mfd101

On 12/13/2018 at 2:42 PM, Fookhaht said:

I fit your inquiry 100% except the tons of acres. It helps if your partner grew up in the village and has tons of relatives and friends, and is well-liked. Complete acceptance, high level of comfort, and easy socializing with everyone here.

I think it also helps that we are both straight acting/appearing – so no one feels uncomfortable about any camp-type behavior. Virtually all our friends are straight singles and couples. We eat out often with friends here and are always invited to birthdays, weddings, housewarmings, local celebrations, monk’s initiations, etc.

I’m pretty fluent in Thai and I never hear any disparaging comments, first-, second-, or third-hand. Maybe there’s a few fourth hand, jokes/comments floating around out there but none of it would really bother me.

I love the small-town life.

Entirely agree. Exactly fits my experience - from first introductions to family on rural farm in south Surin June 2012, marriage ceremony at farm with half the village present June 2013, then - after a year in Bangkok at The Trendy & a year back in Canberra - 1 year living at farm in 2016 as we built our house in Prasat Surin outskirts, then removal to Prasat March 2017 with daily travel back & forth to farm ... Simply not an issue here.

Yes, a certain amount of hypocrisy in all of that but, if he can stir up action - whether on Myanmar or the Thai south, good luck to him.

If you're serious about Oz, you need to check carefully whether you & your spouse meet the criteria for settlement there. At age 56 you probably will need more money than US$1m - just to get in, let alone live - but that would depend at least in part on what job skills you bring. You need to be able to supply skills that are in short supply (financial services? driving a huge mining excavator? nurse? victim? refugee? ... ).

If you can get in, then your wife & kids aren't a problem providing everything is above board & (as for Thai visas) PROVABLE (eg marriage certificate, photos, joint names on bills, car & house ownership ...). Health & police checks mandatory. As others have suggested, I doubt that 'Thai chef' will cut it with Immigration.

There are millions of people (eg 'refugees') who want to settle in Oz. The government has just announced a few weeks ago that the numbers of people entering Oz for residency is being reduced from c200,000 a year to c130,000. The big cities are getting overcrowded & not adapting well to the continuing flood of newcomers. This is probably a short-term political gesture (Oz NEEDS 200,000 a year) but it's certainly getting tougher to get in, and all but impossible without either (1) lots of money or (2) family reunion or (3) refugee status (but there's a million of them on the waiting list) or (4) appropriate job skills.

20 minutes ago, Spidey said:

The majority of the countries shown on the map are members of the British Commonwealth and the majority of those still have H.M. The Queen as their head. Just a name change from "Empire" to "Commonwealth", same same but a bit friendlier!

Ah yes, and we're all just dying to be able to grovel again. Yes Sir, of course Sir whatever you want Sir.

If you combine sickies with religious, royal & national holidays, then about 20% of the year passes with - broadly - 'noone at work'. If you then add in the mind-boggling waste of time, inefficiency & incompetence that is so common even when people are 'at work', productivity levels are so low they don't even register on the geiger counter.

No wonder 90% of the population are poor.

But you could say similar things - mutatis mutandis - about France, Greece, Italy, UK & US. As I have commented in the past, the default policy position of people everywhere in the world is to kick the can further down the road.

One thing that strikes me here, at least in the provinces amongst the unemployed village youth, is that the wages anyone can earn for a day's work - labour or semi-skilled - is so utterly miserable (3 or 400฿) even with low living costs that it's not really worth getting out of bed for ...

No doubt different in the cities with all those highly paid, trained & skilled middle class public servants & the like.

I must say that Paterson's ante-penultimate paragraph is the first time I have seen anything - even in brief sketch form - that looks like a doable (ie practical & civilized) Brexit end result. 

Perhaps I wasn't paying enough attention. Perhaps I was so convinced of the ignorant idiocy of Brexit & its supporters that I wasn't listening. Well, we shall see ...

3 minutes ago, nontabury said:

What a racist post. Personally as a staunch remainer, I would be quite happy for Sajid Javid to become our P.M.

Ever heard of irony?

Today's 'Australian' (what would they know?) has Sajid Javid running for PM.

Wouldn't that be fun? On no! said the Brexiteers, We didn't get rid of the Polish plumbers for THIS!

1 hour ago, JonnyF said:

5. We use the 39 Billion to ease the short term issues in the UK.

I don't think the 39B is sitting in a savings account waiting for the next PM to come in & sign a withdrawal slip!

5 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Thank goodness for the turnips.

 

 

At least there’ll be something to eat.

Yes, and boiled spuds & boiled cabbage just like mother used to do. None of this olive oil nonsense - just another EU conspiracy!

No, but planning for April next year. All organized thru tourist agent in Saigon/HCMC.

Interesting how everyone - well, most people with half a brain - are in favour of 'doing something' about climate change, but almost noone is willing to make any sacrifices or change their life choices for that purpose.

Perhaps HMRC are employing Polish plumbers in the typing pool and one of them put the . in the wrong place. Never mind, Brexit will fix it.

Why can't they simply stay where they are for an extra 6 months? Doesn't say anything good about how the nation's decisionmakers regard the Parliament & its functions!

There are going to be many sighs from the no-longer-signed in the coming weeks as those who haven't been paying attention hit a brick wall. We are all in the hands of Thai Immigration, waiting breathlessly for the much-heralded but as yet unseen major statement.

In the modern world ignorance makes us stupid, as we see every day everywhere in this country.

Good news for once. Leaves a warm feeling.

Now if we could just multiply that by 1 million students and Thailand would be on the up'n up.

People should read the history of Prohibition in Usofa to see how criminalizing what is really a social & health problem simply hands control of your society to organized crime.

And, as every senior cop knows, the more 'successful' the 'war on drugs' [ie the more drug seizures], the higher the profits of the criminals who are not loathe to corrupt politicians, judges, police & customs officials and take over whole swathes of a national economy.

The 'War on Drugs' is self-defeating & a waste of vast financial & police resources.

1 hour ago, Prissana Pescud said:

Or you can burn your country down. Overturn someones car and set it on fire. Attack your own police. Burn and destroy national monuments. Create mayhem and deny people to go to work. 

Mayhem and anarchy is the way of France, Italy and Greece. And what has it got them. Massive debt and creating poverty. At least the Brits can afford to sit in a pub.

Wait till the Brexit deal or no-deal kicks in. We'll see then how like the French, the Greeks and the Italians the Brits really are.

Kicking the bin further down the street is the basic policy stance of The People everywhere in the world ...

It would be interesting to know what the RULES are for the EC (ie what's the theory on how to achieve appropriate, balanced & fair outcomes of any redistribution of seats?) and precisely HOW the EC is said to have gerrymandered the deal.

Given that, as far as I can tell, ALL political parties in this country are personality-based & policy-lite, with parties being invented & decommissioned at the drop of a peaked hat & members hopping from 1 party to the next as the occasion & the opportunities demand, the actual election-day outcome of any gerrymandering attempt would seem to be entirely unpredictable.

Never mind, soon it'll be Christmas and he'll be a wai in a manger.

Meantime, he can come and visit me and my b/f any time he likes.