plachon

This article is highly biased, ask any youth what their interests are and they will repy: saaaaleeep, read comics..

This Dr. failed to mention these two basic pillars of the future of Thailand.

HaHaHaHa! You've just reminded me of what my last straw poll of university students' hobbies revealed too - saaaaleeeeeping - was pretty high up there along with "doo TV" and "aarn comic". If I'd had one that said "getting laid and pissed", think I would've marked them up for honesty/originality, but no such luck. Angels the lot, reading their Beanos and getting nice early nights, after a spot of "Songs of Praise" on the telly.

Second hand books - about 2-4 times more expensive in LOS.

In fact, 2nd hand almost anything, as there are no charity shops over here, and cars defy the laws of economics.

Pick ups are cheaper in LOS than UK.

New yes (cos of low tax), but second hand, not always. The rate at which a second hand motor loses value in the UK is much more rapid that LOS, so a ten plus year old banger Toyota pick-up in Britain that you could get for less than 600 quid, is still fetching double that in Thailand. The demand for those in Britain is pretty low, but there seems no shortage of Thai farmers prepared to mortgage their land for a beat-up old pick-up for 100,000 baht. I know from my wife's rellies, that economic rationalisation is not their strong point.

Yes, she was wrong to deceive him but always remember, he (& you who have done so in the past) gave of your own free will & as Begs said, unless you have been really poor, you'll never know the draw of money, & for some people it really is the route of all evil!

Occasionally it can be the root of all evil too Boo.

Seems to me a lot of people, especially Mr Expert Begs, has assumed that Darlek's other half was an ex-BG, and has just used it a springboard for their own particular prejudice. Basically, rules to marriage in Thailand, as anywhere go something along the lines of "caveat emptor".

Second hand books - about 2-4 times more expensive in LOS.

In fact, 2nd hand almost anything, as there are no charity shops over here, and cars defy the laws of economics.

The words Quality and Thai TV should never be in the same sentence.

You mean you don't like the high drama of Thai soaps and excitement of "Who wants to be a baht millionaire" Astral? Can't understand that at all.

The Mall in Kalasin gets my vote , Christ have they not heard of A/c? It's a shame becaus I love rural Isaan , either come into the new millenium or stick with the old ways.

On the flip side , they have they tastiest morsels working there....

Yeah, I've been in there too once and agree it's a bit of a shocka, especially the lack of a decent coffee shop. But, it's days are probably numbered as just about every provincial city in Isaan is now in the process of being invaded by the usual suspects of malldom, whose names I don't have to spell out. They have their standard franchise fart-food shops (Kacky Flied Chickthing, etc.) and hordes of mobile phone shops, catering to Toxin's new hordes of indebted, dyed-hair drones who believe Loger Merry, the Man on the Telly . Progress? Depends on you, but give me the good old days of genuine independent merchant choice anyday to the Mallady Fever now. Gai Yang & somtam vs Mcshite & Freedom flies. No contest.

Academics lash out at behaviour of Thai youths

BANGKOK: -- The youths of today in Thailand is a selfish, consumerist bunch interested only in sex, drink and horror stories, according to educationalists from one of the nation's top universities.

In other words, Thai teenagers are just like teens everywhere else on the planet. Luckily, enough eventually grow out of it to insure that there's someone around to run the world.

You mean like GWB Jnr? And what a role model for today's youth that little scally-wag is.

Trouble is Pvt. Dick, lots of them will fail to grow out of it and that's what the good ajarns are concerned about............ "The times, they are a 'changing"

Bina, i know the type of dogs you mean, but would be hard pushed to refer to them as "wild" dogs. There are just different degrees of domestication and selective breeding of dogs in village dogs. True wild dogs (closest to dingos) live in a few remote forest areas still and are called "dhole", but I have no ideas about numbers or likely locations - contact Wildlife Fund of Thailand for info.

The hunting dogs in villages are now fewer and fewer as hunting itself is either forbidden by forestry officials or worthless due to the lack of game and forest itself. Meanwhile traditional Thai village mutts are quickly being being diluted by massive influx of horrible foreign breeds, polluting the pure national blood of the local hounds. Shocking! There's something obcene about seeing a giant German shepherd walking down the soi paw in paw with a scrawny Thai 57 variety, don't you think?

