Gecko123

Decades ago I worked as a surgery orderly. My recollection is that the surgical gauze used to blot up blood had metallic strips in them and a post operative x-ray was always taken to make sure no gauze had been left behind. Surgical gauze can easily be overlooked when it becomes soaked with blood.

The idea that Thailand's younger generations are more willing to put up with chauvinistic behavior than older generations is absolute nonsense, spouted by people who don't have a clue about Thai culture and can't speak the language. If anything, Thailand's women today are less inclined to marry and have children, and are more independent and self-reliant than past generations. More educational and career opportunities are open to them today than in the past. Through social and entertainment media they have been exposed to feminism and changing roles in the household. There are also demographic shifts in play which have shifted the demand for women in their reproductive years in the favor of women. Don't forget the huge demand for wives coming out of China due to the one child policy. I am no Lothario, but I have had a keen interest in how Thai men and women interact with one another, and have been observing their behavior in a village setting for almost 20 years, and before moving here read extensively on Asian culture. I have also taught high school for many years and raised a now age 25 step-daughter, so I think I know a little bit about younger generations as well. The tyrannical, controlling, bossy, king-of-the-mountain prototype, engaging in endless extra-marital affairs and fathering out-of-wedlock children left and right that some posters seem to think is the norm in Thai culture is almost unheard of and is certainly not openly tolerated by Thai women. If anyone wants to argue that a Thai village doesn't reflect the attitudes of modern metropolitan women, my response would be that rural Thailand is the cultural heartbeat of Thailand, many city dwellers grew up in rural areas, and rural areas provide a much better opportunity to observe social interactions between Thais than more anonymous urban settings. In 20 years of living in a village and observing interactions between Thai men and women, I can't think of a single example of a Thai man bossing his wife around or openly womanizing. Furthermore, I have never observed a foreign guy with a Thai wife even trying to order his wife around or taking a "who pays the bills around here?" approach to resolving disputes. And if they did, invariably the marriage didn't last very long. I can only speculate that any foreign guy who has managed to sustain the delusion that Thai women are submissive by nature and willing to continually defer to her boyfriend/husband's wishes or put up with chauvinistic behavior either haven't been here very long or is projecting this fantasy stereotype onto their partner who in turn is allowing that projection to go unchallenged for pecuniary motives. But once those pecuniary motives have been satisfied, it has been my observation that the mask invariably drops.

Not sure if I like the thought of Thai teenage boys towering over me.

I have to commend you for your courage. It's not always easy to speak out in defense of being a "beta" male. High five, brother. There are a handful of posters on this forum who enjoy posturing as "alpha" males in order to bolster their sense of masculinity, often by attempting to emasculate others in the process. They "like" one another's misogynistic and king-of-the-red-light-district posts as if that will make them part of the alpha fraternity. It's particularly sad when they stoop to mocking older guys in order to feel more virile. They feign endless conquests, endless virility, endless alpha-ness, but the truth is most of them are probably reliving long-past glory days, have probably never truly gotten to know a Thai woman, and are only, at best, marginally getting laid more frequently, or more youthful than those they desperately seek to mock.

