Gecko123

Out in the countryside, where the population density of foreigners is generally quite low, most of the time you're judged as an individual. People don't seem to harbor many preconceptions about people based on nationality, or for that matter, race. It has been my observation that when Thais do develop prejudices based on nationality or race in many cases these biases have been picked up through interaction with white foreigners who have indoctrinated Thais into their racial ideology. Maybe not always, but in many, many cases this is true, whether spread over the dinner table, by foreign bar or entertainment venue owners, or perhaps even by exposure to foreign media. A prime example of this indoctrination is the painstaking explanations you hear on this forum about how the word farang should be reserved exclusively for white people, which implicitly raises all sorts of questions about why this is so important to the person expressing this view, and what nomenclature should then be used for anyone who doesn't neatly fit into a Caucasian pigeon hole. I occasionally am asked about my nationality. When I say American, the response seems to be fairly neutral, neither two thumbs up or two thumbs down. In the past, the reaction was more favorable than it is nowadays. When people ask about my nationality I think it's usually because they are curious about why I speak Thai as well as I do. I can't recall any Thais having strong opinions about specific nationalities, but I am sure in more heavily touristed areas, such attitudes do develop. During the dark days of "good guys in, bad guys out" I did notice that policemen seemed to inquire about my nationality more often than usual, and I did suspect that they might be profiling based on nationality. But now that things have settled down, it's been several years since I've had a cop ask about my nationality.

Shouldn't primary, if not sole, focus be on managing the diabetes rather than engaging in DIY management of symptoms?

Most of the time it's done out of necessity, not to shirk parenting responsibilities. Rural parents are often forced to migrate to urban centers in search of work and the best (and often only) child care option available is to have the children remain in the village and be cared for by the grandparents or other close relatives. The reason this was not so 100 years ago is because with less mechanization, farming activities were more labor intensive and the whole family unit's labor was needed to operate the farm. With the introduction of labor saving farm equipment, demand for farm labor dropped forcing migration to urban centers. This is the root cause of why the nuclear family in rural Thailand is under stress, which is also a problem in virtually every other developing country. Another reason why this problem is intensifying is because 2 or 3 generations ago, chances are the grandparents or other family members charged with caring for the children had been raised in traditional two-parent households. But because this process has been going on for many decades, nowadays, chances are that the grandparent or other family member charged with raising the kid were themselves raised in a household where the birth parents were frequently absent. So there's a generational erosion of family values and ability to pass on parenting skills.

And more importantly, regardless of the etymologic origin if the word farang, it is commonly used as a colloquial shorthand for Westerners, irrespective of their racial background. The ignorant and vile claim that this word is a racial slur has been tirelessly propagated by a tiny handful of forum members, and it is without question the single most damaging piece of cultural misinformation spread on this forum.

After giving this some additional thought.... the wife having been raised by grandparents is a somewhat special circumstance vis-a-vis their expectations regarding sin sod. If the grandparents really did step in and raise the wife on behalf of her real parents (for whatever reason), and they invested a lot in their grand daughter's welfare (nutrition, education, moral training, etc.), they may genuinely feel like they got stiffed on the sin sod, especially if that sacrifice impaired their ability to set money aside for their retirement. Some of the other family members may also feel that they indirectly sacrificed on behalf of the wife because the grand parent's resources were monopolized by the the wife. Also, being older, the grandparent's might be more 'old school' regarding sin sod expectations than today's generations. The possibility that not paying any sin sod may be the root of these tensions may benefit from review.

Now...where was I?

Your idea about switching to a marriage visa is a good one, but as to the rest of your advice, may I kindly point out to you that: (a) 800,000 baht is a lot of money (67,000/mo). What kind of restaurant requires that kind of cash infusion to stay afloat? The OP's saying he's not even sure if this isn't a cover story. What's that saying about her trustworthiness? You don't think trust and respect are foundational to a relationship? (b) she presumably did this knowing that it might jeopardize his ability to remain in Thailand. What does that say about her love and commitment? (c) that violation of trust means that it will be difficult to entrust her with pin codes in the future. For a 75 y/o guy that could mean that she would be unable to access funds in the event of a medical emergency, and might seriously jeopardize his access to medical care. What does that say about her love and commitment? If the OP wants to take your advice to dismiss something like that (embezzlement - an ugly word) as a one-off situation, just forgive and forget, la-di-da, be my guest. But I actually had a similar situation with an ATM card (for a relatively small amount of money) and I can attest that the realization that you can't trust your spouse with a PIN code is traumatizing, especially when you start getting up there in years.

