Sig

4 hours ago, hotchilli said:

Make the "caretaker" do 500..

Then fire him, blacklist him, publicize his name and photo, and have him publicly flogged.

2 minutes ago, Sydebolle said:

It is time to get this semi-divineness out of the lesser educated Thai folks, i.e. 85%. Anything related to government, army, police, medicine or education floats 40 centimetres above ground as higher ups. 

Caretakers, watchmen etc. believe that they can behave like many of afore-mentioned. Society, and specially children, need to be protected from such evil p1rkcs - for good. Throw them into a slammer for years to come, communicate with fingerpointing photos and name and make them pay for their absolute misbehavior. 

I sometimes wonder, what all those semi-divine a"*ç%"sholes would say, if their kids or loved ones would be treated the way they treat children or (elder?) people under their "care". What a disgrace ...

Personally, I'd be all for corporal punishment. And I'd give the father of the child first dibs to be the one to mete out the whipping or caning, if he wanted. And it should be done in front of city hall for all to see. It would be good to televise it as well. People need very explicit examples, especially around here! It seems to be such a common story of abuse in the schools. I am quite surprised there aren't more cases of fathers going to get justice on their own. If they didn't deal out some pretty severe punishment and it were my child, the perpetrator would definitely wish they had given him a more severe punishment by the time I was done with him. 40 centimeters above ground? As far as I'm concerned some of these guys, especially the sexual predators, are lucky they aren't a meter UNDERground.

7 hours ago, Thailand said:

"But he said that the caretaker involved had been spoken to about excessive punishment and would be disciplined. " ?

 

Out of a job surely?

I sure wouldn't bet on that. Maybe relocated to another school at worst.

17 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

I would have said America and all comparably emasculated nations. That list would include nearly all of Europe, Australia, NZ, and Canada. 

That's fair.

On 1/18/2023 at 11:19 PM, Berkshire said:

No need to get all defensive.  I never suggested that this happens more in the US than other countries--you did.  While this kind of thing is hard to quantify, most attractive women will tell you they get special treatment for all manner of things...mostly from men of course.  It's even been pointed out in TV shows, like Seinfeld.

 

But the entire point of my post was that the Thai female in the OP suggested it was her fluency in English that got her the special treatment.  I'm saying it wasn't that at all, but rather it was her physical attractiveness.  Are you agreeing with me or the girl in the OP? 

I wasn't coming from a position of being "all defensive", at all. There was no offense to defend, that I can see, other than against what I believe are objective facts. I was simply pointing out what I believe is true. I may have read between the lines a bit too much in what I thought was your insinuation. Perhaps it's from being so accustomed to seeing seemingly every Tom, Dick, and Harry expat having some sort of hang-up or insecurity and in some bizarre way feel the need to bash, belittle, and berate everything American as being worse than everywhere else on the planet, not that there isn't plenty to gripe about, as Americans themselves know a LOT better than anyone else....

I did not suggest that this happens more in the US than other countries, as you say. I actually said nearly the exact opposite.

No doubt, attractive women often get special treatment in many settings. I agree. I took exception with what you said re "An attractive female in the US can easily talk her way out of getting a speeding ticket." That is utter nonsense, as I explained before.

As for just what it was that got the woman in the story some sort of special treatment... I have no idea. I don't pretend to be able to read the minds and hearts, i.e., motives, of anyone where it is not explicitly clear. She, having experienced the interaction directly and being completely unbiased and not immoderately proud of her language competency :P,  apparently thought it was due to her English fluency. Regardless of the source, that is a plausible idea. Others, with their subjective idea of her being attractive, thought that was the reason, which is also plausible. Who knows..... It very well may have been an innocent mistake of someone speaking with her and not being able to detect an accent, assumed she was an American.... I have no idea. If that were not the case, I don't know why they would have mistakenly directed her to a place where only Americans could go. So, that seems to be more plausible to me. I have experienced many people who are horrible at detecting accents, even when I think the accent is quite pronounced. It is eminently likely we will never know which is the case in this situation and I couldn't care less.

5 hours ago, Poilu said:

He is Chinese person received Thai citizenship. When granted Thai citizenship you take Thai name as well as your home country name. It seem high connections and a large political donation smoothed the path of his application.

