mgjackson69

What is "TPV" ?

from OP:

He wrote "Get a Thai Visa Next Time" and had me initial next to it in my passport.

That would make me a bit uneasy. It's very close to defacing your passport for the user to write on any visa/entry page, isn't it?

I had a friend denied entry to Japan because he drew a grid of lines on a page to guide Immigrations Officers to stamp appropriately so he could get more stamps per page. Drawing the lines voided his passport, according to them. How would they deem using your passport pages as a note pad?

Immigration officers can make notations in a passport as part of their duties...my passports contain various examples of this.

That is quite different than your friend drawing grid lines on the visa pages.

Banning motorbikes on flyovers is common sense. Have seen the riders responsible for accidents or near accidents weaving their way between other traffic on a flyover is extremely dangerous for obvious reasons. Now ready for the biker rant!!

It is not obvious at all

The recommended sleeping position has varied over the years.

On the side always seemed to make the most sense to me.

"...creepy deaths"

Not to be confused with "non-creepy deaths".

If I had to take a guess, it is that nobody here wants to pay for "blue sky"...that intangible worth beyond the property and improvements.

Its called 'Goodwill'

It is known by several different terms...."Good Will" and "Blue Sky" among them.

I have been in the aforementioned local bank twice in the past 3 years....once to get the loan, once to pay it off.

As for my own bank, I have been there physically maybe twice in the past 10 years, and not at all for the past 5 years. The branch where I opened my accounts is in a state where I do not live anymore; my accounts are still there only because I have had no compelling reason to move to a different bank.

Mississippi will care why?

Does this guy think he is so important?

When he needs his next paycheck he will be back...or not...who cares?

If I had to take a guess, it is that nobody here wants to pay for "blue sky"...that intangible worth beyond the property and improvements.

dont care what you do with your life, but...

your not a man in my book if your paying for it. thats different then helping out financially. you need to be man enough to know the difference.

if shes sticking around purely for the cash you gots to accept it for what it is.

not something i likes to display at restaurants or in front of other men or be proud off during those times its happened to me.

but you does whats you gots to do.

im going to make me a sammich now.

You always "pay for it".

Paying a bar girl for short time, or long time, or marrying someone....you are still paying for it.

If you add it up, the bar girls are cheaper than a wife.

Go ahead and lie to yourself...you think your Western wife is free?

Flood it with so much BS, that it quickly becomes irrelevant:

Facebook: dumb.ass
google: [email protected]

Where I frequent: Somjai's noodle stand and sidewalk bar, soi sukhumvit somewhere

MoPings massage: soi 3 somewhere

Hop Sing handjob: Soi 7 somewhere

etc etc etc

Too bad he got the order wrong...self first, then others

"Octogenarian" is important why?

Same as when you see something like "twelve dead, including two children".

Why is one loss of life more newsworthy than another?

Jai dee and Khee Niouw are not limited to "hooker talk".

Hookers and those who associate with hookers. Never heard any other Thai national use those words, ever.

And I used to live in a 'Thai only' community.

Add ting tong, and salop salie for the full set.

Think what you want.

I am comfortable knowing you are wrong.

You can have the last word, if it validates your position.

I wonder though...it is just as likely that some Immigration functionary got burned on a deal where some farang sold his yellow book to someone else, and the third party pulled some sort of low-level scam using that book.

It did not amount to jack-shit, but someone lost face because it happened. So some slightly-higher functionary said we cannot let this happen again.

I know, TIT and all, but it still amazes me how local offices of a national department can make their own rules.

Fortunately, I live in an area where the rules play in my favor, or at least not against me.

The ones who really got the wool pulled over their eyes on this one were the educated Bangkokians who think they know better than the baan nok (บ้านนอก) what is good for the country...the "reform before elections"/"anyone except Thaksin" crowd.

If they ever figure out how badly they were duped, it should get interesting.

Why do you think they are getting new metro lines ( purple and orange lines isn't it?) and so on.

When that tap runs dry the mutterings may well begin.

I cannot disagree there...

Big news public works distracts the masses.

"Bread and circuses...."

We joke about it on there forums, but stereotypes exist for a reason.

Nephew crashed motorbike...buffalo sick...grandmother died (three times so far this year)...Mom need <pick something>

It will never stop

As always, it is difficult to generalize across large groups of people, but in general, people who have never been around "money" (I am not rich by any means, but I manage my money well and have a good salary) do not have the first clue about how to use money to make money. I include my current wife in that category.

Not knowing how to use money to make money, you can include me in that group, along with most of the world population.

I can make stacks of cash working for other people, but I've never been able to use money to make money in my life.

Thank god for company pensions, they hand it out every month, and I can spend it, no thought required.

If I was to hand her some large amount of money today, and tell her that it had to last for the rest of her life, I can guarantee that most of it would be gone in short order...She is too jai dee for her own good, and has a bunch of family that knows that.