I have rarely read a more nonsensical and offensive post on this website. "Women crave good genetics above everything else" Setting aside for a moment that you are highly offensively conflating "good genes" with having idealized Aryan physical features, you have displayed a remarkable lack of insight and understanding about the human mating selection process. There is a lot more that goes into the calculus besides physical characteristics, including an assessment of whether someone is compatible and reliable enough to stick around to support the family unit. Things like intelligence, emotional intelligence, humor, drive, current and anticipated financial status, etc. To say it's entirely about physical features is absolute nonsense, and insulting to women in general. "He wasn't even white" As far as your Himmler-like assessment that his features are insufficiently Aryan to qualify as white, I imagine you will be amused to hear that when I was guessing his paternal ancestry, I had it pegged as English, based largely on his teeth, head shape and general physique. When you say Thai women prefer 6 foot five farangs with white skin and blue eyes, does that include 6 foot five farangs with white skin and blue eyes who are 70 years old, have a heart condition, a hearing aid and are living on a meager pension? You sound like you see yourself as some type of Adonis, God's genetic gift to Thai women. Somebody needs to put down Mien Kampf and take a deep breath. And what, pray tell, is someone so apparently obsessed with genetic purity doing in a country like Thailand which according to National Socialist ideology can only be viewed as a racial backwater? When "Teeng Mo" walks across the stage during his initial introduction to the women, you see he walks as if he has had some training as a male model. You will also see that the guy is a gym monkey and is physically very "buff." The idea that this guy would be rejected by the women because he wasn't Aryan enough or physically attractive enough just doesn't hold water. A physically fit guy in his early 20's, holding American citizenship and highly proficient in Thai would normally attract a great deal of interest, especially on a show like "Take Me Out of Thailand" where presumably most of the contestants are open to leaving Thailand. Physical chemistry was, of course, probably lacking in some cases (as is always the case), but to say that he was rejected because he wasn't Aryan enough is ridiculous. He was rejected for coming across as immature, cocky, controlling, and holding male chauvinistic attitudes. "His views weren't that controversial" The attitudes he expressed go sharply against the grain of how most Thai women see their role in the family unit. The idea that a guy, for all practical purposes on a first date, would be saying he's planning on having as many mistresses and mia nois he can afford to support would be absolutely unacceptable to most Thai women who often than not see themselves as the head of the family unit, for example, exercising control over family finances in many cases. Yes, infidelity sometimes is tolerated, but it's almost always on a clandestine "don't ask-don't tell" basis, or when there is a tacit admission that the couple is sexually incompatible or one party has a lack of interest in sex, but saying that a significant number of Thai women would be OK with that arrangement right from the get-go shows a fundamental lack of understanding about the norms of Thai marital relations. If anyone is interested in getting further insight into Thai marital relations, I suggest reading The Chrysanthemum and the Sword by Ruth Benedict. While it is about Japanese culture, much of it is equally applicable to Thailand and other Asian countries. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.77454/mode/2up

He introduces himself on the show as a luk kreung and definitely leads the viewing audience to believe he is part Thai. He says in a U-tube video posted on page 2 of this thread that he moved to Thailand 5-6 years ago at the age of 16-17 to live with a "relative" because he was having trouble back in the States. Maybe this is unfair, and underestimates a young person's ability to pick up the language simply through immersion, but I'm a little skeptical that he got to that level of proficiency in just 5-6 years without a great deal of language exposure in a home environment or through a very rigorous academic effort, which frankly, with all his other interests and trouble getting through high school, I am wondering whether he was prepared to make. I'm wondering whether there's anything he's not disclosing about his exposure to Thai, in order to make himself seem like a linguistic wunderkind who picked up the language at an extraordinarily fast pace.

I stand corrected. I mistook the second round (where 20 had dropped out) for the first round.

Watched the video with keen interest. Observations... 20 out of the 30 women dropped out almost immediately after the initial introduction and greeting, long before he started voicing his chauvinistic views. They gave reasons like "I don't like the way he talks", "he shook my hand too hard" It looks like the contestants had a chance to meet one another before the show was taped, so maybe they had a chance to size the guy up beforehand. Interesting that his Thai language skills seemed to have almost worked against him. He was able to communicate very effectively, but the women seemed to really be turned off by his controlling behavior. It started with him saying he didn't like it when the woman listened to loud music, which seemed to really turn off almost all the women, sort of an "anti-sanook" vibe. Even though his Thai was very fluent and colloquial, in my opinion, it was rather working or lower class and did not have the hallmarks of being from a well-to-do family. He didn't have that polite, soft-spoken, considered delivery that many Thai women seem to find attractive. Because of this, I have a suspicion that there may have been a bias against him as being the off-spring of a foreign father who had a liaison with a sex-worker. If anyone wants to study what Thai female body language looks like when they don't like what they're hearing, go to the 31 minute mark of the video. It's quite educational. But what I found most interesting was how universally his chauvinistic attitudes went over like a lead balloon. I keep hearing on this forum how Thai women are submissive and eager to wait on their man hand and foot. It's simply not true. That guy would be branded as immature, and almost a scary psycho control freak by the vast majority of Thai women I've ever encountered. I suppose there might be a few women out there who might find his demeanor attractive, but they're few and far between. I can't think of any local women I know who would put up with that type of behavior.

He's not running for President. He's running from the law.

I'm in love. I'm almost ready to poison my wife and bury her body in the woods for a chance to meet her.

