indothai

So true. My favourite used to be motorcycles on the sidewalk vooming past me and I almost lost it when one clipped my girlfriend. This and many other things no longer bother me so you're right as tolerance had settled in.

Tolerance, or resignation?

They ain't the same thing.

I think it is resignation... sad, but it's how I sometimes feel also. Seems everyone is right and wrong all at the same time.

Is it possible to tolerate someone peeing in your face? Literally. For me no, but if I can't do anything about it then... I would have resigned to the fact, even though it is intolerable.

I agree, and it's all from a misconstrued idea of tax money from public parks or public accessible venues.

Those "public" venues are actually paid for by the tax payers. Depending on the public venue, some may have to charge additional fees to cover expenses. Unfortunately, this idea was not properly conveyed / explained by the government, thus can lead to extreme corruption. I'm using the word "corruption" very very loosely.

In fact, I think there is a law that prohibits companies to have separate pricing strategies that promotes discrimination. Unfortunately, there's no one policing or enforcing the laws or preventing this behaviors, so it goes very very rampant in Thailand.

Another misconstrued idea is that Thais believe that foreigners are rich. I seriously don't know how they got that idea, apparently Thai's have never bothered to compare car prices. Just based on this fact, it's very very apparent that Thai's are far richer than the average foreigner. Hell, a foreigner will use coupons at the grocery store far more often than a Thai. I'm half Thai and I use coupons.... will do so and will try to save where ever I can.... I'm definitely not ashamed for it.

That said, I seriously don't know why they all think that foreigners are rich. Maybe they saw some "farang" in a Ferrari and assumed that everyone in USA or UK or Australia has one in their garage?

I've seen great team work and absolute manure. And we are all generalizing here, and I'll try to help out by being specific so that you can get your job done.

Is your boss Thai or Foreigner?

- If Thai, then he is either expecting you to fail or expecting you to do great things.

-- Did you oversell yourself? Telling him/her you can do great and wonderful things without doing your homework? <<time to do your homework>>

- If he is a Foreigner, then he failed trying to do what you are currently doing and now looking for someone to get the job done. Careful, you could be the fall guy.

-- Best case scenario is that he heard great things about you and chose you for the job. Did you do your homework carefully before taking on the task?

Who get's to fire them?

- You?

-- If you get to fire them, then you lack management skills and lack the understanding of the Thai culture.

-Or your boss?

-- If your boss get's to fire them, get your boss to tell them that your words are the same as his. You will be able to recommend bonuses, promotions, as well as termination. If he is not on board, prepare to find to work elsewhere 'cause this is going to be a long ass tiring road for you.

Here's my take:

Thai generally do note take orders from Foreigners, but those that do "take orders" understand the "corporate culture" and know how to do their jobs when "taking orders" from a Foreigner(s). Understand the culture and history of Thailand and you'll master doing business in Thailand. Learn the history and culture from books and professors, but that alone would not be enough. You also have to do to "observe" how Thais interact with each other. Talk to a lot of Thais (I do hope you have a lot of Thai friends), and understand their behaviors... observe them, see how they interact with each other. You will be perplexed and at times confused, that's where your good Thai friend comes in to help explain the behavior.

Thais will generally respect a Foreigner more if "said" Foreigner speaks their language and apply cultural behaviors with them, this is usually true with older Thais (40's onwards, the older the harder it becomes for Foreigners).

Understand this. Even though you are their boss, Thai culture would trump that in a heartbeat. Because they are older, you need to show respect and know how to give orders accordingly.

good luck.

I live in a condo on Sathorn, same problems with the water pipes. Cost cutting measures to increase profits to all parties.

Chiang Rai has experienced many earthquakes.... did the people there learn anything or did life just continue as if it never happened and will never happen again?

Our 15 years old Sukhumvit 4 star quality hi-rise was fitted with galvanized water pipes

through out that should have lasted for around 30 years or so, but already 2-3 years ago

most of the pipes are getting clogged with rust and cracks appears on the outside

of those 2-4" pipes, in any other responsible country you'd have a recourse and some one

to complain to... no suck luck in this country....

This news was done by The Nation. And the article was sponsored by the new condominium association of Bangkok. (i'm kidding about the sponsor, but I bet it's true.)

