RamenRaven

On 2/11/2023 at 6:05 PM, Hummin said:

Easy, our culture is to work, collect and prepare to survive because of short seasons, if not we die, it is formed in our dna. We have seasonal happy/holy days to have a little relief before back to work.

Thais are always shocked by Westerners' pack rat mentalities.

Especially the need to stock up on physical goods and food.

A typical American, Canadian, or Australian family might get a big carload of groceries worth at least $200 every week or so. Even when Thais have money, they just don't do that. They prefer go out to get small portions of food in plastic bags from street vendors everyday.

Spending time to leisurely buy food from different vendors every single day is a waste of time for Westerners. Time is money for us Westerners. It's also because for North Americans and Australians, grocery stores take time to drive to in spread-out suburban areas, and you can't find street vendors selling som tam on every suburban street corner.

But my pack rat mentality makes no sense to most Thais, no matter how much I explain to them that I prefer to get a huge Makro Click delivery and get it all done with in order to save time. Their response: "Are you going to eat all that, or are you going to sell all that? Are you opening up a new grocery store?"

What does LOS stand for?

Land of Smiles Smoke

Enjoy the perpetual BBQ party! Here it's just grass and dead trees and maybe occasionally some plastic.

In China, it's factory chemicals. In Poland, it's thick, black coal. In Indonesia, peat bogs. So consider yourself lucky.

Just now, ubonr1971 said:

no you dont understand. Its not his land. He visited our land and burnt our green waste without asking us for approval

Welcome to Thailand.

Pyromania is a fact of life here and can be difficult to stop. The usual solution: face mask, air purifier, smile, and move on, because we can't control it.

But if you're really annoyed, you can secretly get a lot of other neighbors to talk with the "puu yai baan" (village elder), who would hopefully try to gently negotiate with the neighbor. It might work half of the time. Keep it calm and gentle and don't do anything to make the other party lose face.

Because of the complexities involved, most Thais choose not to complain.

Just now, SpanishExpat said:

I’m still in my 30s, but have known lots of older farang here during my years in Thailand telling me they “love it here, as women are much more caring and have a higher Sex drive compared to their women at home”.

The irony is that there are many threads here about how farangs, including the women, typically like to engage in intellectually deeper conversations and have longer-lasting, more intense sex drives and are more willing to experiment.

It all depends on who you are talking to.

7 minutes ago, ravip said:

...surplus money that you don't know what to do with!!

 

WOW! Would love to meet someone like  that!

Isn't that why many Westerners have mutual funds, stocks, bonds, crypto, and all kinds of funny things that ordinary working-class Thais have never even heard of?

Because let's face it, some farangs do have more money than they know what to do with!

Your friend is being incredibly respectful.

Most Thais do not ask permission from their neighbors to burn. They just burn anything they want, anytime.

Most neighbors just get upset about their laundry smelling bad, rather than the PM 2.5.

But just put on a face mask and it's life as usual. That's what they're used for in Thailand: smoke, not (just) for COVID.

You fellas must have been burned by women pretty badly.

There are also other forum members here who report being happily married to their wives for 10, 20, 30, 40+ years.

Sweat, drink water, splash water on your head.

Sweat, get more water, shower.

Repeat.

33 minutes ago, FritsSikkink said:

Yes, don't marry.

That's like saying "rent, don't buy."

Not always true. Depends on your situation.

Renting is better for some. Buying is better for some. Some can live with either choice.

There's no one size fits all solution.

This question would make no sense to a typical Thai Buddhist. I'd say that they're agnostic animists.

There is no concept of an all-powerful God who punishes churchgoers if they stray off into heresy.

There's just an interconnected web of life that is inhabited by countless spirits.

So for those of us who have gone local, it's safe to say that this question no longer makes any sense to us.

Funeral concert

Just another carnival, most likely few if any tears

Send all the horror stories about Thai women on this forum to the bloke.

Then he'll realize how much better his farang wife really is!

1 minute ago, marin said:

 

Seems by answering your own question you to the answer you wanted. 

I know that Thais don't like acting out in public, but it's that no one seems to be genuinely upset at the funerals that I went to. I don't get that part.

When Thais are upset, they show that they're visibly upset by being silent and ignoring people around them. That didn't happen.

There's something about the Thai Buddhist perspective on life, the elderly, and death that is very radically different from what we're used to in the West.

