Gecko123

What about a Thai woman who is bi-lingual and who is married to a Thai man who speaks only Thai? Would the Thai husband be justified if he flipped out, cut his wife's conversation with the non-Thai speaking foreigner short, and forbade her from talking to the foreigner again if she engaged in an English conversation with the foreigner which he was unable to follow? Sounds very rigid and controlling to me, not to mention Anglo-centric. And another thing I can't help wondering is whether your "that's rude and highly disrespectful" posture on this issue would change if the shoe was on the other foot and you were the one able to speak Thai and able to take advantage of opportunities to engage conversationally in Thai in culturally mixed settings? Sounds to me like what you're saying is if I can't speak Thai to my wife, I don't want any other foreigners to speak Thai to my wife either.

I didn't say she can't speak English. A person can have enough proficiency to manage routine one-on-one communication with their spouse, but struggle or feel overwhelmed when in a social setting with a group of native speakers.

There are situations where a group of foreign men are sitting around a table and one of the guys is with his Thai spouse, and the Thai spouse sits in silence the entire time. You can tell from the communication between the woman and her husband that her English is limited. If somebody makes an effort to engage with the Thai woman in Thai in order to make her feel more welcome in the group, I don't think they should be faulted for making this effort.

It usually is an awkward and sometimes strained interaction if the foreign husband's Thai is limited. Most of the time the wife senses the husband doesn't like it and will either clam up, try to inhibit the conversation by claiming to have great difficulty understanding your Thai, or if they themselves are proficient in English, will cut off your Thai conversation attempts with a rude dismissive wave of their hand before you even get three words out. Out of the husband's presence, however, Thai wives can be curious about your level of fluency once they realize you're a reasonably experienced speaker, usually mainly to assess whether your level of fluency is higher or lower than someone else they know. I once had a very enjoyable conversation in Thai with an English woman in the presence of her Thai husband who spoke no English. On another occasion I jokingly said in Thai to a foreign guy's Thai wife in his presence that he had an evil sounding laugh and asked if his laugh ever scared her mother. This got a laugh out of the wife, but the foreign guy, hearing his wife laugh, and imagining I had said something unkind behind his back, had some kind of anxiety attack, and became outright angry and shockingly verbally abusive. Since then, I have only rarely made efforts to speak Thai to Thai spouses in mixed company situations.

No mention of exercise/physical activity regimen. Key component for getting good night's sleep. Going to bed and getting up on a regular schedule is also very important. If you're getting up to pee, try cutting out beverages 3-4 hours before bedtime.

Thai men are bashed constantly on Thailand-based foreign social media. This legitimizes and normalizes dehumanizing and disrespectful treatment of Thai men by foreigners in real life. Posts promulgating horrible and false stereotypes that they are lazy, shiftless, undependable, unfaithful man-children, etc., who are best to be avoided and deserving of contempt, are commonplace. Reading between the lines of who the author is directing his anger towards (visa-running, draft dodging, racist, mysoginistic sexpats), he's really talking about foreign men who don't respect Thai men. I doubt he has experienced these negative interactions with very many foreign women. It would probably be in all of our best interests if we individually and collectively made more of an effort to show Thai men more respect, courtesy, and kindness. It might also behoove us to remember that when immigration policies are tweaked, it is usually Thai men who are doing the fine tuning. This would be an excellent place to start for anyone interested in working towards defusing the resentments towards foreign men which were voiced in this editorial. I don't think the resentment voiced is felt just by those who have been denied entry visas to Korea.

I go to bed at 7:30-8:00PM, and not in the least bit ashamed of my bedtime. Proud of it in fact. I keep a sleep diary, practice good sleep hygiene, and most nights sleep like a baby. I occasionally nap midday, but try to avoid it whenever possible because it tends to interfere with my sleep quality at night. Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise and all that. I expressly get up at 3AM in order to exercise safely when there is no traffic. After 1-1.5 hours of exercise, I return home, have coffee, breakfast, and am ready to start yard work and gardening at day break before the sun gets too hot. Most people in the countryside start to rise around 5 or 6 am, with many people (vendors, early shift factory workers, farmers checking irrigation pumps, etc.) starting their day even earlier, so my early rising isn't as eccentric as it might sound to you and perhaps others.