V. briefly to Maikaojai, you're right agriculture would be unrecognisable from its current state if man hadn't dragged domestic animals and exotic plant material with him/her around the world.

Plachon, you have a valid point here, but for the most part these problems are the result of mistakes made in the past. People recognize that you just can't import any plant or animal into any country anymore.

Again, sorry to beg difference, but i'm afraid you're off the mark.

If only these mistakes were of the past.................but I'm afraid the same mistakes are being repeated daily worldwide, and what recognition there is of the scale and nature of the problem tends to be limited to the organic and alternative agriculture movement, which is strongest in Western countries. But even there, the checks and balances are still not as strong as they should be, but granted are a vast improvement on a few decades ago. One of the problems though, is that with improved communication and globalization of agricultural markets, the Western consumer now doesn't look on exotic food in their supermarkets as occasional luxuries, but as every day "necessities" (like tropical fruits and tiiger prawns for example), which has just tended to promote and accelerate the movement of exotic plant and animal stock around the third world/developing countries. I am horrified by the quantity of green vegetablesin our local supermarket in UK from Kenya or Zambia, which have often been grown using unsustainable methods at the expense of local peoples and environment, so the wealthy minority of the world can have their green beans at a "cheap" price 12 months per year.

Other might say: "Well that's the wonder of modern transport methods- Nairobi to London markets in just 6 hours" or "It's promoting consumer choice, which is a good thing", but I say "Bullshit", because the real costs are not being accounted for, and are being externalised all the way along the supply chain. This is a very superficial look at a massive great problem, which is still little appreciated by the vast majority of folks, and forget govts. that mostly bow down to the corporate giants and dollars these days. (Vide Thailand and the CP monster and US and Monsanto/ Cargill).

So geting back to your second point Maikaojai, the sentence may hold true for the Western world and is very well policed in places like Australia, where you have problems even bringing plant material from state to state, but still the rest of the world is largely oblivious to the potential damage that can be done from by taking exotics from one part of the globe to another. Thailand is a particularly bad offender in this regard, not only quite happily importing just about anything and everything from anywhere round the world (including GMOs), but also quite often actively promoting it at policy level. Hence, grapes, dates, oranges, holstein-friesian pure breeds and a lot of the other things talked about in the preceeding pages being regular features of the farming landscape here, often at the expense of local varieties and breeds. Bina makes some good valid points on this. The demise of the buffalo in the Isaan landscape (and it's valuable roles in promoting healthy farming) would be another good example.

I'm not saying there are only positives to existing breeds/varieties and negatives to exotic breeds/varieties, but we have to know and appreciate all the pluses and minuses before making an introduction or replace the old with the new. That is called wise conservation in my book.

different question:

bina, since dogs are not farmed in thailand like livestock, I think perhaps your question would get a better response if you started a thread on this subject in GENERAL TOPICS.

Wrong! Dogs are farmed in Thailand exactly like livestock. Not universally and not very publically, but like most of Unseen in Thailand, if you hang around the right places long enough, eventually the good, the bad and the ugly emerge from the shadows. In the case of dogs, there appear to be two types of "farming" :

1. Isaan-style ranching i.e. free range village dogs, (some of the type Bina would like more info on) are exchanged to a Sakhon Nakhon dealer for the price of a bucket, and then trucked back to a holding pen in Tha Rae district. Here they either meet their fate in one of the many local hound restaurants, or (and i have seen this personally), they are put in a 6-wheel truck and shipped off to Vietnam, via Laos, at the rate of 2 trucks a day (aprox. 500 dogs?)

2. Northern-style farming i.e. small dog farms hold and breed dogs in pens/cages and fatten them up for sale. popular with certain local consumers and possibly restaurants, but never seen myself. There was an article in the B. Post a couple of years ago on this trade, which went into the economics in quite some detail. Nan and Phrae provinces listed as hot spots for farms.

So, very much like intensive and extensive livestock rearing systems for a niche market in Thailand and a mass export market in Vietnam. It also wouldn't surprise me if some find their way as far as southern china. Then there is an active trade in their pelts too, some possibly ending up as driving/golf gloves.

The word on the street in Isaan is that black dogs taste the best, so hold onto your black labs tightly!

I don't see any indications from these past two reports that any of the lessons of the 97 crash have been learned. It's not a case of IF, but WHEN will this bubble burst?

