Gilligan In Drag

I would appreciate any links that people have to articles that give them the idea ganja or "cannabis" will be completely legalized. They are going to release prisoners on cannabis charges, ok, that doesn't mean they will stop arresting and imprisoning more people on cannabis charges. They release all kinds of criminals from Thai prisons from time to time, it doesn't mean there are no longer criminal charges for whatever crime. Then June 9th there is something else which tey seem to be trying to get people to conflate, that is, hemp will be legalized, not cannabis as the Thai government is confusingly calling it. If psychoactive Cannabis sativa/indica/ruderalis is still illegal, cannabis is not legal, however hemp would be. Seems clear to me as well from what I've read over the last 9 months or so, you need to get approved "cannabis" seeds from the government if you are going to grow it, and that its a strain which produces almost no THC, ie its hemp not cannabis. Fine distinctions and clarity are a nuisance to many in Thai society, including the government. So of course they want to come out all magnanimous sounding and try and gain face for themselves by just being glib and loose with the truth and say, "Yeah, cannabis is legal on June 9." And scrutize that any further and your just some kind of smart ass trouble maker. So yeah, good, hallelujah, they are going to stop being insane about banning hemp which they shouldn't, it could obviously be a new source of income for many as a source of fibre, oils, food and whatever else hemp has been used for, it was once and can be a valuable crop apart from its pharmaceutical attributes. As the article says in rathe semi-nonsensical English: "The production, import, export, distribution, consumption and possession of cannabis — with the exception of psychoactive substances — will be formally legalized on June 9 when an announcement issued by the Ministry of Public Health and published in the Royal Gazette on February 9 takes effect." I take this to mean that "cannabis" which is pyschoactive will continue to be illegal. I would go out on a limb here and guess using the word "cannabis" is deliberate, it confuses the issue between pyschoactive and non-psychoactive which they would like to exploit going forward. Politicians and tourist boards would like to proclaim that they have legalized cannabis when they have done no such thing. The distinction could be made clear in English by using the word hemp for non-psychoactive varieties of the plant used for rope, food, fiber, oils etc and "cannabis" for psychoactive varieties. But no doubt that want to use the language their way and say Cannbis the psychoactive substance and cannabis the non-psychoactive substance and of course non-psychoactive and psychoactive just gets swept under the carpet and cannbis is use to mean both. Nice and unclear, vague and confusing like the Thai government always likes it, so they look down their noses and chuckle, "Oh you are so confused! Hehehe! OK, only 1 year in the hoosegow because you are so confused." Also, as far as I understand it, THC is not the only psychoactive component of cannabis. Isn't it that CBD is supposed to help with reducing anxiety levels? Of course we can't expect these people to be bothered with any of these distinctions, its so unbecoming to get into details, they don't play that here.

Because Thailand is dependent on "The City of London" not to be confused with London itself, meaning the world banking interests who call themselves such who manufactured the pandemic to destroy humanity and who Thailand is dependent upon.

If I were living somewhere else, well, seeing as every country is unique, wonderful and amazing and as long as they are not in some kind of total crisis, they are all well worth visiting. Also, countries I have visited once before, unless I really love visiting them as I do love going to Nepal, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, Spain, Mexico, Malaysia, and Singapore, I won't visit them again. I have noticed many seem to feel the same way, they feel rather been-there-and-done-that about it and unlike myself, Thailand for them did not make the cut, perhaps because they felt it wasn't good value, the air was polluted, or it was interesting, the people were nice and the food was good, but not enough attractions or good points to make it worth visiting again. For others you add things they don't want to do such as get vaccinated or going through the risk of ruining your holiday having to be quarantined even after vaccination, and the answer is no they will not visit Thailand even if they are very much interested in doing so. Personally, I think Thailand is not treating its tourists well especially since the danger of these viruses is actually next to nothing and the cure is arguably much worse. Bell's Palsy, myocarditis, or lymphocytes that start attacking the body anyone? There are 1,200+ maladoes that the vaccines have brought on, yet to visit Thailand we are told we must take these vaccines. I think I'd like to take my chances with COVID and the rest of the world seems to be seeing it that way more and more too. So by continuing with stringent lockdown type measures, you are sacrificing everything in Thailand for nothing in return. Not to accept the virus and live with the risk is not to live at all, so really to travel to Thailand you are putting yourself into a hostile anti-human environment where not to live anymore is life. Who wants to vacation in that? Thailand needs to show that it is on the side of human life. No body pays to take a plane halfway around the world to visit an Orwellian dystopia. So, no, I most certainly would not visit Thailand, to do so is to support a world no one should have to live in.