7 minutes ago, soi3eddie said:

Attended a 76 yr old friend's funeral at Wat Hua Hin in early December last year. Very sad but not a sudden death and he was sick for sometime. In the next room was the funeral of one the young ladies killed in the car crash on the Hua Hin train tracks a few days before. They were very emotional with lots of tears for such a tragic and avoidable loss. I've been to many Thai "funerals" and varying levels of emotion depending on the age and circumstances.

 

If it's a violent death, then yes.

But "just another elderly village person passing away" does not seem to generate tears. That would be unusual in the West, and typical Westerners might think you're a cold-blooded monster if you act like it's just another normal day, and talk about delicious som tam while your mother's burning body is spewing smoke everywhere.

Russians typically stick to the beach-type tourist traps in Pattaya and Phuket. They don't enjoy going off the beaten path.

You almost never find them in the interior north or in Isan. It's typically NW Europeans who go there.

Slim? No way.

Every time I see a Thai woman washing or cooking, it's always a short, stocky woman with big, fat arms and calves.

The slim delicate ones are usually playing with their phones and don't do much physical work.

Outside of farang countries, a loan is often a euphemism for a gift.

Always expect a loan to be something that you might not get back and are comfortable with losing forever. It should always be surplus money that you don't know what to do with. Otherwise, don't bother lending.

4 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Alot less tourism. Though it must be hard on alot of Thais, many who are no doubt unemployed, it sure is nice as an ex-pat. I don't expect tourism to EVER rebound to it's former levels. Too much has changed around the world, and too little of what should have, and could have changed and improved here, has not. 

2015-2019 were definitely the years of overtourism in Thailand.

Let's hope that things don't get back to this.

Thais are resilient. They always just find something else to do. It's not like the US where people call the cops on illegal street vendors all the time, so the only people doing street vending are typically undocumented migrants. Everyone else either has to survive on welfare or become homeless.

UPS Express. Flat fee for one envelope is around 1.800 baht.

The IRS recommends using UPS, FedEx, and DHL.

On 1/25/2023 at 11:01 PM, ubonr1971 said:

Is this post for real?

 

OP please read the footnote above of member brianthainess. 

Because farang countries are known for taxing everything. Thais are shocked when I tell them about how farang governments tax everything they can think of. Farangs are afraid to go back to their home countries for extended periods of time, or else they'd be taxed. But for self-employed / informal sector Thais: "Tax? What's that?"

Few Thais who are not employed in the formal sector actually pay taxes. The government just doesn't seem to care.

The only "tax" that you need to be aware of is that Thai banks can charge incoming transfer fees.

I got charged these rates by Siam Commercial Bank just this month since I sent money via Moneygram (better rates and lower fees, even with SCB fees) instead of Wise:

200,000 baht transfer - 300 baht fee

100,000 baht transfer - 200 baht fee

50,000 baht transfer - 150 baht fee

Quote

In Thailand, with most on lower incomes, you would expect that Thai families would also be careful about waste....... NO!

That's the norm all over Thailand. Give them a small plate of food, and you'll see almost always see some bits left over. They might not eat some of the veggies, or decide that they don't want to eat all the rice. Every time you walk into a restaurant, you'll see plates with food left in them after the customers leave.

It's unusual to see plates completely cleaned out with not a single grain of rice or bit of veggie remaining. That's how I clean out my plate: not a single scrap or morsel at all. In Thailand, if you see a plate as empty as that, you can tell that they're either foreigners or are Thais with different upbringings, perhaps raised abroad or in ethnic Chinese families.

That's why I'm careful with my plates of food when I'm at restaurants. "No, I'm not finished yet!" If you go off to take a short bathroom break and the plate is 1/3 full, the restaurant might assume that you're already finished with your food. I always have to tell them - not finished yet, I'll be back shortly!

Thailand is a big breadbasket and has an agricultural surplus. In both rural and urban areas, people usually have food that they don't finish and throw it to the dogs. Food is cheap even by their standards.

In fact, Thais are often surprised when I tell them about what food insecurity can be like in Western countries.

When eating with a group of Thais, I'm always the only person who finishes every single little morsel and cleans out every grain of rice. Typically no one notices or cares, but occasionally they might ask if I would like some more food when they seen an empty plate.

But the Burmese don't throw away food as often.