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jts-khorat

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Everything posted by jts-khorat

  1. He offered that to a few kids he knew, or *all* the kids of the neighboring villages? That could easily be a 4-digit number, meaning constant classes of 20-30 kids in turns 10 hours a day, 5 days a week. Hardly realistic, I am sorry to say, but maybe at 10 Baht a kid a day a business idea if he is also a certified swimming teacher very bored with his life?
  2. Drowning is, unluckily, a fairly common occurrence in Isaan. One kid in our wider family drowned, with his granddad working in the field just meters away, another kid now living fulltime in our temple lost two of his sisters and as he could not swim was "clever enough" not to go into the water, but as he was older was also blamed of the accident and shunned by his family. I like government-bashing as much as the next guy, but in this instance, that children do not learn to swim properly when everything they know are little mud holes to keep water through the hot season is not something to blame on the Thai government, there simply are no proper swimming pools around. Having electricity and internet at schools is still an often missing feature, so this is where the government should start, frankly. Such drownings are the flipside of having "happy children" play unsupervised in the countryside. It is, to my mind, still preferrable to the crazy overcaring parents I observe right now here in Germany, where a tiny speck of mud on the clothes is already catastrophe or kids of 8 or 9 are not allowed to walk around in our small, sleepy village after dark, because of "dangers". Obviously, those cases on the wrong side of the statistic are still very sad and deeply regrettable and I have no good idea how to fix this without putting children into a golden cage without ever any risk to them.
  3. The risk cannot be very big then, because they are really everywhere when living in the countryside -- both the geckos and their dropping. I think the belief that geckos would be good for charisma and sexual health comes from the fact, that they all clump together when mating, also their ability to be everywhere and squeeze into any situation (literally). They are a very common Chinese medicine (dried and pulverized, I have seen them sold thus in hat Yai) and there is a very common Sak yant tattoo that a lot of male Thais carry for this reason specifically, so this belief is fed from both the Chinese and the Thai culture direction.
  4. I always absolutely love it, when you post your pictures. The more, the better. What I find most amazing is, even though "my" village is 150 kilometers away, both location and people look absolutely identical. I would not have wondered if somebody told me, that your house or your farm were just up the road right in my village; alas, Ban Dung is the other side of Udon, while I spend my Thailand-time in Nong Bua Lamphu. But it really is eerie. In any case, I use your posts as a welcome "if only I could be there right now" moment, while I slave away here in Europe, until my well-earned time in Isaan comes around.
  5. The mind boggles why people would do this, in a foreign country, with a jail system known to be quite uncomfortable. I can understand crimes of passion or crimes of opportunity, but this was obviously planned -- over a motorcycle worth less than 10,000 euro. Why?! At least he did not kick anybody...
  6. My condolences to his family, may he rest in peace. During my first years in Thailand, his column was a weekly mainstay for me, even though I was not actually in Bangkok or Pattaya at the time. This was right before arrival of the internet, possibly the reason to why it gave such a strong feeling of belonging to some kind of "expat community" he informed us all about. I am sad to hear of his passing, another small facet of my own life during my youth gone from the world.
  7. A sturdy stick, dogs know what it is from sight. Also making a hitting or throwing motion, even with an empty hand, will make them flee. However, if there are several of them, they will remember and the clever ones will try to get you from the back. If it is always the same dogs, and the owner in the village is known, having him chat with you friendly in sight of the dogs will also make them remember that you are 'part of the allowed circle'. With street dogs, this option obviously does not exist.
  8. Indeed, the original poster voiced so many horrible opinions in one post, it can only be a wind-up in this enlightened day and age: 1) taking agency away from women for their life decisions 2) ageism; weirdly against only the males (why would they be less capable?) 3) body shaming; even if outer appearance would not be optimal, are they lesser people for it? 4) being born in Italy makes the OP somehow wiser, so he can give advice to the natives? That is rank with post-colonialism I think, the OP can only be a troll post, persiflaging all the bad opinions we all have left behind. I think such a post does not deserve of the "respect" this person orders us to have of him.
  9. Still, the decision of a consenting adult. Her body, her decision, is it not? This at least was what feminism fought hard for during the last 50 years.
  10. What a weird thing to say. Are you telling us that women of a young or any age do not have agency to decide what is best for them? You make it sound as if they need a mentor to guide them through life, and basically a slave to their waning reproductive system. I thought we have left this world view in the 1970s.
  11. I am German and I was completely unaware of it. So I would not put too much weight on it, that some person in the UK also does know nothing of this. Interesting tidbit from the wikipedia article, 'transsexual' as an expression is actually a German invention, the concept a German definition. I wonder how man transsexuals know that they are basically a category framed during the Weimar Republic.
  12. It is those same locals who make the really big amounts of money that can be earned in a concentrated amusement mile. Property prices for those who own are astronomic. Nobody would want to change that. But this is not just Bangkok: as many city planners around the world have found, better to have the 'amusement zone' concentrated, than a noisy bar here or a loud disco there. Also much easier to police, as this is for obvious reasons also always a crime hotspot (maybe this will change one day, if weed instead of alcohol would become the preferred drug in usage).
