dumspero

Great story! I'm behind her 100% 110% if she's always paid her taxes...

Also nice to see Thai Americans who can speak Thai.

1. Any Hawaiian banking at BOH rather than FHB is responsible for his own problems. Go to the bank that believes in helping its customers. BOH thinks by being difficult, cold and never agreeing with a customer's request that this makes them the more sophisticated, mainland-like bank. Wannabe haloies. FHB rules.

2. Fascinating how many rocket scientists on here have nothing good to say about Thailand and yet they live there or visit often. Why? They can't make it in a better place?

3. Thailand puts human above machine. God from man, not god from machine, as in the West (deus ex viri, non deus ex machina-- sorry not sure about the Latin). That is better than the West.

4. On a lighter note, Thais tend to be cleaner than Westerners. In particular, dogs don't sniff asses as much as in the West. Sorry for this, just an observation. Maybe rubbing feces into skin with paper isn't the best way... And then there was the post on another website recently where a farang complains that Thais want him to shower more than once a day. ughh.. Hope I never have to sit next to that whining, smelly farang.

Cheers, dumspero

Hello all-

Am just back from Thailand and Cambodia. We spent some time up in Khun Han in Sisaket where my girlfriend is from (she's still in Thailand, while this one, tragically, had to get back to work sooner). Had not been to that part of Isaan before, but it seemed quite nice--suppose the unusually cool weather was likely a factor.

A surprisingly large crowd of farangs, especially over to the Tesco Lotus, I think it was, in Kantharalak. And the ones we met eyes with even returned a smile and hello. Just like the Thais with whom we met eyes--imagine that--common courtesy and friendliness in a small town! The young farang woman on the back of a guy's scooter at the Khun Han morning market was another story--they both stared at us hard and long, and then she quickly turned her head away when I smiled and waved. Oh well, guess in her 'authentic Thai experience' in the small town she hasn't yet picked up on the charming friendliness in such small towns.

In any event, that minor rant aside, what do members here think about Khun Han? A nice place? Anyone on here live there?

Cheers.

Thanks very much for the information--precisely what I needed!

I'm an American. Not especially proud of it, but not ashamed of it either. All countries have their good and bad, and I don't believe any country can claim the overall moral high ground over another, at least for the most part.

So I have no problem when some, say Swiss fellow, bashes this or that thing that the US government is doing. Usually I agree, and sometimes I don't. But I do have a problem when it's never their country's turn. For example, bash the US for the Iraq war--fair enough. But bash Switzerland, for example, for letting the Jews burn while profiting on the side--and that should also be fair enough.

We're all in this together, none of us are better than others, and none of us are lower than others, at least as a starting point.

On a lighter note, I am in fact one of the fat, hard drinking Americans who goes to Thailand on vacation and who will wear shorts and t-shirts the whole time. Long pants and cell phones are for 'players' and people working, as far as I'm concerned. Good God, I just hope they're stocking up on Beer Chang in Sisaket. None of that Beer Lao, run with the crowd stuff, for this one.

Cheers.

p.s. Guess I've sort of proven the whole annoying thing, huh?

Hello all, couple of quick questions. Am hoping someone will know the answers.

1. How many flights a day from the new airport to Ubon Ratchathani? (I hope the answer isn't we must go up to the old airport!)

2. Can fly directly from Ubon to Phnom Penh, or must go back to BKK first?

3. How is the Novotel at Suvarnabhumi--worth the $100 US-ish per night? We're just overnighting from about 2:00 a.m., coming in from afar, and then will take a convenient flight later in the day on to Ubon. As a reference point, we always liked the Amari at the old airport for a one nighter for the same purposes.

Many thanks for any information.

Cheers, Dumpsero.

I've had a number of dealings with the Thai embassy in DC on behalf of various Thais and always found the staff to be extremely helpful, in STARK contrast to the <deleted> at the US embassy in Bangkok.

I agree that people do care as explained by the op.

But it is possible for one to be concerned if others think his wife is an exbargirl because of a concern that she will be treated poorly or what people think about her, as opposed to what people think about him. Either way, the guy still cares, but the version where the concern is for the wife as opposed to his social status seems a little more understandable.

How clueless. He thinks $150-175k is an impressive salary. Get a decent professional degree and try a little for a while, and it's less than average in any so-called developed country. Not magic, a wonder or anything special.

And to be clear, nothing wrong with not doing that. Only with being so clueless about it one can't even troll on the topic in a believable fashion. Ok to walk your own path. But have a clue about others' paths.

Saipan, so can't see where to vote.

