may decide they would be better off continuing to work picknig potatoes or whatever or working for someone else - they may simply not have the skills to make money out of whatever you give them.

I feel like a farang and get treated as such here in Thailand, I get more scorn shown at me because my mother was Thai (automatically a hooker in Thai's eyes) than if I was 100% farang.

I don't, like before, use my Thainess to get anywhere in this country anymore.

You get treated with scorn if you are 1/2 Thai and don't behave like you know anything about how Thai people are supposed to behave - follow cultural norms, speak the language etc etc. In all other respects if you cannot see the gravy train that currently exists for 1/2 Thai people, well you are in stark contrast to every other look krueng i know. As a 1/2 Thai there is at least some expectation that you can carry yourself Thai style, and if you cannot then you probably are indeed better to play the part of the farang where that expection is no longer there.

I read a consistent trend in your postings; as a 1/2 you need to admit to yourself that you are not a farang. You are a not a full Thai. So do not expect to get treated exactly like either. Here or most other places. But you can receive better treatment than either of those very easily; you just have to understand that in both cases you are kind of an outsider looking in to a degree.

IMHO there may be something more to this other than the security guys being nosy. Other residents may have complained. Your womanising, if of sufficient scale, might start to look like the typical sex tourist (perhaps shopping at places like Resort and Orbit rather than NEP) and other residents might complain to the management, who may have instructed the security to put some pressure on you. You may have slighted one of the guards at some point. Or it may just be that you are dealing with some w&*kers. I know that when I ask the guards to do errands for me, I sometimes give them a tip; just sometimes; works wonders if it is above and beyond the call of duty.

Sure you may not have done anything wrong. So on principle, you should not have to fix it. But that is not how things work in a collective society where bitching and moaning are not as popular as other places; to get the end result you want (that they stop playing games) you need take some action. Go and apologise in Thai. Give them some food from time to time. When you come back late and night, sometimes bring them back some snack. They earn almost nothing. They take c&*p from so many people every day. Have some empathy for the job they are doing; could you enjoy doing that job day in day out knowing that when you are 60 you;ll still be doing almost the same job of lifting that bar, taking c&*p from people and saluting....

If it frustrates you that you shouldn't have to do suck up or take any action yourself, then you aren't getting what I am trying to explain. You want something. This is the action you need to take to get it. That's about it.

Having thought like this, it is so easy to run circles around some foreigners here; while they are busy wrestling with some principle and how to deal with it (which could be artificially created for that exact purpose), a smart person can be acheiving what they want in the meantime.

And if you think Thai people aren't doing at least some of this, you must be in a very different building to the ones I have been in; commonplace to sometimes give the guard something ocassionally. Also, commonplace in a decent building to be able to discuss or suggest improvements to overcome shortfalls in property management. But I don't know your building, it could just be that it is a dump in which case I suggest maybe moving is the better thing.

All this is meant in the best possible way; losing your temper in public has probably not helped you. But anything is possible so worth a shot chai mai?

Good luck

the only way i'm leaving here is in a box!

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The funniest thing is not getting to see in the poll all the stuff some of the people moan about all the time; civil liberties and &lt;deleted&gt; closing hours. And on related farang forums, increased bar fine prices and the like.

Regarding the racism thing; I am amazed at those results. hel_l, non-whites in white countries like my mum, they just suck it up. Fact of life...Amazes me that it would come up with such a high percentage...I mean double pricing?! What the hel_l is that???? Double pricing is the reason you would or wouldn't live here?! It really bothers some people that they have to pay a whole $10 NZD to go to a public park or to look at the crocodiles in Samut Prakan??

I know the average Thai wage here is kind of low. I know that tourists must earn money. I know that to have a work permit apart from teachers and a few others, that you need to be on above average wages.... I know plenty of westerners that always get the Thai price on everything due to speaking Thai.

And despite knowing all that, just the thought that the one mythical wealthy Thai-Chinese with an ID can get in to the park for 10 times less, it drives you nuts enough to leave here?!

The whole racism bit fascinates me; I guess for some people white from white countries or coming from their own Asian country, encountering racism for the first time must be kind of an eye opener though....one I cannot really fathom being that bad though?

This is fascinating to me!

my kid brought home a CD, "No 1" by Parn Tanaporn, i guess it's a greatest hits CD. Anyhow, every song on there is great and she has a really beautiful voice. we play it 2 or 3 times a day for the last week or so and never get bored with it.

if you don;t have it, but the CD for your thai friend and yourself, it's really really good.