Thailand has a chance to get in on the ground and boost its economy by welcoming tourists as normal, as before the pandemic. Other countries have done so and more to come, others have much fewer restrictions. These countries have dropped all COVID restrictions within their borders and for arriving tourists. You can go to these countries and not face any hassles at all stemming from the pandemic restrictions with the exception of Mexico where some businesses are asking for proof of vaccination and requiring them as allowed by Mexican law. Not many yet but growing by the day, the lockdowns are over in these countries an COVID is of no more significance than a cold or flu: UK, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Hungary, Romania, Mongolia, Montenegro, Mexico, El Salvador, Gabon, and Yemen

Well, to add some probably pointless commentary, lets just hope they'll start to feel embarrassed and left in the dust for doing things differently from the rest of Asia. Though I worry the government just does what not only the WHO and the globalists demands but China. The obliviousness to how all this affects Tailand suggests -sort of- that its other parties with no business or interest in things like the tourism industry or the health of the general economy, or that ruining it is the main point so they can vulture in and buy the whole place. But then again maybe its just sheer Thainess rearing its stubborn arbitrary confused confusing head.

Well it takes one simple step Thailand: LEGALIZE IT! Ganja, alcohol (it is only semi-legal here) and dancing in the bars and the human free will and mind. You do that unambiguously and sincerely and you will be not only a tourism #1 but a world super power a star, but you won't do it. You like being a lackey to the City of London, and they know what I am referring to but do you Thailand, and you prefer to be dictated to by China by senile Joe Biden and so you have few tourists because there is nothing else than prison planet going on here isn't it?

Man, I want some of the strain that you were doing when you wrote this! ???? Its poppin up everywhere right now and I MEAN EVERYWHERE right now in Thailand on cow and buffalo poop upcountry and maybe in the city too who knows ! hehe! Enjoy but get yourself a good field guide and don't anything that doesn't bruise blue-black! Eh hehehe!

