buffcoat

As far as I can see this measure does not change the situation in regard to the UK system being different to the Thai system for permanent settlement.

The presumption for marriage immigrants is that they will make a permanent home in the UK and achieve ILR and then citizenship (probably). If so the immigrant is expected to learn English to enable integration.

The fact that a very basic level will be required before entry should not be a barrier to many and frankly if you wish the 'privilege' of living permanently in the UK you should demonstrate the will and commitment to do so.

I fail to see how this is discrimination in any legally objectionable sense since the requirement applies equally to any racial group, the requirement is based on the immigrants existing citizenship.

The vast majority of foreigners in Thailand do not have a permanent right of abode and are therefore not required to have Thai language skills. It is only those few who obtain Thai citizenship who must demonstrate a command of Thai.

If the Thai authorities do ever introduce a permanent visa for foreigners without citizenship that cannot be revoked by a change in status on the same terms as UK ILR I would expect it would carry a basic language requirement.

I am sure any factual mistakes I have made in regard to visa status and language requirement will be quickly pointed out!

Wow...have never heard of this happening before...but I guess it could easily be done. Interesting question is if you get a airline booking confirmation code (a legit one...not some receipt "Somchai" wrote out on some bill-pad) would the airlines have to honor it (and seek restitution from the agent themselves)?

I guess just another reason to book all your travel plans (hotels and airlines) online direct or with reputable online travel site...they have the best rates now anyways!

Sadly not. Some years ago my firm booked me a return flight London Houston on BA through our corporate travel agent.

I had confirmation numbers and allocated seats for both legs. Flight to Houston was fine but when I checked in to return they said I could not fly because the agent had not processed the payment for the return flight, the confirmation number only meant a reservation had been made but it did not guarantee anything unless the money had turned up.

I sometimes despair of my countrymen and this one is a classic.

Personally I hope the Thai authorities detain this individual and deport him.

As a guest in another country active participation in domestic political activities is simply not acceptable.

I know what the reaction would be if foreign nationals did the same in farang land, the rule of non-interference cuts both ways.

I think you will find that for the interview they will expect the spouse to be present, they certainly did when we had a face to face FLR(M).

References on the website limiting attendance to those who have booked is only for persons requiring a visa not UK citizens supporting the application.

You can legally drive for 12 months in the UK from date of first entry on an international license but after that 12 months have expired you must have a full UK license to continue driving unsupervised.

If your wife is driving unsupervised in the UK on her international license it is correct to tell the insurance company that this is the basis on which she is driving at the moment.

However if she fails to pass a UK test in the twelve months she must immediately stop driving unsupervised and you must declare to your insurer immediately that she is now using a UK provisional license and is a learner.

Most motor insurers have a tick box system that is not flexible enough to handle this unusual position.

Your legal duty of disclosure requires you to declare any material fact so when applying for coverage it is a fact that your wife will be driving unsupervised on an international license, this is the prime information, as an additional element of information you should tell them she will aim to pass a full UK test and therefore will have a UK provisional as well.

The crucial difference is obviously that under the international license she can drive on her own but under a provisional she cannot and the insurer is making assumptions about how risky she is by the relative desirability of the different licenses.

Recently I have been reading a fair bit about the early penetration of South East Asia by Europeans and amongst the items is the journal of an employee of The Dutch East India Co. who visited Siam in 1655 and made the following observations about his colleagues who were permanently based in Ayuthia.

"they lived very luxuriously here,most of them keeping concubines or mistresses [other indications are that they were deemed married by the local population] in order (as they say) to avoid common whores. They pay them maintenance for all their needs, and buy or build them a house, each according to his capacity"

.

Reference is also made to a notorious local bar run by "a certain Thomas the Frenchman, a free burgher who lives not far from the lodge [the Dutch trading house]. He makes his living by tapping beer, arrack, and punch for the sailors and others in the area. At some point in time he came with a ship from Batavia and was accidentally stranded here, and being a free man he stayed and settled".

It would appear that nothing changes!

Well I am in the 10% as the wife is a uni grad from Bangkok from a Thai Chinese family (sorry about that ).

She does not like Mr T. at all and has no time for the current red protests so she fits the stereotype as far as that goes. However she had no time for the Yellows either when they hit the streets.

