CrunchWrapSupreme

Heh, this is how it is in Thai education. During activities and English camps they're all playing on their phones, while 1-2 teachers do the work. But when it's all over they'll join in the group selfie, and all even likely get impressive looking certificates for it too.

Heh, you won't hear that from me. My wife's a สาวอวบ, tipping the scales at 70 kg and only 5 feet. We're also both 45, but she's actually a few months older. Check out Travel Ruby on YouTube for reference. Gotta have something to work with man.

Indeed. This is a huge portion of the Thai economy that goes unreported. Every time they bring up the percentage of the Thai GDP that's tourism, they grossly underestimate it to save face. They won't readily admit how reliant they are on the rest of the world coming in, yet during the Covid lockdown this became clear. What percentage of the Issan population can buy all those big TVs and fridges in Homepro and Thai Watsadu, or qualify for credit? Yet somehow they're moving, and they very well can't move themselves.

I know the OP said older folks, but I'll go ahead and give you the "younger" perspective (I'm feeling old already) for comparison. For those of us in our 30's and 40's, the only way to remain in Thailand is with a good career. A cushy expat placement with a big multinational, or a top intl school as a teacher. Such opportunities are quite the minority. The rest of us are likely to be lowly govt school teachers like me, who cannot make a future in Thailand for me and my wife. My school out here in the Issan sticks can't believe it. They're sad to see me go, and it won't be easy to find a good replacement. They really thought 40k was quite generous and I'd be staying indefinitely. But it is not. So we're now waiting on the wife's I-130 to get her back to the States with me. I'll be going first, where my intl teaching experience now affords me to teach the incoming intl students at a university, and she'll be following me hopefully a few months after, to fill one of the many available roles in hospitality.

My wife would love to take such a job with her extensive hotel and restaurant experience. But she and countless others like her will point to their ridiculous requirements, that they really ought to scrap: 1. University degree. 2. Under 30 only. Oh well. We're just waiting on her I-130, as the US is more than happy to take her at $20+ USD/hr.

This has already happened. Given his impressive results in the last election, Mr. P and his cronies dug up the dirt. They found that he was at one time part owner of a small magazine owned by his mom. A ridiculous little travel magazine stuffed into the back pockets of seats in domestic airlines. Nonetheless, this violated the rules saying that no politicians can also be in media, and so he was pushed out. There's also a rule saying convicted felons can't be in politics either, like that guy who served drug trafficking time in Australia, with fake college degrees from a run down storefront in California, yet there he still is. But awhile he can't actively run for political office anymore, Thanathorn still acts as the face of his party. Some have said that ban has actually played out quite well for him, as it sent the msg loud and clear, "Mr. P's afraid of him. He must be good.", thus bolstering his party. Yet unfortunately, given the more popularity he's picking up, as you say, more measures might be taken to ban his presence completely. Say perhaps, an "unfortunate accident", like that famous, crazy, Thai-Indian guy tried to do a few months ago, jumping on Mr. T with a fake bomb scare at a convention. Oh Thailand. Can't make this stuff up.

Ah hah. You've touched upon an important point here. Given her vocabulary, I've at times been amazed with what my wife's been able to put together. I can tell she's got a lot more in there upstairs than she lets on, and only her limited grasp of the language is getting in the way. I think the same goes for most Thais. I can tell she's especially passionate about her country's adversities, that she'd just love to get out with a high level, academic speech in English about it, but can't. The inequality, the corruption, the lack of opportunity, the education system. She makes do with what she has, quite the Thai way, resulting in a lot of "they no have, no good jobs, don't want to learn, too much cheating, govt not work good", you get the idea. Would you really want to hear, "Indeed, the systemic failings in the Thai political system indicate…" on a daily basis, even from your countrymen? Hah! I'm taking her back to the US, and at 45 I doubt she'll be going to university to ever get out that high level speech. But I don't think it's necessary. I know what she means, and that time would be better spent going to work and sending some money back home to the fam, during which she'll most likely pick up some better English anyway. Something they often told us in my ESL program was not to judge a book by its cover regarding "broken English". While it certainly indicates a limitation in language, it tells nothing about limitations in intelligence. You really don't know what's in there as they can't yet get it out, and they'll need your help in doing so. That ought to be the takeaway from this thread. While you wouldn't want every convo to be deep and intellectual, with a little digging, patience, and hand holding, it could get a bit closer to that, on those occasions one tires of hearing about somtam.