Yes it is interesting to hear that. I guess in your area they are paying the cops off well enough or the cops are the ones running the ganja business. And For you and I who live here, yes, we know the various local situations and how to navigate them to an extent and can choose to take calculated risks or not. Tourists cannot and they are, as of this laest article being led to think by the bald headed ostensibly Dutch spokesman for ganja tourism that Thailand is just like Amsterdam or other countries where they can't be bothered with enforcing ganja laws. According to an article I saw a few months back 80 percent of the overcrowded Thai prison population is there on drug related charges, no doubt most of that is yaba, but a good chunk I'm sure are there for possession of a bag of weed. There are enough Banged Up Abroad episodes for anyone to watch, we don't need more cases. I don't happen to enjoy smoking ganja, plus I am a dedicated Dzogchen-Vajrayana yogi, so such things as smoking pot are trivial and not worth the attention deficit disorder short term memory problems to bother with, give me a blow torch, a quart of tequila, a thyrsis of dvine protective San Pedro cactus, two hits of ALD-52, a locked and loaded burgmansia and salvia leaf cigar, any day, on the rare occasion I do want to get high, why muck about with ganja. And indulging in any of the aforementioned would not only blow the average Thai government prohibitionist's head to smithereens permanently but they are also legal in Thailand because the prohibitionists have no clue, otherwise ganja would be legal here. Of course if I were say perhaps a Shivaite, a moon ornament pin holding up atop my head a volcano like beehive of dreadlocks housing 100 billion buzzing and tamed microcosmic demons trained for the purpose of liberating sentient beings then it would be a different matter. I would then perhaps add a garnish of a sprig of datura stramonium to my chillum and utterly lose my mind for a week. But I enjoy and prefer life in my wild psilocybin infested garden garden growing various kinds of peppers, multi-colored nearly extinct varieties of corn not to mention all kinds of cool orchids and other local plant oddities and exotica such as Spanish moss and other air plants from South America . Ganja is considered a wrathful entity by us yogis a manifestation of Shiva and it does promote powerful energies and the kind of transformative fuels and highly explosive spiritual car bomb nitroglycerines that are good for practice just by it being there growing. That they are gorgeous and highly charismatic plants whether you like butchering them and chopping their heads off and smoking them or not, you cannot help but be mightily impressed by their awesome power and priceless value. So in addition to my fierce family of lovely village dogs who protect my hutch glittering with invisible astral jewels sprinkled as though they were a seasoning powder where me and the witch Nang Nak live and who accompany the hutch and us on walks as it stalks the forest at night moving as it does on giant chicken legs, I would like additional protection from theives such as overly zealous and corrupt government. NGO and bank officials who seem to grow more blood lustful, pedophiliac, not to mention arbitrary and logic challenged and generally cannibalistic and rabid by the day so in addition to my very bity and protective ferocious dog-lions, Foo Foo, Fee Fee, Ha Ha, Oh Oh and Ho Ho who so nobly and regally stalk my yard littered with the pig skeletons and cow femurs of feasts gone by, I would like to plant a jagged broken glass like forest wall of purple black giant 4 meter high guardian Cannabis sativa ganja plants to grow from out of my boneyard the fangs of their colas oozing and dripping hallucinogenic and incisive oils on patches of spontaneously sprouting blue Panaeolus cynascens mushrooms growing at their imperial feet whistling in the winds bizzarre Pelog scale and Angklung scale tuned Christmas carols in August their irredecing bracts exploding in slow motion with world melting seeds for all the wrathful crows and mynah birds cawing "Kill! Kill! Kill! Klaus Schwab! Eat! Eat Eat Bill Gates!" to feast upon, that would be just the thing! And a good luck bestowing and enticing habitat too for the local lottery winner bestowing naga! So as you can see, in my case, ganja? Who needs it and all the gogdamned games they are playing in government places with it and all the other things. They toy and mess with the mighty planetsized ganja being at their peril these fools! And besides I get more of a thrill staying at home taking care of and chatting with my pet skull Yorrick than attending Korean pop music festival not high on dispensary procured CBD oil pills. I don't believe for a second the legalization will be clear cut or even happen. Thailand the trickster will remain as it ever was.

At this point, what, the third of these kinds of articles just kind of breezily glossing over the illegality of what is being suggested you can come to Thailand and do and...yeah, pisses me off, so any further comment would be unecessary other than, no don;t come to Thailand and if you must don't have anything to do with ganja because there are authorities who seem to want to trick you into getting in trouble from the looks of things. Better yet don't patronize countries that want to play fast and loose with your violating their rather serious and hardcore laws on these things.

Thanks guys, very good to know.

I wonder if it is possible to go to Cambodia by any of the land crossings. Boat to Ko Kut then to Sihanoukville? Maybe that is my imagination making that up but it seems that was one way to go to Cambodia in the past. Perhaps they would be laxer at that entry point and you just get a visa on arrival? The two times I 've been to Cambodia I flew in and got a visa on arrival. I guess that's not on anymore. I recall as well you could get a van from Poi Pet to Phnom Pehn, though last I read, probably 10+ years ago, those operators were super-dodgy, would basically unload you en-route in the middle of nowhere and you'd get picked up and put in the back of truck and have to pay the new driver dood to take you to Phenom Pen (phenomenal writers there, hence the name) or something like that.

Yes, that is kind of my main stumbling block, pet peeve in Thailand, and it is especially and without fail problematic at immigration: They won't tell you until it is too late what they need or want. Press them on it, try and iron out before hand any ambiguities, and it's something like, "Oh no no Mr. Too Smart for Thailand, you're no getting out of it by trying to establish clarity either wise guy, heheh." Saying more than a few cursory, rote, polite phrases and expressions often doesn't go down well, they feel pressured or cross examined if you start trying to find out what actually they want and anyway it will change depending on which staff member you meet, or at least at my rather obscure Isaan outpost Immigration office. The info sheet in Thai and English don't correspond, there is different requirements listed on both so, Immigration here is arbitrary, that said they end up granting me an extension everytime so far. And At least this year they called me and asked me to come back and do it again instead of waiting till the last minute and saying, "Oh sorry, no visa for you this time, you didn't do x,y,z..."