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bahk gup jai mai dtrong gun.....

tur kow jai mai?

But I don't understand...of course mouth is not in line with the heart; the heart is somewhere outset to the left side... why would they be in line except for someone with a funny face?!

What does this song mean!?

I particularly like your line

her name was Anne (well actually it is Sai, but I have changed it to keep her anonymous).

Nice one; so you are working in the FBI witness protection program or some equally high powered job is it?!

Rest of this is kind of drivel; I somehow doubt that she was wearing a Lacroix top, it certainly would not go with the rest of the outfit you described, and this one major point leads me to distrust her immediately.

If she had Manolos or similar, then perhaps my faith will be restored.

Please elaborate in great detail as you have done with other aspects of this meeting with this Anne/Sai as to what outfits she has worn.

Sizes. Colours. Brands. Alterations. etc

Critical issue is whether you can get your name on the land registry document; supposedly you need to Tor Tor 3 for that (since replaced with some new form). Supposedly without that, then you will have problems; the issue being that the land registry won't accept your application and put you down as the owner.

However, currently I have, and I know at least one other person who has done the same thing as me on my advice; gone and had no issue at all with getting registered as the owner without 100% foreign financing. However, the balance was financed by a mortgage funded within Thailand by a local bank (not the same banks either).

Both of us have work permits.

Justification is that the money is being earned as a result of working in Thailand, so that is also acceptable. Not sure if it is the law, or what, but there you have it. Actually, now that I think about it, not even my deposit had a TT3; jeez. But I did have the line that I had made the money here, and had the length of workpermit and bank balance to prove it.

I cannot visualise any problems when selling the condo concerned, but cannot guarantee it. I never have had problems moving fairly significant amounts of money out of Thailand before, but then again I flash a nice smile and doors open, such are the benefits of having nice teeth see?

Then again, don't intend to shift the money back to a small pacific island state run by a manish looking woman at this stage next to a bunch of former convicts, so I guess I can stay here :-)

Hello,

I Looking for Thai Paper Manufacturer to produce Crushed or Crinkled paper for my Business in Los Angeles. I will need to order monthly.

I am not looking for Saa Paper but rather a 300 gram Strong Softer Crushed paper....sometimes referred to as Crushed Crepe Paper (But it is thicker than regular Crepe paper and it is very textured)

I have samples and photos of this paper if needed...It was made in Thailand but I do not know by whom.

I will be die cutting designs into this paper.

If you know of any companies in Thailand that manufacture this type of paper please let me know.

Best Regards,

Cindy Rohrbough

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Have no idea, but try the big companies like Advance Agro PLC or Siam Cement (their division called Siam Pulp and Paper) - they probably don't do specialist stuff, but they should be able to point you to who doe.s

Mitsi are often cheaper because the local distributor tends to be more expensive for servicing, and has fewer parts etc....

Nissan has low market share so again parts are arguably harder to get hold of, but personally I am a big Nissan fan.

For some of the newer models, both Nissan and Mitsi diesels were older technology and not common rail compared to Isuzu and Toyota.

However, overall IMHO Toyota, Isuzu and Honda (cars) hold their resale value here better; so as a second hand buyer you get the advantage of that. Actually some people buy those 3 brands for that reason.

I think anytime you do business overseas, you need to understand the nature and culture of who you are dealing with. I do not buy into this "Thai people are xyz blah blah blah" load of crap; some THai people are and some Thai people aren't al those things, but sadly many self proclaimed experts would have you believe that their failures are not due to themselves or their ill conceived ideas, but due to all Thai people being scam artists, bludgers, etc etc. Hmm... I am skeptical, and the number of successful farangs and foreigners I know doing business here with Thai partners successfully would bear that out. It isn't easy, but it is certainly possible.

In my experience, Thai people are no more tricky or less tricky than others my family and I have had to deal with over the years; but if you don't know the language then you severely curtail your partner selection possibilities, and when you end up with a partner who is not sharing your vision and without the skills you need, well you have a big problem. And getting the right people in a start up is probably third most important fundamental business step behind getting the cashflows organised and having your markets sussed out.

The key thing is a developing country compared to a developed country is the way of doing business is far less transparent; if you cannot make out what is important vs. not important in the somewhat opaque business evironment here, well you and your partner are going to struggle. Certainly, the market data and info available plus support processes are so much stronger in developed countries; however that should be compensated for in your risk vs. return equation.

From what I know of publishing, it is a tough market here; for magazines anyway, I did due diligence on a few titles a large MNE wanted to but into here and in the end they realised they could not make it work, partner or no partner.

