Caitrin

38 minutes ago, tandor said:

 

...really!..we all have to deal with everything you seem only applies to transgender people..by the way 'only women bleed'.

Your house has the beginnings of wood rot. Your neighbour's is on fire. Not only do you insist, "Hey, man, like we've all got problems" you throw gasoline on your neighbour's house that you set on fire in the first place. Because of institutionalised transphobia as well as everyday transphobic acts these issues are far more prevalent amongst transgender people than the general population. The more minority statuses they have, the more oppression they suffer, the further they are behind you. Stop trying to make a false equivalence for a disparity that is partly your fault.

And wow, you're really going to go to menstruation? There are so many reasons why an assigned female at birth individual might not "bleed" as to make that argument laughable. If it wasn't so wrapped up in both transphobia and misogyny.

Discuss the crime, discuss the criminality. Try and try really, really hard not to be a jerk. 

Holy crap, I wonder if some of you people even realise how you sound? What the hell is wrong with you?! Have you no humanity or decency left? Have you spent so much time in dimmest, darkest, seediest parts of the human condition you have no soul?

These individuals are criminals (allegedly), talk about the criminality. Do NOT talk about their validity as human beings or their validity as women, and certainly not the validity of gender non-conformity amongst the kathoey or amongst humans in general. You have every "right," but you also show yourself pitiful examples of humanity by ignoring your social obligations. 

Transgender people around the world deal with high rates of poverty, homelessness, substance abuse, criminal behavior, depression, suicide, domestic abuse, hate crimes, and murder. Trans women, especially trans women of color are murdered every day. Why? Because of YOUR behavior. YOU. You glorify the demeaning of transgender people. You show others that transgender identities and lives have no worth and no meaning. You give credence to the thoughts and feelings of those who would seek to make up for their own miserable, pathetic lives by preying on others. You incite violence against them. Every single person who made a transphobic remark or joke. The blood of thousands of trans people are on your hands.

You make me sick.

Yes, I have noticed. Which is one among several reasons I don't participate much. When I see it, I try to call it out. 

I see ScotBkk has not gotten the message about being a decent human being. 

And removed, looks like.

Let's avoid transphobia in this commentary, thanks.

I'm planning a trip back to Bangkok, Thailand over this Northern Hemisphere winter break for medical reasons (which is one of the reasons I keep up with Thai Visa), and since I've already done the tourism stuff in Bangkok, I'm looking to spend the recovery time some place that is more cut off and harks back to, an admittedly most likely non-existent and completely in our minds, the late colonial era. Maybe 1890s-1920s. And yes, I know that Thailand was never a colony, but classic colonial outposts still existed for expats. I have no real desire to deal with the hustle and bustle of the city at all, but I also know I probably won't be able to travel very far outside of the city either.

All of the so-called "Heritage" Hotels seem to be too big, too modern, and frankly more expensive than what I would want to pay for what they offer. I've also looked at the Eugenia (but it seems like it has more the appropriate facade than the actual feel), the Ariyasomilla, and a couple of others. But I can't quite see what I'm looking for. I'm looking for fairly open rooms, muted colors, four poster beds with light airy material/mosquito nets, limited additional furniture (maybe a few rattan chairs and a desk), sweeping large style rotary fans, shutter windows, and large verandas/porches with a garden or rural view. A pool would be great, but isn't necessary. I may not even be able to swim in my condition. I do not want nor even require air conditioning (I grew up in a hot and humid climate during late spring to early fall, and rarely use it in most places, although I can't stand much beyond a very mild winter at all).

Even if I'm not out in the middle of nowhere, I'd like to at least pretend I am. A real vacation, disconnected, and not the "oh god, all the stuff I have to do and see!" of the first time around. If anyone can think of any lower profile places I may be missing, I'd appreciate the suggestions. 

Youtube direct from IMMigration -- seems THEY think heretofore too many thought overstay was a big joke:

So they think making a funny cartoon about the new crackdown is the best way to dispense with that image?

Who wants to be Thai except for some hilltribes or tennasserim Thai who are better off here than in Myanmar OR some hiso top executive farang with a local business imperium ? Farang becoming thai seems nothing more than an endurance sport to me...

Let's say, in theory, I had a successful and lucrative arrangement in Thailand, spoke Thai well enough (I actually have studied the history, customs, and political system in detail, as my graduate work is in comparative government, and I teach social studies), and was very happy in Thailand, I can tell you right now, the inability to vote for five years and the inability to ever run for the legislature would absolutely be a non-starter. I'm far too overtly political for that... which is probably why Thailand is a leisure and medical destination for me, not a residency destination. I care about Thailand for very specific reasons, so I pay attention.