Thaksin has been rattling around in the shrubbery again of late peering in the windows and what not, I was surprised to see him putting in a plug regarding meat hoarding by, I think, the big distributors and making the meat prices artificially high, which is actually not that helpful a comment, you can guess as much and he can't trusted to actually be confirming that, but you never know. But yeah well, Pheu Thai, that's him innit? Will be interesting to see how he handles insinuating some sort of proxy this time. Wouldn't be his son, would it? Things are so whacky these days I would almost be not surprised if say Bill Gates backed Thaksin up to run himself as he is and suddenly Thaksin becomes untouchble or else no World Bank support! Just don't say you didn't hear it here first on the non-existent forum piggy backing it here on this forum, "Wild Foaming At the Mouth, 3rd Eyes Blazing, Prognosticatory News and Views from the Psychedelic Troll From Betwixt the Stalks and out on the end of a twig innis Mushroom Habitat! Skull!

Very good. Bangkok is a small town on Hainan island. Surely "Bangkok" has long since outgrown the sentimentality for such ancestral hamlets as that, Why not Thonburi though? That was the original Siamese city, Bangkok was the city of the immigrants, foreigners etc across the river. That said, its already known locally as Krung Thep. So yeah, why not let the world know, here we call the place Krung Thep?

Completely hyperbolic/hysterical/idiotic. Taiwan and the media source that wrote up this propaganda/misinformation piece up are just willfully ignoring the reality that marijuana is a drug and hemp products do not contain a psychoactive drug. I don't follow it all that much, but it seems I've read there is much in non-psychoactive CBD oils that is incredibly benefical for numerous ailments and is relatively non-toxic compared with pharma industry treatments. So I would guess thats what this is actually about, protecting someones drug profiteering in the pharma industry. Hemp was used for centuries to make paper, rope etc, this is not by any stretch new or revelatory information yet here we are with such things being called products "laced" with marijuana.

Pot?...Meh... Got acid? ????

I wouldn't know or care about any of it. What a crass uncouth baboon! It looks as though the police have amputated his arms to boot! I come to Thailand for its sparkling, empty shelved and conveniently small libraries, its cemetaries and quaint old dysfunctional tube capacitor testing parlors. Thai candle parafins are unique, the exquisite and diverse plastic bags the list goes on and on what more could one want? Why don't you just stay home in Australia if parafins and tube testings and empty white elephant corruption detritus posing as museums or universities are not your thing?

This whole thing about allowing marijuana, or opening Thailand up to legalization has always struck me as though they are trying to confuse people and then get them growing a few plants and then busting them. Now, I'm almost sure that is an aspect of this. Sure they may sincerely be wanting to get people growing medical marijuana, but there is this angle involving Anutin where rather vague and permissive sounding hints are dropped to entice you you into growing illegally. Seems we've been through this before. Around here they are as draconian as you wanna get just as of two weeks ago. The cops were on a manhunt in our village for some yaba dealers. The guys disappeared into the woods, and in their search the cops discovered some granny's garden with some kitchen marijuana for soup and they grabbed grandma and the mother of two kids, leaving the kids to fend for themselves. As far as I know grndma and mom are still in jail and probably going to get a few years in prison.