I do not keep tight rein on the purse strings because I am khee niouw or a hardass.

Jai dee and Kee neeow

Best to keep Thai hooker talk out of your posts, it's a bit of a give away.

Rule number 1 in Thailand, never repeat any Thai words you hear in a hooker bar.

Jai dee and Khee Niouw are not limited to "hooker talk".

It may be that some of us (myself included) first heard those terms in a bar situation....live and learn.

I hear you about the financial management. I am no wizard, but I do the best I can with the resources I have. Mostly that means conservative investments with what I have to spare, keeping available cash on hand.

Like yourself, I have been a "wage slave" all of my life. Pension has never been a reality in my industry; most USA companies did away with that a long time ago (I cashed in the "pension" that i had with a large US computer company a few years ago...it amounted to 14xxx before taxes). But, I have had some examples in my family about what to do and what not to do regarding money and investments. Thus, I have been able to make some modest investments of my own. Also, I have been a W2 (USA taxation speak) wage earner since age 13, and for the past 27 years have earned a good income working in telecommunications. Since the conception of the 401k retirement program, I have contributed 10% of my salary, so things are looking pretty positive for me.

Naysayers notwithstanding, between my US Social Security and 401k, if I can keep slaving until age 67 I will make about the same monthly as I am making now. That will not be a bad income for drinking beer and watching the rice grow.

I could comment, that a certain whiny General took the country at gunpoint and is now crying bloody murder about other people, breaking "the law" he installed!

But let me quote the great American philosopher Danny Glover, who once said :"I am getting too old for this sh1t!"

Yeah....

That might be along the same lines as what I say about my industry (telecom):

"Ten more years, and the Indians and Chinese can have it all"

...

I will put it back to you...would you give any Thai lady open access to all of your income?

And if, heaven forbid, you were to keel over dead you have provided some means for your wife to survive for what could be an extended wait for her inheritance to show up?

My wife has full access to my US account and knows how to get money to Thailand just for that reason. It would never occur to her to use her access for any other reason.

As a side note, she has an account in her name that is our agreed savings account for Thailand. For a variety of reasons the balance has grown to over 4 million baht and we have decided to live off that for a while. The process now is she transfers money to my account each month and I transfer her spending money (she refers to it as her "salary ") each week.

Generalization about a group of people is rarely accurate and is usually highly subjective based on that person's limited experience with the group being generalized about.

TH

I have made arrangements for my wife, in the event that I pass before her.

As strange as it may sound, my ex-wife and my son (with her) are co-executors of my estate in USA.

We overcame our differences long ago, and are still good friends. I trust her implicitly to carry out my wishes regarding my USA financials.

It is not a matter of distrust with my current wife...rather a pragmatic view of how various people and cultures view money.

As always, it is difficult to generalize across large groups of people, but in general, people who have never been around "money" (I am not rich by any means, but I manage my money well and have a good salary) do not have the first clue about how to use money to make money. I include my current wife in that category.

If I was to hand her some large amount of money today, and tell her that it had to last for the rest of her life, I can guarantee that most of it would be gone in short order...She is too jai dee for her own good, and has a bunch of family that knows that.

I do not keep tight rein on the purse strings because I am khee niouw or a hardass.

In the interest of full disclosure, my wife does have some access to my USA accounts as well. She also knows, and has honored for 10 years now, that the access is by request and permission only. In an extreme emergency she know she can access the funds, but will endure an uncomfortable conversation with me afterwards..."nephew crashed his motorbike and broke his arm" does not constitute an emergency for me...he has plenty of other family.

So in a pinch, she is not stuck begging for food or anything like that.

Right now in Thailand we have two houses free and clear, a bunch of farmland free and clean, an 8 unit apartment free and clear, one truck and a couple of motorbikes free and clear. Monthly bills are one truck payment, light bill, water bill, internet bill, groceries.

Nobody is impoverished.

Of course he does.

We cannot have any dissent.

This is cold-hearted answer from me: forget about the mother, she gets what little she deserves. She used your money to show off to the village, and now you turned off the money tap and she has 10 baht in her pocket....som naam naa

For the son: if you can honestly provide good care and upbringing for him in UK, by all means do what you can to bring him there. Kids are resilient, and he will cry for "mom" until she is not around. I am not talking out of school here....my parents divorced when I was < one year old, in 1963 when that was not at all common..so I know from where I speak.

Special commitee => commission => hearings => <black hole>

and then the latest celebrity/rich kid drunk driving scandal comes up and whitewashes everything else.

Similar to helicopter combat losses in the Vietnam War era...every ship that was lost was carrying approximately 5x the normal payload.

Special commitee => commission => hearings => <black hole>

Q. How do you know a Thai isn't doing anything?

A. They've set up a committee.

Be fair...do not limit it to "Thai"

More accurate: "How do you know any organization (public or private sector) isn't doing anything?"