All of that stuff, however, is true for Japan (I'm successful, I speak Japanese, most of my graduate work was specifically Japanese social studies, and my thesis is on Japanese constitutionalism in the 1920s, and I'm very happy here), so my acquisition of Japanese nationality makes sense. But of course voting right is automatic, and a naturalised Japanese has the same legal rights as a native-born Japanese. Even America won't let you be POTUS or VPOTUS if you are naturalised. In Japan, you can't be the monarch, of course, but you could be Prime Minister.

I can't imagine naturalising to a country where your franchise is so restricted.

The real agenda here is to discourage foreigners from trying to live in Thailand. The Junta does not want foreigners as they see them as a threat to their absolute rule. They will start messing with people ant trying to make you overstay so they can kick you out.

The conspiracy theory here may be a little bit paranoid, but the basic premise is not. Thailand simply does not allow immigration in the sense of a path toward citizenship or even toward (meaningful) permanent residency.

This claim is questionable.

Now if you had said meaningful citizenship, you'd be right. Under current law (which, of course, could change at any time), it is my understanding that you can naturalise to Thailand, but there'd be few benefits we generally equate with nationality: you cannot vote for five years, you cannot stand for election to the House or the Senate, and you must give up your other nationality. It also requires a very good knowledge of the Thai language, and significant knowledge of Thai history, custom, political science (distinct, I assume from immediate political situations), and can take many years and must be countersigned by the King himself. This after, of course, the obvious of a period of so many years (five? I think?) in Thailand and a very stable income. You needn't have a spouse or children who are Thai, but it can make the period shorter.

That literally means you'd be giving up your current jus soli or jus sanguinius nationality just to trade it for a second class citizenship. But at least I guess you get absolute right of return, which means you can't be deported unless you do something to cause a loss of nationality?

Point is, to claim there is no path to citizenship is not correct. To say it comes with very serious downsides, however, is probably very accurate.

I like Filipino food. I like Thai food better. I like Korean food better. But I do like Filipino food. I find it strange that lots of people here are saying it's not good. I cook mostly Thai food at home, if I cook at all. I'm often lazy and will do the American ham and cheese sandwich thing often enough.

FWIW, I have no choice in what I eat for lunch in Japan, it's delivered and distributed. No one special orders or brings a lunch, and only maybe once a week do I actually like it. It's dirt cheap though. Like US$2 or less for a full meal, but 4 times out 5, if not less often, I find Japanese food incredibly boring. I've taken to bringing Sriracha sauce to work with me to dump in my soup. >_> Sushi, teriyaki, and and what-not are actually incredibly rare special things in Japan. People do not eat them every day.

I spent more than a week in the PH this past August. I was there specifically to visit a friend who lived in Rizal, north of central Manila. My view point is: Manila is a mixed bag. There were some amazing colonial era areas in Intramuros, but otherwise, I strongly disliked Manila. For that matter, I strongly dislike Bangkok. I love Chiang Mai, so that probably tells you my biases right there. I traveled all the way up to Rizal to see my friend, who lives in a non-tourist area and, she has told me that while she is rather lower-income in Japan (she is half-Japanese, half-Filipina), she would be considered quite well off in the Philippines, and growing up in the Southwest US, it reminded me a lot of the Ciudad Juarez/El Paso area, just without the obvious national boundary. The extremes between rich and poor neighborhoods were beyond in your face, and to get to Rizal meant my taxi service drove through a lot of areas with a level of poverty I had only seen in Juarez. Bangkok, which I spent hours walking through did not have such stark distinctions, and Chiang Mai seems extremely prosperous, even overtly hispterish and gentrified in comparison. I would not recommend Manila for those who cannot handle in your face poverty and wildly obvious income inequality.

I spent the rest of my time on a tiny island off Cebu called Malapascua, and it was largely very nice. I did walk into the central village, but even there, while the standard of living was definitely "developing nation" it was not the kind of abject poverty of Manila. One thing that bothered me, was the children who attempted to sell stuff during the day. I know they go to school in the morning, but it still bothered me that they weren't getting a solid, full day education. I understand the economic reasons for this, and I tried not to be overtly annoyed by it, but it did bother me.

