scorecard

I do too, just keep stating 'it's now the law in Thailand the patient can buy their medicines outside of the hospital if they so wish. First time I did this I got several items of pushback: E..g. From the accountant at a hospital in Chiang Mai 'But you have to get the permisssion of the doctor before you do that.' I responsed with 'It's now law in Thailand patients can buy their prescribed medicines outside of the hospital. That's the law and you can't change/adjust that law', and this matter is not part of a doctors' duties'. Accountant then said 'but we will have to cancel all the many documents.' I said 'show me the documents.' it was 2 simple documents. Accountant then said 'we will call the police.' I responded 'Do you have the number for the police, here it is' (on my phone). Then I held up an order from the health ministry stating 'patient can buy medicines outside...' And said 'Please give me a list of the medicines the doctor prescribed.' She refused. My response 'Well I'm sure I can remember and I said the names of 1 cream and one tablet'. Now the cashier quickly chips in with 'Yes that's correct'. Accountant now furious and gives the cashier a lecture. I made matters worse by getting the attention of about 15 patients/customers waiting to pay their bills and I shared with them in Thai 'It's now law in Thailand that patents can buy their medicines outside of the hospital'. Quickly 3 or 4 waiting folks rushed to the cashier window saying they would buy their medicines outside so please give me a bill without medicines. By this stage the cashier has printed a new bill for me - without medicines. I asked her 'is this the final bill?' She indicated 'yes', I paid and walked out.

Agree, way too many factors/situations and different limits. Guranteed confusion.

Also I've found, when discussing the OAP with other Aussies the following point is often misunderststood: - The OAP is paid every 4 weeks. It's not paid at the end of each month (every 4 weeks for folks living outside of OZ who want their payments transferred to a Thai (or whatever), fortnightly for folks living in Australia). In other words it's NOT paid at the end of each calendar month. - Every 4 weeks means that there's 13 payments per year. - To calculate that as a monthly amount: ...... Multiply the 4 weekly amount by 13 and then divide the answer by 12 to get a monthly amount.

Good point. And seems to me that nothing will really change until the masses really notice thing have changed for the better and they then openly/blindly support and embed actual valuable changes.

I agree, when Future Forward FF (or whatever their name is now) gain power, and they will but not tomorrow, it won't be long before corruption, cronyism, nepotism all start to emerge. They are alll so ingrained they will all be lurking in the shadows with people who have seen these items as part of politics all of their lives, and see them as 'normal'. And many see them as 'the way' to gain business success regardless of laws and morals. All sorts of these people will put pressure on the FF ministers for favors. Some of this will come from current politicians who will try to get their foot in the door with FF. Not because of any respect for FF policies, but for chances to get near any trough that might appear. This will be one of the many challenges that FF will face and they will have to be very strong to stop these activities. And I fear violence might happen. There's a long hard road ahead. Go FF.

Agree, The Thai language should NEVER be used to explain English. Experienced professional, trained and knowledgebale English teachers know how to successfully teach English wihout using Thai (or any local language). One of the worst western teachers I've ever encountered could write/read/speak very advanced Thai. 80+% of the time in his classroom devoted to displaying his Thai language capabilities and he wondered why the kids weren't making any progress and not attending and parents complaining. His response (excuse) was 'but how can the kids learn English if I con't explain it all in Thai?'. the school principal told him to stop using Thai in the class room. He refused. He got sacked from several schools, left Thailand and went back to Melbourne, Australia and he got a job in an English language school in melbourne. The majority of the students were Thai. After first day most of the students complained 'We came to Melbourne to get away from Thai language, now we're immersed in Thai again, this is not what we paid for'. Teacher sacked at end of day 1.

Keep in mind that the 7/11 operator will be focused strongly on cost of operation and wages/benefits will be in their spotlight. Also, there's likely to be policies of: - 'How difficult are they to replace? Tangled with 'What hard to find skills are needed? For an operation like 7/11 the answer to both points tangles together 'not difficult to replace' Plus if an avaerage size store is short 1, even 2 staff for a few days just expect the remaining staff to work harder to process the customers (take the money) whilst ensuring there's zero/very little effect on total revenues per day/month.

