Gecko123

I would just like to point out that automobile insurance can play a pivotal role in reinforcing road safety. What distinguishes Thailand from many countries in the West is police enforcement of traffic safety (i.e., ticketing for moving violations, and suspension and revocation of driver's licenses in the event of serious infractions.) But behind this police enforcement are two cornerstones of enforcement which Thailand also lacks. First, it is often difficult to recover damages in the event of death, injury and property loss because the minimum limits of insurance required are frequently inadequate to fully compensate the injured party, and when this is the case, even if civil damages are ordered by the court, it is difficult to recover the damages in real life. So there's a certain culture of impunity about repercussions in the event you cause an accident. If Thailand increased and enforced the minimum liability insurance required, this would help alleviate this problem to a certain degree. Secondly, insurance serves as a means of improving traffic safety by having a driver's point system where drivers are penalized for accidents and moving violations. As the number of points increases, the cost of insurance goes up and in some cases becomes prohibitively expensive to insure, thus providing a major incentive for drivers to avoid accidents and observe traffic safety regulations. So insurance can play an important role in building a culture of road safety.

This is what I think. I think we can all agree that there's certainly been a lot of gold chain snatch thefts in the last couple of years, which appear to have disproportionately affected Indian male tourists. Drugging and robbery crimes seem to disproportionately involve middle-eastern and Indian tourists as well. It's also undeniable that there is a lot of racial animosity directed towards Indians and middle-easterners on this website, with much of it seemingly emanating from the Pattaya forum. (I've long seen this as a sexual playground turf war for dominance between Westerners and other ethnic groups.) If Pattaya's expat community and Western business owners are as vocal in real life as they often are on this forum about their disdain for Indians and middle-easterners, is it not conceivable that this type of racial animosity towards Indian and middle-eastern tourists has seeped into the Thai community? Please don't come back and say Thais hate Indians more than Westerners, as this is patently untrue and just an ill-informed myth. And for God's sake don't trot out that hackneyed chestnut about Thais saying, "If you see a snake and an Indian, kill the Indian first." So I am wondering if a mentality that middle-eastern and Indian tourists are second-class and undesirable tourists and that taking advantage of them either by providing sub-standard service, mistreating, over-charging, or otherwise ripping them off might have taken root, and whether this might not be the underlying root cause of these tensions?

Just FYI, there's a junior official who does a preliminary review before the final review by the senior official in my office. Occasionally, I may have forgotten to photocopy something, but usually everything is in order, so this preliminary review seems to be primarily for the benefit of the senior officer rather than for me. I pre-sign all the pages, and there is usually very little interaction between the junior official and myself. I've never been asked to pay a fee for this "service" above the 1900 baht visa renewal fee. Many many years ago, attempts were made to get me to pay a fee for a verification of residence letter (driver's license renewal), which I always successfully resisted paying. The last two times I've needed this service it's been provided for free, without any effort made to collect a fee. This is as it should be as the driver's license residence letter is needed to conform to licensing requirements, and the police ought to encourage compliance with these requirements whenever possible.) To answer the OP's question: my immigration office has a couple of cute officers.

Thai police typically show great restraint when dealing with mentally deranged individuals, which is one of their most admirable qualities, especially when contrasted with the trigger-happy 'shoot-first-ask-questions-later' mentality of police in the States. The article says the individual had a criminal history and was known for erratic behavior by locals. Chances are that he was known to the responding officer as well, who apparently initially did not see him as a potential threat. A knife attack can occur in the blink of an eye. I don't think it's appropriate to be second guessing the responding officer's response at this early stage. The tragedy is the loss of the officer's life, and that because of this incident, Thai police officers may be more inclined to use lethal force to subdue mentally unstable individuals in the future.

Made homemade falafels for the first time this morning Overdid it with the spices and have been belching and burping ever since. The good news is no gas. Will report back if conditions change. Merry Christmas everyone.

Update: I misspoke about the vendor response from Lazada. I mistakenly contacted Lazada's generic customer service and left a message complaining about this discrepancy, but I didn't actually rate the product or contact the vendor at the time. I am right now going through a back and forth rigamarole about whether the cup I received matches the picture, but once I contacted the vendor, they've been reasonably responsive.