What is a "Chinese person"? In an article like this, he should be referred to by his nationality IMO. If this guy is a naturalized (as we call it in America, not sure if that's an international way of saying that) Thai citizen from China (i.e., a Thai citizen who was originally a Chinese citizen), the xenophobia and insecurity of the Thai press is on about as clear display as possible here. NOBODY ever refers to me as Icelandic or Canadian because that's where my family is from... and NOBODY ever refers to any of my family, who are naturalized US citizens, as Icelandic or Canadian. That would be ridiculous, we are all Americans and none of us would ever think of describing ourselves as Icelandic or Canadian without further clarification.

Of course, I don't know anything more than what the summary of the article said, but it sure would appear that this guy is Thai. What Chinese person has such a clearly Thai name? He may originally be from China, but I highly doubt he is Chinese. It would be acceptable to call him Chinese Thai or as many people in Thailand seem to prefer, Thai Chinese (I think the difference likely came from grammatical differences in the English and Thai languages, with the modifier coming before or after the noun).

There are some explanations of usage, hows and whys, in referring to people of mixed backgrounds (heritage, ethnicity, and nationality) by various writing guides, of which much of journalism appears to be completely ignorant of these days.... One could refer to the the New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, the MLA Manual, the New Oxford Style Manual, the Chicago Manual of Style, or the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) (which I'm most familiar with, having been forced into it for academic publishing purposes along with the Linguistic Society of America's Style Sheet, a guide with a more narrow focus for a specific field of study).

On this issue, although I think it is still incomplete, since there seems to be a tendency to mix ethnicity or region with nationality, the APA guide gives a fair explanation that is helpful in being clear when writing about people of mixed background, if you're interested (if you even read this far! lol). https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/bias-free-language/racial-ethnic-minorities

2 hours ago, Berkshire said:

American men are easily enamored by a pretty face (and a hot body).  I should know, being an American.  An equally fluent English speaker who happens to be a Thai guy (or an older, less attractive female) would not get the same treatment.  It's not just immigration, but other aspects of life.  An attractive female in the US can easily talk her way out of getting a speeding ticket.  But a guy?  Forget about it. 

So, because you're an American, you speak for all American men??? That is one heck of a generalization. It may be the case that men (EVERYWHERE) are "easily enamored by a pretty face (and a hot body)", the insinuation that America is more this way (both being enamored and that of giving exceptional treatment to such women) than other countries throughout the world is just plain and simple BS. And in my experience, although limited to 20 some-odd countries, I'd say that this is less likely to happen in America than nearly every country I've gotten to know to some degree. There is such an extreme push to treat women "equally" in America, I believe this kind of behavior is MUCH more limited than most of the world's countries. An attractive female in the US CANNOT "easily talk her way out of getting a speeding ticket". You apparently don't know many police officers and how a woman attempting to use her beauty to get out of things is more likely to guarantee a woman a ticket than not, by the vast majority of officers. I'm guessing that you must be reliving a time of your youth many decades ago when what you describe may have been more likely than these days. Virtually everyone I know in America despise, to the nth degree, women who try to use their beauty to gain an advantage!

12 hours ago, d4dang said:

the shorter the visas the more overstays

The more overstays, the more cash flow via penalties....

On 12/17/2022 at 8:37 PM, cdemundo said:

Sig, you are avoiding or misunderstanding the point.

All I am referring to are the two parts of the story (virgin birth and resurrection), are they probable?

 

I am not making a comparison to the story of Jesus.

You implied that the improbabilities i referred to were a matter of opinion, that isn't the case.

 

Since I didn't communicate with my thought experiment, let me try another way.

If this doesn't make my point I will leave it alone.

 

The number of human births and deaths in the last two thousand years is many millions..

If the virgin birth and resurrection of Jesus are unique, then they are clearly improbable events, since they are both one event  out of many millions of events.

"One in a million" is a common phrase to express improbability, these events are more improbable than that.

 

You're right, I misunderstood. I understood your question "Do you believe me?" to be applying to the whole of the story, after which it was asked, and I was pointing out that there is much more to the story than what you wrote and if the multitude of other details were included, then one might become more inclined to believe those parts of the story that may be more difficult to believe if they were taken on their own. Of course, nobody can plausibly refute that the two items you extracted from the whole, taken on their own with no other evidence, would have an extremely low probability of having happened, as have many things when they are disassociated from the entirety of their historical context.