She feels that the rural poor deserve a fair crack at making a succesful life and has no problem with a genuine party that would represent that aspiration but the current reds are too obviously focussed on their 'great leader' and not apparently genuinely interested in the poor and their condition.

The next election may provide a mandate for one group or another but at this point I see no prospect that it will heal Thai society as the losers may well feel that direct action will again be the only response to having lost and that they have nothing further to lose by taking that action (I hope I am wrong about that).

I am afraid that if you believe western standards are higher in regard to pushing onto trains/buses and queing etc you are sadly mistaken.

I work in London and all the negative behaviours mentioned in this thread are an everyday event here.

The main culprits are Europeans but locals and Americans can be just as bad. It is not all of them of course but enough to make it a nuisance.

I find that Bangkok is far more polite than London in general.

Sounds like an unpleasant situation and probably always will be.

If you were Thai there would be no question of a Sinsod of any amount. Instead mum would be at the Temple offering thanks for the good fortune that has smiled on her daughter.

I would pay for the wedding and give a present of gold to mum, a one baht bracelet would be fine.

It is clear that you need to assert your own power in this family. I know this sounds cold but if you do not do it now this situation will keep on appearing.

The wedding date cannot be in April. If you have decided to marry then pick the date with your wife to suit you and tell mum when it is, do not allow her any input to the choice.

Good luck

Fantastic stuff, sitting here at my desk wiping the tears from my eyes much to the bemusement of my colleagues.

We have many of the same problems and I certainly recognise the stare of incredulity that I can be so dumb not to understand 'plain English'.

My attempts to speak Thai reduce 'her' to quiet despair and only reinforce her view that she has married someone who is more than a little challenged linguistically.

My wife wanders around in an industrial strength towel which covers from armpit to toes and another for her hair and then says..."stop looking at me! I am shy!

I suggest a week in Paris on foot to get you into the right frame of mind for car dodging and then LOS won't be such a shock

My wife is reluctant to eat beef as well. Her family do not because it is a 'dirty meat', this from her fathers side who are Chinese.

She does not know why they hold this view.

Since my skin is inherited from my ancestors who lived in the Highlands of Scotland every Thai I meet is dark compared to me.

I therefore regard all Thais as the same i.e. darker......I am fairly certain that this is not an answer that a light skinned Thai wants to hear as they clearly believe for various, social, economic, racial reasons that whiter is better.

Yes I do have children, bben there, done that.

A drunk of any gender or race is a danger to a child.

I currently live in the UK where our Govt. as part of an initiative to 'protect children' wished to impose a data base of criminal record screening on 11 million adults, to include anyone for instance who drove children to and from sports fixtures for their school. After protests this has been reduced to only 9 million!

In effect in the UK you now have to prove you are innocent rather than maintain the doctrine of presumption of innocence until proven otherwise.

These new regulations are being brought in after a harrowing case of a double child murder by a school caretaker (nobody seems to care that the information on the murderer was available under the old system and if the authorities had done their job properly he would never have been employed).

Against this background you can see how Westerners generally (and from the UK in particular) are conditioned to fear the potential risk of adult crime against children.

The cultural expectations of West and East are significantly at variance in this area and can certainly give rise to sharp differences of opinion.

I believe that the parents (husband and wife together, not dictated by one) should decide how their child is treated.

As to the hygiene question I would advise that the OP eases down a bit. Being protective is normal but you have to accept that exposure to disease is necessary to build up immunity and that babies are much tougher than first time parents believe (we have all been there).

I wish the OP good luck in finding his way through this issue in such a way that satisfies him and his wife.

My wife came through Heathrow last week with her new Thai passport and her old one with the UK visa in it, no problem at all.

Increased age levels have already been announced as detailed above.

Realistically the expectation is that the major UK parties will accelerate this change because of the huge cost saving (since the UK is broke) but only after the next election, if either were honest now they would lose votes.

If you are planning to retire to Thailand from the UK I would strongly suggest you build in a contingency for your state pension being delayed or if you can afford it go ahead with a retirement plan based on your personal pension/investments etc only and regard the state pension as a pleasant bonus.

UK pensioners who have not yet taken an annuity on their private pension can benefit from a QROPS currently which is well worth investigating, not always the best route but worth a look.

And those lucky few who are 50-54 and thinking about retiring will have to make this decision now since UK legislation has changed and from next April you will not be able to take your private pension until you are 55.