Think carefully about what you want the Thai partner to be doing, and then on the basis of what you need them to be doing, then select who your partner should be. If it is only a legal requirement then you should not be asking them to run anything. And vice versa, if you need them for contacts or networking or whatever, then select someone with those skills.

I would not approach it from the "I know a guy, he seems like a nice guy, so he can be my partner" approach which many non-Thai speaking business guys coming here with big dreams seem to have.

Regarding business plans; well most businesses if they are not making money within 5 years, are probably getting very tough to fund; so that is why most plans show the valley of death finishing within year 2-3 or so. Plans may be a load of cobblers but better to have the plan and the idea and hope, than no plan and drift around, suddenly discovering a cash flow crisis or staff issues that would have been identified earlier had the person had a plan.

And sure, a start up is probably more likely to fail than buying a going concern. However, the start up gets compensated with a higher return when they sell on the basis of future earnings (if they choose to sell); the going concern pays for that. All depends on how much risk you are willing to take....

Is there a law or regulation in Thailand that prevents 3rd party companies from offering decent loans with more consumer friendly interest structures for the purchase of a car? 

Seems like a very good potential market for someone like GE finance or even Citibank, or any company looking to for a good way to penetrate the car financing market place.

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Well since GE Capital is Easycash and there are several finance companies doing this, I'd say it is actually in place.

The cost of the money at the moment based on the 5 year bond rate is not as cheap as you might think; somewhere in excess of 5% AFAIK and the inflation rate is running at 5%+ at the moment thanks to the diesel subsidy.

So where a finance company would get the money cheap enough to be able to lend out to an inherently risky proposition like a car is unclear. At the moment I know you can get a car lease at 5.5% interest rate which is IMHO an absolute bargain with interest rates on home loans I'd guess ending up 7%+ within the next 12 months.

The point of ultra low deposit rates; well that is due to banks carrying NPLs plus they have excess liquidity anyway; but at some point soon their excess liquidity will be used up and they are going to have to offer more competitive deposit rates you would think.

Any borrowing less than about 5% is an absolute bargain, and as a former banker, cars are not a great asset to lend against. So I'd say that the interest rates for vehicles is not so bad at the moment.

Isn't that how all financing is done? 

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Most certainly not, but too complicated for Thai banks and less of a scam

I Was offered financing for Toyota Vigo without thai garantor, but with thieves interest rates it's cheaper to pay cash.

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Like all things, it depends who you speak to and how you handle the conversation. Result for me is no guarantor for car or apartment financing and borrowing 60 months for the car and 60 months for the apartment on about 20% deposit on the car, and 50% deposit on the apartment. Think the rates are 2.5% on the car (calculated as per the method below, which is effective rate of 6.something) and 5.9% on the apartment fixed 3 years with first year at 1/2 that. Then MLR + something for the last 2 years. However, since I make 10%+ on the sharemarket, I'd rather take the cash for that. All about opportunity cost....

For financing, there are ALL manner of financing arrangements; the way quoted here is certainly not unique to Thailand; the key is to understand what the interest is calculated on and any fees and so on.

There are approx 300,000 Thai households in Bangkok with household income of 70,000b or more per month; average of 3.1 occupants per household means that this is about 1m people out of the 12m odd Bangkokians with access to a household income of 70,000b or more. NESDB stats. Average household income of Bangkok is supposedly around 40,000b per month according to BKK Post 2 years ago (questionable how they calculated that and methodology not shown), but combined we start to see a picture that BKK people are not really that poor.

I can assure you that MANY professionals are earning considerably more than 13,000b a month; we cannot even get quality graduates to work for that amount. BTW a journalist or editor (or a teacher for that matter) is technically not a professional are they? Professionals = doctor, lawyer, accountant, architect, engineer, etc etc.

In my business, we say we are selling to a first world group of consumers, most of whom run businesses and make money using a third world cost base. That's why you see a watch business here which is keeping several Swiss companies very rich; someone is buying these 100,000+ baht watches and they are mostly locals.

Regarding security, bear in mind that the risk of default is considerably higher with someone who has the ability to up and leave whenever they want. Banks are aware of this, and besides which banks in Thailand are fairly slow to react to things encouraging them to take on risk. That said there are several threads about how i and others have got mortgages from local banks; check it out yo' befo yo' reck yo'self and it might give you ideas how.

Regarding the "wai"

You "wai" elders first. It is a sign of respect, you you will earn respect by learning to do it properly. Bear in mind that you are bothering to get serious about a woman; surely it cannot be hard to spend 2 minutes learning how to do this properly.

