Toni

Does somebody has had such experiences and/or can you supply us with any address of a District where Senior is making his normal office-hours??

Otherwise we are afraid that this will take so long that the local translated and legalised papers will expire.

Try the District Office, Amphur Bangrak, Bangkok.....opposite the Police Staion.

thanks!!

I was speechless after receiving the following as an eMail:

Tue, 7 Feb 2006 11:38:36 -0800 (PST)

Von: "stella nwaenyi" <[email protected]> Ins Adressbuch

Yahoo! DomainKeys hat bestätigt, dass diese Nachricht gesendet wurde von yahoo.com. Weitere Info

Betreff: urgent

An: [email protected]

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am Mr Chinedu Akpa, personal attorney to Mr. Mark Anthony, an expatriate who used to work with

Accredited Oil Company here in Nigeria, West Africa. On the 2nd of January 2005, I received a call that my

client died in the Tsunami Disaster with his wife and only child while onvacation at Phuket Island in Thailand. Since then I have made several enquiries to locate any of myclient's extended relatives and until date have not succeeded.

I have contacted you to assist in repatriating the money left behind by my client before it gets confiscated or declared unserviceable by the bank where this deposit is lodged. Particularly, the bank

where the deceased had an account valued at US$700.000 (Seven Hundred Thousand United States Dollars).

The bank has issued me a notice to provide the next-of-kin or have the account confiscated. Since I have been unsuccessful in locating the biological relatives of my late client, I hereby seek your

consent to present you to the bank as next-of-kin of the deceased since you are a foreigner, so that the

proceeds of this account valued at US$700.000 thousand can be transferred to you as inheritance and thereafter, you and me can share the money; 50% to me and 40% to you, while 10% will be donated to the Tsunami Disaster Charity Fund. We shall start the first transfer with US$300.000. (Three Hundred Thousand United States Dollars only), upon the successful actualization of the first transfer without any disappointment from your side, we shall re-apply for the payment of the remaining amount to your account.

I have the original copy of Certificate of Deposit of the funds, which will be used to substantiate our inheritance claims. All I require is your consent and honest co-operation to enable us see the deal through.

Furthermore, I guarantee that the transaction will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will

protect you from any breach of the law. Please contact me if you are interested immediately

via my personal email: [email protected] to enable us commence on the transaction.

Thank you.

With best regards,

Mr. Chinedu Akpa

After the odeal of arranging all the paperwork with Dutch and Spanish officials we managed to get every single paper to be able to marry in Thailand.

Never realised however the "cooperation" of the local Districts! I did not expect that they are welcoming us with flowers and doors wide open, but we met untill now delays because of the continuous absence of the senior-in-charge being able to sign the papers.

Leaving telephone numbers to reach him was the only solution supplied by the lower staff, so we are afraid that Senior starts hiding behind the excuse that "to-day" his staff is not present to help him to prepare the papers of such importancy. This week we could forget it because of "pre-election seminars".

Does somebody has had such experiences and/or can you supply us with any address of a District where Senior is making his normal office-hours??

Otherwise we are afraid that this will take so long that the local translated and legalised papers will expire.

Sitting in my office yesterday in Singapore I noted that out of a staff size of 70, 5 of which are mixed, or Eurasians whichever term you want to use. Generations of mixing the gene pool has occurred here, particularly between Europeans and the Chinese or Malays. So much so there is always a box to tick ‘Eurasian’ on forms where ethnicity is asked for.

There is a perception here in Singapore as in Thailand that Eurasians are better looking, and also as in Thailand there is probably a proportionally higher amount of models and TV celebrities from mixed heritage. Other than that Eurasians are rarely seen any different from the other races. Maybe he or she is part Caucasian part Chinese but a 100% Singaporean. Eurasians work side by side with their Chinese, Malay and Indian colleagues and are genuinely accepted.

So how about in Thailand? Would it be fair to say that Thais harbour a sense of fascination for Leuk Kreongs? Maybe a mixture of exoticness yet still retaining Thai characteristics? Over the last decade there has been a huge increase in the number of Thai / Farang - relationships and I think we can safely say a decade or two from now the numbers of citizens from mixed heritage in Thailand will have grown phenomenally.

How do you think the increase of Luuk Kreungs will effect their perception in Thai society in the future? Could Luuk Kreungs find negativity towards them in the future? Will they be so accepted in soceity as to hold senior government posts? Many Thai Visa members here have Luuk Kreong kids - I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

I would think as the numbers increase then the fascination would diminish and they would be treated the same as anyone else.

The difference between a mixed race child and single race children is that the mixed child maybe better educated, There are features of the mixed race children that makes for appeal as models, actors etc...

As for senior Government posts, I believe that the person must be a Thai national to be able to hold such positions...I know this is true for becoming a Member of the Thai Parliament.

One can read the word "education" in two ways!! Be carefull.

