Arkady

I wasn't asked the meaning and I don't know how common this question is but I do know two people who were asked the meaning of one of the lines in the song they had just sung. One was actually asked what it meant and what feelings it evoked in her which was a real curved ball. They had already asked her to sing the songs 4 or 5 times because her singing and pronunciation were so poor. So she was virtually a driveling wreck by then and ready to withdraw her application to put an end to the torture. In my interviews there was a Chinese couple applying together who had really lousy Thai and they were also subjected to repeated singings which drove the officials in the room crazy. So best to have the singing down pat and know what the songs mean.

This is useful because some applicants have been asked the meaning of lines they have just sung in the MOI meeting. So its worth knowing the vocab, some of which is rather obscure and can't be found in Thai-English dictionaries, not even in the Mary Haas dictionary. If you can read music, it is worth studying the vocal scores. That helped me a lot in learning the phrasing.

Good stuff but you are lucky that you will not be asked to sing it. It is only required by applicants not married to Thais applying on the basis of PR. For those that do have to sing, it is definitely one of the most challenging (and rewarding) aspects of the application. Also challenging for SB and the interviewers at the MOI, as most applicants are pretty awful singers.

A friend sent me this list of documents required by the NIA for his upcoming video interview. They want scans by email. Nearly all the documents are of course already in the file that they have from SB and he was not told to update them, e.g. salary letter. So presumably they just want more copies of what they already have for reasons unclear. I was asked to produced some of the same documents in my face to face interview with NIA. I didn't have advanced warning but had brought them anyway. The request for a driving licence by the NIA now seems a permanent feature. Perhaps they want to check if the address on it is the same as on the tabien baan. Under the new points system, perhaps they will be able to check, if any points have been deducted, as in the UK, but somehow I doubt that. I am guessing that the corporate tax receipt for last year is only required where the applicant is a shareholder in their employer company, as in the general requirements. But it doesn't actually say that.

Sounds good. In my experience the SB officers definitely want the applicants to succeed. I had already been though the PR process at Immigration when I applied at SB and it is day and night. The Immigration officers in the PR section are far nicer than their colleagues in the rest of the office but Immigration in general still seem to delight in throwing banana skins in the applicants' paths. They seem to treat all foreigners as undesirables until proven otherwise, while SB, perhaps because they have no contact with run of the mill foreigners in Thailand, seem to take the opposite stance. It took me a while to get used to this.

I am of the opinion that neither the law, the ministerial regulations nor the guidelines insist you should be employed by a company as long as you have a WP. However, actual practice might be different and you will need a business registration as per item 11. I think sole traders can register the business name they trade under with the Revenue Dept in their PNG 91 tax returns and certain types of businesses need to be registered with the district office, such as bars and restaurants. I don't know if these types of registration count as item 11. There is also the issue of whether there is any specific change coming up in the new ministerial regulations that are supposed to be announced this year that will also phase SB out from the process altogether. You will have to ask SB about this. I suspect that incorporation will be either be necessary or will just make things easier. However, this will not necessary involve waiting for another 3 years. Most of the scrutiny and documentation is aimed at your current employer but you are allowed to change jobs and for employment earlier in the 3 year qualifying period they don't need documentation on the employer, just your WP and personal tax receipts. If you decide to incorporate, it is advisable not to have shares in your own name until you have submitted your application because having shares in your employer means you have to submit the companies audited accounts which is doable but why subject it to unnecessary scrutiny? Also make sure that there is no gap when getting a new WP under the company but this should be easy to arrange since your missus would your employer in the new and old job.

That is a standard spousal consent for purchase of land, house of condo. If the buyer declares he or she is married, the land officer will require spousal consent because property bought after marriage is spousal property not personal property. If the Land Office has a spousal consent signature on purchase, spousal consent will also be required to sell it. This is to try prevent people from taking on purchase (and consequent debt) obligations and from selling spousal property without telling their spouse. But many people lie to the officer and claim to be unmarried when they buy property. The Land Office doesn't check the veracity of the statement and the penalty for lying to a government official is not much. I bought a piece of land from an old lady upcountry once. On the title deed it was specified that it had been transferred to her as an inheritance and spousal consent is not required for inheritances. So she didn't bother to bring her old man along to sell the land and thought it was nothing to do with him. The Land Officer told her to bring him along to sign anyway and cautioned me that he could legally make the transfer without the spousal consent but thought exposed me to the risk that the husband could come and dispute the sale later on and try to force a reversal, if the price went up. So after much discussion a motor bike was despatched to wake up the old boy who was taking a nap. He appeared looking rather bewildered but signed the form anyway.

