UncleDonald

Once when Uncle Donald was a child, his mother had him take art lessons. That must have been, oh, 1948.

He was embarrassed to be seen drawing baskets of fruit and hid the drawings

He has overcome this. Any art tips welcome!

Uncle Donald appreciates these helpful suggestions, the gradualist approach is particularly attractive. Especially in light of a possible side-effect that could result from the sex-change option, namely, that as a woman the "binge" limit might be reduced to only four drinks a day.

Uncle Donald has taken a questionaire which leads to the conclusion that he is not only an alcoholic but that hardly a night goes by that he does not go on a binge , officially defined as 6 cans of beer or a bottle of wine. (Chilean a very good buy in Thailand).

However the attached chart from a celebrated 1997 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine indicates that the health effects are minimal for 6 drinks per day, and that Uncle Donald's best treatment would be to avail himself of a $1600 sex change. Uncle Donald should become Aunt Daisy!

Any advice appreciated.

Uncle Donald is pleased to announce that last week he discovered a cure for this embarrassing condition which affects millions the world over, and was formerly considered hopeless. The discovery took place on the beautiful island of Phuket, only an hour away from the Bangkok, now considered a world center for exciting new medical treatments.

He attributes the cure to either Phuket's sparkling bluegreen salt water or to not wearing shoes for several days. Or possibly chlorine in the hotel swimming pool. Or to renewed vigor of bedtime activity with his companion. Or to a diet rich in fresh healthy seafood. Or to reading a 600 page collection of writings by Alan Bennett.

Some cynics will say "They still look pretty yellow to me!"

But Uncle Donald says "You should have seen them before!"

Uncle Donald is planning to file a petition with the vatican for the canonization of the eighth century Irish missionary Aldebert, much overlooked because of scurrilous complaints by his English rival Boniface, and in that conection he is preparing an illustrated history of Aldebert's accomplishments. Shown here is his teaching a Frisian heathen the story of St. Brendan.

According to Boniface these Irishmen "degraded their Christian profession by participation in the idolatrous rites of Thor and Wodenr in the dense, primeval forests" where Woden, Thor, and the other deities of the Teutonic pantheon might well seem alive.

Any assistance from the membership would be welcome.

I'm still not clear on your needs. Do you need something that is good just for inside?

Or something that is good for both inside and outside?

If that is the case why is the concern for taking them off easily when coming in?

Well anyway, David...how about something along this line...huaraches?

I hear Euro-weenies find them fashinable.

They come in a variety of colors.

In old Thailand it is customary to remove outside shoes at the door entrance and either go barefoot or wear "indoor" slippers or rubber thongs inside. So one has to find two kinds of footwear, one good for wet and mud, the other for wood floors (unless the preferred barefoot idea works ok). The Huaraches are an interesting idea, but might be a little hard to clean when covered with mud (their habitat is usually desert country, I believe.) If one is constantly moving in and out it's an inconvience to be tyeing laces all the time. The Thai usually do with backless sandals which tend to fall off in my experience.

Thanks for the interest and help.

Okay, first off Uncle David you seem to accept the need to remove footwear in Thai houses, however, you are wearing footwear inside Thai houses.

That is the start of your problems.

You need to identify the problem:

Do you need footwear that is easily removed when entering a Thai house?

Or:

Do you need footwear that is not considered footwear that you can wear inside the house?

Yes, I have had similar problems but cannot help you Uncle David until you know what

your problem really is.

Please clarify.

Uncle Donald thanks the respondents and confesses to confused criteria. Persistent culture shock.

The slippers were necessary in this case because the floors in this rural house are rather splintery. Otherwise the bare feet solution is brilliant.

The same problem exists, maybe worse, in switching to the "outside" footgear.

Some American tourists were seen wearing some kind of plastic shoes with holes, they said they were fashionable in places like Denver Colorado. You could slip them on and off, but they had a little back to them. Quite ugly, reminiscent of an illustration of shoes of red-hot heated iron which Cinderella's sisters were required to wear for the amusement of the happy bride and Prince (original version of story). But possibly effective for padding around the property??

Things can't be all bad when nobody is interested in Miss Universe contests.

Uncle Donald accepts the need to remove footwear in Thai houses including his own quarters even though this sometimes seems like a lot of effort for a rather thin return. However finding slippers or sandals that are easy to take on and off but don't slip off unpredictably and sometimes under alarming circumstances (eg running down stairs) has not been possible. The Thai never seem to have this problem, and Uncle Donald wonders whether his physiology or manner of locomotion are somehow defective. Are any of the members similarly troubled or has anyone found a solution, say applying adhesive substances to the bottom of the feet or special footwear designed for this condition? Thanks much for any help.

Image shows one of many unsuccessful efforts.