There's a twist to that, I speak pretty good Thai, several times when I was with my Thai wife (before she passed away) and with my Thai son I would speak to the waiter etc., in pretty good Thai and continue a conversation with my family in Thai. Lots of looks 'how can this be!' When my son met his GF we all got invited to her parents house, her aunt's houses etc. Son's GF loved a good joke, she never told them that he BFs father was a farang. I turned up and spoke very politely to her parents / aunts in good Thai. One aunt repeated 'but I can't speak English. Son's GF said 'aunty he's speaking Thai', but she never seemed to grasp that I was speaking Thai. I've also had the experience of turning up at a Thai family party/dinner etc., and instant panic 'but we don't have any farang food'. My wife or son or son's GF would repeat several times 'don't worry he loves / prefers Thai food. Sometimes it had to be repeated many times before the penny dropped.

"...I may say that I can speak Swiss German without any accent which I believe is quite rare for a German. ..." This reminds me of a man from a down under land. Born in Germany, sent to OZ as a refugee child at about 5 years old. Grew up to a be quite hot headed, loud anger appeared very quickly at the drop of a hat. Very determined that everythng must be exactly as he wants and on time! Skip many decades, friends convinced him to take a holiday in Thailand. He returned to Oz already with numerous books etc., and with a solid determination to learn to read, comprehend, write and converse in perfect Thai. And he did learn the language for many years. He retired and moved to Thailand, all ready to immerse himself in Thai language in every situation, all day every day. He had no difficulty whatever to read and understand Thai newspapers,Thai textbooks, signs, and to understand what Thai people were saying, etc. But when he spoke Thai his strong thick German accent was tangled with the Thai words. Very often the Thai folks he was trying to converse with said 'mai kowchai' (I don't understand) or ignored him. And the more his strong German accent got in the way he got increasingly angry and as this happened his Thai construction was missing politeness. Further, he would tell the Thai folks that they were stupid and didn't know their own langauge, because they didn't understand him. Eventually he started to listen to an old friend who had been trying to tell him that he was the person with a problem which was his strong thick German accent and his loudness. About 1 year after he arrived in Thailand he got into a severe argument with customers and staff at a Thai supermarket and the police were called. Taken to the local police station the police snr., told him to leave Thailand quickly. A couple of days later he flew back to OZ. Never came back to Thailand.

We've had the opposite experience; my Thai son looks very tThai (very handsome), never know he has a farang father. A few times he's been to his daughters schools and told the office staff he wants to speak to teacher xxx (farang). Teacher comes at agreed time etc., farang teachers quick reaction: - 'but I can't speak Thait'. - Son's instant response in perfect English 'OK, can you speak English?' All in the room initially freeze, then my Thai son continues to talk, in full English, to tell the teacher why he's come to school.

+ 1, Beware, beware, they are everywhere and eat everything...

- Maybe he does. - Maybe his wife talks with the teachers? - If the children have good English from home immersion and outside of school tuition, maybe they help dad to talk to the teachers.

Keep in mind that part (just part) of this situation involves 'avoiding confrontation / avoiding uncomfortable situations and discussions'. A discussions about resignation would, for many folks, be seen as confrontation / awkward and best avoided.

"...Your post history up until recently is a constant stream of pro junta ...". That's not true. A question; Are you a trump fan, numerous statements by the week which are mostly 100% untrue, twisted etc?

'Policies to reduce poverty'. Well that would be wonderful but is it really that simple. At that time there was an outspoken Thai lady in my office, her father was a snr. policeman in a large very poor upcountry area/ The lady was so proud of her dad for several reasons. One was that he supervised the distribution of the 'envelopes' to support vote buying. And she make no attempt to hide any of the details she was aware of. Further she proudly told all how the people were told verbally in a visit byone of the party canvassers that: - An enevelope will be in your letter box early morning on xx/xx/xxxx. - When you go to vote you must tick YYYY. If you don't we will know and we will tell all your neighbors you don't support the savior. (In an upcounty village being ostracized by all the other people in the village is very serious/very undesireable/even frightening). This same group (Snr cop and canvassers) did the foot work when each village got 1mBaht and in many villages it was doled out to the villagers. Suddenly mobile phones for sale appeared in shops and there was pressue to buy them with the personal dole out from the 1MBaht village fund. Guess where the phones came from in terms of the wholesaler? At that time one of my son's buddies had a ML title, passed on from the boys' mother. The mother was a very snr person in the Thai finance ministry. She was appointed (not asked to join) a committee to monitor how the 1MBaht to each village was being used. She was no pushover. She refused to accept the reports given by the poliricat appointees in her office, she went herself to several villagers to ask around etc. She discovered that many very poor villagers now had phones, but there was a problem they couldn't afford the 'Top up' cards on sale (at this time 'top up cards were one of the main ways to get further phone credit). So the phone companies introduced 10Baht Top up cards. The lady went back to Bkk, appraoched the minister involved and shared what she had found and shared that she would not allow herself to be part of the 'monitoring committee' and resigned. She was punished for years for not supporting the 'system'.