In my view, I enjoyed my time in Chiang Mai significantly more than I enjoyed any of my time in the PH, but I also had a better time at the beaches of Malapascua than I did at any of the beaches I went to in Thailand (and admittedly, I never got to the southwestern areas, so that's part of it). Also I like Filipino food. But I went largely to see my friend, and I admit, I probably wouldn't have considered the PH a destination at all if I hadn't desperately wanted to see her, as she is only coming back to Japan in the next couple of weeks after nearly a year in the Philippines. I missed her, and seeing her was worth the trip.

Give Thailand 50 years and there will be a race division like the states if this "white skin is better" attitude keeps up.

As to the question of whether these creams are safe to use, some have been shown to cause cancer.

Please, don't compare the US to Asian racism. Despite the problems you see on the news, Korea and Japan are far more racist. The only reason you don't know about it is, those countries are so homogeneous that there's no critical mass of minorities to result in racist incidents. Perhaps the same is true of Thailand.

As a white American who lives in Japan and is in the process of acquiring Japanese nationality, allow me to call bull. The discriminatory institutions in Japan are of a different sort than the United States, and yes, they exist, but there isn't anything like what African-American, Hispanic-American, and Muslim-Americans deal with in the United States. Not even close. Most people who whine about racism in Japan, especially if they are white, are really encountering being a multiple-minority (ethnicity, language, religion, culture, etc) individual for the first time in their lives, which means they're no longer playing life on easy mode.

In fairness, my family has been in New Mexico/Texas since it was all part of the Republic. So I'm probably in that group by relation.

No problem, JT. Happy to kick in, once I saw you mentioned ABQ might be in the running. It is certainly colder than where I grew up (along the border), but it's a lot warmer than Tokyo! That's for darn sure.

Reasons I moved to ABQ:

1) Politically both the city AND the state are much easier for me to deal with. LGBT anti-discrimination legislation began in the 1980s, it was one of the first states to pass same-sex marriage, etc.

2) Much easier process for legal identity changes, such as name change.

3) Legal residency requirements are similar to the non-income taxing states (like Texas, or North Dakota, etc), in that having a FedEx or UPS box at an actual store is legally acceptable.

4) I spent my childhood in New Mexico which makes it easy to contend I have a long history with the state.

5) My mother, her younger sisters, and my grandmother all live in ABQ.

6) Cost of living is low, especially as you get further out from the university area. Northeast is pretty cheap.

7) Bus system is useful, and there are also trains.

8) ...New Mexican food > Tex-Mex. Japan sucks at Mexican food.

Jing, I tried to read most of the thread, but it was hard.

In March I moved my US registered domicile to ABQ, NM from Dallas, Texas. I'd be happy to explain why I did so. While it means I have a greater tax liability, I also feel that in case of a major, major collapse of my current life path (I'm in my early 30s, I've got multiple retirement accounts, a couple of diversified savings/investment accounts) and different job types, and I am naturalising to Japan, should everything completely fall apart, ABQ is where I would end up.

So.... Japan is back in the running then?

"Pap smears"? Aren't most transgenders male?

No. There are plenty of trans men around the world.

Also, transgender is an adjective, not a noun. Transgender person, not "a transgender." There are gender-diverse individuals in some non-English countries/communities who use a noun form, but it's usually because they have a "third gender" label, a noun, in their own languages, and use it as it is the closest.

Even amongst kathoey in Thailand, there are those who identify as men, those who identify as women, and those who identify as non-gender, third gender, etc, regardless of how they were assigned at birth. And there are intersex individuals, both those who are visibly intersex at birth, and those who due to chromosomal or hormonal issues, will develop different traits than are associated with their assigned sex, sometimes even a combination of traits of both sexes.

Let's try to recognise that 1 in 1000 people are non-dimorphic (not fully male or fully female). Some identify as intersex, some as transgender, and some as cisgender (that is, they feel that what they were assigned at birth is the correct designation). Intersex and transgender, or intersex and cisgender are also not opposites, since they refer to different concepts.

...also, depending in the type of sex reassignment surgery, a fully functional vagina doesn't usually necessitate a pap smear, but it can still necessitate vagina-specific medical care from a gynaecologist. It's altogether the same "stuff" and Thailand has half of the top ten surgeons in the world.

Having worked with a number of Americans I am aware of their "odd" use of language !

I have no idea what "yumptu" means and have no desire to know ! `

"Standard " English is the use of language that any English speaker should be able to understand without difficulty.

The use of obscure contractions, distortions, slang and thick regional accents deny understanding

Of course! That is why we keep it out of the classrooms.

That's why i don't greet my students with 'g'day, eh, I just bought a skookum new toque"

Indeed, the same reason I don't greet my students with a "Howdy all y'all, how's all y'all doin' this mornin'? I reckon we just mightn't start with some voCAByuuuulaRY."