It wouldn't surprise me if it turned out the big alcohol manufacturers are behind some of the constant decade after decade hypocrisy from public health "experts" in Thailand. Seems a reasonable speculation that the big boys can weather a squeeze on alcohol better than their less moneyed competition. Of course, also too its a political game that ministry people feel they can win by being against drinking and bars and alcohol and sin at every turn and for any excuse year after year. Don't think it is because they are Buddhists either, proper Buddhists don't shoehorn others into what they think is right and wrong. Proper Buddhists would have much better discrimination and wisdom due to caring about actually benefitting others and having the clarity of mind and focus to act and lead wisely. If you are just looking out for your career and working in the government and banning drinking or limiting it stupidly year after year, you ain't no Buddhist, it doesn't matter how often you go to the temple and pray for your wealth to expand or often you look up at statues of the Buddha and feel something. No, at the end of the day you are just a puritain/hypocrite perhaps and/or a self-centered opportunist. Disallowing people from going out and meeting friends year in and year out is far more harmful than allowing people to drink and get together. I doubt people in the ministry curb their quaint drinky winkies with Mr and Mrs. Hobbs the Nob and have many nice smug laughs. As human beings our life depends on our being to socialize and meet with each other, it goes without saying and they know that. You cannot get rid of alcohol and the problems it sometimes causes by disallowing people from congregating because they might have a drink or two. Its obvious to any reasonably intelligent and sensible adult. So, these ongoing lockdowns at this point are really kind of an outrage at this point. Any virus has long past its due date as being any threat to anyone. If the hospitals are over-flowing, I don't know, but if they are it is something else. You people in the public health ministries have a problem with your whole life perspective and you perenially put it on the whole rest of the country. You are utterly out of touch with nature and the cosmos and yourselves and your people, or the depth and awesome horror of even your own mind. Did you dream those things last night? You probably don't dream either, you'd lose your blinking poodle's diarrhea if you remembered any of it. What if you had one of your own thoughts? What would you do with yourself? Perhaps go out and have a drink with a friend? Yeah, see! What a dangerous and risky universe we are surrounded by. Even your own mind can be the most dangerous weapon that your mind has ever thought up. There is no way out. Nature is everywhere but you people screw everything up trying to save us from the universe we were born into, to try and put us all in a safety bubble. If you want to live in a florescent lit box with nothing but dusty photos of your authority figures festooned with all manner of dusty garlands for company and perhaps some soap operas for a little screamy argy bargy and wife beatings and an illusion of connection with society then have at it but don't push us all in there. I accept my mortality even welcome it. I don't want to live forever, I want to move on when I've had enough of the party here. You want to live in a funeral parlor with formaldehyde cocktails instead of alcohol to preserve you and botox injections and skin whitener treatments afraid of your own shadow go ahead but most of us don't want that. The Sun would absolutely fry the entire planet in a second if it were close enough. The moon might be hollow and house millions of super intelligent lizards that like to eat people, you don't know do you oh Health Ministers. The sun is unfathomably enormous hot and horrifically dangerous, its power makes a nothing out of the Ministry of Health indeed all life on earth, but get rid of it and you'd never have been born. What the hell is a few drinks then? Alcohol has no power by itself nor does drinking behavior. It completely depends on who is doing it. Its utterly foolish and insane to year in and year out like the Mad Hatter sit up there with your insane illogic about drinking and creating bans and rules that the authorities grow weary of enforcing in 6 months, or if not just never enforce at all. Things like turning the labels around in shops so people can't see that it s beer and what not and banning beer ads in bars and internet sales of alcohol on and on. Automobile accidents kill many. Do we start wringing our hands about the horror of drivers and cars and start jumping up and down "You selfish nitwit you endanger children's and senior citizen's lives by going out and driving!" And start banging pot and pans with spoons on the veranda about it? No. Do we lockdown the highways and say, "So many people die in car accidents! And cars are what enable people to go long distances and meet others where they infect each other with disease! So we cannot allow you to drive anywhere anymore. You'll have to stay home! Its for your own good!" That doesn't seem that much more absurd or different to my mind. It is all so frustrating and stupid and aggravating. Lots of luck getting tourists to come here, And if you are worried about Omicron maybe have a chat with the medical authorities in South Africa where it started. I think they'll tell you you are not rsponding sensibly, not even remotely, especially when the economy is battered and people so tired of all of this.

Good for you! That's great! From what you say in your book that I read and enjoyed reading, heheh, you are more active and more of a wheeler dealer with crypto than I am. For example I would never dream of taking out leverage, its too scary for me, sounds like you can roll with the consequences and handle it, can't say that for myself. I fret for weeks about making a single trade, I get my buy or sell signals and i always screw them up and start second guessing and over thinking and revising them. I do get those right more than I should but it takes me a lot of just sitting for hours and staring at the same chart and looking and looking and doing nothing for weeks. I just can't very easily trust the technicals. So I just hodl mostly. So I am still waiting for years for the point where my family will see the results of my crypto investments which I will have to start cashing out on soon because I'm just about broke. But My niece is a very hardworking go getter and works as an accountant in Pattaya. I used to talk to her about crypto say five years ago, to try to point out she could do well and she would just gasp unfortunately, "Oh no not Bitcoin! They'll put you in prison for that you know! You're really crazy buying Bitcoin!" My wife has always listened to her more than myself and its always, "Well, I never see any money in our account that comes from Bitcoin so its all <deleted> as far as I am concerned." Yeah, she is right in a way, but I keep showing her the charts how our Bitcoin has gone up 15,000% in value, its mad and there's no way it will go back down to 300 dollars a coin that it was when I bought little bits here and there and still have them. She knows it is our only hope to get decent money back in our life and she is atrting to believe it as she hears more and more. I wish I could have cashed out some and showed her, but it isn't worth it losing the future upside even if we will soon be done with the bull market, you just keep riding it and making more. There was a period here where it was unclear about crypto and the law, a lot of negativity in the press and world-wide so that attitude was understandable. Now I tell my niece, "just budget for a little bit each month and buy a little bit, they say that is the best way to buy they call it dollar cost averaging and you could have a lot of money in ten years." She is sharp and is an accountant and everything so she gets it and knows it is legal to have now, but now just says, "I don't have a little bit," and that might be true.

