Gecko123

Fine. Let's make respiratory health, especially for the ALL-important expat community, the #1 top priority. All in favor of this, 100%. Food prices will go up for sure, but no doubt you as an expat can absorb the added costs. All I'm saying is don't demonize the lowly farmer for trying to eke out a living the best way he can. The real culprit is agro-businesses competing with one another to satisfy consumer demand (including you) who wants low prices, and don't care about hidden intangible costs like air pollution unless they are directly affected by the problem. Clean air, fair prices for farmers, and making consumers pay for the hidden environmental costs of food production. I'm all for it!!!

You make it sound like he was a pyromaniac. You're obviously clueless about why rice fields are burned after a harvest. Yes, the practice has been banned in some areas, and yes, it contributes to air pollution and climate change, but the reason why farmers continue to do this is because of its a cost effective way to clear crop residue, and in many cases, the market price doesn't compensate the farmer for the added cost to dispose of the debris in a more environmentally friendly way.

Some of the comments on this thread are unbelievable. You guys can't muster any more empathy for an elderly impoverished farmer who lost his life producing the food you eat? Sad.

Take a class in statistics for God's sake.

Despite all the MAGA bravado that the outcome of the trials aren't important, with the start of Trump's first trial, I think the prospect of potentially voting for a convicted felon, both in terms of what it will say about their moral core as well as how it would reflect poorly on the nation as a whole, is finally starting to sink in and sober people up.

Cops should be commended for promptly arresting the culprits. In the third clip in the OP there's footage of one cop talking to the culprits. He's got this big grin on his face which I found to be a little disconcerting. Little bit reminded me of 1960's civil rights era footage of a southern sheriff laughing and scratching with Klansmen under arrest for murdering Northern civil rights workers. Also noticed most of the people sitting in the back of the pickup were the girlfriends/wives of the assailants. Looks like a wolf pack mentality set in with no one wanting to be seen as unmanly in front of the women folk.

My point of reference for the following comments is rural/small/medium sized towns in Thailand. I question whether this is based on superficial observations. I think we've exchanged perceptions on this issue on other threads in the past. Playful overtures of 'I want a pua farang' , 'I have a friend who wants a pua farang', 'help me find a pua farang' are often just idle banter from vendors looking to amuse themselves to see if you'll take the bait; with their husbands lolling away within easy earshot in a hammock in the background. Many of the women you imagine are "available", actually have husbands who work away from home as truck drivers, construction, factory workers, sometimes for years and years at a time. This observation does not track with what I have observed. The vast majority of Thai men in my area seem to remain married to the woman who is the mother of his children. Most Thai men, unless they are considerably wealthy or have playboy good looks are keenly aware that they will probably have difficulty starting a second family with a new woman. There is also often a very strong financial incentive to remain in the marriage if his livelihood is connected to the marriage, i.e., the husband and wife work as a team in business or if the farm land is owned by the wife. For example, in a husband and wife pork vendor team the husband travels to the wholesale market to buy the pork carcasses and the wife handles the retail sales end of the business. Many retail sales operations are husband and wife (mom and pop) operations which would not survive or be severely impaired if a divorce were to occur. I can cite numerous examples of men in their late 20's - early to mid 30's hooking up with older Thai women in their early to mid 40's. Can also cite several examples of Thai men who appear to me to be more physically attractive than their Thai female spouse, with the incentive being that the wife has ownership, access to, or will likely inherit farm land and other assets. Not going to get into a fruitless debate about how well Thai women age, except to say that some do age well, while many do not. Farm work with exposure to sun, herbicides and pesticides, can be very aging. Access to medical and dental care is quite limited in rural Thailand. If a woman manages to avoid field work (which is a status symbol) she most often will find ways to supplement family income by opening a small grocery store or restaurant, both of which require long hours of fairly sedentary presence which also tends to contribute to premature aging. In general, I would not be in agreement with the assessment that Thai women age particularly well in rural/small town Thailand.