Interestingly in this thread, there have been no arguments for the defence i.e. that everything's fine and it's just silly farang faithlessness in the strengths of the Thai economy saying that a crash is inevitable. Very different from a year ago, when the lines were split about 50/50 between believers/doubters.

Now you've brought up this topic Wash, it would be interesting to hear from Random and anyone else who are farang farmers, how much problem there is with either out and out organised theft/rustling or small time filching/scrumping of fruit by jealous neighbours,etc? Especially interested to know if it occurs with cattle in some places and what is/can be done to avoid/minimise it. All anecdotes welcome.

By the way, whereabouts on the Mekong is your nephew and what fruit was being pinched in these raids?

V. briefly to Maikaojai, you're right agriculture would be unrecognisable from its current state if man hadn't dragged domestic animals and exotic plant material with him/her around the world. But it isn't necessarily a good thing and there have been lots of serious <deleted>-ups of the local environments as a result, some only just starting to be recognised. Australia, only having been relatively recently colonised, provides some of the starkest examples with cattle, sheep, pigs and goats coupled with land clearance for wheat, all doing their bit at causing massive land degradation. now it's being slowly tackled with the huge "Landcare" scheme which is trying to reverse some of the damage done.

Similarly bringing new fruits or other plants into Thailand, may have short term economic benefits to some, but may also have larger long term economic (often hidden) and environmental impacts for all, whether it is bringing in new diseases or being cultivated in a unsustainable manner for the local soil and water resources. The massive conversion of hundreds and thousands of rai of forest in the north of Thailand to oranges/mandarins (som kieow waan), being a prime example. They require large amounts of irrigation and all sorts of pesticides are liberally used to get the fruit to market, polluting the local streams and rivers in the process, not to mention the health of the sprayers and possibly us, the consumers. There are plenty of other examples I could give of "exotics" causing big damage.

If this is the Bird Flu that has jumped species, then this could really be worth worrying about.  Pigs genectic make up is very close to humans, so it would be real easy for the virus to mutate and infect the human population.

I don't think it is similar - I think the problems with pork arise because we and the pigs have long (at least 8 million years) had similar diets - probably why we taste similar

Fancy that, a real live cannibal online! How do you like your human cooked and which parts do you recommend to a gourmand? Share your favourite recipes with us Rich.

Main reasons in no specific order:

Alcohol

Cigarettes

Motorcycles

You got it, these are the widow makers which need no further explanation or stats. However, i believe that AIDS has now overtaken accidents (mostly motorbikes) as the leading cause of premature death in LOS. Now, I wonder of AIDs reaps more men than women, or is it an equal opportunities killer? I would hazard a guess that more men have gone down than women, because they are more likely to be exposed to it at sometime in their life. This would also tip the balance in favour of overall higher numbers of women.

hundreds of people can die in flooding in china or dozens in a plane crash (so long as there are no foreigners aboard) and it gets less line space than this minor incident in Thailand. A dozen pigs dying in one village is not even near an epidemic, it happens frequently all over the place from any of a number of infectious diseases and is nothing to worry about. The curious thing about this post is why is Xinhua (official chinese news agency) bothering to report it? Either they know something we don't about the significance of this "normal" event and are keeping mum, or there is absolutely no better news from around the world to report on.

Another nail in the coffin of Freedom of the Press.

It will be interesting to see who wins.

Looks like you've already made up your mind.

Let's hope this case bucks the trend.

Thai and foreign rights groups had already accused police of killing suspected drug dealers during the 10-month campaign last year.

Human Rights my arse! The bastards shot "resisting arrest" or "trying to escape" weren't suspected drug dealers, they were confirmed drug producers and dealers ... many of whom were known to have been under police "protection" for years! They had no Human Rights!

Let's hope no one ever slips a bag of grass into your bag before a police search, eh, Rod?

Don't know what your concept of "human rights" is, but rights to a fair investigation, trial and simply, life are pretty basic ones in most people's books, I'd say. The fact, that this report comes from the Thai National Human Rights Commission, means it carries all the more weight locally, and follows concern expressed by the UN Human Right's committee last year, which prompted Mr Big to say, something like "The United Nations is not my father". In other words, human rights to not figure high in this person's priorities, so it looks like a case of "snap" for Rod.

plachon; I see nothing that says"x farmer", I had a girlfriend that works in BKk as a cleaning lady in a hospital in BKK and she makes 10,000 a month,and that doesn't include being a personal slave.