Gecko123- Yes, if I had to compare back home being left out versus being left out here, yes I too would say there is more than likely something more sinister when Americans freeze you out of things and therefor its worse where there is a kind of cluelessness about it in Thailand. Its a weirder thing to me here, the whats me worry attitude, leaving you out would never even register so its not even like its an error they can regret or apologize for in many cases, or its just, well thats how things roll, the sun is too hot sometimes who ever apologizes for that with any sincereity. But back home it can really be painfull, or it used to be, I've been gone a long time so my ties are pretty scant . Yes my siblings and Mom do it, they don't like my view of the world, so I am not even really worthy of even being spoken to civilly, if i am spoken to at all, its retard this and moron that etc. who needs it. They have the problem not me. I have to say and i 'm sorry to say it, but I could care less about them now, they don't care about anyone but themselves and what can you do with that, not much. Sad people. I guess I don't really feel left out after a certain point. Though my mother once was a caring and kind person as were my brothers, I don't know, something happened to them over the last 20 years or so. I have decided they just aren't the same people who I appreciate and have gratitude towards still as they were in the past. It is my view on things that people literally morph into different people over the years, so we don't have to regret hating the woman who gave birth and took care of us because, no, I still do love her, I just hate the woman she later became who did such unbelieveably selfish and spitefull things to me later in life out of her own bitterness which I had little to do with. She doesn't look, talk, think, do any of the things she used to, she even has a different name. So its not her anymore as far as I'm concerned. But Life continues and it is all really such a treat, we don't have long to live, and each day is a gift. Some say a human life is rare even if we do reincarnate, so yes you have to let all of your disappointments and other such things roll off your back as you say and relax and enjoy. Happy New Year to you!

Oh my gosh you're right Pritman... Well, then I suppose I'll be off to go kill myself then right about now. Thanks for the tip, I appreciate it man. Happy New Year, enjoy!

