mfd101

One thing to remember is that none of your tradespersons have ever lived in a Western-style house or quality. So they (often) simply don't know how to do things or why. Examples in my experience:

- Toilet paper holders carefully placed so you have to do a double twist with pike to get at it when you need it.

- We lived at the Trendy in BKK for over a year. Very comfortable but I couldn't work out why the water from the shower over the bath always ran out over the floor. Had to use putty patches to make it run into the bath. Then I remembered that my Khmer family at the farm here in Surin wash themselves crouching down on the floor with buckets of water. So they imagined that that's what Falangs do in the bath ...

- Italian dishwasher (never used) was installed in our kitchen in the new house we built here in Prasat. Only thing was it was rather tall and the kitchen bench was built over it so that it was too high for me to work there, let alone any Thais. had to get them to redo it twice before I got them to actually LOWER the d/washer installation.

When you find a good tradesman, you become lifelong friends. They look after you. You look after them.

Less fantastic than fantastical.

News from Oz today is that AZ is being phased out by Sept/Oct (even for the over-60s) & replaced by Pfizer & Moderna. AZ will continue to be available but in declining numbers.

No explicit mention is made in the news item about the reasons for the change, though the discussion is all about numbers (rather than efficacy or adverse health reactions).

Living here in south Surin I assume that dengue fever (at least during the wet months) is a greater threat to my health than the corona virus.

So where are they at with the dengue vaccine?

Mostly the effect of pre-monsoon drought, I should think.

Putting aside the particular matter of the hospital & the nurse, the broad picture is that, in a highly hierarchical society, people are not taught to think for themselves. They are simply taught to obey.

I see this all the time here in my Khmer peasant family. With the exception of my b/f, most of the family cannot work out how to use simple 'new' or 'modern' things such as a venetian blind, or how to wash a delicate 'Western' item such as a wine glass without breaking it.  Once shown how to do it, they can learn but cannot work it out for themselves. 

When we were building our house here in Prasat, the workers had a tendency to do whatever the semi-skilled 'foreman' or 'builder' told them to do, even if they knew it was not the right thing to do. They couldn't point out the problem to the boss, so many things - fortunately only small things - had to be redone to get them right. This only happened when the Big Boss (my b/f) barked orders.

11 hours ago, impulse said:

Not my cuppa, but not my money, either.

 

Shows up great on Google Earth.

 

13.721201  100.470965

Yes, hard to miss.

So, more years of a PM whose Covid experience still hasn't taught him the first rule of politics: Promise less, deliver more.

A new Gothic cathedral.

11 minutes ago, Blumpie said:

In Indonesia fully vaccinated doctors and nurses are getting sick despite getting fully vaccinated with Sinovac.  There is real worry about its efficacy.  

As is well known, most - maybe all - of the various vaccines do NOT guarantee you won't catch the virus. They reduce the likelihood of catching it (some better than others), and they pretty-well guarantee that you won't get it bad enough to have to go to hospital.

Yes, an irritating problem currently. Wonder how long till they get it fixed ...

I use Bestatin 20mg. 100 pills = 322฿

News from Oz today is that AZ vaccine is, once again, confined to 60s and over. (It had been reduced to 50s & over but one or 2 deaths have changed that.)

Great investment opportunity. Almost as good as bitcoin.

He can't resign. Who else would want the job currently?

The Dutch seem to manage things OK, and on a more or less permanent basis ...

50 minutes ago, RichardColeman said:

Up tomorrow : Family die after crashing into giant penis.

 

Idiots. 

Yes, it does beg the question: Why in the middle of the road?

Top of a hill or middle of a paddy field would make more sense.

Just the usual Thai closed culture: ignorant of the outside world and its ways, its possibilities, its expectations, and unwillingness to learn.

Given that a large proportion of the Thai/Khmer/Lao/Malay population of this country doesn't own and cannot own (for both legal & financial reasons) the land on which they and their family have been living & working, perhaps for 50 or more years (over 50 in the case of my family), it seems both unrealistic & unreasonable to open up the country to foreign ownership.

Perhaps in another 50 years, Thais may be able to compete on equal terms with foreigners living here, but not till then I think.

4 hours ago, Kinnock said:

I't's Cold War 2 and everyone has to pick a side.

Yes but some (such as the Thais - viz 1941-5) are pretty good at slithering thru the undergrowth in between.

4 hours ago, Smithson said:

Will the US ever let Australians visit Pine Gap?

Yes. Long since.