I recently had a "bait and switch" experience on Lazada as well. Pyrex measuring cup advertised as "made in USA" with nice large pouring lip turned out to have tiny, poorly designed pouring lip which dribbles all over the place no matter how slowly you pour. Adding to the intrigue, I left a one-star review complaining about this expecting that there would be some response from the vendor, but when I just went back and checked, it looks like not only was there no response from the vendor, but my negative review was deleted as well.

The cost of housing in the US, as well as in many other parts of the world (Europe, Australia, Canada, etc.), is so distorted that refusing to jump back into that fire is totally understandable, even if you have adequate funds to do so. These housing market distortions are totally unsustainable and waiting out the market and avoiding being sucked dry by corporate landlords is a perfectly intelligent choice and does not necessarily mean you're living in Thailand out of economic desperation. For me, it's a choice between paying an ungodly price to either buy or rent back home or doing whatever else I choose to do with the money. If you say "what about all the intangible benefits" of living back in the US, I would argue that aside from being able to utilize medicare, I can't really think of too many. So, just because cost of living is a factor in your decision making process, that doesn't necessarily make someone an economic refugee.

Yawn. Lot of big words in there, tiger, but you're not impressing me with your knowledge of Thai culture.

How about negativity from other foreigners when you speak Thai? Studiously disinterested, stone-faced, resentful, jealous, icy glares, desperate efforts to find someone - anyone - to discount or disparage your language skills. Ten people can tell them you speak Thai well but if one person makes a catty comment, it's all 'Ah-haa, now we're finally getting to the truth!" I can't remember the last time a foreigner said something positive about my Thai, asked how I learned it, or how long it took me. Any negative experiences speaking Thai with Thais, who are generally appreciative of your efforts, pale in comparison to my negative experiences speaking Thai around other foreigners.

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

I think the phrase you were looking for was "down to earth."

Anyone who has progressed beyond the beginner level would know that in order to make further progress you have to master the alphabet and tonal system, and you can't do that without a lot of reading and writing practice.

I have to admit that with the rise of the "designated English speaker" in many shops, who, before you can get a word in Thai out, is summoned over to interact with you whether you like it or not. He or she comes strolling over, never for a moment considering the possibility that you might be able to speak Thai. Any attempt made to engage them in Thai is treated as an affront and a threat to their status as the "designated English speaker." They do everything possible to frustrate your efforts to speak Thai either by feigning deafness, scrunching up their face, making wild guesses about what you are saying (even though you have successfully used the vocabulary plenty of times in the past) or mumbling or speaking Thai hyper-fast or super colloquially. So the opportunities to speak Thai when out shopping are becoming few and far between. The combative nature of these interactions is quite dispiriting and I have to admit my enthusiasm for making an effort to speak Thai while shopping has dropped off, especially when you're wearing a sanitary mask. If you're determined to practice your Thai in a retail setting, you need to develop a fairly assertive posture that you can speak Thai and want to speak Thai during the transaction. Me speak Thai. Me want to speak Thai. Me customer. Customer #1. Understand you me?

That's gotta be one of the most bizarre comments I've ever heard. I'm sure a few ASEANNOW members who righteously proclaim their disinterest in learning Thai will latch onto this ill-considered comment as the gospel truth, but, for the record, absolute nonsense. Sounds like a very opinionated and small minded provincial perspective, perhaps believing that the only possible motive a foreigner could have to learn Thai is to chase after bar girls.

I would distinguish between benign sharing of information, and gossipy (but fairly harmless) repetition of what others have said, and malicious gossip intended to intentionally or unfairly damage someone else's reputation. A foreigner might be be more likely to be a target of malicious gossip because they are perceived as an outsider, making it less likely that the gossip will get back to them. But amongst Thais they have to be fairly cautious about stirring the pot out of fear of making an enemy for life in the process.