  13. Is your 'grow up' also hypothetical, partially joking? You are quite the joker, it seems. If not, let it then be known as fact, that with my wording "another one who doesn't know" I must have been very obviously joking in the same way as you, as *everybody* knows this already, no? Or are you maybe also one of those pesky adolescents? Good that we cleared that up, like the future mature adults we both likely will be.
  14. To sit for years in IDC, on top of whatever conviction he gets, until he somehow gets the money he did not have before to pay for a flight extremely inflated in price? What kind of sense does that make?
  15. Not having the money for a flight back and trying to achieve a deportation will probably lead to the worst possible outcome for anybody. Western embassies will not help, if you are convicted of a violent act, besides consular assictance during your time in IDC (however long that will take, I heard of literally years). And this is what Ubonjoe wrote about this: https://aseannow.com/topic/1095179-who-pays-when-your-deported/
  16. Another one who does not know how deportation works. The flight back home is not free, quite the opposite.
  17. Ouch! It would be interesting, who really backs Phuket Peninsula Estate Co. and the 100 Rai of beachfront land they acquired (and are seemingly about to loose completely). One thing is for sure, it is unlikely to just be their director, Pimphan Surintarangkul, who has doen little but play golf if one looks up the name. Either way, steaming * has hit the fan and is about to fly around. Latest now it really does not matter any more, if the Swiss man can settle with the doctor.
  18. I am not sure I understand the outrage. LSD is not a drug with a high addiction potential like Ya Ba. For example, there are forms of LSD that are currently (still) legal in Germany (1v-LSD); they are a biological precursor, which means, that they are converted in the body after consumption to the regular LSD-25. There are shops where you can buy it openly, or you get it sent by post. On a quick assumption, this would be a fairly easy way to also have it arrive in Thailand, if not carried right in luggage. 75 sheets is merely the size of a small paper notepad, and it is an odorless drug, so basically zero risk of attracting any attention during transport. On top of it, if it is not actual LSD-25 but one of the pre-drugs, I would be unsure if it is even on the list of forbidden substances in Thailand; you need a fairly good laboratory to determine this. I guess the court case will tell us. I am a lot less sure about the 25 extacy pills, but even if one counts 5 months of dealing activity, this is a fairly small amount he finally got caught with. They also would have quite the small volume and fit in a tiny plastic bag, so to me this still sounds like somebody who brought a stash with him to finance his holiday. Quite stupid, sure, but hardly the crime of the century or a major dealer by any imagination. This is something where I would guess that Thai police is much more knowledgeable and that dealing with recognizable "pills" was what got this guy caught.
  19. Whenever I come back to Phuket, it is strictly holiday only. It is fun for a week, but then it just starts to press on my nerves. Maybe I am older, maybe it really is a lot less fun than a decade++ ago.
  20. You would not wonder if you knew how well connected the father of the doctor is, not just on Phuket, but particularly there. Have your wife read you some of his entries from his Facebook page. He obviously, as a decade-long political activist, knows exactly how to start a very effective media campaign and how to energize the locals. https://www.facebook.com/chaiyachot.uttamang/ Nothing wrong with that, if that was my daughter, I would do exactly the same. The Swiss man rejected the offer of apologizing before calling the police himself, so he really brought this unto himself. But of course, as many here stated, this is a class thing. First, of the Swiss guy threatening with his "good connections", only to be steamrolled by the Thai side he attacked with their infinitely better ones. "Som nam na" comes to mind (however deportation seems a bit too strong a resolution for it). My guess: it will not actually end in deportation; but the pound of flesh will be a considerable amount and it can be doubtful, if the business of the Swiss man can go on like this. This reminds me very much of the owner of Shark Disco in Patong, all too many years back -- at the time by far the most successful place at Soi Bangla and the blueprint for all later discos to follow. After being publicly in the face of the local business interests, that disco never opened up after again, with quite the media campaign preceding its quick demise.
  21. It does not seem that you have followed local news a lot. We are well, well beyond that stage...
  22. You do live there and you want your stay be more comfortable (socially and emotionally). Having a chit chat would be the normal human repsonse to this really not complicated issue. Of course, if you are somebody better than them, go on and be all bothered about them looking at you. My guess is, wherever you live, you will have similar issues, because a change of place to stay still brings yourself in your head with it. So you do you -- but let's not forget, it was you who came here and asked for advice.
  23. Believe me, in Thailand they do as well. After all the talking about all of their last and future meals, so with luck we rank very far down the list. But why not have a nice chat with them when leisure time allows? Thais are very friendly and their job is boring as hell, so they will appreciate it. Would make the weird feeling of the OP go away as well, his mind state might improve with more social/human interaction.
  24. You misunderstand. The woman lost face, very publicly, and her father is extremely well connected with business interests on Phuket, with national media and politics. Serious offense has been taken, so a pound of flesh will be taken. Believe me, on Phuket there is currently little more newsworthy than this, with so many prominent figures now having taken public positions. One could discuss, if this will go too far for the actual crime committed, for example the local chief of immigration has already publicly stated that the Swiss guy will be deported if found guilty of this assault. This is quite the heavy opening gambit, isn't it? He is simply toast, or in the best scenario will be a lot poorer after this when the dust has settled (that it might go in this direction is suggested by the statement of the doctor, that she will spend all money of any settlement to "beach beautification" on Phuket, which will spread the love locally; a very artful Thai solution, mehinks).
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