Yeah Kenny 202, you have really described the way that some Thais "interact" or I suppose do their best to politely avoid interacting. Luckily, for me, it is only some of the people in my wife's family and the attitudes you describe have caused me more irritation in non-family situations like work situations with Thais. It helps that my wife is critical of those same people for their general low level of functioning. This society doesn't give people much and a lot people are just in self-preservation flotation low battery mode or whatever you want to call it, so when I spot that modus as being in the fore-front, I stop expecting anything from those people including meaningful interaction unfortunately, but keeps me from becoming frustrated or having my feelings hurt. Making people feel included just isn't a thing for sure here and gets my goat simply because some people just can't even be bothered to even let you in on a conversation. Though I think it comes of something I rather like about Thai culture is that there is a thing that says you shouldn't feel obliged to do anything or feel anything you don't feel like doing or feeling. Myself, I don't need thank yous, but I check that something was appreciated. Sometimes it just so happens that some help given wasn't appreciated or taken for granted, so I simply don't extend a hand again unless asked and feel that what I do will be appreciated. When I first came to Thailand, I was teaching at a middle school on the outskirts of Bangkok, and had been there for 6-7 months and all seemed to be going very well, I felt well enough liked by staff and the kids and the two other foreign teachers were smash hits at the school and one had been there a year longer than myself and the other I think had been there three years. So I was really pretty surprised and disappointed when teacher's day arrived and we were simply told we didn't have to teach most of the day and just to relax in the office and do our last two classes only, no need to worry today. The head teacher didn't say anything beyond that about what was going on, like, "We are having teacher's day ceremonies today and perhaps it wouldn't work for you as foreigners to partake," or, " It would be meaningless and tedious for you to attend the teacher ceremonies and you wouldn't understand what was going on anyway, better not to embarass yourselves in front of all the students, we hope you understand the students and school really appreciate everything you are doing. Here is some goddamn tea and crumpets for you to help you chit chat and try and cope with the notion that maybe you aren't really a teacher." You would like that, it would help you feel that still you were part of it somehow anyway, that you were worth acknowledging, but perhaps that is just our western self-importance stepping in. It was disappointing to be on the recieving of a badly pulled off kind of sneaking away from it all. Like we wouldn't notice, when in fact was impossible not to see the very popular female who had been there a year, almost like this Mary Poppins magic fairy queen teacher for the kids, she did have quite an ego so it was really a huge blow and like me she hadn't been through it before yet, but the guy who had been there for 3 years just shrugged it off and grumbled, "Nope, you're not a real teacher, they are." Didn't matter to him it was preposterous and stupid to him that the school was so insecure about doing something controversial by including foreigners in a Thai ceremony or whatever it was that they coud even admit to us what they were doing, and he was probably one of the most valuable assets at the school but he knew that and that was enough he didn't need to be given flower wreaths on bended knee to validate himself probably didn't want it, nor would I, now that think back on it. But I felt bad for Mary Poppins and she was in tears about it and worried as well th at the kids might blame her or begin to see her in a strange light that the school had left her out. I went to the principal the next day to ask why hadn't we been invited to teacher's day ceremonies. I told her were very disappointed that none even said anything, to us about any of it, what happened? She just had this priceless look of bemused astonishment on her chubby rosy olive toned cheeks and cat eye glasses bespectacled face complete with a 60's boufant and slipped into some deep state of cognitive dissonance and laughed and waved her hand at me and coughed into her handkerchief or something. I had thought perhaps there had been a mix up, but I saw there that no there hadn't been, she didn't feel obliged to make bullsheiss excuses so she laughingly whisked me away out of the office on some other pretense. On a day to day level, and lately, the kind of thing you describe, Kenny 02, I get from my wife's cousin's husband who drives us an hour into Roi Et every 2-3 weeks or so to do grocery shopping, mostly for cheaper supplies for my step-daughter's noodle shop and for my farang food needs. We pay him and he is always happy to get his money and seems to appreciate all that, I thank him, because he really is a life saver for me I always buy him a nice big beer or donuts in addition to paying him because he drives well and usually is available and arrives promptly enough when we want to go shopping. But the guy just won't listen to me if I speak to him. Sometimes he takes me somewhere without my wife and if I speak he just goes into the state of confusion or cognitive dissonance I described earlier with the principal just starts quacking and flailing and waving his flippers about like a distressed dolphin out of water to the point that I worry he is going to crash the car, so i just make a point to never talk to him if we are going somewhere just he and I. I speak Thai very well and he understands thai perfectly well though he refuses to speak it. His disconnect with me is so thorough that if I am talking to the wife when we are being taken somewhere by him, he will invariably cut in and start talking over me to my wife about something completely else. 5-6 years several times a month. You would think he might get more used to me but there is an impenetrable wall around the guy and he can't seem to even see or hear me. And it bothers me that my wife will speak furiously and at length with him about all manner of things while she is relatively aphoristic with me. I have asked her about it many times because it is amazing how much she has to say to this guy about nothing and little to say to me about other varieties of nothing. She says "well I think you know about everything anyway, so I don't need to tell you very much. He's just talking about mostly stupid situations and gossip anyway. I feel i have to entertain him or maybe he won;t want to give us a lift anymore. I feel anyway that I have a good relationship with my wife, we enjoy much of the same movies and music, she likes to reflect on life and discuss things, all of the things that come up in ones day to day life and she is interested in trying to decode the nonsense going on all around us to a surprising extent when you see how disinterested and willfully ignorant most people in the world are, but like you say Kenny o2, its when family get thrown into the mix, when a group of thais such as co-workers you get left out ignored in this rather jarring way I have felt completely ripped off and exploited and laughed at in my face in office situations when I was asked to contribut to an office lunch one time and they said, "You get paid more than us, so could you help," I was glad to do it I paid for about half of the whole estimated bill for 6 people and they took the money bought food for themselves and told me the place didn;t have what I wanted and told me to my face they had spent my money anyway on their food and I could go out and get food somewhere else on my own. And said with the kind of attitude like it never occurred to them I would pretty aghast, didn;t miss a beat breezily and laughingly all got more food than they could eat and got nothing for me "What on earth could be wrong with that! Bye have a nice lunch by yourself!" the level of assumptiveness that that is OK is not to be found anywhere i have travelled or lived and worked and I have spent much time in over 26 countries. At least the Koreans will be kind of chippy about it when they leave you out, you're left out because you're a <deleted>! At least you are acknowledged. Even though they are very unaccepting of you as a foreigner in Korea and you will never be accepted in their society, god forbid you marry one of their daughters, with all of that they are very sensitive and feel very bad when others get left out of anything if you are even just so-so and ok only with them. That is my impression after 6 years there. Here its kind of unfathomable, "No, you are family! or You work with us We care about you! But we are going to leave you out of every conversation and meal we have together even if ypu sponsor it unless you barge in yourself. Thats how we roll!' And it all rolls off them like teflon. Working with Thais is on eof the most excruciating things a person can go through, I think even for Thais. I am not bashing here, it is what it is, if I don;t like it I can leave, I know, but I have other things i like. I agree that this leaving people out can really be something else, it is almost like some astounding kind of phenomena. Again, I have my own life and always have, I am interested in many things that most Americans could care less about, abstract art and music, regular music to an excessive degree, Tibetan Buddhism, poetry, ufos and conspiracies, tropical fish and marine and freshwater underwater life flowers and most anything that has some level of detail to go into and explore. I've just never anything to say to anyone much back home since I can remember, so it makes no difference to me that I have little in common with Thais I have little in common with Americans, my upbringing was very atypical, we were middle class but my insane mad scientist Dad was a skin flint so we lived in the hood, the guy was a bit like Rick from the Rick and Morty cartoon, just not that brilliant as Rick but just as oblivious and into his whole screw head schtick which served him very well, others less so. So you don't belong in America either if you are like me even if on the outside it looks like you might, you're just a foreigner in your own country if you're like me.