Agreed. Not every convo has to be "deep" or "intellectual". In fact they rarely are, with anybody, men or women, your own countrymen or other cultures. I don't know where people are getting the idea they have to be. Maybe those long monologues characters do with each other in movies, about saving the world or whatever. Or maybe listening to too many podcasts. But they're not real life, which is more likely going to be what somebody did today, what so and so said, something they saw on TV, something stupid or funny that happened. Nearly 10 years in the LOS, 5 years with my Thai wife, happy to say it's gone 90% well. I just turned in my resignation at my school. Next step is teaching back in the US, and bringing her back home to mom. I think it's gonna work out.

So, you didn't want the wood? Heh. Many are going for exactly this rustic look, metal on wood. I thought it was intentional before I started reading. Just stain and seal it and call it a day.

Again? Last time it was revealed that hoteliers quickly booked rooms full of fake guests, then simply pocketed the cash.

It's getting bad. At least 5 boys in my village, 16-20, long since dropped out of school, lay around on their phones all day, zoom about back and forth on motorbikes, then wander around all night chasing dogs, smashing random things, and stealing random things from front yards.

Bikes like in the OP are the hot ticket right now across Thailand. Two, count em two different shops, just opened a block away from each other in the changwat capital here. They're loaded up wall to wall with em. They're importing em by the container load from that land of fat pandas, and making a killing. There must be a good margin. It's a bit similar to the "pocket bike" craze in the US about 20 years ago, small bikes similar to these, but with little gas engines. Soon the streets were full of em, and so the cops put an end to that charade. A friend of mine had to close his shop selling em. We'll see how that plays out here.

Sure it does. Many teachers like me are reading this story and relishing in him getting his comeuppance. Me and countless other teachers have dreamt of being compensated for the abuse we've had to face. I really wish I had one of those camera pens in my shirt pocket to document it, at that certain, famous name BKK private school I once endured, with its deep pockets. Me and a lawyer could've then presented the footage and said we're going to the labor board. Or, a few million baht baht settle it now. Then I'd bring it back up here to Issan, to buy the plots of land surrounding my wife's family farm, then fix up the farmhouse with more solar cells, batteries, water tanks etc, getting plenty of pics of the smiling, dark skinned people they absolutely detest. Then I'd wrap it all up with big sign in front, "Thanks BKK hi-sos". ????????

Cheers, mates. ????????

Last one out needs to turn off the lights. Not many of us left here. Many have gone home, due to bad currency rates, fed up with scams, immigration hurdles, etc. The older folks here meet the inevitable. Then there is no rejuvenation with new, younger members, as they're all on social media.

I know exactly how they come up with these lame excuses, one after another. They learn it in school. Whenever there's incident, a fight, a theft, serious misbehavior, the group is called into the office to sit on the floor around a teacher's desk. Then they are grilled. The teacher tries to get them to admit fault, and they quickly learn how to dodge and deflect. This goes on for 5-10 mins and the students are let go. There are almost never any consequences. The lesson they then learn is, not to fix the problem, not to change behavior, but to just keep throwing out excuses to eventually get it over with, and move on.

Oh, they're very good at: Playing on Facebook or Instagram, online shopping, collecting dozens of little packages from the front office, applying cosmetics, taking selfies, gossiping, crying to their BFs/husbands, planning vacations and weddings, printing out then dropping off worksheets, barking out a 5 min pep talk to their homeroom class at the morning assembly, then taking off for coffee.

Wow, I've never seen entire fields set ablaze like that. We live near Khon Kaen. Here the leaves are hacked off and only the cane sticks are taken in. They won't be accepted otherwise. Also, only the leaves are burned on the ground to provide fertilizer. Wife says it works very well. We drove by the huge Mitr Phol factor in KK last week, and saw the huge queue of loaded trucks waiting to dump their loads. I didn't see any burnt cane, don't think it's accepted. Get your cane in now, posted prices are now are 1700 baht a ton.

That's why my wife pushed me to buy a new car, not second hand. Even if it's a newer used car, they'll often swap out many of the parts with cheap knockoffs.