Instruction above was about right.

You do not Wai people younger than you, until they wai you first. If you are say 30, then anyone younger should wai you; when they do, you can wai back.

If they are really young, like under say 10, you don't need to wai at all, just smile is enough.

If they are a Monk, then you should wai first although I cannot immediately think why you would necessarily be meeting monks. If you are needing to sit in a seat because you cannot sit on the floor and you wish to sit at the same level as a Monk, then perhaps you can apologise first (since you should be sitting lower).

The words "Kor (rhymes or, law, saw) Toet (rhymes with boat, moat, goat) Krab" (rhymes with cup, pub) will go a long way...anytime you are not sure what is going on, say that and smile...everyone will like you. Especially in the middle of nowhere in the provinces, there are not that many farang visitors, so you are a bit of a novelty. There are also a LOT of idiot farang going to some of these villages, and some of the villagers have wised up to that; learn a bit of Thai, have manners, and you will learn what genuine love and respect some of the villagers have for someone they just met.

Salt of the earth, some of them.

She did very well for herself. Married American BILLIONAIRE Herb Simon two years ago in a hugely lavish wedding. Wedding dress $200,000... wedding ring and tiara $2 million, etc.

However, quite philanthropic... 20 million baht donation and began her own humantarian project (Angel Wings) after tsunami.

Also, was a judge in the Miss Universe 2005 contest.

Indeed quite true.... she didn't do nearly as well with her first Mexican? boyfriend, or the guy claiming to be a Prince of sorts (not Prince the singer though) prior to "grand-daddy Herb".

Still, I cannot forgive her for introducing Maynard Ferguson (a legend on the trumpet) in english as (after first butchering the Thai language yet again) "Maynard Ferguson and his brass band"

Bui rak dek

Bui rak dek mahk mahk

แหวะ

Anyway, after my legal status expired (I think it was a J1 Visa or something) the hotel would not let me play anymore; even though I was not getting paid.

Point taken that it's not necessarily just Thailand but you are neither are you making an equal comparison. In your case, you were initially working legally in the US and you were then (potentially) performing the exact same function without said authorization.

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...and just to further clarify, steve. Had your visa expired? If so, then that puts you in a different position than the OP describes.

The reason I ask is that when a J1 expires, normally you are expected to return to your home country.

I had the J1 to work at as an accountant at a hotel. I used to just play (for free) for fun from time to time, because accounting sucks so much

As soon as my work permit for the accounting malarky finished (and as a New Zealand citizen I already had an entry visa permitting me to stay in USA indefinitely I think it was - this was 10 years ago now) I was also "asked" not to play music anymore.

So I consider this to be almost the exact same situation; playing just for fun, and without a work permit not allowed to.

Their reasoning was that were I to incur an accident; being bottled or mosh pit action that sort of thing (well, playing 30s style Duke Ellington swing is quite a riot don't you know) that I would sue them as an employer. Of course, I pointed out that contract law doesn't permit a contract based on an illegality which it would have been since I didn't have a work permit to be an employee... however there was no reasoning with them. They did have like 2,000 employees though, so I guess they had to have some policy.

Actually, my dad had a pet duck. It was called Duck Duck and used to ride his dog around the house (and also they would go swimming together in the creek behind the house).

But no, my dad did not feed philandering husbands' genitals to the duck. I think the duck just used to eat weeds and worms and stuff.

So... it is not unheard of.

Just curious, plan on showing American football? Going to Pattaya next week and so far dont know if I can catch the games. I'm sure BKK is a different story.

Oh yeah, I'll be showing American football, both college and the pros!

Just to clarify, will you also be showing proper sports like:

- sailing

- rugby

- boxing/K1

- rugby league

- snowboarding and skiing

or just poofter games like NFL?

For beers please have:

Kessels (nice and strong)

Lion Ice

For other refreshments (not beer)

- Shandy for the ladies

- MGD for the ladies

- Coors (for cleaning the toilet)

I'd do it , but im a gambler and i dont have a mba . I make about 80k us a year.

If you are a NZer working in NZ and making this sort of money, you are doing pretty well.

For most NZers the future is a lifetime of earning good but not great money...unless you start your own business and are willing to put up with ACC, and all the associated paperwork of every little OSH, environment and insurance thing you can think of.

Our laughing dog mate, Chuchok may be onto something with the student loan; however I think you need to check the exact situation; as far as I know the loan write down only occurs if you are living and working in NZed; i.e. you are here and you are an I here in the eyes of the IRD. (Thai joke). (well, not a funny one). (but the best i could do).