Whenever I see posts like this I roll my eyes and have to wonder when the last time the person was in Thailand. A lot has changed in the last 20 years. 1. Thailand's population has significantly aged. 2. Attitudes towards May-December relationships with older foreign men have changed. (Have you forgotten Prayut's infamous <<Are you not ashamed???>> speech in reference to Thailand's reputation as a sex tourism destination?) 3. Many ex-pats are barely hanging on with measly pensions and reduced purchasing power due to deteriorating exchange rates which has greatly diminishes their financial attractiveness. (Yes, I know the baht is currently very weak), 4. Social media and the internet has injected a great deal of sobering reality into the fantasy of hooking up with a foreigner and living happily ever after overseas. 5. Foreign men are no where near as gullible as they were 20 years ago, so the amount of effort a girl has to put into snaring a mark has greatly increased, and many no longer see it worth the effort it takes. 6. Many Thai men are struggling to find Thai women to form a household with. There is also greater competition from Asian men (Chinese/Korean/etc.) looking for marriage partners. I would venture to say that if your goal is to find a significantly younger sexually attractive woman who fits a "girl next door" mold who "loves you for you and not just for the financial security you might offer", that the difficulty of finding this in Thailand ---wait for it --- is almost as difficult as it is back home. And when you factor in the cultural and language barriers which make reading the tea leaves more difficult, a strong case can be made that the odds of success are lower here than back home.

My suspicion is the OP is misreading nervous giggly laughter at his goofy antics as her being receptive to going out on a date. OK, OK, call me Mr. Negative, but here's why I'm a little skeptical. The woman is probably working 6 days a week, meaning scheduling dates isn't going to be a walk in the park. Also if she's working there's a good chance she's either married, been married, or has kids she has to support. Young kids are going to further eat into her free time. Chances are the entire staff in whatever department she works in, if not the entire store, is going to hear about your romantic overture, and if you actually go out on a date, how it went down, so every time you go back to buy an extension cord be prepared for the knowing looks, and being pointed at and whispered about. If both she and you live near her place of employment, then there's the scuttlebutt issue about her being perceived as skanking around with an older foreign guy, basically getting accused of turning tricks. Should also mention that I've encountered a few "pros" (not prostitutes) working in retail stores. Women who have made it a regular side hustle dating customers. Fees to compensate her for time off from work, baby sitting fees, maybe chaperone fees for someone to accompany her on the first date or two, followed up by dinner at the most expensive restaurant in town, the evening ending with a peck on the cheek and a declination to go out on a second date due to lack of time away from work. Rinse and repeat. I'll admit I've seen some pretty cute girls working in hardware stores. Not sure if all of them have particularly scintillating personalities, but some are quite cute and seem down to earth. By all means give it a shot, but take it slow.

Thank you for providing this clarification over who has jurisdiction over the case. I was not aware of this. I would still say Anutin should refrain from his "forgone conclusion" and "not on my watch" remarks. There seems to be a lot of murky details about what exactly happened (was the doctor actually kicked), the credibility of witnesses, etc., which local officials are in a much better position to evaluate than Anutin, sitting in Bangkok would be. My criticism thus shifts from "undermining the judiciary" to "micro managing his subordinates" and "grandstanding for political gain" at the possible expense of fairness and even handed administration of immigration law.

This is true, but once the visa revocation was appealed to the courts, the final decision rests in the hands of the judicial system which is independent of the Department of the Interior. At least that's my understanding of how it's supposed to work.

Shouldn't this just be left up to the courts? Anutin weighing in on this legal proceeding before it has concluded is akin to Nixon opining on Charlie Manson's guilt half-way through the Tate-LaBianca murder trial. More restraint and respect for the judiciary's independence from politicians would also help instill greater confidence in the public, both here and abroad, that the final decision on this high profile case was made fairly and impartially.

The root cause of such incidents are usually incontinence, excessive inebriation, mental illness, or perhaps an inability to ask where the nearest bathroom is. Fail to see the point in subjecting people who suffer such an episode to public scorn. It's not like plastering these stories all over social media serves as a deterrent. When you have to go, you have to go.