No they're not, Bob. They are keenly observant and able to size people up fairly quickly, but they are also cautious about gossiping about other people out of fear that it will get back to the person being talked about. This is especially true in small villages. One thing I love about Thai people is they don't sling psychobabble jargon back and forth at one another like they do in the West. You'll hear "he's selfish", "she's conceited", or "he's immature" or "he's irresponsible", but you're not likely to hear "he has narcissistic personality disorder," "she has a fear of intimacy", or "he's a friggin' sociopath." That psychological vocabulary has done a lot of damage to interpersonal relationships in the West, and I'm grateful it's not very prevalent here.

I've had Thais who know me alert other Thais who don't know me that I can speak Thai but it's usually in order to let them know "knock off the pigeon English" rather than "be careful what you say, the walls have ears." I've also had Thais playfully test to see if I understand what they're saying by saying something unflattering and seeing if I understand that they've just insulted me. But I've never sensed someone wanted to say something unflattering but were biting their lip out of fear that I'd understand what they were saying. If someone wants to say something nasty about you, they'll just say it under their breath, or wait for you to leave before ripping you to shreds.

This guy may be an over-staying, beer-swilling, drunk-driving, loud-mouth, cop-dodging, love-sick whore-mongerer but I still found the tone of this article to be insufferably smug, almost to the point of indulging in feminist schadenfreude.

Valid points. I believe this is the location where the accident occurred.

Eat a lot of sprouts during cool season. Tried broccoli sprouts a few times, but a lot of problems with insects. Collard sprout and tomato salad with honey mustard dressing. Fak tong blossom, carrot, daikon radish sprout salad Red leaf and cilantro sprout salad

If you look at the picture in the OP, you can see that the shoulder of the road effectively disappears at the bridge. Any slower vehicle on the shoulder would have to move into the main traffic lane in order to cross the bridge. Rather than the electric scooter erratically making a wild unpredictable turn into oncoming traffic or shooting out of a soi into oncoming traffic without looking, a far more likely scenario is that the electric scooter moved off the shoulder into the main lane so as to be able to cross the bridge. A vehicle approaching from behind likely assumed that they could force the scooter to come to a stop so that they wouldn't have to slow down while the scooter crossed the bridge. If this turns out to be the actual scenario, while the scooter driver may have been negligent for not checking if it was safe to merge into the main lane, I would argue that the Isuzu driver was at least partially, if not equally negligent for not anticipating that the scooter would likely merge into the main lane and slowing down as a precaution against this possibility, especially if the young child passenger was clearly visible from behind.

I read all that too. But as far as the local's saying "she shouldn't have been riding the tricycle on a busy road because of its slow speed," the same risk is presented by slow moving bicycles, motorcycles, farm trap wagons or tractors of which there are many on rural roads. My only point was that if more care had been taken by the vehicle by slowing down and anticipating that the vehicle might have to pull into the lane because the roadway was cinched at the bridge, the accident probably could have been avoided. Also, what the locals said about whether it was advisable to be riding an electric tricycle on the road doesn't necessarily mean that she was breaking the law. Like if a bicycle is involved in an accident alongside a busy roadway. Everyone says that riding an electric scooter on such a busy road is ill-advised, and I certainly would agree, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's illegal or even negligent.

My guess is that the mobility scooter was riding on the shoulder of the road but when the shoulder disappears at the bridge, the mobility scooter pulled into the traffic lane. Traffic approaching from behind should have anticipated that the mobility scooter would have to do this and slowed down, but, as is so often the case, the driver probably sped up intending to force the mobility scooter to come to a stop or just assuming it would. When the Isuzu driver realized this was not going to happen he was probably already going too fast to avoid colliding with the scooter. This issue would have been the exact same if the vehicle had been a slower moving bicycle, farm vehicle, or motorcycle. If the mobility scooter driver had more experience, she probably would have come to a stop before crossing the bridge, but that doesn't relieve the Isuzu driver of his likely negligence in the accident, especially since the small child riding in the rear was probably very visible, which should have triggered an even higher level of caution and defensive driving. Certainly, his reluctance to let people see the dash cam footage suggests possible awareness that his negligence may have, at least partially, contributed to this tragic accident.