mfd101

Just now, Destiny1990 said:

So u went in for a house plus 100k.well at least your horrible story can warn some other fools.?

If it's not a problem for me, why should it be a problem for you?

15 minutes ago, Destiny1990 said:

Its 2 males so explain me why the farang needs to put his one million on the table?

He doesn't "need to" at all. He can choose to or not, with whatever consequences that may or may not have for his relations with his partner and his partner's family.

In my case I reminded my about-to-be MIL that I was building her a new house @ 1.5m฿ so which did she want? the house or the 200,000฿ she was asking? Much merriment followed & we settled on 100,000฿ which I duly placed on the big dish with the pig's head, the fanta, the water, the fruit & the flowers that sat in front of us during the ceremony.  The money was counted at the end of the ceremony to check it was all there.

No sweat.

8 minutes ago, AGareth2 said:

what if they are on the dole?

I think the statistics & sociological studies probably suggest that a married couple is less likely to be dependent on government assistance than 2 individuals. And for fairly obvious reasons: Possibility that 1 of the partners has a job while the other does not so one can support the other; on average, greater social stability & responsibility etc.

In my village the straight couples often don't register their marriage as 'official' because they say it just makes things more difficult when the marriage comes to an end.

Someone earlier said that 'traditional' Thai marriages are not 'real' marriages. What they should have said is that they're not 'official' or 'officially registered'. Everyone in the relevant families and villages certainly recognizes & accepts such marriages, straight or gay. They don't care about the government's view of things - a bunch of stuckup nobodies of no importance to me, is their attitude. What did they ever do for us?

Marriage is a social institution whereby 2 people make public declaration of their love & of their wish to live together for the rest of their lives. The ceremony - however designated - is a recognition by society (families & village, town etc) of their new status. Official registration of marriage is a modern bureaucratic instance of the increasing control that governments try to assert over all citizens.

David Cameron, when UK PM, and a few months before him, a Liberal Party (ie conservative) Australian Senator, Amanda Vanstone, said in almost identical words: "All conservatives should be in favour of gay marriage. Marriage is an institution that helps 2 adults to stand on their own feet together and not depend on government assistance."

39 minutes ago, garyk said:

I knew a guy from the UK about 8 years ago that threw a shindig like this in Pattaya. People flew in from the UK, Obscene amounts of money this guy spent. Millions of Baht.

Gold + money for the dowery.  

Amazing. 

Yes, awful isn't it? So tasteless.

1 minute ago, zzidenn said:

gay couples are usually quite wealthy because there's two guys who work and bring a salary home. And there's a lot of rich thai gay dudes outthere.... everyone is so judgemental it's sad

Yes, the whole dowry bit seems to get people quite overwrought. For what reason is entirely unclear to me. Perhaps they just feel they themselves missed out somewhere down the track.

1 hour ago, saakura said:

Yes, sorry. The million Baht was given to the parents of the guy who is going to be the wife.

He announced with complete confidence ...

I notice that commenting on other people's private lives brings out the same syndrome we have seen recently in British & Usofan voters: Absence of information does not prevent people holding strong opinions.

Or perhaps it was: Mummy Mummy! I've just discovered my boyfriend's 'gay'! What should I do? Should we cancel the wedding?

5 minutes ago, khunpa said:

Good they got married and best of luck to them. Why they needed the media attention is beyond my understanding.

 

However, Would be interesting to hear if the Thai guys parents paid the dowry money back to the farang after the marriage. That tells a lot about what kind of marriage it is and if the farang is stupid or not.

 

The mother in the pic looks quite sad, so maybe she realised the money is not for her keeping.

Or she's sad because she's lost her boy. Or because it was only the night before that he came sobbing to her room to confess that Mummy Mummy I think I'm gay!

2 minutes ago, louse1953 said:

Who were those 9 orange robed freeloaders sitting in front of me?Having a grand old sing song,holding up the beer drinking?