A few examples might help first

I'm (your) on a bus, its very early in the morning (or very late at night depending on your view), not doing anything but looking out of the window and a Finn starts saying hello. Its obvious that the Finn is either very drunk or crazy, and alot of other passengers on the bus are looking in disgust at the Finn.

I'm (Your) on an overnight train, in the restaurant carriage, I'm listening to some music. In the carriage there is mainly French men and they are drinking spirits. Dont know what they were saying as i wasnt listening, but a guy starts to breathe on me and starts saying bonjour.

I'm (Your) having a drink at a roadside restaurant and there are three Australians guys drinking whiskey next to you. One of them starts to say hello.

There are other examples too but this isnt a diary of them. Usually before a foreigner tries to communicate you here gibberish being said and there is laughter around that.

Typically the foreign bloke is 40 years plus. I dont have anything against old decrepit Germans and I certainly wanst doing anything to incite any negative attitude or reaction - just minding my own business. I dress conservatively and do not consider myself to look unusual for a Martian.

I'm asking this as it seems to be happening maybe once every couple of weeks and I am very wary of drunk British louts. I do not want to get into a difficult situation and doubt this would happen. I'm putting this on here as I'm pretty sure I'm not the only Martian this has happenned to and there are people here who have been on Earth far longer than me. Just looking for some wisdom, experience and advice.

Cheers

my personal reaction should be to go after a little while because one cannot get rid of such people and furthermore I cannot oversee the development of the "discussion" with me. I am not interested in discussion with these people. Also I feel embarresed because the local Thai might think I am part of the group! So, look for another place, pity for you, pity for the owner!

can somebody inform me about the gouvernmental regulations for Thai to send money abroad?

True, exposing the human body is not considered polite here by any means but if Thai people wish to have international tourists come and spend money, which will benefit those who seek this invasion, it is entirely reasonable that they will just have to put up with considerable cultural differences and perhaps even some embarrassments.

I have been to many of Thailand's islands/beaches that have been popular with western tourists for many, many years and found that the Thai people who benefit from and serve these travelers have learned to simply look the other way or put their training aside in the interest of cultural (monetary) exchange. Good on 'em!

Well I think is a matter of respect to other people culture...

I think tourist should understand that there are certain things in some cultures that is an offence to the locals...and even though they are leaving their money in thailand don´t give them the right to do whatever they want...

Does money give you the power to do what you want when you wanted? How will some european countries feel if thai people take their shoes off whe entering a supermarket?

Why is everything to be done in our way? why cannot we learn and respect other culture customs?

I am sure sometimes i have upset thai or muslim people by my lack of knowledge to their culture but If i was aware of somethig i tried not to do it. I try to respect other cultures to show my respect to the locals and to be respected by them...

I actually don´t like this kind of attitude in tourist...

IMHO thai people are very reasonable when understanding tourist way of doing things but i think the line should be drawn at some point....

BRAVO! To the point, I cannot agree more!

You often hear Caucasian people moaning about the adaptation of tourists and/or immigrants to their country·s culture so do what you expect yourself from these groups of people when you are visiting another country

ive heard different things but believe that it is illegal.

definitely in national park areas such as ko samet, nudity is illegal.

aside from this, it is highly disrespectful in thailand, but that wasnt the question so i wont get in to that side of it.

I think the second part of your answer is ALSO important because it is an imortant part of the matter. I might advise, after posing such a question, to read first a little bit about the culture of the slected country you want to visit. This ables you to enjoy your stay even more.

the Thai sniff kiss was not new to me because I got them in Indonesia some years ago from a Indonesian GF. Seems general Asian to me (?).

It is really sickening to see the scumm (misspelt on purpose in case of censoring) on these boards...racists, sexists, anti-gays, people who make jokes about folks getting killed, etc. Now it is the turn of the 'let's kill the stray dogs' bunch.

In my country, I go out of way to feed stray cats and dogs and few things can compare to the joy I see in their eyes when I approach them with food and feed them.

Surely, once in a while, there might be the case of stray dogs attacking human beings...but killing them because of such rare cases ??!!! Sick !

Jem

fine, you feed the dogs in your country and we will kill the mangy flea infested disease ridden strays here.

There was a time when I actually was concerned about walking down my sub soi - especially at night - as a pack had claimed it as their territory and would bark and bare their teeth at anything and everything that walked or drove down it. I am no 30lb weakling by the way. If you offered them food they would have more as likely bitten you.

Fortunately, someone did the rest of the soi a favour one night and they were never seen again.

EXACTLY, there we are: ¨human¨ responsability! And afterwards complaining.

I am a big animal lover but when I see a lot of those Soi dogs suffering than I intend to say: collect them, investigate them and try to find a proper solution to cure and keep them when they have a chance to recover. However, put most of them into sleep because of almost incurable illneses, deseases and wounds. But leave this solution to professionals who are able to do this job in a proper way and no ¨slaughtering or butchering¨!

Just found out that the Dutch Embassy has reduced their services concerning the opening hours of the Consulair Department!!!

FROM TOMORROW THEY CLOSE AT 11 AM!