Respect. Could not have been a psychologically pleasant task to perform.

I was surprised by the somewhat hostile initial responses to the thread, particularly the suggestion that I must have been drinking when I posted, which I can assure everyone was absolutely not the case. I can only surmise that some forum members must associate any type of reflection about past romances with maudlin sentimentality and take a hard "don't want to go there" stance to avoid thinking about past memories they probably would prefer to forget. I understand that. But it's undeniable that social media has provided opportunities to anonymously check up on people in your past which weren't available in the past, and all I was doing was trying to find out what kind of emotional reactions people have had in the process of doing this.

Next time a Thai asks me why so many farangs prefer dark skinned Thai women, I'm going to tell them it's because they have higher Vitamin D levels.

The purpose of this thread isn't to provide people with the opportunity to grandstand about how enlightened and spiritually grounded and centered they are. The purpose is to allow people to share the range of emotions they experience when they find updates on past loves on the internet.

You ever search the internet for old flames, (high school sweethearts, college flings, ex-wives, one night stands) to see where they live, if they're still alive, maybe even find a picture of what they look like today? Come on, admit it, everyone does that sometimes, don't they? I tend to do look up women who dumped me, rather than the other way around, and, yes, I've been dumped more than my share, so there's a lot of women out there I can look up. 555. One thing I've noticed is that a lot of the women who dumped me have ended up alone in later life, either never having married, or getting divorced. Few seem to have aged as well as me. One woman who really drove a dagger into my heart regularly updates her photo on her so-called 'life coaching' website. In her latest photo, I thought I saw a glint of fear in her eye, perhaps a fear of dying alone, I imagined. Gave me a twinge of satisfaction, I'll confess. So what do you think when you see a picture of old flames today? Does it make you feel nostalgic like I could still love her even to this day, or is it more like 'my God, what was I thinking, there's no way we were compatible, I really dodged a bullet there, thank you, Jesus'?

A few months ago, my next door neighbor sold off their small herd of dairy cows. When asked why, they said that new quality control/health standards had been put in place which required them to purchase testing equipment which was prohibitively expensive for a small family farm, so they were forced to sell their herd.

With the relaxation of the TM-30 requirement and the on-line 90 day reporting system finally working, immigration has never been better. Really don't have any complaints. Neighbors are considerate, no crime, no drugs; peaceful village life. After reading about what's going on elsewhere in the world, feel like dropping down on my knees and thanking God I live here.

This is a mischaracterization of village attitudes towards foreign men who marry Thai women and move to their village. Their assessment of the viability and staying power of the relationship, which is usually pretty accurate, is based on a gut assessment of the couple's compatibility, whether they get along, can communicate comfortably, appear to function well as a couple. The only things that would trigger suspicions you had a roving eye would be if you err... had a roving eye, had frequent unexplained absences, were rumored to be a frequent habitué of red light districts, or you weren't passing the compatibility "smell" test. You're not going to be labeled a playboy based on youthful age alone.

This comment, in particular, struck me as highly manipulative, not to mention, not particularly true to life. It's obviously manipulative because it uses social pressure to prod the OP into building a house to prove his commitment to the relationship. It's not true to life because, if anything, most family members and villagers are secretly jealous if a village girl's social status suddenly improves, and the village pecking order has to be recalibrated. Why would anybody in the family be concerned about whether the foreigner built a house for the girl? The house would belong to the girl, there's nothing in it for the family, why would they care?

Your wife could shut that nonsense down in a NY minute if she wanted to. I suspect she is trying to manipulate you by relaying this toxic gossip from her family.