I happen to have had a fair amount of experience with Employment Practices Liability risks in the automobile industry during my insurance career. My insurance company wrote the EPL on New United Motors Manufacturing, Inc. (NUMMI) which was the former joint venture between GM and Toyota based in the same plant in Fremont, CA that Tesla now operates, and I was a point of contact person for the NUMMI plant, spent many many hours in the plant, and studied EPL issues in the automobile industry. While I am no fan of Elon Musk, it should be noted that Employment Practices Liability issues existed in the NUMMI plant as well and there have been numerous individual and class action EPL lawsuits over the years at virtually every US car manufacturer. One of the biggest challenges in an assembly line operation is that the line controls the worker's activity because the line has to be kept moving. This tightly controls things like bathroom breaks, and the moment-to-moment movement of the worker. This creates additional stresses on workers because it's as if they have two bosses: their supervisor and the line itself, and that stress sometimes manifests itself in unhealthy ways. An auto assembly plant also has a very flat management structure: lots of workers and relatively few managers. Due to the spread out assembly environment, team dynamics and dysfunctional behavior are not always easy to spot and correct quickly. An auto assembly line work force is almost always predominantly male due to the physical nature of the work, and this, historically, has created hostile work place and sexual harassment issues for female employees. From a racial standpoint, automobile manufacturing jobs were (and still are) some of the highest paying blue collar jobs out there, and there is a great deal of competition for these positions. Historically, people were hired and promoted based on recommendations from existing workers and who they knew, perhaps not always based on merit. This creates an inter-generational sense of entitlement and subtle status discrimination. Tesla had a racial discrimination lawsuit a few years back as well. Blue collar workers tend to have lower education levels, and in the current political climate in the US characterized by identity and grievance politics I suspect that white blue collar works are more apt to hold political views that are not particularly friendly towards minorities, immigrants, women, etc. One thing that was striking about the Tesla lawsuit is that contractors have also joined the lawsuit, something that I imagine a contractor would be very reluctant to do unless there was a strong belief that the outcome of the lawsuit would be favorable to them. Anyone who read this post to the end, thank you for allowing me to take a nostalgic stroll down memory lane.

You might want to consider breaking this job up into two jobs: (1) felling the tree and (2) cutting up the wood for sale and hauling away the debris. For part (1) I would contact PEA. They have a vested interest in keeping the power lines clear and may even fell the tree for free. They are probably the most likely to have liability insurance as well if something goes wrong. At the very least, they may be able to steer you towards a tree feller or give you a guesstimate about how much it might cost. For part (2) all you need to do is find someone with a chainsaw. Presumably, there is somewhere in your vicinity an operation which buys wood such as this. The guy with a chainsaw cutting the tree into manageable pieces will possibly do this for free in exchange for the wood, or a small fee plus the wood. The debris may turn out to be the trickiest part. I have been cutting down scrub trees for months on end recently, and give the smaller limbs and branches away for free to local households for cooking firewood and charcoal making. The remaining leaves and other debris leave a big mess. You can compost them, haul them to the dump (if there is one), or burn them if permitted.

I can't keep up. If Danny is now a woman, and he's married to a woman, does that mean Danny and his wife are lesbians?

Tell his wife to report her concerns to the driver license department. Documenting any damage he has caused will be very helpful when reporting this to authorities. If his wife needs a ride to the driver license department, you can offer to give her a ride. It's admittedly a tough call regarding when to get involved, but disagree with those flatly saying to stay out of it. Someone who is no longer able to operate a motor vehicle safely because of a medical condition or aging is a hazard just like someone driving while intoxicated is a hazard, and people need to get involved when situations like this arise. If the concerns are overblown, worse thing that happens is his driving skills are reassessed unnecessarily. Better safe than sorry.

Brave woman. That guy is bigger and brawnier than the average Thai guy. That ruse to get her to an isolated spot wasn't something he came up with on the spur of the moment. Sounds like he had a plan in mind, just waiting for an opportunity to put it into action. Wonder if he's done this before and victims just haven't come forward.

It's a quick riches aspirational fantasy completely untethered from the day to day reality of inter-cultural relationships. Also, it's a whimsical conversational opener which more often than not sends a shiver down their spine if they so much as get a nibble of interest. Most of these inquiries can't be taken seriously, and if they are serious, the vast majority are motivated by financial opportunity. Also, completely disagree that Thais don't know what goes on in red-light districts. Thais talk. They know from a very early age, and people who have worked in Pattaya circulate back to the village all the time.