For the curious: 1 person = you, 2-4 people = y'all, 5 or more people = all y'all. A class would be roughly 30 or so, on average, so most definitely all y'all.

Here you go:

Gottlieb, H. (2006). Linguistic Influence. In Brown, Keith. Encyclopedia of language & linguistics. Elsevier. pp. 196–206. ISBN 978-0-08-044299-0.

Also, the use of canard in English comes from the practice of "selling ducks by half." Idiomatic French for "cheating." But that doesn't change the fact that it exists with that definition in modern English all by itself.

​Also, Parliament, that most English of English institutions, itself is from French!

A full 1/3rd of modern English comes from French.

"Canard." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2015.

Having worked with a number of Americans I am aware of their "odd" use of language !

I have no idea what "yumptu" means and have no desire to know ! `

"Standard " English is the use of language that any English speaker should be able to understand without difficulty.

The use of obscure contractions, distortions, slang and thick regional accents deny understanding

Dear Lord, man, you're not listening. You're just cherry-picking out pieces in order to create what you want to hear.

You're the one who put forward Geordi dialect, which I am sure that no highly educated American or Canadian would understand, unless they were a dialect scholar. My use of examples from the dialect I grew up with and do not use in the classroom, indeed, do not even use in daily life was to show how much of a canard your use of the Geordi dialect is. The whole point is that you don't use Geordi and I don't use Texan because no one would understand us, even other nationals from our own nation-states.

I have a standard use of language that any English speaker should understand without difficulty. But I don't speak RP. I speak SAE. I have yet to meet any native English speaker who has had difficulty understanding me. Nor have I ever met any second language English speaker of high functionality who has had difficulty understanding me. I specifically studied SAE and modified my speech for the purpose of teaching English. It was intentionally to give students a level playing field.

No one is arguing that "the use of obscure contractions, distortions, slang and thick regional accents deny understanding." We are denying that your accent is the only clear accent within the English family. It's not.

Expat, without looking it up, can you explain the meaning and usage of "yumptu" in Southern American English (that's U.S. south, not English spoken in South America). Can you explain the grammatical nuances of you vs. y'all vs. all y'all?

That matters not at all, because no one is advocating we teach these dialects. Your red herring is flopping around suffocating, so you best put it back where you found it.

All we are saying is that RP is far from the only standard of English to be found in the modern world. Go ahead, teach RP. Best of luck to you, but don't act like a student who successfully learns SAE or other standards, include Duane's Canadian standard, will be unable to understand RP.

duanebigsby

Best return to school and learn about the source and derivation of English.

Here is a "starter" for beginners !

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language#History

Which horrible accent/derivation of "english" do you teach? The Sumerset , Lancashire , Yorkshire. Scouse or Geordie version ?

"Standard " English should be taught to children and other non English speakers.

The wiki article backs my statement that English hasn't one single source language, but many.

Standard English (often shortened to SE within linguistic circles) refers to whatever form of the English language is accepted as a national norm in any English-speaking country. It encompasses grammar, vocabulary and spelling.

I'm Canadian so quite difficult for me to teach the accents of the British regions you mention.

With the exception of those from certain locations (such as Newfoundland), I rarely if ever encounter a Canadian who does not share an accent which is very close to mine. The rural border accent often associated with Canadians is a stereotype, yet it can be found amongst Americans as well. Consider the movie Fargo. I have rarely encountered Canadians who are that obviously "Canadian." Most of the Canadians I know from large cities, such as Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Edmonton, etc... Honestly? They sound very close to SAE to me, and I would say that there is very much a generalised sort of Northamerican accent. Indeed, I know plenty of people from PEI who I'd assume to be typical suburban American transplants if I met them in Texas.

Of course, with speaking so many years in my "learned" accent of SAE, no one believes I am from Texas. Or from the South more generally. Which is sort of the point.

We are all complicit in our own oppression. That's because oppressive frameworks are self-perpetuating, and the most insidious parts of those frameworks are largely invisible to our eyes. Only being outside of the frameworks can we ever hope to have a perfect understanding of how they are built, but since we live inside of them, this is impossible. The best we can do is try to reform what we can, by reason, figure out.

Wow. The old "victim blaming doesn't exist" canard, and only three replies into the thread.

Clueless dude being a clueless dude. There's a significant difference between the reaction a woman gets versus the reaction a man gets for doing the "same thing." There isn't a comparison, and it's ridiculous to make such a comparison.

"Men fear women will laugh at them. Women fear men will kill them."