We're talking about about a posting pattern which almost invariably casts Thais in a negative light. In this example, the Thai person is being depicted as nosy, bossy, menacing, and authoritative. You call it comedic fiction, which I agree it is, but you're overlooking the truth that the "comedy" is at the expense of Thais and Thailand, and not everyone on the forum is aware that it is fiction. Indeed, there are many here, including the OP, who continually insist that these anecdotes actually occurred. The other issue I have is that the Bob Smith ASEANNOW persona endeavors to normalize and glamorize what I consider to be a very maladjusted expat lifestyle (heavy drinking, pot smoking, marital infidelity, domestic tempestuousness, paranoia, simmering resentment, constant clashes and friction with neighbors) which reflects poorly on the Thailand expat community as a whole.

It's not good clean harmless fun if his fictitious stories regularly cast Thais and Thailand in an unfairly unflattering light. It's also not good clean harmless fun if his fictitious stories dispirit the expat community and encourage foreigners to adopt an unduly negative attitude towards Thais and Thailand.

Several decades ago I looked into UC Berkeley's SE Asian Studies master's degree program, going so far as to request syllabi for all the courses. I was decidedly underwhelmed. If memory serves me well, the requirements included a couple of quarters of a SE Asian language, and a smattering of courses in the the history, art, literature, culture, and politics, etc. of SE Asia. Having already studied Thai for close to decade, read extensively about the Vietnam and Cambodian wars and their aftermath, read a fair amount of SE literature, and travelled a fair amount in the region, I didn't think Berkeley's program had much to offer aside from a diploma I could hang on the wall. I don't know if the Master's program you're in is more advanced than the one I described above, but if they're even remotely similar, I'm kind of skeptical that a couple of quarters of beginning and intermediate Thai would provide an adequate foundation for reading historical religious texts. One would encounter a great deal of obsolete clerical, Sanskrit, Pali, and Thai vocabulary, not to mention the challenges of deciphering the handwritten script which has evolved greatly over the centuries.

High overnight temperatures can negatively affect the quality of your sleep, sapping both your mental and physical stamina. Agree with the OP that it's important to take it easy when the weather gets hot.

Central Thai is used in all Thai television news and almost all other TV programs. It is also used in government, judicial and educational systems throughout Thailand.

After a good night's sleep, it has occurred to me that Bob Smith's online persona might be completely fake, but not for the reasons we have all assumed must be the case. Rather than being someone who is entertaining himself by making up one outlandish and obviously fictious tale after another to alleviate boredom perhaps he is actually on ASEANNOW's payroll as a content generator who is getting paid by how many page views he generates. Perhaps his online persona has been crafted to appeal to the worst demons which haunt this forum, but the motive is pecuniary, not neurotic. This would explain the obsessive posting and the focus on the number of views and replies he generates. It would explain his 'maybe I live in Isaan, maybe I live in Pattaya, maybe I live in Hua Hin, maybe I live in Bangkok', here-there-and-everywhere persona (designed to broaden his appeal). It would also explain how Mike Lister (prior mod) might have had the opportunity (through ASEANNOW) to get to know "Bob Smith" in real life enough to assess his Thai language skills. Sorry for the continued Agatha Christie parlor games, but something isn't adding up. One day later, something still smells like fish sauce here, and the smell is getting stronger, not weaker.

Mike...You're not debating, you're deflecting.

Cute. But you're the one whose credibility is in question.

Should be no problem describing the complexity and nature of the translation help provided, and there should be absolutely no problem backing up your qualifications to make the assessment you made.

I'll confess that I was flabbergasted by your testimonial as well, as Bob Smith's on line persona of being a heavy drinker, and harboring anti-social attitudes towards Thai people does not fit my profile of someone who is likely to have achieved a high level of proficiency in Thai. I too would like to hear more details of the nature of the interaction, and to know what your qualifications to access his proficiency are.

The guy went full Fred Flintstone.

I have a daily and three fixed income accounts at BKK bank, same branch. However, if you are talking about two separate daily accounts under the same name, I suspect what you have been told is correct.