I wouldn't cycle in an urban area at 11:30 PM. People out on the road after drinking would be my biggest concern. People with night vision problems and driving around with uncorrected vision is a major concern as well. I live out in the countryside and get up at 3 AM to exercise, including cycling. At that time in the morning there is virtually no traffic on the road, and I am convinced it may be the safest time of the day to bicycle in Thailand. Terribly saddening to read this type of story. There but for the grace of God.

You're spouting ideological nonsense that flies in the face of 99% of scientific studies. Haven't noticed any increase in heat in Thailand? Huh? Did you notice there wasn't a cool season this year, Peter Cottontail? As far as your "just move North" strategy for dealing with climate change, join the club. What do you think is driving mass migration northward from Central and South America? How could you possibly make such blasé comments about climate change? Wild fires in Greece, flash flooding in Vermont, Mexico City on the verge of running out of water, ground water aquifers all over the world being pumped dry, rivers around the world (Mississippi, Loire, Rhine, Po, Yangtze, etc.) either becoming unnavigable and insufficient to meet agricultural needs, snow line levels rising in mountainous regions, glaciers receding, wild fires in Canada, Spain, Portugal, France, record droughts, the Mediterranean Sea and oceans around the world heating up to record levels, signs that the Atlantic current system is starting to break down, wildfires in the Russian tundra, atmospheric rivers pounding California with never before seen torrential rains, wildfires in Chile, no snow in European ski resorts, rising sea levels eroding beaches and cliffs. None of this resonates with you? There isn't a farmer in Thailand who would agree with your observation that the climate hasn't changed in Thailand in the last 20 years. You must be living under a rock and never read newspapers.

I've got you pegged as a Russian troll and have put you on ignore.

From the above article: "While rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the air can be beneficial for plants, it is also the chief culprit of climate change. The gas, which traps heat in Earth’s atmosphere, has been increasing since the industrial age due to the burning of oil, gas, coal and wood for energy and is continuing to reach concentrations not seen in at least 500,000 years. The impacts of climate change include global warming, rising sea levels, melting glaciers and sea ice as well as more severe weather events." If you don't think the above climate change impacts are affecting global food production, you are sadly mistaken. Extreme weather events are becoming daily occurrences. You would have to have your head in the sand not to recognize this.

There is a sugar cane harvester in use which chops the cane into foot long lengths and shreds the remaining leaf debris into a compostable ground cover which I believe can be left in the field and doesn't necessarily have to be burnt.

I really don't see why they don't make it illegal for the sugar cane factories to accept burnt sugar cane. Where I live, early in the harvest it seems like almost none of the fields are burned before harvest but as the season starts to draw to a close more fields are burned. I wonder if this is because as the season winds down the growers start running out of time before the sugar mills close or because migrant labor starts getting in short supply.

Foreign men who feel the constant need to make derogatory and emasculating comments about Thai men need to get counseling.

I wouldn't fault older people for being more pessimistic, might have something to do with acquired life experience rather than projecting one's mortality onto the world. What I would fault older people for is putting their head in the sand about climate change because they figure they won't be around very much longer and have to deal with the consequences.

You misread my post. I said climate refugees from neighboring countries. Climate refugees from other ASEAN countries aren't easily able to migrate to Norway or Canada because of geographic barriers (oceans, land masses, mountain ranges, etc.) Additionally, because most ASEAN countries are in the same boat from the standpoint of climate refugee risk, there would be limited motivation for someone to attempt climate change migration from, say, Laos, Cambodia, or Malaysia to Thailand.

Biggest risk is climate change migration from neighboring countries, but because of geographic obstacles and Thailand's relative ability to secure its borders, risk is comparatively low. Thailand is relatively low risk when other armageddon scenarios are contemplated as well.