Can anyone find the 17 towers mentioned in the article...apparently there was a seminar about it and I wonder if the buildings was named.

If a 7 magnitude earthquake were to hit Bangkok, the last thing we have to worry about are those 17 towers. Highways, Hospitals, Banks, water infrastructure, electricity infrastructure..... and most importantly, the internet will be disrupted!

Like some said, "if they want something, they will be on time".

I work in an office/business environment and I do find Thai tardiness infuriating. But it is due to the following:

- It is possible that traffic has something to do with it. Common sense... if you set a meeting half way across town, expect tardiness (super-specially in Thailand).

- Disrespect. Plain and simple they don't respect you and they know you can't do anything about it. Unless you are the boss, they will forever be late.

- Show of importance. "Something important came up and I had to tend to it first." ....like scratching their ass.

- They've seen that their boss(s) comes in late for meetings, so they take to that example. They want to "feel" important, so they come in late.

- They don't want to be told what to do. Since you arranged the meeting, they will take it as a sign of submission. Thai's are obviously the most important person on the blah..blah..blah.

I've seen some foreigners charge for late meetings. Meaning, if you come in late, you pay xx amount. But this is usually for the management side, this can't work for anyone lower than a manager.

How do I deal with it. Just go with the flow, useless in trying to fix something you can't.

I still attend meetings on time, regardless of who sets it. Hell, the janitor can set a meeting and I'll be spot on time.

Misguided concept that increasing the threshold will make better drivers for all of us.

These test are designed solely to reduce the amount of traffic on the roads and absolutely nothing to reduce accidents!

The danger now are the existing drivers on the road, and absolute lack of enforcement and discipline. Oh yeah, and fix those broken traffic signals, missing signs, blocked signs, etc..etc.

You have the Toyota "built" navigation system... looks very similar to the factory built Camry which is very expensive.

I wonder if your DVD would work in my Camry? hint hint.

I find my toyota unit quite usefull, its certainly not a "piece of crap". You dont say what model you have but mine is from a 2010 fortuner. I also have a Garmin nuvi and they operate in an almost identical way. They even have the same map installed, CN Thailand 2014.10.

You are correct, you cannot "force highways only" but under the navigation settings you can enable Avoidances so that it does not use unpaved roads.

You should also check your Route Preference setting.

We obviously have completly different units ... I have a 2013 Fortuner ...

My GPS is 100% crap and useless ...

The "Settings" consists of two "Screens":

20140604_153219.jpg
20140604_153324.jpg

There are no avoidance, or any other navigation settings at all !

I'll be happy to meet you and show it to you !

As You Can see the choices are very limited ...

This is the Map CD:
20140604_153400.jpg


Luudee

Air conditioning sales people love it.

The installers of these air-cons love it.

Mitsubishi, Daikin, etc are surely going to profit nicely from the heat.

MEA (Metropolitan Electricity Authority) love it.

I thought you were criticizing, my apologies for criticizing you back without fully understanding your position.

I get tired of off-topic responses and I thought yours was one of them.

Anyhoo, before buying a new car, always find out the price of the maintenance items. HID's are another one of my other frustrations (a whole other topic).

... ?

that it's really old.

Suvarnabhumi launched in 2006.

"that's really saying something" is an unfamiliar phrase to you?

I'd thought it was pretty universal throughout the English-speaking world.

To this day, my navigation unit is years old, still missing Suvarnabhumi Airport.

wow

that's really saying something

what is it saying?

your one liner fails to enlighten me.

To this day, my navigation unit is years old, still missing Suvarnabhumi Airport.

wow

that's really saying something

what is it saying?

your one liner fails to enlighten me.

I'm against pirated goods, but this is a good "first step".

The sale of pirated goods isn't so clear cut, so i'm not going to pretend there is an easy solution for it... but this is definitely a good step.

Now we will so how serious our current "government" is to rid of corruption.

When did changing lanes become illegal?

My guess is when drivers change lanes when they cross over the solid white lines. It's a very serious offence to cross over those solid white lines....

I mean, if you were to be driving and decide to cross over a solid white line, the world would end !!! Camera's will help prevent this !!!

What the hell is a lane change camera?