I started in my current job on a mere 25k baht a month parttime; now earning 6 times that within 2 years as I changed to full time plus extensive bonuses and the like... it isn't that hard to make fairly ok money here if you work hard and whatever.... but dollar for dollar you'll make the most coin in UK I think as some dodgy temp.... but then again do you really want to have to live with Australians and Poms?!

Come here, and you can live with all those people, plus more :-) Don't worry, if you get lonely, you can always come online; you'll find enough Aussie Gold and whinging poms and XXXXXXX Americans to sink a battleship.

80% reduction what a joke. It is worse than before; I knew I should have designed it myself :-)

The central to city way is fine, but no one can figure out what the benefit of the two bridges going the opposite way is....

If only there was a guidebook to the Thai Stock Exchange for amateur investors...

It all seems so very complicated, but I am sure it is not so difficult with a little information.

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exactly what information are you after? financial performance and annual reports? all avaialable for the most part...er... press releases to the market? all available for the most part in english (AFAIK)...er.... price movements? Available ART (almost real time)

Just register with online broker, and most of this stuff comes out of the SET online trading "engine" that they all use.

However, if you mean about insider trading and all that bit...well that's another story

Kiwi Kid

For starters, I'd say the salary is a little on the light side; and especially if you are working for all farang here, you stand the risk of never becoming invaluable and also not really seeing much of Thailand... so you need to make this decision on the basis of is the money right, rather than a i want to see the world decision.

For big money, Kiwis usually go to the UK and save like crazy. Bear in mind that the student loan scheme won't have a write off once you live abroad. So you need to save a lot quickly to pay it back, or the interest will accumulate mighty quick.

At the moment, with that sort of experience and an MBA, you'd probably be looking at a salary of at least double the Thai salary, at least. You can ignore many of the postings about INSEAD etc simply because as a NZer you may not be able to get the work permit and so on to work in USA/France etc.

Regarding tax, if you are here more than 181 days, you are a non-resident for tax purposes, and only pay tax here, which is indeed something like 28%.

Now, Thai people with that experience earning that much.... many of my Thai friends are in that situation, MBA/Masters from USA/England; 5 years experience, and they are earning around that amount; some less some a lot more... so this is not a massive salary by local standards. Bear in mind that they also have the benefits of:

- free place to live (parents usually)

- they eat local food and don't need to eat steak all the time

- know how to get around/have car

and your 25k USD starts to look not so hot.

I used to earn about that here, and even with all my family connections and stuff, it is not that easy to save money. You will burn through cash when family come over; friends come visit; you have to go back home once a year/twice a year etc - on $25k USD especially if you cannot speak Thai (and I can) and eat the local food etc you won't be getting ahead; don't see that you could easily pay off your student loan. I think anything from about $35k USD a year, and you are living a reasonably decent life, with some money left over.

Bear in mind, a business job here requires status symbols; suits, ties, shoes, briefcase etc - all those "image" things you cannot be wearing copies and rubbish - although I am coming at this from working in an industry where appearances are kind of important. Not all industries would be like this, but I am not sure.

I know how NZers don't really like Asia, but that is the Radio Pacific geriatrics and general middle NZ; for business the reality is that NZ is totally part of Asia and needs people who know what is going on. Depending on the industry this could be more or less relevent; I think you need to look at your indsutry to see; for instance retail banking Asia knowledge not that I could see be useful; investment banking, Asia knowledge really important.

Jai Dee - you ask why would someone come to Thailand and earn 1/3 what they could in Aussie?!

Well, my friend, I think the answer is that in Australia they have to pay Kiwis 3 times more, in order to compensate for the excessive number of f&*king Aussies all over the place!!

No worries though, I think 1/2 of New Zealand is living in Sydney on benefits these days

More seriously, I would say if you could earn decent money in Australia, you could afford to pop up here for weekends, holidays, and life would not be so bad. Certainly career perspectives in NZ, simply, suck, unless you want to start your own business and then it is much harder to start something in NZ than Australia....

OK, what a ramble!~ hope something helps.

DEAD DUCK

A woman brought a very limp duck into a veterinary surgeon. As she lay her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird's chest. After a moment or two, the vet shook his head sadly and said, "I'm so sorry, your pet has passed away."

The distressed owner wailed, "Are you sure?" Yes, I'm sure. The duck is dead," he replied.

"How can you be so sure", she protested. "I mean, you haven't done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something."