Most of the revocation cases in the RG were those who had citizenship through birth in Thailand to two alien parents who stayed outside Thailand for more than 5 years creating a presumption they were using the citizenship of their fathers, as per the wording of the Act, without the need to show further evidence. Most were probably Thai Chinese sent to study in China. I can only remember one case specifically for "making use of or taking an interest in" of father's citizenship. That was the British missionary doctor, Thai through birth in Thailand to alien parents (presumably also missionaries) whose 2004 case has been discussed before in this thread. The evidence cited in the RG was that he used his British passport to enter Thailand. Note that the wording for naturalized Thais is "former citizenship" rather than "father's citizenship". Who knows how this case transpired, why he used his British passport and how they got on to him or why it couldn't be resolved. I believe he is still alive and in Thailand. Maybe he even became a naturalised Thai but no further information is available.

I noticed a follow up in the Post regarding the Chinese owner of Club One in Pattaya who is being sought by Thai police following a raid in October (see link to original story below). What is interesting in the story for this thread is that the Post reported that the Interior Ministry had revoked his Thai citizenship. Someone must have told a Post reporter this, or that proceedings might be initiated to revoke his Thai citizenship (assuming that he really is a bona fide Thai citizen). However, I have just conducted a search in the RG and there are no recent announcements of revocations of citizenship. therefore the Post report is not true, at least not yet. With the current story about Chinese criminals getting hold of Thai citizenship through the proper channels, albeit perhaps with short cuts, rather than the traditional Day of the Jackal derived method involving paying corrupt district officials to issue them an ID card of a Thai citizen who has disappeared from the records, the issue of revocation of citizenship of naturalised Thais who misbehave could come more to the fore. I am of the opinion that it is not as easy as the Post implied to revoke citizenship. One clear cut way would be a through a court order when someone is convicted of a serious crime but, in this case, there has obviously been no trial. Short of a court trial it would possible for Special Branch to put up a case to the ministry that someone has lied about his criminal record or paid off the Thai criminal records department and/or Interpol liaison office to overlook a criminal record. But this would normally require a lengthy process and the raid only took place three months ago. Given the case of the couple accused of running a gambling den who got their Thai citizenship restored by the Supreme Administrative Court after a 16 year legal battle, I imagine Special Branch and the Interior Ministry would be quite careful about following due process. The other thing about Chinese from mainland China is that, if they have played things by the book, they (and didn't pay off Chinese officials to look the other way) would have renounced their Chinese citizenship. So revoking their Thai citizenship would involve a diplomatic process with China to get China to restore their Chinese citizenship and accept deportation. This something we may see with the better known "Tuhao", since he will go on trial for a laundry list of serious crimes, any one of which could merit a court order for revocation of Thai citizenship. I think this topic if of interest to naturalised Thais and applicants, as most people wonder how safe their Thai citizenship will be once they have obtained it. My opinion is that revocation of citizenship is not something the MOI does lightly. In fact, while there have been many cases of revocation of citizenship of people who were born in the Kingdom to alien parents, I don't believe there is even a single record of revocation of citizenship of a naturalised Thai. That may of course change soon. https://thepattayanews.com/2022/10/24/update-thai-police-hunt-for-alleged-real-owner-of-raided-club-one-pattaya-eye-5-year-closure/

At the end of last year the Interior Ministry was working on the new ministerial regulation that will turn the whole process over to the Interior Ministry, pursuant to the cabinet resolution to that effect in early 2022. They said the new ministerial would be ready to announce in the Royal Gazette in early 2023 but it hasn't appeared yet. The links you posted still reference the previous ministerial regulation of 1967 and the guidelines issued under that regulation which were last updated in 2009. Since everything always gets progressively harder in terms of immigration and citizenship, it will probably be preferable to apply to Special Branch in Bangkok, if you have time to do that before they get cut out of the process. The Interior Ministry nationality section moved from Bangkok to Lamlukka, where the interviews are now conducted, a few years ago but Lamlukka is in Pathum Thani province. Since the cabinet resolution said that applicants would applly to the MOI in their province of residence, they may have to set up a new application centre for Bangkok, or maybe Lamlukka will handle Bangkok and surrounding provinces. SB may even continue handling Bkk applications until they can set up alternative arrangements. If the the ministerial regulation is like the 1967 regulation and lacks sufficient detail, they may need to draft new guidelines, once the new regulation is gazetted. The current guidelines that had to be revised because of the 2008 amendments to the Nationality Act, took them about a year after the amendment was published. So there are still many uncertainties about the new regulations at this point. If you search for สัญชาติไทย regularly in the Royal Gazette's search function, you may be one of the first to see the new regulation when it is announced. From your perspective it is unlikely that anything much will change for foreign women applying to adopt their husbands' Thai nationality, except perhaps the place of application. However, since income levels have not been revised for a while and I think they weren't even raised in the 2009 guidelines (or at least not materially), it is possible that these may be raised. For your category Thai husbands in the 2009 guidelines are required to show income of 20,000 a month, supported by prior year tax receipts. This can be supplemented by your own income. If your husband is going to file a PNG 90 or 91 for Thai income tax for 2022, despite being abroad for part of the year, you should be able to apply as soon as you have his tax return and/or your own certified by the Revenue Department. They may already be open for filings, as they usually open in early January.

