BangkokReady

Interesting stuff. I'd say you've got the makings of a nice little project there.

You could do that, but you would probably find yourself unable to take full advantage of all the benefits brought by close families ties here and find yourself living a poor quality of life. It's quite simple, poor countries tend to have a very weak social safety net, so families are forced to look after each other. If you are responsible for the young until they are well into adulthood, you get more of a say in how they behave. This is one of the main reasons that the West is in such a miserable situation socially, the government forces people to look after the needy but gives them no say in how they behave. I.e. do bad things - get free money = poor social outcome.

I've seen them being farmed in Vietnam and they put them on the top of concrete posts. I assume being up on something means they grow more fruit as they hang down? Might be worth thinking about putting it on something raised. https://www.google.com/search?q=dragon+fruit+farming&sxsrf=AOaemvKHqPa1Iaq2IrgQ7UhYLFcJnm10Og:1642227143705&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiquKnsjLP1AhWuR2wGHVSTCDkQ_AUoAXoECAIQAw&biw=1366&bih=625&dpr=1

Obviously I can't experience love as other people do, but does anyone else feel that Thais do not experience love like we do in the West?

Probably a shy boy with absent/uninterested parents and she seduced him and is keeping him hypnotized with sex. Imagine if the genders were reversed.

It's very likely that he has some mommy issues. But he might find that other "younger" 50 year old women tempt him away as she ages.

Nobody cares about it and they will never face the same animosity as an older man with a younger woman. It's fairly universal that an older man with a younger woman is seen as predatory while a younger man with an older woman is seen as lucky. The only issue is that we know that the reason for an older man being with a younger woman is so clearly mutually beneficial, whereas a younger man and older woman is slightly harder to rationalise.

Presumably some sort of face gaining/saving, either in the eyes of the locals or internationally. (As is so often the case.)

Do you really think that the government is keen to remove restrictions while the people are demanding they stay? Because it seems like the exact opposite to me.

????

For the sake of argument, why would not being allowed to do what she did go against the idea of being a democracy?

You make it sound like everyone has the right to free speech.

Clearly White supremacy!

This has been going on forever. It has nothing directly to do with the pandemic, it just gives some people an extra topic to bash other foreigners over. (Notice they always add an insult and never complain when Thais do the same.)

Yeah, it's crazy the things that you hear of someone being stabbed to death/chopped up for here over the years. I know most of our countries are far more dangerous, with much higher rates of violence and murder, but there's something about the way such an insignificant action can result in boiling rage that drives otherwise "normal" people to violently kill. It's so senseless, and they often regret it afterwards. Generally multiple lives ruined for nothing.

Yes, obviously. It has been that way since the beginning. Is anyone reading this and saying "Oh sh*t, kids can spread it?!!!"?

Isn't NCO (Non-commissioned officer) someone who did not enter the army at that rank but instead worked their way up? I think that's what it is. Not sure why they need the distinction. Sounds a little elitist.

The law doesn't mean an awful lot in Thailand. There are many laws that if the police started to enforce there would be public outcry and superiors would tell their officers not to enforce those laws again, but they would remain on the books. Society as a whole bears responsibility for a lot of what happens in Thailand.

55 seems an incredibly young age to retire. Are many 55 year olds decrepit and needing to rest? 65 seems far more appropriate. At 55 that could be almost half of a life spent retired for some. I guess the whole populist, subsidising nature of the Thai economy has made people extremely complacent. I'm not sure how having people retire at 55 is in any way sustainable or even desirable.

Kind of, but it's really a socio-cultural issue. There are more people that could change things than just the police. You could argue that nobody considers it to be dangerous or that the police should be all over it. You can't really expect just one element of a society to suddenly become concerned about an issue that no one else even thinks about. This applies to many things in Thailand that foreign people view as dangerous or harmful.

It remains so fascinating that several users here push the narrative that Thais have some sort of next-level peacefulness, when we see so many instances of Thais killing each other over the slightest and most trivial indiscretions. Very sad for an evening to end up this way. Especially attacked from behind with a weapon. So often we see this senseless violence, normally followed by the perpetrator being led away and warning others not to be like them. I wish they would teach about consequences a little more here. But then maybe it wouldn't be as fun or relaxing as it is...

Sadly there are some not great attitudes to women and to rape in Thailand.

Very sad, but think about the many foreigners who are facing the same fate. They have far less support while having the added stress of also being discriminated against, individually and systemically, and treated like they all have covid.

"And drink this first."

Chances are that they would be opening and closing again repeatedly over a number of years while the rest of the world potentially gets back to normal through exposure. Ridiculous. Eventually (probably after they see numbers really start to drop in the Western world and the outcome is clear), they will announce proudly that their experts have researched and tested Omicron carefully and decided that the best course of action is to open up and let the variant spread, with caution, creating natural immunity.