Could it be that western logic misses the point about fortune telling, taking to be some kind of verifiable statement about a future with controlled variables? After all the future does not have fixed variables; one's personal future is in large part determined heuristically by personal beliefs. Isn't it true that a person who believes that they will meet a charming new friend or close a good deal is more likely to do both than the same person who has not acquired such a belief? Perhaps our pity should be for those who lack such customs, who are taught to believe instead in such fakery as psychology.

I will definitely concede you have a point there, although I would not go as far as turning the statement completely around. My guess is that you are primarily referring to psycho-analysis as a method of helping people, and I agree that it is not a very scientific method per se, although some people have great results with it. The rather recent introduction of cognitive science into psychology has done a lot for my appreciation of it, anyway.

Fortune telling is a profession that attracts lots of con artists, and this is my main gripe with it. As long as the maw duu is a good cold reader and reaffirms and strengthens their client's resolve without trying to control them in a certain direction they did not already want to go, it can definitely have a positive effect... but in not so few cases, the gift of being good at reading people is abused for personal gains.

Just to amplify on this point, more than a few fortune tellers I've encountered in Thailand and neighbouring countries have functioned, at least partially, as psychological counsel. Some dwell on personal analysis as much or more than they do on predicting the future. They may identify mental or emotional obstacles in a person's path, and suggest ways of dealing with these obstacles. In that sense they are cheap psychiatry, in a way. Of course there's no licensing or regulation so the potential for scams or cons is ever-present. But not all fortune-tellers are scammers, and many provide a small degree of psychological assistance for their clients.

My own experience with seers is that a small percentage are quite gifted and their counsel can be very useful in getting people 'unstuck' when they are having certain kinds of personal problems. If nothing else a session puts the client in a mood to listen to someone else's advice and perhaps to delve into a little self-analysis as well.

Well it sounds as if we are reaching a sort of middle ground here, though it does not seem necessary to judge these eastern practices by some kind of western gold standard. For example, Freudian psychology which was once accepted among the well informed as surely as thermodynamics (on which it was partially based) now seems completely discredited, and judging it from a pragmatic standpoint one could argue that it was actually harmful by in stirring up shame and focussing on futile blame on parents etc. More contemporary psychologies are scientifically weak and also lack the narrative and moral core that should be part of good counsel, ie they don't really help a person to decide what to do, which is what matters in many cases.

Of course in the end it is hard to find anyone who can be trusted to bring good will to the task. Especially someone who walks up to you on the street. Maybe this is why the Thai like and respect older people -- "uncles" -- because they are less likely to have harmful motives.

Could it be that western logic misses the point about fortune telling, taking to be some kind of verifiable statement about a future with controlled variables? After all the future does not have fixed variables; one's personal future is in large part determined heuristically by personal beliefs. Isn't it true that a person who believes that they will meet a charming new friend or close a good deal is more likely to do both than the same person who has not acquired such a belief? Perhaps our pity should be for those who lack such customs, who are taught to believe instead in such fakery as psychology.

Last night Uncle Donald dreamt of walking through a familiar park landscape and noticed a flag clearly indicating a good breeze from the northeast. And yet minutes later at the other end of the park another flag was seen to be indicating wind from the southeast. His question is this:

Is it reasonable to expect such a sudden change in wind direction? (No other weather disturbances were noted) Or is it more likely that the "continuity director" of the dream simply forgot about the first flag and erroneously entered an incorrect wind direction for the second?

Thanks in a advance for any help you may have to offer.

Does anyone know of audio versions of popular books in Thai, on the line of talking books and books-on-tape in the West?

I'm particularly interested in children's books and popular pot-boilers translated from English, such as Harry Potter.

Thanks!

Only thing I know is a website that's been referenced here a couple of times, it has some simple stories, you could probably download them, it's at

www.auntiedahtestsite.com

Bangkok. Uncle has not suffered any bites in several nights. A few weeks ago, usually one a night (usually each mosquito making several successful biting runs; very adept at finding ankles, back of elbows, other tasty spots) . Problem aggravated by need to make several bathroom visits with mosquitoes evidently following back into screened bedroom Causal role of beer drinking and prostate problems.

What is the cause of recent decline in mosquito activity?

Auntie Dah has added more stories and also a new english translation to her web test site devote to stories told by Thai ladies... Thank you for your many suggestions from Thaivisa.com, please enjoy new things at:

http://auntiedahtestsite.blogspot.com/

This is a good resource for both comprehension and beginning reading. The consistent word-for-word translation really helps build vocabulary because it shows how many thai "words" are just composites of simpler single-syllable words ("kon kup lot"). It would be great if you put a collection like this on a CD.

Blonde(supposed to be college student)looking at me and pointing: "Oh

look we even have foreigners coming in here now. Or is he Chinese?"

Short guy: "I don't know, but his face is certainly red. Maybe he's

Japanese."

Other guy: "Sir, where are you from anyway"

Me, in my best Thai: "I come from Bangkok"

Short guy: "Well, one thing for sure, he can't speak Thai very well."

