FruitPudding

That's pretty nuts, if the tests came back OK

But what's the other option? If you don't find out about something early, you could drop dead with a heart attack or find out you have advanced cancer.

I just wrote it the way a Thai said it to me. And, yeah, smacking children is not uncommon here.

I don't really see what's funny.

They can't beat the index because they can't just sit on their hands and do nothing for years -- they'd lose their jobs. So, they play around with the portfolio - to keep their jobs - which ironically causes them to perform worse than the market.

It makes no difference to these "people" They don't respect the pedestrian crossing, and they don't seem bothered by the potential legal ramifications of driving over a pedestrian crossing with pedestrians on it.

Savages.

I got my card a few months ago

Governments rake in money from its citizens. They return some money by spending on public needs. There should be a pension. Mainly because some children can't afford to take care of themselves, never mind their parents - the economy can be tough - but also some parents and children have bad relationships or lose contact completely. Don't governments make enough money taxing everything we touch? Is a reasonable pension too much to ask? Aside from that, we do not live in an anarchist society: the government owns us and our children. They ought to take some responsibility for the elderly.

Where in the West are you from? There's no pension system to handle this issue? Where in the West are children supposed to pay their parents a pension? I actually think families in the West are a lot closer and genuinely caring than here.

That's not how it works. The children didn't give birth to the mother, they have no parental responsibility. They should take care of their aging parent, but there could also be valid reasons they want nothing to do with her. Who knows? Thailand really needs a better social security system, if it ever wants to be a first world, fully developed country. If this woman worked all her days and paid taxes, she deserves a reasonable pension from the state.

Got to be something more to this. Thai families are messed up on a huge scale compared to what I saw back West. There's a Thai proverb, "To hit a child is to love a child" That says it all. I've witnessed a lot of verbal, emotional, and physical abuse (all of which are considered good parenting strategies) as well as a hell of a lot of emotion and physical neglect. After all this, the parents expect their child to take care of them when they are old. In my extended family, there are kids with stunted growth, all teeth rotten, severe development issues, barely literate, abandoned by the biological mother & father, neglected and abused by the grandparents -- all the while the mother earns 50k and 100k doing massage in Phuket and Japan, respectively. This is a common story. Not too long ago, in Isaan, I earned 30k a month - total household income - equivalent of 2 Thai parents on 15k each, and I was able to take care of my kid properly. And it ain't just in poor communities, although it's a lot more common. What about that rich Paragon kid who was, according to the news, living alone in a separate house from family at the age of 13 when he hit the front page, apparently schizophrenic, and playing with guns. Now, I teach very very HiSo kids and some of them have serious family problems. Many simply don't have childhoods or lives at all - it's bipolar to what you see in an Isaan village - they study at a highly sought-after, prestigious school, then they study after school every day, then they study on Saturdays, and they study on Sundays. Of course, they study during summer, too! No free time, except to learn classical instruments, like the violin, or compete at a national level in sports - high pressure and expectations! What kind of slavery is this? What ever happened to just playing or hanging out after school? So long as they become doctors and take care of their parents in retirement, it's okay............but this is still abuse, na!

My EX does Thai massage now. She absolutely hate massaging Indians. They don't do anything wrong, but when they "tell" her where to massage more (i.e. a painful area), she can't accept it. I suppose she finds massaging them demeaning cos she feels superior.

Thai curries more resemble soups with some spices

You don’t think that's a good analogy for Pattaya and the tourists it attracts?

.......also Laotians. And many Thais look down on Isaan folk. They ain't a fan of Africans either, to put it mildly. And they dislike muslims in general, even their own! I wonder, if it ever crossed their mind that some people look at them the way they look at Indians.

I knew this would be over some kind of tourist rip off. They just can't help themselves.

Is this about the "Thai face" thing?

Really?

I reckon Thais are jealous of India's cuisine. The majority of them seem to have so much contempt for it. And they have a cheek saying it smells funny when they eat rotting fish water in their papaya salad.

....unlike the locals in Pattaya

Considering how racist the average Thai is, especially to Indians, I think that may have had something to do with it.

Pattaya attracts the dregs of every society. Thailand, in general, isn't known as a quality tourist destination. Sh*t attracts flies.

And the quality locals, I see

Think so. They puffed air into my eyes. That was a few years ago. Turns out I just needed glasses.