The OP did finally respond Tue Jul 11 4:17 PM and my post was in response to his post. The OP started the thread on Saturday and finally came back on Tuesday 7/11 @4:17PM to gush about 'gosh I just checked the thread and gosh, LOL, so many responses, look at me, the thread went viral, was even featured on ASEANNOW's FB page, gee, golly, gush, LOL, silly me.' Now, don't get me wrong, I can understand how someone can start a thread for purposes of amusement, and I can also understand how someone can deliberately make themselves sound more naive than they really are in order to generate a lot of reaction. It's called being a troll, but it happens. But what irritated me about the OP's 'gee, gosh, LOL, gush, I had a terrific weekend, and, truth be told, I was just ego trippin' and really wasn't interested in any advice any of you losers might have had to offer anyway because I'm actually a lot more experienced than I let on and speak several SE Asian languages, blah, blah, blah' is that it showed a lot of disrespect for forum members. He asked for advice about going up to Isaan right before he's about to leave, and then pretends he didn't even bother checking the responses until the trip's over and he's on the bus back home? That's disrespectful. And the other thing I want to say to the OP is that 20-25 years ago there wasn't the internet, and people couldn't really pick one another's brains about how to handle situations they encountered over here. They had to feel their way on their own, and a lot of guys learned a lot of stuff by brutal trial and error. Much of the 'common wisdom' savviness and insight into interacting with Thais, and Thai women in particular, came from guys who learned it the hard way. Today, with Google and social media, any question can be answered at the push of a button, and everybody thinks they're an overnight expert on all things Thai. But don't forget where much of that body of knowledge came from. It came from guys who pioneered and paved the way for today's newbies. So my message to the OP is when you ask a question on this forum, either show respect to the people you are posing your questions to, or go get lost.

If your part of the partnership is essentially the retail store, you're taking a disproportionate share of the risk. As a grower, his risk is primarily demand for his product, but on the retail store side you would be bearing the risk of the retail location failing as well as the regulatory risk and market demand risk for his product which both of you would be bearing. Let's say both of you put up 50% of the capital for the enterprise. His 50% for the farming operation; your 50% for the retail operation. If the recreational cannabis market were to shrink or be subjected to increased regulatory controls, your Thai partner could theoretically still be able to sell his product on the black market or other distribution channels, so his farming investment could still generate revenue. But if the shop were forced to be closed because of low demand or regulation, the retail operation would likely have to close and all of your investment would likely be lost or be sharply reduced in value. I'm just trying to make two points: 1) The two "partners" in the above scenario are not really bearing the business risk equally. One partner (you) are bearing more of the risk, and therefore you should be compensated for this higher level of risk, and (2) Unless you have an agreement with your partner that all of the investment risk (both farming and retail) will be shared equally between both of you, then you're not really entering into a true "partnership." He's not going to sell his cannabis operation to reimburse you for any losses you incur on your retail investment, is he? Aren't you really talking about two separate businesses? Another thing to consider would be on what basis you would be dividing the profits? Based on your respective overhead costs? How much risk you're bearing? That's going to be changing from month to month, lots of opportunity for shady accounting, right? To me it sounds like a recipe for constant haggling, headache central. Plus with the regulatory horizon being so murky now I would take a pass.

9 pages of advice, and not a word of appreciation? You also didn't mention the kids, the one with long covid, remember? Just sayin'.

@Walker88Exceptionally well-written post.

The guy's green lamé shorts are actually quite fashionable.

Will confess that I was not aware of his mass popularity, but proudly stick by my opinion that his music is entirely derivative of black rap music with very little home grown originality. He seems to be enjoying a wave of domestic popularity due to his overseas popularity and his overseas popularity seems to be driven by people congratulating themselves on having discovered the latest world beat groove. Seems like a serious hype and marketing promotion machine is driving much of this. More power to him, just not impressed.

I would never in a million years ridicule anyone's efforts to explore Thailand's rich music culture, but, good God man, that's a crappy song. You can hear that same beat in countless other songs, and the lyrics are insipid, uninspiring, without any real message. The cynical attempt to give the song cultural chops by incorporating traditional instruments falls flat as well. The video on the other hand, even though it too is a total rip off of black rap videos, does have high production values, is visually catchy, holds your attention, and is amusing to the extent it provides a Thai "take" on black rap culture. Gecko123 Music and music video critic ASEANNOW

I couldn't find much evidence in the video that a moral judgment was being made about either the farang or the girls at the ATM. The video seems to be more a celebration of rap and hood culture: bubble booty twerking, motorcycle and car street racing, fake gold teeth, getting hot girls, making money, being successful. The lyrics during the ATM scene are: "baby to adult, my skin dark like a coal, get out the Zone, we go to the Show." These lyrics do somewhat deliver a "why not stick to your own kind" message, or perhaps be saying "Baby, give me a shot; I can take care of you just as well as some stinky old foreigner." But it seems to be being said more out of ego and machismo than nationalism or any solidarity with women. I didn't find the overtly political message the OP found. I'm reminded of what Yinn (a female Thai poster on this forum) once said to me when I asked her if she agreed with my interpretation of the message in a Thai song. She told me: "It's just a song."