UncleDonald

Our work puts my (Thai) wife and I in constant need of significant construction supplies and materials which means we are often making inquiries in specialty shops. We are often amazed at the indifference of either owners or assistants to our questions about their products. Maybe this falls under a general category of "Questions means either you are stupid or trying to make me look stupid". Owners hardly look up from their newspapers, clerks mumble something about "that's not my job" and walk away. Questions about "if you don't carry it do you think it might be available anywhere else in Thailand" seem to be taken as insults. Wai-ing and smiling don't seem to do much. My wife gets angry and rude at this and this doesn't get us much either. Maybe we have exaggerated expectations of customer service. Anyone else share this reaction?

That's a bargain...I pay 3000 / hr....but he's a training god!

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I'm talking Bangkok, of course for the 660 baht per hour, maybe you are in New York or LA...

I'm about to renew a contract, I'm wondering what others are paying. Worked out at 660 baht per hour for my first 25 hours. Excellent trainer, did wonders for my broken down body.

This is a big complicated topic that is best looked at in the full context of the relationship, age of partners, other aspects of the marriage as discussed in the recent extensive postings on family that wants a million baht pickup truck as a wedding present. However you do it, there are likely to be many possibilities for disappointments on both sides.

Having said that, I am not sorry that my wife and I set up a few years back an arrangement for equal control of our property (which I paid for) via joint directorship of a Thai company. We have to agree or nothing happens. This does not guarantee that in moments of stress the Thai partner won't fall back on the idea that this is "unfair" because foreigners really "shouldn't" have any control over Thai land, or that a man really "owes" lifetime security to his woman. As always, you have to keep your cool and know when to draw the line on demands. all the while making a real effort to see the kind of anxiety that the Thai partner might genuinely have reason to feel.

Having just returned from a wedding in the south of Thailand I can tell you that ordinary Thai farm families are paying 100 to 200,000 baht for Thai brides, this is much more than the amounts I've seen posted recently on the forum. But things are prosperous down there, the price of rubber is up. Unfortunately the whole bride price business is attended with a lot of bragging and ego which appears to be the case with this million-baht car deal too.

I wouldn't put up with it myself, it seems demeaning to the girl as well. You could say "I'm not spending that money we need to educate my wife and provide her with what she needs in the modern world," you'll be right though it won't be cheerfully accepted. And if she's not prepared to stand by you on this maybe she's not ready to join the modern world and you might not be ready to join the medieval one either. But a little compromise might be ok. Your negotiation of the cash payback is brilliant, maybe you can safely raise that a bit, lavishing public praise on your parents-in-law for their insistance on granting the money back to their daughter for her education. And keeping the cash in a bank book in her name for "wedding safety" reasons. Also festively slaughtering a couple of cows and some gold trinkets for mom will help.

Most people with your experience end up seeking one-on-one lessons from a very experienced and disciplined Thai teacher which costs 400-600 baht per hour. It takes several months, 2-3 regularly scheduled lessons a week, and a willingness to practice a lot. I'm still not there, my vocabulary of about 800 words is enough to bluff with but I still can't follow the essential details of many conversations or understand most radio talk very well. Learning to read basic Thai and getting away from phonetic transliteration is desirable. It's a lot of work, makes you appreciate why the Thai have a hard time going the other way. Having a knack for mimicy helps, poor hearing hurts. But like any personal challenge, golf or tennis, progress has its satisfactions.

Interview a lot of prospective teachers based on personal referals, maybe paying for an evaluation consultation from the best candidates.

The available audio material is pretty thin compared with what is available for English learners. I'm trying to develop some narrative CD stuff for the PC to help with listening skills, I'll post a link when I have something (free) if anyone wants to test it out. It will be a while.

My Thai wife seems to have an odd and possibly natural talent at reading maps, but her mindset may be a little more "masculine" than many. I have innocently asked high ranking Thai military and technical officials to show me something --their home town, for example -- on a map only to realize to mutual embarrassment that they had no idea how to do that.

Building plans are another problem, I find that to show someone what kind of window I want it's best to wait until the framing is about to be installed and then walk over to the place and pretend I'm actually opening and fiddling with the window with sound effects etc. Even 3-D graphics don't seem to mean anything to my otherwise excellent building crew. But this kind of abstraction, map reading, may not be the most important thing in the world, if you read the interesting ideas of the Anglo-American architect/philospher Christopher Alexander you might be convinced that "native" craft skills produce better designs than "top-down" approaches.

On the other hand having just booked the Thai Airways flight from BKK to JFK I do hope that soemeone in the crew....

This discussion of rural investment possibilities in the South is interesting and informed; the estimated 22 percent return on rubber agri investment sounds reasonable though it may not account for the initial waiting period. I wonder does anyone have other ideas for specialty crops that are particular to this region? Nuts, herbs, fish farming, etc? Perhaps something that is a little difficult to work requiring a little more technology or management or capital...thereby offering a higher return and no competition from China

My recent tour of some local family fish farms (catfish) near my wife's village in Nakorn Sri Thammarat make this look like a promising investment. Shrimp farming appears to be banned because people were importing salt water and salting up good paddy.

I thank both respondents for their very helpful replies. Consultation with a Thai banker confirms the infeasibility of combining a mortgage and a lease as stated in the responses. But the short term agreement proposed is very creative suggestion, it at least would allow for a cooling period that might put the business relationship back on track.

Also, my bank (Ayudhya) says that you now need a minimum import of of $20,000 to get a TT3 if you want one (presumably for non-imm O visa extension or condo purchase) Unfortunately they told me this only after I had made lesser imports anticipating that they would provide TT3s as they had in the past.

A Thai national may purchase property (say a Bangkok house) with financial contribution from her fahlang mate and also get a substantial Thai bank loan which of course will be recorded on the title, what we call a "first mortgage" in the US. But will the bank or the land dept allow the fahlang's interest to be secured as a "second mortgage" or will they permit a recorded lease in the fahlang's name on the title? Presumably any unrecorded contractual agreement would be difficult to enforce if the Thai partner decided to sell and take all. Any experience on this one appreciated.