Totally agree, yet the US has been shooting itself in the foot lately by saying they want more consumers, then turning around and outsourcing, laying off, and more recently, turning to automation. 20 years ago, former HP CEO Carly Fiorina said something like "There's no job that Americans have a right to anymore", in defense of her outsourcing. Well gee, fine. Looks like you've got fewer people left to buy your computers. Similarly, now it looks like ChatGPT is after all the customer service, research, copywriting, and journalism jobs. Such companies are salivating at the thought of "Wow, we can increase our profits by getting all these guys off our payroll, and replacing them with AI". Uhh, no, your profits will be zero once you've left everyone with no jobs, and no money to buy your products. Maybe the AI bots will be their new customer base. It's gonna turn around tho. Already retailers are rethinking all the self-checkout machines, and going back to humans, as rampant theft with customers tricking the machines is negating any cost savings, heh. Sorry if that was a bit off topic. Bringing it back, be it a company or a country, the strategy should be making the product more accessible to all to increase revenue, rather than hoping to squeeze more revenue out of a few. Anything that makes the product less accessible is the road to ruin.

They've been wanting me to make full lesson plans. As you probably heard, stacks of documents are very impressive, whether or not they really mean anything. At first I was doing two weeks of plans, but then they wanted the topic changed every week, as doing the same thing too many times "makes them bored". The reality is more like they want a bigger stack of paper. I said we can't just move onto another topic if they haven't got the first one, as most of the class isn't listening, are missing due to activities or cutting class, or we've got yet another holiday. Add to that the fact most of the teachers aren't even teaching. Many times you'll walk by a room and see the kids in there just running amok. Their teachers are usually in a "meeting", or have simply dropped off a worksheet, or wrote an assignment on the board so they can go back to the office and get back on Facebook. This explains much of why the students are so disengaged when they finally get a "real" class with one of the foreigner teachers, and why most foreigner teachers eventually quit really teaching also, as no one else is either.

Several of my students have asked me this. Now I'm at this moment with my wife. Looks like our years in the LOS are now coming to an end. We're both at 45, with about another 20 years of work left in us, which would be better done back in the US. I teach English online and once had a Japanese businessman. A usual topic is what our families are up to. I said my wife was out cutting the sugar cane. He goes "She can already speak English? What the **** is she doing out cutting sugar cane?" Haha. He was absolutely right. I gotta get her outta here, to where the supermarkets are paying $20/hr. When she's not cutting the sugar cane, she gets about 10-15 bucks a day with a stall in the market. If you're already retired and sitting on a nice pension, fine, you could live it out here in the LOS, where it'd certainly go further. But I don't, so gotta take her back.

Go to Pakse, Laos, stay at the lovely Pakse Hotel. Dine at the rooftop restaurant. Have a big steak and 2-3 big Beerlaos. Then take the bus to cross at Chong Mek, then go to Ubon. Smooth sailing.

One of our dogs once jumped out of the saleng (motorbike sidecar), then bit and killed a chicken, one of the many that roam the sois. Everyone knows a whole gai ban (country style, freshly prepared chicken) can be had in the market for about 200 baht. But to compensate the dead chicken at the hands of the wife's dog, married to the farang, that the whole tambol (subdistrict) knows, 1000 baht. You can argue about it all you want. But if you want to keep the peace, just pay the compensation, and be more careful next time.

This right there. I'm a high school teacher. They just can't put the things down. 1. They get used to constant stimulation, a bombardment of flashing movement and colors. They then can't focus on lessons in class, and grades fail. 2. The above, but also in regards to the rest of real life, which then pales in comparison. No drive to go out, see friends, do things, when there's effortless stimulation to be had on the phone. Sometimes when I enter a classroom before school starts, there's kids laying on the floor with their phones, instead of playing and talking outside. This number has been increasing. 3. Social media. A constant need to check up who's saying what, the latest gossip, the competition, so and so's saying this or that about them, then they gotta measure up. Creates anxiety. 4. And finally, the advertising, on which all the Internet runs. In order to get all of its material for free, the companies must constantly throw out ads in the hopes of someone buying something. Cosmetics, fashion, cars, phones, travel. But just who is buying? Certainly not the kids of poor Issan farmers laying about in the village, or in back of the BKK sois while dad's hustling for Grab, and mom's wiping down the street food cart. The message then becomes subconsciously ingrained from an early age: these are the things you want and should have, but you cannot.