I think I can identify the problem,

there are certain junctions where there is one lane dedicated to traffic turning left while the other two/three lanes are for straight on. Lots of drivers want to go straight on but the line of stationary traffic is getting longer and longer, so they slide into the empty left turn lane, drive a few hundred metres past all the waiting traffic, then barge back in at the point where the two lanes diverge. By pushing in like this, minivan drivers can save twenty minutes on one journey so they are masters at it. They need to do something as this practice really slows the traffic flow and these cameras will identify the perpetrators.

Ahh, ok. got it.

Yes, lets throw technology at this problem.

Technology smart. It can fix things and make it go.

guys.. please... i'm lost. What are lane change cameras.

What the hell is a lane change camera?

The Toyota built in GPS is a piece of crap to start of. Can't force

highways only and many other features are lacking. Once it took me

on a journey through single lane dirt roads, to go from Pattaya to

Koh Chang. Well, I stopped using it after 10 minutes of that crap ...

I will NEVER again get their built in GPS package. I used a Garmin

before and after I tried the Toyota GPS, I pulled my Garming from

the "For Sale forum", and am still using it for new destination trips.

100% waste of money ... not even bother to ask for a Map upgrade ...

luudee

I find my toyota unit quite usefull, its certainly not a "piece of crap". You dont say what model you have but mine is from a 2010 fortuner. I also have a Garmin nuvi and they operate in an almost identical way. They even have the same map installed, CN Thailand 2014.10.

You are correct, you cannot "force highways only" but under the navigation settings you can enable Avoidances so that it does not use unpaved roads.

P1020168.JPG

You should also check your Route Preference setting.

P1020167.JPG

Your screen shots looks very much like a Garmin unit. It's very possible that Toyota outsourced their mapping hardware to Garmin, Honda did it to one of their models (forgot which one).

If you don't mind paying for a phone call why not just call Panasonic Thailand and ask them?

I did, but they told me to call a retailer. Pretty vague on which retailer and even more vague if that retailer would help.

It seems that I can't order direct from Panasonic, very odd.

I called Central, and they told me to call Panasonic, I told them they "they told me to call you guys".... wash-rinse-repeat. The lady told me she would ask her manager and would get back to me.... I'm guessing they are washing-rinsing-repeating among themselves.

I paid between 2000 to 3000 for my rice cooker, bought it a long time ago. One of those with menu and what nots so I could cook more than just rice and it'll do all the calculations. The inner pot is lined with some non-stick stuff, but now it's has worn out. Family have been washing it too aggressively, I guess.

I like the rice cooker, I think it's money well spent but I'd rather not buy a new one just because the inner pot has gone bad. I do hope that I could buy the inner pot easily.

Hi All,

Anyone know how I can buy the inner pot replacement for a Panasonic rice cooker in Bangkok ?

I've got a 2 Garmin units and a Garmin App on my iPhone. COMBINED still cheaper than the Toyota map upgrade!

So you guys can't navigate using a regular map and road signs? Are you offroaders?

We can, but I believe that was not the TOPIC.

I've got a 2007 Camry DVD Navigator and when I purchased the car they assured me that the upgrade was free under warranty. Utter bull !! 1 month before the warranty expired they said there was no update and explained that it's on the way and could incur a minor charge, asking how much they said they did not know but assured that it shouldn't be much.

Sure as turd, 1 month after the warranty expired I called again and they said the upgrade would cost 30,xxx baht. I was extremely pissed, emailed all the way to Toyota Japan.... the result... NADA. Toyota does not care about their customers. Their sales are complete useless and bullturd artists, and their technicians are back-alley hacks.

ok..ok.. i'm probably wrong about their technicians, but their management are full of turd...

To this day, my navigation unit is years old, still missing Suvarnabhumi Airport.

Ask me if I'll every buy a Toyota in Thailand again..... I love to give the answer.

Martial Law has it's advantages. Drive in whatever lane you like because there are no cops.

I was caught, today. And how does Martial Law affect traffic police?

what's the going rate in Bangkok now-a-days. I was stopped and opted for a cited ticket, going to see if there is any "logic" at the station.

Story:

I was at the left lane then a car drove out of a street, I couldn't brake in time so I changed lanes to avoid being hit. Just up ahead, the cops saw me and stopped me. I told them of the story and they laughed. They said it is illegal to drive on the middle and outer lanes.

so.. what's the going rate?