Kind of bizarre considering they don't have any tourists to speak of in the first place that they have already started in again with the staple of the last 15 years or so, "we don't want these stupid and dirty people with cheap boob jobs and plant based drugs to come here, we want these other clean, more expensively drugged up on chemicals and botoxed wealthier people who will never come here in million years because they have better places to go and get plastic surgery and take prescribed drugs, we summon you! Get your asses over to Thailand now please." I think this is a bad way to start to try and recover your tourist industry. In fact it is so over the top bad that it seems clear they are trying to sabotage a recovery. But I fully expected this kind of thing to rear its spoiled kindergartener head asap, "we want this kind of tourist and they will recieve 10 percent off coupans and mango rice at the airport on arrival and faster visa processing." Its nauseating, its regressive, its so beaten to death and accomplishes nothing when these officials or other spokeman periodically com eout and tell us who they'd like to come to Thailand. I doubt the people who always come out twith this stuff are actually in the tourist industry, so please just step off, this is not the way to make yourself appear useful.

Well, they'll probably just slam the golden goose's tits they forgot to milk in the barn door they left hanging wide open long enough to let the man they gave a fish that they didn't teach to catch his own fish and who rode their prized magic purple cow into the eternal covid no tourist sunset is what i always say about immigration and the TAT and all of their other fine messes they've gotten themselves and us into this time. Well, thats what I always say anyway. Did I already say that? Well, I said I always say that didn't I. On the other hand they could just grow a pair and admit to themselves they actually need to have something that they are able to offer and properly offer it if they want tourism to surge and perhaps may i suggest legalize drugs and alcohol (letting Boon Rawd and company control the beer and other booze you can drink at a semi affordable price is hardly legalized alcohol) and prostitution and say to the world "Hey the partanzio is on my babies! My babies! Come heah! Come on babies!" As it stands the whole thing is a cavalcade of bed wetters afraid of pandemics and dreaming of technology industry hubs and ideas about digital doormats or whatever the guy said. It really always boils down to, like it was said earlier in the thread, "they doan wanya round yoo furinners," but they don't want to cause a scene so the whole shaggy dog story drags on and on hubs and no pubs and no boobs and enterpronoors and visas for only the rich.