Deeply skeptical about claims that there are droves upon droves of Thai women out there looking for relationships with older foreign men for other than pecuniary motives. Dan about Thailand claims he is bombarded with Facebook messages from wholesome women with only the most innocent of motives for wanting to hook up with foreign men. But how seriously can we take this claim or the sincerity of these inquiries when the girls have to know that he is immersed in the bar scene? Are we to believe that these so-called good girls are so naive that they believe that the typical bar customer would make prime husband material? Yes, in certain milieux there are enough free-lancers, ex-bar girls, off-duty bar girls, and girls looking to financially exploit a foreigner's naivety to create the illusion that there is an endless supply of Thai women desperate to get into the nearest ex-pat's pants, but I'm here to tell you that in huge swathes of Thailand, that's simply not the case. The interest level in foreign men is actually quite low, and many Thai women enjoy a lot of competition for their affections. I have also noticed a growing trend of relationships between older Thai women and younger Thai men which is telling me that demographically there's a lot of competition for Thai women.

First make sure the leveling feet on the bottom of the washing machine are adjusted so that the washing machine does not rock back and forth when not in operation. If washing machine is brand new, there's a good chance that this has never been done. When the washing machine legs aren't all resting evenly on the floor, the centrifugal movement of the washing machine drum will cause the machine to hop. Also try to make sure the load of laundry is evenly distributed in the washer when you load it.

No insurance?

Not saying that never happens, because it could happen anywhere, but saying "lots" of expats are trapped after building a house is an exaggeration. Most everyone I've ever met who was dissatisfied either with their marriage or the rural lifestyle has found a way to leave. They either return home (perhaps having held onto real estate back home), or moved back to more familiar haunts within Thailand. Your comment infers that many expats have sunk their life savings into building a house. Again, not saying that never happens, but most are cautious and financially savvy enough to avoid doing this. Furthermore, the claim that someone would be financially trapped after building a house doesn't stand up to scrutiny because chances are anyone who built a house did so because they married, and if they decided to leave they would most likely divorce as well. With divorce, they would no longer have to support their wife and any Thai dependents, which often results in a significant lowering of their overhead, and would provide a financial cushion to relocate. My "eureka" moment came when I realized that whenever I considered relocating somewhere else, the goal was always to recreate the same lifestyle which I enjoy here in Thailand, i.e. quiet country living in a village which offered a sense of community. Frankly, sounds a little bit like sour grapes for you to suggest that anyone professing to be happy in rural Thailand must be either feigning their contentment or self-deluded. Or perhaps it's just a failure of imagination on your part.

That's a wonderful feeling, and it can be found in rural Thailand. It takes time and patience, openness to your surrounding, and language skills, but you can find fulfillment and a sense of community in rural Thailand if you make the effort.

You are mistaken. Although there is a species named Black Eagle, the focus of the policing action was definitely black foreigners. https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/1931140/keeping-cops-in-check https://web.facebook.com/KhaosodEnglish/posts/police-say-operation-black-eagle-targets-dark-skinned-people-for-sake-of-tourist/1800824469936477/?_rdc=1&_rdr https://www.khaosodenglish.com/featured/2018/08/10/police-to-investigate-all-nigerians-in-thailand/

Don't recall this type of indignation when Operation Black Eagle targeting sub-Saharan Africans was launched a few years back. In fact, most on this forum were cackling and cheering the police on. Being racially profiled and targeted isn't a pleasant feeling, is it? Please remember that the next time you feel the urge to do it to someone else.

Not sure where the anti-foreigner fears are originating from. Pita appears to be a technocrat, has been drumming up support on Western media, has moved towards more independence from China, is Western educated and recognizes the importance of educational reform, etc. All very progressive and positive moves. If he is able to move Thailand forward educationally and economically he has my full support. If a by-product of his efforts is an increase in national pride and a marginalization of foreigners who use Thailand as a low-budget hedonistic playground, that's an added plus in my book. With so much economic and educational ground to be made up, and so much of Thailand's future hanging in the balance, fretting about possible impacts to the ex-pat community gets a resounding pfffft from me. Finally, I would add that worrying about the potential impact of the new government on the expat lifestyle when viewed against the backdrop of the US (and global) fiscal debt crisis and likely devaluation of the US dollar is a bit like worrying about the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Sounds to me like classic Thai-style political double speak: No, we're not going to force you to shut down your business, but we are going to impose regulations and sharply restrict your customer base. You won't go out of business because we forced you to, you'll go out of business because the regulatory climate is more onerous and your customer base is so sharply curtailed your business will no longer be profitable. I don't see how you can have cannabis re-listed as a narcotic and freely allow recreational use and cannabis tourism at the same time. Lots of focus right now on the plight of cannabis vendors and growers, (and I'm not saying that they don't deserve some sympathy), but don't lose sight of the fact that there's a majority constituency out there who voted for parties opposed to recreational use of cannabis in Thailand.