I just don't think it is possible.

But then again, Kev, you said this post by Nam Kao was a troll and you wouldn't "touch it with a long stick".

Virtually all rural Thai without education are classified as "farmers", (both by themselves and in govt. stats) even if they spend no more than 10 days a year in the fields. Even when they're labouring on a Bangkok building site you can ask them what their "profession" is and the chances are they'll answer "chow naa" or "kasetagon". likewise, it's unlikely a bar girl will identify her profession as such, thus helping to boost the numbers of beauticians, waitresses and seamstresses in the country. It's a matter of shame / pride, although unfortunately now, nearly all young Thais are ashamed to say they're farmers, which is another reason for the mass exodus from the land, apart from the crappy/uncertain income.

So to get back to the original point, guaranteed 4,000 B/month to be a driver could be seen as a great escape for the majority of farmers nationwide (who would then be an "exfarmer" ), assuming they think you're going to be a good & fair boss. If you're not, he'll bundle out pretty fast.

Don't think some people could spot a troll if it jumped out from under a bridge and ate 3 gruff billy goats in front of 'em.

Hmmm I don't see this as a troll , what tablets are ye taking Kev?

ps Nam Kao , howsabout Tyson now?

Where are you going to find a person with the attributes that are listed;He is a farmer, good driver, clean,

no drugs / drinking / smoking etc./personal slave, for 4000 baht a month.

For the first,there is no such thing as a good driver in Thailand.

I can not even find anyone to work fulltime as the fields need work most times of the year and I have a "cousin" that does come and work on a part time basis.

I really do not think that you will find a dependable woman that will work full time for that kinda money if there is farming to do.

At least in our area as the farming takes first priority.

Kevin, why do you think Bangkok is heaving with (ex) farmers from all over Thailand working for less than 4,000 baht per month? I'd hazard a guess that there must be several million (ex) farmers working away from home in factories, shops, building sites, etc., for 3,000 - 4,000 baht/month (i.e. the minimum wage jobs), so why wouldn't a farmer want to work an easy job like driving for 4k/month? (Until he realises that Nam Kao is expecting a "personal slave" the rest of the time that is )

The fact that you can't find any one to work for you at that rate may lie a tad closer to home when you write off all of the Thai population as lazy, lacking respect, incapable of driving, etc. I mean would you want to work for a boss with that kind of racist attitude against your compatriots? Think you need to get out of your fortress a bit more and smell the rice stalks.

Those little lizards are Gecko's and they get pretty big, so the bigger the lizard the bigger his droppings. They are usefull when small but once they get over about 6" long get rid of them, I normally get my bro in law to do it.

Think you'll find he's referring to ordinary, common or garden "jing joks" Bronco, not baby "tookays", (i.e. geckos, as you are). The word "gecko" gets mixed up a lot, but I don't define jingjoks as geckos, but lizards.

Both shit a lot around the house, but tookays are fearsome carnivores with a taste for everything from moths, jingjok tails to fingers (if you give 'em the opportunity). It's ###### hard to keep the buggers out the house, and they do do their bit at keeping some of the insects down, while the tookays help to keep the jingjoks down, so should be encouraged as part of a healthy ecosystem. Admittedly, sweeping up their crap can be a bit of a bother sometimes, but as most Thais are expert dust sweepers on a daily basis, it's not adding any extra work to the process and those little lumps actually move in the direction intended, unlike the dust which tends to just relocate itself back down on the floor 2ft away.

Now,there's a topic - is sweeping or mopping a better dust removal method?

(Sure sign of boredom on a rainy Isaan morning, when banaal lizard crap like this is raised. )

For what it's worth Backsida, we came up against a similar problem with the birth registrar in the amphur office, when wanting to register the birth of our daughter. We wanted her to have a Thai first name but a Western middle name, but were denied this choice for some obscure reason. I was none too pleased with this breach of personal freedom, but agreed in the end to just have one name on the birth certificate (to show how jai yen yen I could be).

however, there was no problem giving her the name of our choice when we registered her at the British Embassy and so that is the name she gets on her British passport, while her Thai passport gets the shorter version! TIT.

[

and I think inner - London example cited above is not necessarily typical of anywhere but large inner cities.

