farangnomore

True, but a few disgruntled farangs won't make any difference. It's the fresh, naive tourists that they are after and those farangs, enchanted with Thainess, will happily pay 10x rip off price (just like I used to do). Thais know what they are doing. They are among the best in the world.

Srisuwan, what a paper tiger. He should sue Thai government for allowing "dirty farangs" to even enter the kingdom.

More so than westerners with the idea of "freedom and democracy?"

As a bad of a deal as it may be, they (people in charge) do not expect farangs who "know too much" to bring in more money. They know there are new suckers to be fooled. It worked before, why wouldn't it work now? For every disenchanted farang who leaves the land of broken dreams, there will be 10 new suckers happy to invest 40 MB to buy one rai of mosquito infested swamp to live happily ever after with his bar girl (she was forced into prostitution to pay off her parents' debts anyway).

6.5 mil people died, so what? Do you know what normal death rate worldwide is? About 60 mil, so it's a 10% higher than normal. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-deaths-per-year

"Most countries, if they allow expat residents, expect a much greater economic contribution than what Thailand expects. 800K baht in a bank? $80K/year income" What country requires $80k/year for retirement? France requires income of $1700 a month for retirement visa (https://aginggreatly.com/retire-in-france-or-spain/), or 1/4 of what Thailand requires. Thais don't go to US/Australia to retire. I doubt anyone goes to these places to retire. Thais go there to work, make money, hence higher financial requirements. Politicians do not care about some Isaan family receiving money from a farang. They want big spenders using their businesses and filling up their pockets. Thai government has been more than explicit about their desire to replace backpackers, expats with quality tourists. Why is it so hard to understand it. Like they say, love it of leave it...

Ten years in Thailand and you are still surprised? You already brought the money in, you are already taking care of all those Thais, there is no need to "attract" you 5555. They need to attract new suckers.

Bring it on. Screw those unsuspecting visitors so they never come back to Thailand. ????

You get duped only if you go there. As a clueless tourist, I didn't know better, but now that I know Thai mentality, I simply don't go to places that have dual pricing. If I do go to some place and find out that they have different prices for foreigners, I just turn around. It's a free world, they can ask for as much as they want, based on whatever criteria they come with. You have a choice of turning around. Crying on this forum won't make officials change their minds.

Thainess

"so you are told?" There are scores of foreigners living happily in China. A friend of mine (an American) was living and driving around China (without Chinese driver's license) for years. I've heard similar stories from other foreigners who live/lived in China. Keep your hatred towards Chinese to a China-related thread.

Is ping-pong show considered "performing arts?"

Well, duh! YES, if only they knew what common sense meant. Bus, as any scammer would do, they don't care about people who fell into the trap. Now, they need new suckers...

Spot on, except that 98% is probably closer to 99.8 %. This is at least the number applicable to farangs. There is hardly a Thai who doesn't think getting into a relationship with farangs is a sure way of handling financial issues. I've had a friend whose sister is a millionaire (in dollars) and who told my friend repeatedly "just find a farang", when she had financial issues.

The world doesn't care about your T&G, sandbox and other BS acronyms for scams. The earth does not revolve around Thailand. Tons of other countries with just as (or more) beautiful beaches/weather/people and no scams to get in.

Ditto for farangs (most of who bitch incessantly on this forum).

You, I'm sure would, if you could. The reality is, the west and its "democracy" and "free market" has run its course. I know it's hard to accept that you are not "exceptional" but the world doesn't care about your pity feelings. He who can, does what he wants. That's how it's been for thousands of years. China can, so it will. You can pound sand.

Well-said indeed. Not arrogance, but impotence. No empire in the history of the world has succeeded by printing money.

American's have little idea of the world geography, but if I were you, I wouldn't brag about it. ????

For one person, of course not, but Thailand is on its knees because most people feel the same way. Keep Thailand for Thais ????

From what I know about Thais, I doubt she will ever want to take care of those children and chances of her ever feeling rich enough to take care of her own kids are minuscule. Get her out of your head your financial situation squared away. Your kids will have a much brighter future in France. The less they know about Thai culture, the better off they (and you) will be. Cheers

I'm sorry that you're in this situation which is, unfortunately, quite common - buying land, house car and then being dumped. Kids obviously make things a lot more complicated, but there isn't much you can change about it at this point. What you can change is your attitude. There is obviously nothing left of that relationship (would you even want to take her back after being a prostitute?). You are, relatively speaking, still a young guy. There is so much fish in the oceans around the world. I've been in similar situations and what I regret the most is wasting my life, time and energy on something that didn't have future. Cheer up, life has so much more to offer. The sooner you disconnect from her, the better. Good luck

No way I'd go to Thailand under these "loosened" rules. They are delirious if they think people will flock to Thailand as long as there are requirements for anything more than vaccination and/or pre-departure test. High chances of prisontel should be very strong deterrent to anyone aware of it.

Of course "fully vaccinated" people can contract and spread covid. I was "fully vaccinated" and got covid from "fully vaccinated" friends. Vaccine has been shown only to reduce the severity of illness, nothing else.

I don't think there is one Thai family that lacks food on the table because of lack of tourists. Maybe they cannot get new scooter/car every year, but that's too bad. Tourism only encourages greed and laziness, in any country/culture, not only Thailand, even though it may be a prime example of it. The point of the original post is that hard working people who didn't wait for farang dollars to fall into their laps are doing fine. Kudos to them.