22 hours ago, Woof999 said:

There are about 211 million people in/from Nigeria and she's not one of them.

That's a good deduction, since the article says she's from Uganda....

22 hours ago, itsari said:

There are 500 languages  spoken in Nigeria and Swahili is not one of them .

Kind of curious where Nigeria comes into the picture...? The article says she is Ugandan.

On 12/16/2022 at 9:21 AM, cdemundo said:

I don't want to attack you, so please take this as just a discussion and try not to feel like you need to defend yourself.

"something that appears to be improbable to someone"

The beliefs are manifestly improbable, let me show you what I mean.

 

There is a board member with screen name "Coolguy".

Coolguy's mother was a virgin when he was born.

Last week Coolguy died, he was buried and after three days he rose from the dead and visited with friends and posted here on ASEANNOW.

 

Do you believe me?

 

No problem. Your comment doesn't come across as an attack at all. I would just say that your hypothetical story is very different from the story of Christianity, which it is apparent you are making the comparison to. More than 500 people witnessed "Coolguy" alive after he died and came back to life. And on top of that, many of those who witnessed him come back to life, went on to horrific deaths due to them not recanting the facts of what they witnessed. How many people do you know would insist on something like that all the way to being tortured and killed for it? And "Coolguy" also somehow happened to fulfill hundreds of prophecies made from hundreds of years past. There is a lot more to the story... that said, no doubt that some people would still have a hard time believing it for whatever personal beliefs/reasons they may have.

4 hours ago, cdemundo said:

"does that now require people to publicly or personally deride the sincere and well-meaning beliefs of others?"

 

No one is required, they are glad to do it, and do it freely, gleefully, joyfully.

Why do you suppose that is?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is hypocritical foolishness.

9 hours ago, cdemundo said:

If you were introduced to Christian beliefs as an adult, you would probably say, "You've gotta be kidding."

A story that starts with a virgin having a baby and ends with a dead guy rising and appearing to his pals.

Improbable isn't it?

Not sure what something that appears to be improbable to someone has to do with being publicly derisive toward their belief. Just because something appears to be improbable, does that now require people to publicly or personally deride the sincere and well-meaning beliefs of others, particularly when they are not demanding the one to whom it appears to be improbable to also believe it? It's kind of the opposite of the demand that is of late being kowtowed to re using certain pronouns of any individuals preference and if you don't, retribution is coming your way. If you publicly or personally deride that preference/belief, you better watch your back. For some reason, condescension of religious beliefs is not only tolerated in this forum, it is encouraged by the writers of articles posted on it. Very sad IMO.

1 hour ago, jacko45k said:

Christianity has gone that way in some countries, particularly the USA and examples such as Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn etc. They make the Thai's tradition of praying to trees for lottery ticket numbers positively credible!

I agree with the gist of what you say, except that it falls flat in defining Christianity with Kenneth Copeland and Benny Hinn, who are considered by mainline and orthodox Christianity to be heretics and blasphemers - not Christian. There will always be aberrations in any given belief that to which a group adheres. That there are these kind of outliers that appear to hijack a belief system and turn it into something self-serving should be no surprise. I don't think it is particularly predominate in the USA, although that is where there is plenty of money and thereby plenty of media coverage and ability to propagate, thus they become more well known. These kind of snake oil salesmen are all over the world in big numbers and I'd be willing to bet that they are in every belief system. But I do agree with the gist of "Christianity has gone that way" that you mentioned, in that there seems to be more of a prevalence of self-serving and working hard to get ahead/wealthy/more comfortable than what it appears the Jesus of Christianity taught, to be sacrificial of oneself in loving and helping others.

16 hours ago, Jack Cook said:

No more stupid than praying to the narcissistic big man in the sky like many westerners do.

Nor, it could be said, is it any more stupid than the loads of condescending comments, regarding one of the majority world religions with the grandiose self-assuming all-knowing statements declaring it to be strange, have any veracity to them and which essentially declare the speaker/writer to be God themselves by declaring such things as silly or strange.
To be so incredibly in-your-face rude and very purposely offensive toward so many people says a lot about the character of such writers/commenters. Why people, who likely otherwise profess to be "tolerant" or "open-minded", are so fantastically intolerant and abrasively rude and narrow-minded is a wonder in itself.