Regarding cash on delivery option, I just thought I'd mention that a while back I went through a real rigamarole with Shopee trying to figure out why the internet banking option was no longer available, and people may not be aware of this. After going back and forth between Bangkok Bank and Shopee customer service umpteen times, Bangkok Bank somewhat reluctantly finally divulged that the reason I couldn't add the internet banking option was because Shopee's system had apparently had some sort of security/hacking breach and as a result Bangkok Bank (and maybe other banks as well) refuse to make their internet banking service available through Shopee. This happened at least a couple of years ago and ever since then, the only pay option (except for weird options like Shopee Pay/Shopee Wallet) available on my account has been COD. I don't know if the same is true for Lazada, but I have never been successful in adding internet banking on Lazada either, with COD being the only option on their platform as well.

The other thing I appreciated about this article is that it appears to be based on the reporter's first hand observations in the courtroom. In this age where so many news articles are little more than digests of Facebook news feeds and police reports, I found the first hand reporting made for a refreshing and enjoyable read.

Ha ha ha. I'll admit I got a laugh out of your post, but I actually enjoyed reading the descriptive details. Helped me visualize the courtroom scene as it unfolded.

But as I correctly pointed out, NO advanced dictionary or grammar book would use 'mun' as a pronunciation guide for the word man [มัน]. The fact that you have retained 'mun' for transliteration purposes suggests to me that your exposure to advanced dictionaries and grammar books which, as I said, would never use 'mun' to transliterate [มัน] may be limited. Regardless of the native tongue of the student, a transliteration guide is intended to approximate the Thai sound in the English alphabet, which is frequently only a rough approximation. As I said in my earlier post, anyone progressing past an elementary level would have quickly realized how imprecise 'mun' as a transliteration for 'man' [มัน] is, and quickly dropped its usage, if for no other reason than it makes transliteration of any words with a 'u' sound impossibly confusing.

You have posted comments on the usage of words such as 'farang' and 'man' which have implied you see yourself as a scholarly authority on the Thai language. You have also posted comments about Thai culture, Thai attitudes towards foreigners, and Thai social etiquette (pecking order, wai-ing) that further suggests you see yourself as an authority on the Thai language and culture.

This is, again, total and utter misinformation. To one and all who have bought into the ASEANOW myth that 'man' [มัน] only means 'it' and is used in a dehumanizing manner to refer to foreigners, please review the below dictionary entry from Mary Hass's Thai-English Student Dictionary. Interpretation of the entry for 'man' [มัน]: common language as opposed to elegant language. The first (most common) usage translates to: it, they or them (with NO derogatory connotation!) The second usage translates to: he, him, she, her, they, them (and can EITHER have a derogatory or intimate connotation!!! Therefore 'man' [มัน] does not have an inherently derogatory connotation!!!! A wife or girlfriend using [มัน] to refer to her husband or boyfriend or son does NOT mean she is referring to him as 'it'!!! The takeaway here is that while 'man' [มัน] can carry a derogatory connotation, it is frequently used in common language to simply refer to other people or a group of other people with absolutely no negative or derogatory connotation. I would also like to point out that this word is spelled with mai hanaghat [ั,] which is a short 'a' vowel. It never ever has a 'u' sound. While I am well aware that some beginning phrase books transliterate Thai 'a' vowel sounds into English with a 'u', (for example spelling 'man' as 'mun') in my opinion, no advanced student or anyone who has reached a high level of fluency in written Thai would ever transliterate 'man' [มัน] as 'mun' because it would make transliteration of any words with a 'u' vowel impossibly confusing. NO advanced dictionary or grammar book would ever do this. The fact that the above poster transliterated the word 'man' as 'mun' raises deep suspicions in my mind about his true level of proficiency in the Thai language.

Article reads like a young adults romance novel.

Apparently you are unaware that climate change is impacting barley and hop production, key ingredients in beer.