I know only what my villagers told me when, a few days before our ceremony as described above, I inquired whether a monk or 3 might be presiding at our ceremony. The answer was as I have described: No, monks are for death not marriage. [These are poor Khmer peasants - don't know whether that makes a difference.] I also note that presiding and attending as guests are not the same thing

6 minutes ago, realenglish1 said:

Million dollar dowry Give me a break It will last 5 years then they will start bitching at each other LOL 

So? In this life you give and receive such happiness as you can.

23 minutes ago, steve187 said:

so could you explain how these religious weddings work. is it you walk around with everyone making a noise, and that's it married

My b/f and I were married in a religious ceremony in his village here in Surin in 2013. Half the village turned up at the family house and the oldest man in the village who still had his marbles mumbled the prayers, assisted by my FIL and a couple of elderly female rellies who corrected the old man every time he made a mistake. We were blessed with holy water & I had already been taught how to wack my forehead 3 times on the ground to warn the ancestors that a new member of the family was coming aboard ... And a great time was had by all, with much laughter & merriment.

I was told that the fact that the government (a long way away in BKK, and there are many paddy fields) did not 'recognize' gay marriage was an irrelevance. None of THEIR (Khmer peasant) marriages were recognized by the government so why would you worry about that? The village recognized them and recognized my b/f & me as a couple, and that's what counted as far as they were concerned. And Buddhism says: Marriage is for 2 people who love each other. No nonsense about who does what in bed ...

12 minutes ago, steve187 said:

I didn't see any monks there blessing the marriage

Monks are (appropriately enough) for deaths, not marriages.

26 minutes ago, Jeremy50 said:

Nice story, but the 1 mill dowry makes me feel uneasy.  Was it handed back after the wedding?  Good luck to them, the world needs more gays.

Why does it make you 'uneasy'? If he wants to give it and can afford it, what's the problem?

54 minutes ago, Wilsonandson said:

This is easy as usually one is a giver and the other is a taker. In this case I would say the old farang is the giver and the younger Thai man is the taker.

 

Ever heard of 'versatile'?

Well, I think the blather can be summarized fairly easily all the same: Thailand continues - amusingly enough - to consider itself superior in all possible ways to its neighbours. But its neighbours are catching up in all sorts of ways under their own steam and Thailand is in increasing danger of being left behind.

DFAT is seriously underfunded by the Australian Government (Oz has fewer o/s posts than any other comparable 'Western' country). It therefore applies a strict rule of full cost recovery for all consular matters ie user pays (not just a 'nice' or 'reasonable' price, but the actual cost to DFAT of its consular functions).

Tough on us but quite reasonable in the bigger scheme of things. If you don't like it, you could write to the Treasurer telling him to give more money to DFAT and to take it out of Defence, Health, Education, and Social Welfare (the Big & Hugely Wasteful Spenders, who wouldn't even notice a few measly millions disappearing out of their back pocket).

In all of this, I hope any actually useful government action & enforcement will remember the safety-beltless rear seats of Bangkok (& no doubt other areas') taxis - ridiculously small sedans of relatively recent manufacture which, for mysterious reasons, appear to be manufactured without rearseat belts [or the belts are - just as mysteriously - either removed or their connecting 'socket' pushed down out of sight or usability under the seat you're sitting on].

What fathomless logic led to that particular phenomenon?

12 hours ago, jak2002003 said:

Trees and oxygen are more important than people illegally living on protected land and destroying the environment and nature.

 

These people have a brain.  They know they are in the wrong.  But they settle and have families there.. because its easy and they think they can get away with it. They can move away and start a new life... the trees and animals can not do that.

 

Now these people have to face up to responsibility... and their attitude of 'temporary compromises' I think they mean bribing officials to let them stay.

 

If they were allowed to stay, have more children, build more houses.. the problem would only get worse.  Might as well have no national parks or protected places and make the planet into one big housing estate... but them we would all be DEAD as we would have destroyed what we need to live.