Most folks don't mean to include us in SE Asia, and if "Oceana" is the same as "Oceania," then it doesn't include Micronesia or the West Pacific.

Cheers.

If the question is just whether one can collect SSI (or any other SS benefit) while living anywhere, the answer is yes.

Proving eligibility from afar is a far different matter. Agreed that maybe an immigration attorney could be useful. But God how I hate lawyers.

Qwertz and Pepe- not succint and not true. Easy cynicism masquerading as wisdom.

I also have a Thai ex-wife, and have had many bad experiences with Thais over the years, even with some I've represented for free. But if I step back and assess the situation, then it's pretty clear to me I've had far more positive experiences with Thais.

Yes, of course, the wondrous joy one sees in Thais (generally speaking) as they live daily life can be cynically dismissed as blissfull ignorance. But I believe there's a lot more to it as I laid out in my previous post and you did not rebut.

It's sad when two people who obviously have had great lives (as discerned from their own posts) can only see the negative, and then loftily proclaim that to be the truth that the balance of us are not prepared to hear.

Again, easy cynicism that is a transparent plea to be accepted as wisdom.

Agreed, another good topic by Garro.

This subject fascinates me, and it's one of the things I believe the Thais have down so much better than my own original country, the US. Generally speaking, and based on the first six years of my time with Thais having been spent in different parts of the US (as opposed to Thailand or elsewhere), I agree that Thais are far happier than people in the US, and that this is true even when Thais live and work in the US for many years--they're still happier, as a general matter.

The reasons are many:

1. Bhuddism

2. belief in destiny (helps to focus on and live in the present, and not too much on the future)

3. being relatively more a groupist culture than an individualist one

4. being more connected to family and community

5. the cultural traits of sanuk, mai pen rai and mai dtong kit mak (apologies for the poor transliteration), and maybe also of face and indirectness over accuracy and truth (doesn't get the rocket ship to the moon, but perhaps it's a factor here worth considering)

6. the lack of a free media (not saying this is good, but the reality is that a cost of free media, and one worth paying, I believe, is that, at least at this stage in the US media's growth as an institution, there's a heavy tendency to beat the public down every day with a constant mantra of how bad everything is, when in fact, by any objective comparison to the planet's billions as a whole, the 300 million in the US are doing just fine, and better than ever, from a larger historical perspective)

7. the relatively lower level of education

Of course, a number of the above are related. Also, since the Thai professionals I knew in the US were happier than their US equivalents (again, just speaking generally, of course--didn't do a sociologically sound survey or any Vulcan mind melding), that would seem to suggest 6 and 7 are less important factors.

I also agree that people worldwide are mostly the same. But there are small cultural differences that are significant, and I believe this idea of being basically content and happy on a day to day basis, as opposed to being basically discontent and cynical, is a key positive in Thais (and perhaps a number of other cultures as well, but not mainstream US). Also believe we should learn from it.

Cheers.

It's striking to me how intolerant some of the posters are about GH's having taken the job in SA, and I wonder if they still feel that way so many months later.

Geez, the guy was only taking a reasonably comfortable, accompanied job for a short while. And he noted he'll likely retire in his mid-fifties. Is that really so extreme that the 'live life poor but happy' crowd had to go after him? Does that make him a crazed, selfish workaholic?

Isn't the world big enough for different people to live life, well, differently? And with no one right way?

I suppose what I take away from this post is the importance of not getting too isolated from the world in terms of one's perspective. For example, some posters here seem to think a pension of 200,000 Baht/mo is so high. Agreed it's more than needed, but about $80k US per year is not so uncommon these days in the Western world. Again, ok not to make anything like it, in retirement or even now, but it's rather clueless not to understand how common such a pay rate is in the richer Western countries.

To each his or her own. Cheers.

Sorry she can't get a tourist visa--did she try? One never knows.

Anyway, at least you live in a country with a relatively open immigration system, and think about all those in the service away from their significant others for a year or more at a time. Everything is relative.

Plus, you come from a rich country, have a bright future and chose to have a partner from a different country. Not all are so fortunate. I live here in a place with hundreds of Issan people separated for years from their Isaan partners. So again, everything is relative, and to us, you're the guy at the doctor's office waiting room with a bruised elbow complaining to the guy with two broken legs...

This reminds me of one time I was drunk at my wife's uncle's place in Sattahip in 1992 and the neighbor's dogs wouldn't stop barking so I was throwing stones at them. What's wrong with some farangs?

Likely the guy was inside watching muay Thai or ballet or some such. Anyway my aim was off but the not the dogs. One found the mark. I never did get the tetanus shot and have been a little foamy at the mouth ever since. I do recall shouting 'adobo' with each throw, but none of the dogs seemed to understand the foreign lingo. What's wrong with some dogs?