20 minutes ago, JimTripper said:

If he knew Ae the woman, she probably left the room with the door open when he went into the shower and signaled them to come in (or possibly just left it open, but not as likely because in person purse snatching is very rare in Thailand, especially in an enclosed space and not via motorbike).

 

The article said he knew her and he yelled for her and she was in the hall outside the room. That means she was around when he went into the shower.

 

The police should check her cell phone for recent calls.

You say that the article said that he knew her? and yelled for her? and was in the hall outside the room? I am guessing that you misread the article. If that isn't the case, then you must have read a different article than the one posted. None of those three things you mentioned are in the article and actually quite the opposite things are written. There is nothing in the article to make one believe he knew her. He didn't yell for her, according to the article. It said that she was the one doing the yelling, not him. And she wasn't yelling to him, she was yelling for help because she was just robbed by the purse snatching punks. There doesn't appear to be any hall outside the room according to pics with the article and it mentioned that he saw them turning around an outside corner - nothing about a hall.
You also mentioned about purse snatching. You didn't seem to think that they snatched her purse from a motorbike, yet that is exactly what the article says they did. ????
You may want to read the article again, more closely.... or just read the relevant parts that I copied below.
 

"The Dutch victim then came out after finishing bathing to find his cash missing and signs of someone having entered his room. He said he saw the suspects turning around a outside corner, so he ran after them and heard a call for help from Ae. The suspects were able to get away on a motorbike, according to Mr. Christian.
 

Ae, a Thai female victim, told police she saw two skinny male suspects standing about 170 cm and 160 cm aged 20-30 years old running past her. She said she did not raise her guard, thinking the suspects were only the hotel’s guests until the suspects hopped on their motorbike, turned back, and snatched a purse from her before escaping." (bolded emphases mine)

3 hours ago, RichardColeman said:

Idiots. You are in a hotel, a place full of people you do not, from any country and any class of people. LOCK THE FLAMING DOOR !

I appears like you're under the impression that he didn't lock his door... but according to the article, it appears that he did have his door and it was "tampered" with.
At any rate, your advice is good, although I think that if my door were "FLAMING", I'd be more likely to unlock it and get the heck out of there!

43 minutes ago, JimTripper said:

I never made one about leaving wads of cash out ????????‍♂️

4,000 baht = a wad of cash? Wow, and here I was thinking that I should be making more of my finances, not realizing that I was a wadster! ????

17 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

If you believe that an hotel room in Thailand is a secure place, I have a bridge for sale.

Can't remember how many news items I've seen about stuff being robbed from hotel rooms, but it's been a lot.

I never mentioned anything on my thoughts regarding hotels rooms being a secure place, but being robbed at a hotel room is far from a common occurrence. I'm sure it happens, but I don't actually recall reading an article of an instance. Being burglarized is not particularly rare though. Of course this was a burglary, but unusual in that the room was occupied at the time. I don't consider hotel rooms, when not occupied, as a secure place to leave valuables, pretty much anywhere in the world. Yes, I do think that a hotel room in Thailand - a very broad generalization - (this of course includes Keemala Phuket, 137 Pillars and Four Seasons in Chiangmai, or Sofitel in BKK along with the cheap backpacker hostels) is, generally speaking, a secure place to leave small sums of cash on the table while one is occupying the room. I guess you can offer me your bridge.

4 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

It's never enough just to lock the door. Use the chain as well.

Yes, of course. You are right. I guess I would consider that as obvious and a part of "locking the door" and going without saying.

2 hours ago, brianthainess said:

Note to self, if i come home at 4am to take a shower from a night out and probably drunk,  LOCK the DOOR. 

It seems that this guy made that same note to himself. It appears he locked the door and the thieves made there way in anyway. The police, according to the article, found "tampering" - which I'm assuming they meant tampering to the door... but thanks to absolute <deleted> the usual kind of reporting that this article is from, it is impossible to be completely sure exactly what kind of tampering the police found. But it is normal to lock your door, of course, so I would assume this guy did and the tampering was evidenced at the door latch.

2 hours ago, thairookie said:

Doesn't the hotel have CCTV ?  It will show who entered the room.  If nobody entered the room, then it's clear that the Thai g/f took it.????

Except that no "Thai g/f" was mentioned in the story.....???? Only a woman who had her purse snatched outside when the thieves were making their getaway on their motorbike. And there is nothing in the article to lead one to believe that the Thai lady and the Dutch man had anything to do with each other.