Well I would like to know where you got that idea. I have friends and family in some very desirable locations that are not immune to this problem, it is not simply an inner city problem. I would agree that at its best British state education can be superb, gaining access to it at that level however can be problematic. EVERYONE wants their kids to go to a good school and good schools are heavily oversubscribed with ever decreasing catchment areas, just the last few years have shown dramatic changes. This is caused not least by the fact that fee paying schools, whilst becoming ever more expensive, are no longer seen as a surefire route to a good university. Universities are coming under ever increasing pressure to positively discriminate in favour of children from less advantaged schools . Theres a paradox here, if your child can make it through a tougher, less academic school they are more likely to gain a good university place than if they had attended a fee paying school. Oxford and Cambridge are probably the last bastions of the old system that is surely crumbling.

I agree completely that the British system is vastly superior to the Thai tick box mentality. So would many other people, good luck in gaining access to the better bits of it.

Probably from reading too many Grauniad articles bemoaning the quality of inner-city state education in Britain.

From personal experience, I can only relate that my daughter went to what was considered the "roughest" primary school in a small home counties town and thoroughly enjoyed her two years there. Amongst her play mates and friends were was a South African, Indians and Kurds (i.e. fairly multi-cultural, which I consider a plus), as well as Brits, and the quality of education was great. No complaints about state education whatsoever in the provinces, but I can only go by what I've read about some inner schools and their problems, especially with regards to recruiting permanent teachers, due to the chronic underfunding of successive governments. (Not a problem in other northern European countries I believe, but then they have phenomenal tax levels to pay for it).

Also remember that I am NOT referring to the private sector, which you clearly are in your educational choices for your offspring in Thailand. Let's not compare apples with oranges, but like with like. Private education in Thailand for me is not an option, and it's not just the cost.

Albert Einstein had it about right on most Thai schools when he said:

"It is in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in freedom; without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searchig can be promoted by means of sense of coercion and a sense of duty".

Too late Bina, dates are already here (and I do mean the woody variety! )

In fact, I have half a dozen in my garden, some of which are in fruit right now. The trees are all fat and healthy, but the fruits are thin and all stone. Don't know whether it's climate, soil or variety, but on the basis of this little population, I don't think that Isaan has a big future in date farming. Being desert plants, I'd imagine they'd prefer a lot drier climate than Isaan can provide (900 - 1800 mm of rain a year - not the dry region people like to think!)

However, always one willing to be proven wrong, I have tasted local dates (quite tasty)on sale from Chonburi Province, which is even wetter and more tropical than Isaan. So next time you're in Big C, ask the manager why he/she doesn't source Thai dates and save you, the customer, a fortune. The bag of Thai dates I got cost a mere 20 baht - there's another reason why they're not likely to take off - too low return, until they can be promoted as super-luxury health food. Unlikley, given most Thais dislike of food perceived as Middle Eastern (ahaan khaek).

Interesting viewpoints on all sides here, especially Sawawudt's local perspective on education in LOS. As a matter of interest, were you educated locally or abroad? If the former, it doesn't seem to have done any harm to your critical observation abilities, an oft-repeated lament of Western parents about Thai schooling, but I assume it is the latter.

In fact, this is one of the main reasons that I feel it necessary to consider a secondary school education in UK essential for my daughter, as I want her to be able to critically analyse concepts and not grow up there is only one solution to any problem, as she surely would here in Thailand. The tick-box exam mentality is still prevalent here right through to university level, even though there is talk about moving towards more student-centered learning processes, it is years away from reality in the state sector. For all the ills of education in UK, (and I think inner - London example cited above is not necessarily typical of anywhere but large inner cities) it is still far superior to any state education a child could receive in Thailand. The out of school, "quality of life" factors, though are very subjective depending on personal circumstances far more than the basic quality of education factors in each respective nation.

Golfers duck bullets at Thai course

Several golfers have expressed their fears about the hazardous conditions but for many the risk of getting hit by a bullet is not enough to keep them from playing out a full 18-hole round, Bavornrat said. “It’s nothing to worry about because no one has been hurt,” he said. “The 15th hole is nearest the shooting range and we hardly hear any shots, but a few golfers get scared.”

-- AFP 2004-07-27

“It’s nothing to worry about because no one has been hurt,”

Sounds like a prime case of "famous last words" waiting to happen.

Wonder if they rent out kevlar jackets along with clubs and golf shoes there?