College girl: "He certainly speaks a lot better than your father."

Uncle Donald has noted the emergence of an entirely new linguistic development here in Thailand. The language is used by and aimed at Thai people who may not understand english but is written using english words.

Example used in promoting an internet service:

It's your life. Connect it.

Is this a deep philosophical statement, perhaps reflective of some primal Asian thinking innaccessible to Westerners? Or is it just nonsense? Or has Uncle Donald been here too long?

Other candidate phrases would be of interest.

The street food danger myth is odd, but it appears to be a Western prejudice that an expensive "regulated" establishment must be better than something on the street. When you think about it though, the opportunity for spoiled food and bad practices is much greater when things are done behind the scenes. This is easily and distressingly confirmed when you take a peek into many back kitchens. I believe that it is also true that most "Thai food" eaten in Bangkok "Thai restaurants" is not very good.

There is a promising new experimental method for learning reading and pronounciation at

www.auntiedahtestsite.blogspot.com

Perhaps with some encouragement this can be developed further

I have been following this thread for a long time and have had many of the same frustrations with the BOA to BB NY transfer scheme. Sometimes it works, sometimes no, and then they cut the link. The size of the transfer may have an effect, the small set-up transfers seem to always work. But I once got away with a $6000 transfer too.

I stopped at a BOA in Boston last month and asked what was going on. They told me that this scheme is in their view an attempt to avoid wire fees by bypassing the normal system. "If it works sometimes you are just lucky no one caught it because your BB account is really not a US account and we only transfer to US accounts by rule."

Why they include BB as one of their corresponding banks, I have no idea.

So the answer is, it may work, but don't count on it.

On the other hand, for some good news, my Wells Fargo ATM card always delivers up to the daily limit of about $300 without any fees and with competitive exchange rates. I think a lot of guys live this way.

If you deposit a US check in a Thai bank it takes 4 to 6 weeks to clear, god knows why. Or maybe I know too, it's just a way to skim a little from the fahlang.

All of this stuff is just a small piece of the big issue between the US and many small countries, whether US banks and financial services will be allowed to compete or whether the local family empires will retain their monopolies.

My November transfer of $1000 went through again. No problems.

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I followed this thread with great interest as I've been banking online with B of A for quite awhile. Went ahead and opened a Bangkok Bank account, then proceeded to add that account to my B of A funds transfer list as described so thoroughly by Khun Richard. After verifying the account per Bof A's instructions I successfully transferred $9500 USD (staying clear of the $10K limit) using the online transfer feature.

.........................

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I had exactly the same history, am waiting results of my most recent attempt to transfer after re-establishing the Bangkok Bank link. Keep posted.

Seems that Thaivisa does not accomodate posts with embedded Flash files, right? Technical limitation or policy?

Do we still have two angry and frustrated BOA customers who cannot get this service to work (Upcountry and myself) and one happy customer (richard) or does Upcountry's last message suggest he has succeeded in making a transfer?

BOA has phone numbers on their customer service page.

I've used Skype to contact them, and I spent hours talking to front-line support people to no avail. I also spoke to an on-line banking manager a few weeks ago, and came to a dead-end there - getting a second-hand interpretation (my sense) that the reason for

a) the rejection of my transaction

the effective invalidation of my previously validated and functioning out-of-bank "account" setup

was that Bangkok Bank is not "domiciled" in the U.S.

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Thanks for this informative commentary. I tend to agree with your diagnosis, though the last email from BOA vaguely complained about my zip code.

Rethinking all of this, it now occurs to me that the reason I got into this in the first place is that I was trying to avoid $75 wire fees or six week delays which is what I was dealing with when I wrote a US dollar check deposit to my local Thai bank account here in Bangkok. (vs a week which is what it used to take in Korat in 1963, believe it or not; what in hel_l are they doing with our money for six weeks? I was given a significant reduction in smile intensity when I asked that question here at my bank, but no answer of course)

But now that I have the BB New york account, I suppose I can just write a check on my US accounts at BOA or WF and send it from here in Bangkok as a deposit to my New York BB, maybe take a week or so....and with luck I'll be happily back where I was up country in 1963!

Thanks for all the BofA info! I may become a BofA customer very soon!

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I wouldn't rush to open a BofA account in the hope of transferring anything. I've struck out, having successfully initiated the two small transfers to Bangkok Bank New York. Subsequently my attempted $1700 transfer failed, and the half dozen emails requesting assistance were answered with perverse unintelligibility, followed by silence after I raised the tone of my complaint. Does anyone have a phone number or name of someone? Perhaps continued complaint by many people would drive them to straighten this out. Most annoying is that the BB transfer option which I set up and which is provided in a drop down menu has disappeared from my online options.

All of this makes me feel that American culture is seriously sinking to banana republic standards.