Suggest you check the facts, it was proposed, in detail by the dems. Nobody is saying everything bad in Thailand is Thaksin's fault, that's just your beat up to try to make him look better. Reality is that there's a number of negative forces in this country, has been for decades and they still exist.

I wonder if there is any official process involved to check: - Does the driver actually have any drivers license? - Does the driver have a past record of collisions or failure to follow laws (e.g. auto notices for running red lights, etc)?

That's what I was thinking.

New airport: Built to a 30 year old plan, not reviewed or updated to include new engineering concepts/learnings, opened with massive operational problems, pushed because it was an opportunity for corruption. Quickly big problems with runways failing, they were less than up to spec re quality. 30 Baht medical cover, yes he got it up and running. Remeber that It was a fully detailed policy of the Democrat party, he jumped on it and called it a Thakson idea.

Backpedalling and trying to hit the poster rather than the message. Not a good view.

OK, it's compulsory for kids to attend school. Perhaps it's possible that some parents ignore that law? I'm aware of some sociology research which found a larger than expected number of kids not going to school, not attending at all. Goes like this: - Parents go to work in factories, kids get sent back to the village to live with / be raised by grandma. - Grandma has never been to school, she doesn't send the kids to school because in her understanding 'kids just go to school to play, and it costs some money, so I keep them home, they can play at home'.

Just your assumption, not everrybody does that. On the other hand is it not common for people to sue for compensation etc., in most cases in many so called advanced countries?

A quick google search: - The literacy rate for Thailand is 92.3% - 95% of Thai children attend some form of school, 5% don't.

But if he didn't attend maybe he would miss out on the meeting fee, which I understand is quite high. Whether he contributed anything to the meeting/dicussion is another story.

Different example: 2 bigger/stronger/loud P1 boys, both seated at the back of the class room, were regularly molesting girls in the same class. Turns out one boy was holding girls from behind, the other boy pulling their panties down and fingering them. Old female teacher knew about it and told all the students to never mention it. Teacher did nothing/said nothing to the 2 errant boys or their parents. One girl who had been molested sereral time told her parents one evening. Next morning parents appraoched the teacher who tried to change the subject and then inisted she had a lot of tasks and was too busy to take care of this matter. Parents asked the teacher: - If the parents of the 2 errant boys had been told. Answer 'No because I am frightened of them'. - If the headmistress had been told. Answer 'No because the headmistress won't listen she insists that teachers must take care of these matters'. Parents get more serious with the old teacher 'What are you going to do?'. Answer 'At the start of next semester I'll move the 2 errant boys to the front of the class and tell them they cannot move to the back of the class. Parents contacted the school director who insisted that the teacher must do something and then hung up. End of semester came up and at the end of first day of the new semester parents of the girl mentioned above went to the class room half hour before end of the day. The 2 errant boys sitting at the rear of the class yelling and harrassing other kids. Teacher at the front talking to the class nobody listening to her. Parents called the police. A female officer was nearby and came quickly. Teacher got forced retirement next day. Police officer contacted someone in HO of ED. Ministry at Sanam Luang in Bkk. Headmistress got forced very early retirement. New teacher came from another school. Police lady sat most of the day in the back of the class room and spoke to the 2 running wild boys several times and told them to behave themselves. At end of second day police lady waited for the parents of both 2 errant boys and took them (with the new teacher and new headmistress) to the local police station. After some investigation the parents of the 2 errant boys were told 1 parent of each boy had to sit in the class room near their son, all day, and discipline the boy. Parents were fined (don't know how many Baht.) Now some action (but I don't reallly support severe corporal punishment) immediately an errant boy misbehaved or disrupted the class the parent produced a large thick stick and walked the kid around the class room while many times hitting the kid strongly on his backside and on the back of his legs. After this happened twice to both boys they became very timid and behaved themselves. Police woman came back twice a day for a week. No further problems.