And a more reasonable rank of E8 after 24 years would put him closer to $30,000 a year with no need for medical insurance, a major expense to many retirees.

There's no one right way for everybody. And we don't know the particular facts with this case. But sure, the guy may have been showing off, and if so, good for him.

So many kids in the US, for example, grow up speaking multiple languages under various arrangements in their homes in terms of who speaks which languages to them and under what circumstances. The kids tend to sort it all out. Isn't this old news?

In response to the anti-Bush post, I have to say I fear the liberal-leaning do-gooders who want to impose their own, specific, only-way-to-live-life mandate on others far more than the crazy right on its worst day. How many scholars have warned that we should fear totalinarianism creeping in from the left far more than it sweeping in from the right? I guess this is just one more intolerant, from-the-left post intended to shame the poor guy who lives his life with his family as they deem apprropriate instead of how the poster knows in all his wisdom is the only way to live.

I'm sympathetic about the guy living large on 17,000 baht a month and loving it.

It seems to me that a number of those who need to attack him are saying a lot more about themselves than him. It's sad when some---not only feel that their way is the only way--but they're also compelled to attack and be bitter about anyone seeming to enjoy a different path home.

I also sympathize with his struggles to learn to spell Thai correctly. After confusing 'Thai" and "south," and one more effort that was mostly beyond me, he kind of gave up on that.

In my view, people need to understand it's an overwhelmingly large system, with so many coming into the US each year, and with so much fraud and attempted fraud.

It seems somewhat analogous to the US criminal justice system--it sucks with vast piles of guilty persons never convicted and too many innocent people convicted--but really, what system would work better?

With the visa system, should they trust everyone? Should they just deny everyone? Or should they try to work out something in between that will work most of the time but that will still necessarily be arbitrary and wrong far too often?

I went through the process in 2005 with my Thai girlfriend. We both live outside the US but not in Thailand. We asked for a one-year single entry tourist visa to visit my elderly parent and they gave us a ten year multiple entry visa. I was there in shorts and zories, and her in shorts and a tight top (after all, we were there in Thailand as tourists). It worked out for us. It has for others we know, and not for yet others. It could easily have not worked out for us.

In sum, the immigration system is big, messy and arbitrary and I don't see any suggestions that would eliminate that, although of course they should always be working to improve it on the margins, which is probably all that is possible. I also feel for my fellow vets when it doesn't work out for them, but don't believe we should get a free pass. (And the retiree with 25 years wouldn't need one, if his partner has no problems. He would make plenty with about 62.5% of his base pay plus COLA's plus all the other benefits).

Ski- That's a very generous offer. Cheers.

Haven't seen anyone comment on support; sorry if I missed it.

Given her situation, it seems that perhaps the money he owes her should be the focus.

The US military issued her an ID. That means they recognize the marriage, and it means the guy owes her support for the duration (however short) of their marriage, and perhaps he will owe her something beyond that.

She really needs a US veteran, or at least a US citizen, to assist her at JUSMAG. It's JUSMAG's job to assist her if she has a valid military dependent ID, or maybe more accurately to put her in touch with those who can assist her, and they need to be pushed on it.

I've never stayed at the Nana either. Usually stay at the Amari over across the road because it assuages my Western guilt to be snubbed by the Arabs in the elevators. (I also used to like it when my ex-wfie couldn't get in the hotel until I came down or they called me and I said it was ok. Needless to say she wasn't as impressed.)

But I do enjoy strolling over to the Nana Hotel. And have to confess to pouring beer and rubbing grime on my clothes so I have enogh cred to claim to be a guest there.

I doubt that nearly 1 in 6 respondents has a net worth of US $1.33 million or more. Good for them, if true, but dubious.

Gregb- Are you trying to say that we've passed peak oil production? We haven't even made a serious effort to find much of the oil out there, let alone tap into it. And the whole peak production thing will be overrun and made irrelevant as fossils fade in importance.

I think you don't understand the world very well. Yes, it is possible that everything will grind to a halt. But it is far more likely that the world economy will continue to grow because most of the billions on the planet have needs and wants that aren't being met, and there are people, resources and rapidly improving tehnologies that will answer those needs and wants, thereby making the world economy grow. Sure, it will continue to grow in a messy, uneven way, and total catastrophe is always a possibility, but ongoing growth is the most likely scenario.

Your line about all you can do is give advice, and it's up to us to listen or not--isn't that a little arrogant? In any event, I choose not to listen to storing gold at the bank as a retirement plan.