The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room. He returned a few moments later with a black Labrador Retriever. As the duck's owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. He then looked at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head.

The vet patted the dog and took it out and returned a few moments later with a beautiful cat. The cat jumped up on the table and also sniffed the bird from its beak to its tail and back again. The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly, jumped down and strolled out of the room.

The vet looked at the woman and said, "I'm sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100% certifiably, a dead duck."

Then the vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and produced a bill, which he handed to the woman.

The duck's owner, still in shock, took the bill. "$150!" she cried. "$150 just to tell me my duck is dead?!!" The vet shrugged. "I'm sorry.

If you'd taken my word for it, the bill would have been $20.

But with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan, it all adds up."

Age differences between 5 to 12 years are still ok, but more than this , it is terrible. Old men who married or have girl friend half of their ages. Look their wrinkle skin and impotent, imagine when they are naked with old body

Skin hanging down with big belly , you have to make your younger couple ( close her eyes and unbreath ) to sleep with you. Eventhough she do loves you so much ;-) It is the truth.

Well, I would just have to say my dad was 20 years older than my mother, and I was born when my mother was 30 and father 50.

He was a wonderful dad, because he had already done so many things and was willing to dedicate so much of his time to my brother and me (as well as my mum).

He was also very fit; a yachting coach in his spare time; an artist, a musician of sorts, and had an awesome sense of humour. He also looked after himself, and never really looked much different to the other dads of my friends. He also followed rap and modern music, trends and sport so had an idea what was going on the world.

That said, my mum still says that even though all white people look the same (she believes that to the end!) my dad had something special about him that drew them together; he died after an 11 year fight with cancer and she looked after him for much of that time.

And that is the main thing that is the problem with the age difference; the human body starts to have problems at about 60-70; it isn't that nice as a kid to be watching your parents falling apart. However on the flip side, being able to own a nice boat; having both parents retired because they have money and so on means that the time spent together could be higher quality.

Amazing how many people like to lecture me on how bad my childhood must have been with an older father though...never know what I am supposed to say!

I just read through this old thread and noticed that not one person mentioned the guy she went to live with.

He must have known exactly what the girl intended to do, so he essentially helped steal the posters money for the ticket and visa. Never mind all the heartache.

he is the one that should be blamed...so much for English decency!!

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But he is from Leicester; that makes him all yellow

  Thailand needs people like you!

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Thailand needs lots of different things as well as people but something always gets in the way of their willingness to accept it. It's called pride.

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Probably an element of truth; the problem is having a bunch of uncooth uneducated foreigners wandering around complaining about everything and offering unwanted opinions without constructive suggestions has somewhat immunised many Thai people to trusting advice from many foreigners.

Much like a person might not necessarily trust the advice of that kind hearted Nigerian in Soi Nana who has a small fortune in escrow and needs just a little start up capital to free the money up.

In both cases, the hopeless idiots f&*k it up for the people who could actually make a difference. I know many of the Thai staff here think the western guys working for supply companies and the like are mostly incompetent and here for the loose women of questionable repute from NEP; simply because probably 80% of them actually are. It takes some time to earn respect when you are starting from a position like this; a few of the foreign suppliers we have here (and myself in some respects I suppose as a foreign born person) have earned the trust and respect to actually be listened to. And a large number of the foreigners I know are well trusted and respected and listened to with awe sometimes; but each of them has earned that respect and trust through knowing how to present their ideas; when to listen, when to shut up and so on.

And with an understanding of how Thai people think (which seems to be the difficulty for most foreigners to ever get their heads around) then some headway can be made; improvements, better for everyone and smiles all round

I consider myself to be an expert in pretty much everything (you didn't want to go down the M25, you wanted to take the M82 etc etc, Harry Enfield) but I don't think I could go most places in the world and get people to listen to me straight off. Despite my movie star good looks; white teeth and devilish grin.

You cannot just wander around spouting off with the attitude, "my idea is right, so they should listen." I cannot think of anywhere in the world that this would work. But for sure there are a fair few more hurdles here for a non-Thai speaking foreigner than perhaps an english speaking foreigner locating to a western country such as USA or UK.

One of my friends of similar age; foreigner, age under 30, has been just recently offered a new job, earning salary significantly over 200k a month total package. Since he is not from USA, he is perhaps not comparing this to a NY salary. This is a local offer, not an expat abroad style package.

There is definitely ok money out there, if you work hard, earn your reputation and particularly if you can link up with some sort of mentor who will find and open these doors for you.