As with all pension/investment decisions it is wise to get professional advice, in the UK from an IFA who is versed in the particular issues applying to ex-pats and tax efficiency.

Thanks for your replies, very useful.

Thank you, much appreciated

Hi,

Does anyone have a flightpath map of CM?

Any observations regarding the level of noise pollution in different areas would be appreciated.

I can work out the obvious due South and North of the airport but I was wondering to what degree other areas are affected.

Thanks

I can understand a reluctance to say XXX company is no good but have any of you found a 'European' standards builder who has actually delivered what they promised?

Additionally if you were to follow the route of buying an existing house how do you go about finding a surveyor who will do a rigorous job?

Every Thai I have ever met has darker skin than I do so they are all 'dark' and it is just a matter of degree and i tend not to notice unless one of those ridiculous adverts for skin cream is under my nose.

I have no doubt that this question regarding 'dark' Thai girls tells you a great deal about Thai attitudes to the different ethnic groups and classes within their society.

Undoubtedly there is a perception that whiter is better, an obvious nonsense but such prejudices are common the world over, it is an unfortunate human trait.

It seems the word farang and it's derivations originated in eastern europe/Persia and spread in usage to other countries by traders from those regions...as such it is a description of fact and of itself has no connotation good or bad.

Greek..frangos a Westerner

Syriac...frang A European

Persian..feringhi A Euro

Arabic...faranji A Euro

There are many others of this similar sound in countries between Europe and China.

It is unlikely these countries developed coincidentally a very similar word, it makes more sense to accept the borrowing of an existing word.

In the early middle ages West Europeans were often called the Franks as a distinct group so it is not a stretch to see Frank turn into Frangos and Frang further East.

With any word it is how you use it that counts, personally I have no problem with falang unless the context is hostile.

It is said that Thailand has never been conquered by any country in its whole history, but a Thai history student told me that it has, twice in the Ayutthaya perioed. I wonder Anyone wants to confirm the truth

One problem is which Thailand? Historically the area we now see as Thailand was split into differing kingdoms and their respective territories changed significantly over time before being absorbed into the state we now call Thailand.

Wars were fought with all neighbouring states Burmese,Mon, Shan, Chinese, Lao, Khmer, Annam (Vietnam),Patani and various 'Malay' sultanates.

Certainly Ayuthiya was burnt by the Burmese in one of their periods of ascendency but there was no occupation as such. However during this period the removal of populations was a war aim and significant numbers of people were stolen and resettled in the lands of the victors.

Before the colonial period Thailand was larger than it is now as the French took Thai provinces to the East of the Mekong in what is now Laos and the British took the Shan states in the North to add to Burma and I believe some more land in the deep South to add to Malaya.

The Japanese invasion in WWII was not possible to resist militarily although it is worth noting that Thai military units that did not receive the order to allow the landings did fight and continued to do so until the orders were received.

You can draw a parallel here with the smaller European countries who had no help to hand and had to surrender to the Nazi's, Denmark would be a fair equivalent.

The Thai's did recover the lost territory from the French and British during the war but the Allies made them hand it back as the price of peace.

Technically Thailand was not occupied by the Japanese as they retained their own Govt. and armed forces but very significant japanese forces were present and policy was directed by the Japanese. Arguably Thailand was treated better than other countries in the Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere but thousands of Thais died in the construction camps along with Allied POW's.

Well I have been an airline customer for thirty years flying mainly business but some economy and my expectation is that I receive the service I pay for.

All the airlines advertise their service quality as an inducement to fly but only some of them are serious about ensuring their staff provide this service.

If I (my company) is paying £5k for a ticket I will complain if service is poor, thoughtless or rude.

I also have the choice of airlines on any route and make my bookings accordingly so to that extent the airlines that tolerate bad service from their staff are losing business.

In my experience on the major carriers the Eastern Airlines provide the best service....why this should be is conjecture but it may be that their culture does not see service as in anyway demeaning to the person providing it.

The worst service I have encountered is from 'senior' FA's on BA and various US airlines who really seemed to resent having to do anything...I guess they had been doing the job for too long and were jaded in their attitude.

I have of course witnessed some very poor behaviour by passengers that would try anyones patience but at the end of the day FA's choose to be in a service role and if they can't do the job they should find something else.