Aciclovir cream applied within a couple of days of the outbreak around my eye lessened the severity for me. It was still under patent under the name of Zovirax at that time and very expensive. A doctor at BNH prescribed it for me in a tiny tube and I bought more tubes for half that price but still very expensive at a pharmacy. Fortunately the patent expired some time in the 90s and aciclovir is now readily available as a low cost generic. There must have been thousands of shingles and herpes sufferers who couldn't get access to the medication while it was still under patent.

A troll post was deleted.

Thanks for all responses. I am wondering whether to get Zostavax, while waiting patiently for Shingrix, after reading Sheryl's comments. But there are some suggestions online that it can cause shingles and that the US FDA cancelled its approval which is worrisome, if correct. I had chicken pox as a kid and had a nasty dose of shingles around my eye and forehead in my 40s. So the virus is definitely resident in my body and could come out at any moment, the risk increasing with age. My mother had a horrific dose of shingles in her 80s and I certainly don't want to go through that, if it can be avoided.

The last time I had to show my ID to buy alcohol was in a hotel in Pakistan.

For some unknown Thailand continues to drag its heels on approving and importing Shingrix and most hospitals only provide Zostavax which seems to be largely discredited in the West as, not only being not very effective at preventing shingles but also actually causing shingles. Skyzoster has been developed by SK Biosciences of Korea and Thailand was the first country outside Korea to applrove in May 2020. Malaysia has just appoved it this month as the second country outside Korea to do so. It now has a market share in S Korea of 56% I have just seen it on the price list of Mahidol U's Travel Clinic near Victory Monument but I haven't seen other Thai hospitals offering it. https://www.thaitravelclinic.com/cost.html Does anyone have any information or opinions on this new vaccine? I would like to get a shingles vaccination, preferably Shingrix, but have no interest in Zostavax.

I have ordered a single bottle from iHerb and it arrived at my door with no problem. Of course, it is subject to the usual strictures to do with importing supplements. Strictly speaking, even though the supplement is perfectly legal in Thailand the brand needs to be approved by the Thai FDA and you need some documentation to import it. But in practice they usually let through small packages coming by mail with declared value under THB 1,500. Everything sent by courier gets opened and taxed and may not be allowed in. I have only tried it a couple of times but it worked. 3mg made me feel drowsy enough fall asleep without ill effects in the morning.

I believe so. I was told to do it early once to renew a WP as the Labour Ministry didn't like the idea the red book would expire during the term of the WP. That was only a few weeks early but I think a few months would also not be a problem.

You should be able to get a tabien baan as 'householder' in a company owned house with consent from the company, or perhaps yourself as the lessee, or both. I did it some years ago and the district officers didn't bat an eyelid. Not sure what buying land is like in your area through a company with foreign shareholding. Apparently it varies in different land offices. Often you have to be invisible at the time of the transfer, as any foreign shareholders or directors or suspicion of same can result in the case being forwarded to the director general of the Land Office for perusal. Buying raw land should be less suspicious than buying a house. Thai directors of a company, who don't seem very well to do or educated blowing the company's entire capital plus debt on an infinity pool villa in Samui with no clue how this will fit into a business plan are more of give away.

Correct it doesn't have to be the house owner. It also doesn't have to be a Thai citizen. As a PR I was "householder" for many years of my house that was owned first by a company and then by my Thai wife (and now by the two of us jointly). All that is required to appoint a householder is a signed consent form from the property owner. Of course most Thai landlords will refuse to do this for tenants, as they mistakenly believe it conveys some sort of ownership rights. It may, in fact, also be hard to rescind, if the tenant leaves the property but wants to keep the tabien baan. BTW personally I prefer the translation "householder" for "เจ้าบ้าน - jaobaan". "House master" is not technically incorrect but is not a commonly used English phrase, whereas householder conveys the correct meaning of a head of a household who is not necessarily the property owner.

That is what I thought too. The wife's signature can't possibly show up there under UV because she is not an authorized signatory for the bank and was not with me when I got the new bank book for the company. The teller acknowledged that I was a sole signatory for the account in the computer and said I could sign a cash cheque by myself. But she was pointing to the legend "2 authorized signatories" printed in the back of the book, as if this was a special condition for my company account, rather than a boiler plate blank. In the end she was ignoring what I was saying and just burbling nonsense like "Mister you tomollow go to own Kbank branch" in pijin English like a complete retard, despite the fact she could see I am a Thai citizen and I was speaking to her in Thai that was obviously a lot better than her English. I had to go back to Big C today after and was tempted to go and tell her I had successfully made the withdrawal at another branch but not knowing if she was on duty and the difficulty of getting to talk to her without appearing rude while she was serving customers put me off. It is a pity because she will never learn, if no one points ever points out her mistakes and her colleagues at the branch seemed as clueless as she was. I assume they put the worst new recruits to work at shopping mall branches because no one wants to work the later hours.