 

If you did not have much money.. would you illegally build a house, cut down trees, and raise a family in a place you know it's illegal to do?  Or, would you use your brain and look for alternatives?  One way is easy.. the other requires effort. 

The long-term solution is of course contraception.

The obvious question (which noone on either side of the argument seems to address ) is: So what are the alternatives for the 20%? 50%? whatever large proportion of poor workers who travel to & from work each day in the back of pickup trucks? Most of them have no other means of transport, at least for that purpose, and their employers are often not prepared or able to offer a safer alternative such as small buses [not driven by maniacs].

So does the government have any suggestions? (eg public transport subsidized for worker transport in rural areas; pooled resources between major employers - not that there's many of he latter in many poor agricultural parts) ...

The point is: If there are to be improvements in ANY area of national life - corruption, education, road safety and on & on - there have to be practical alternatives on offer. Otherwise the moralizers are just wanking as usual.

21 minutes ago, geriatrickid said:

How are you going to protect your books from rotting? The humidity and high ambient mold/spore count can degrade paper very quickly. Have you considered, disposing of the  books and replacing with e versions? I offer that only as a suggestion as I have been shocked by some of the rot I have seen, even in facilities that have humidity and temperature control.

Yes, I'm aware of the issue. There is good technical advice available on the desirable humidity & temperature levels for books. And, I think, as in your wine cellar, steadiness in both is probably at least as important as the absolute levels. We are well-a/c'd in the 3 large rooms I plan to use for the books but will be keeping a close eye on it ...

As to new acquisitions, I mostly only buy ebooks these days because, even in a large house, the space available is likely to be insufficient with what I have already. Problem is that many of the academic books I buy - lit, history, philosophy, linguistics - are not available even now in Kindle or related formats. We theoretically have room to build a separate library, but that's probably an extravagance too far ...

37 minutes ago, pogpog said:

What company are you using?

King & Wilson. Very good so far - but the proof will be in the eating upon arrival ...

3 minutes ago, DILLIGAD said:

Best of luck.
'Mansions' soon turn into 'monuments' in & around Surin. I know of quite a few.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Well, as long as I'm alive & kicking, the place will be clean & tidy & well-maintained. But after I drop off the perch, my b/f & his family will no doubt turn it into a monumental slum within a few months. Such is life, and death.

5 minutes ago, Pilot3Boz said:

I shipped a fully stuffed container from the east coast of the USA, I mean full, stuff I couldn't duplicate here at the quality and types of items I shipped over... Not one thing was broken and we had many glass items... If you want things you have or get what you think you may want, I would buy it at home and ship everything you want in your container... You only get one chance to do this with duty free and the paperwork was handled by the agent... The port hassles were non existent, the local moving team was top notch.... No worries in doing so... I am glad I did it 100% support doing a shipment!!!

I'm heading down a similar path with a container arriving from Australia in early May - mostly 8000 books plus classical music CDs and DVDs, but also my lovely Italian espresso machine, good cutlery & dining sets, and assorted mementos & precious items. Have lived here without them for the last 15 months while we built the new mansion, but I accepted friends' advice in Oz that you don't want to make such a dramatic change late in life by throwing out everything you lived with before. Onthe other hand, everything except the items mentioned above could easily be replaced here - you just have to shop around a bit for quality (not really hard at all).

My removalists in Canberra assure me that their Thai agent in BKK is good, should be no probs with customs, and delivery will be to our doorstep in Surin.  We shall see ...

56 minutes ago, Notadoctor said:

everything you buy in the shops comes by road and most of it relies on cheap - often immigrant labour..........if you insist on safe vehicles and work practices the producers will put up their prices......so will you accept an increase in CoL to stop the exploitation of the low-paid?

Yes, that's part of the deal as the country modernizes - human rights, safety consciousness and egalitarianism slowly increase, and they come at a price for those who are more than able to pay. If I live to about 150, I expect to be pleased with the results.