I have a personal account at the Big C branch but I am not a regular there or at the branch where I successfully made the withdrawal. I have had UK banks asking questions like do you know any of the staff at this branch who could verify your identity when trying to cash cheques in the old days but in Thailand they usually seem to just play by the rules. I once withdraw nearly a million in cash as a foreigner at a branch where no one knew me for a property deal and no one batted an eyelid. As long as they cover themselves with signed copies of your ID, they usually seem happy.

I didn't mention that I was Thai in the post, as it shouldn't have made a difference but it is possible that the teller was suspicious of my Thai ID card, even though it is registered as my ID document in the account and she ran it through the ID card reader. For sure the teller was Thai Chinese. Thai banks hire almost exclusively Thai Chinese, particularly in Bangkok.

I have always considered Kbank as my preferred Thai bank. Until yesterday they were always sensible and easy to deal with. Yesterday I went into a Kbank branch to make a withdrawal from my company account. I normally prefer to go to the stand alone branches but because it was after normal banking hours I went to a branch in a Big C which is open till 6.00 pm. The teller spent a long time fiddling around with the computer and then got up and left her seat to go into the small office without explanation, leaving me standing for about 15-20 minutes. I heard her talking to someone on the phone while she was away from her desk but couldn't hear what she said. Finally she came back with a colleague and explained that it was impossible for me to make the withdrawal because my savings account book had a condition in the back that two authorized signatories were required. She claimed she had spoken to someone or other who had confirmed this was the case. She had looked up information on the company account and found that there was a Thai director (my wife) in addition to myself and asked me if I knew her. Then she said I would have to come back with my wife to co-sign the withdrawal or, strangely, I could sign a cheque by myself but I didn 't have the cheque book with me. I told her it was absurd because I have never registered my wife as an authorized signatory for the company account at Kbank, even though she is indeed a director and authorized signatory of the company. So how could they demand that she co-sign with me, if the company has never appointed her a bank signatory? In addition I pointed out that the back of the savings account book merely has space for two authorized signatories, as indeed has my personal account savings book, but it was ridiculous to interpret this as meaning that every account must have two authorized signatories who have to both sign for everything. She refused to believe that I have been making withdrawals from the account alone for the past 20 years and told me that in order to change the condition I would have to go to the branch where the account was opened. Today I went to a stand alone branch near Big C and made the withdrawal with my sole signature as normal. I told the teller what had happened yesterday at the Big C branch down the road and she just smiled and said "kha, kha", understandably not wishing to get drawn into a discussion about incompetence at other Kbank branches. I can only think that what happened was a combination of racism, incompetence and stupidity. It is hard to imagine that anyone would really believe that the space for two authorized signatories at the back of every book means that a company must have two authorized signatories who must both sign for everything. It is also hard to imagine that she would have dared try this stunt on a Thai Chinese businessman trying to access his small business account.

Re item 3. There were was a flow chart showing that it should take 90 days to get through the vetting process with NIA and other agencies after submitting signed application to SB which I applied. They did actually try to comply with it and succeeded in my case, even though they warned it might not be possible because the red shirts were surrounding police national HQ at the time. It is is good that they will set the time horizon again, although I agree that is not worth moking a complaint, if the don't comply with it. Re item 3. Since the cabinet resolved to give exemption to anyone who has attended Thai school up to Por 6, it looks like they will be aiming for an intermediate level of spoken Thai. I did the Por 6 exam for foreigners which is supposed to be at exactly that level but in reading and writing as well as speaking and oral comprehension and I assume that would also give exemption, if it still exists. When I did the exam we did a dictation piece about the Thai economy and a written comprehension piece about various kinds of insects. We also had to write an essay on a compulsory set topic with no other options. There was a one on one oral test which involved listening to the passage on dolphins read out aloud and then answering questions on it. There was no small talk with the examiner. I think this implies a reasonably extensive vocabulary and expect it to be harder than the MOI interview for which you can prepare a lot of spiel about your situation in Thailand. There may also reading and writing tests but these will probably be optional, as they are now.

Actually it is a completely new set of ministerial regulations, rather than amendments to the act. Any amendment to the act requires a new act via the full parliamentary process. For example, while the 1965 Nationality Act remains in force today, the 1992 Nationality Act amended it to allow nationality to pass through the female line and the 2008 Nationality Act amended it to allow husbands of Thai women to apply for citizenship without PR. Amendments to the act are normally significant changes, rather than procedural issues that are dealt with in the ministerial regulations and guidelines.