gtm2k

wish thai drivers could drive like that...... 20-30 paces away from the car in front .....

The Indian government has lost out to the Chinese on several high profile trade deals in Myanmar. The Chinese were seen as being able to deliver on their promises of money and technical support to get thing done. Anyone that has work experience with India will understand why. The Thai government should proceed with caution when it comes to anything involving investments or joint developments with Indian government agencies. One can wait for ages to be paid by an Indian client and even longer to get anything out of the Indian bureaucracy. Why help India with logistics when India would only use the network to move its rice and manufactured goods that compete with Thailand.

Thailand shouldn't waste time on India, but should instead try and work with Myanmar because Myanmar has the resources Thailand desperately needs, especially oil & gas and young employable males..

Well, this is a typical stereotyped comparison being posted here !

Yes, indians are tough clients to deal with - but its also the "high value - high risk" proposition with them. I run a software business where a good majority of our products are high value. When indian clients invest in any our software products, it is known that the payment cycle would be stretched like a rubberband (but then it also gives us the opportunity to charge a premium margin for such clients).

As for resources - india is one of the few countries which invests in knowledge accounting. And the "knowledge levels" of an average indian graduate far exceeds that of myanmar and/or thai's put together.

I don't think this is purely a stereotype comparison. I've lived in India and appreciate that they are tough clients, who like to haggle. But they are also comfortable with lying and welching on agreed contracts when it suits. They see this as "part of the game". Getting money out of them is arduous and therefore the margins must be high enough to cover all that hassle. They will keep coming back mid contract to see if they can squeeze more; but hate it when you do it back. Sure there are opportunities there, but you have to be ultra cautious.

Your last sentence is ridiculous. Based on what? You're own stereotype bias? Many Indian graduates I've dealt with wouldn't reach "A" level standard in the West.

Well to support my ridiculous claim even further - here are some facts,

1. An average indian student is at least 3 years ahead in math + science in comparison to its western peers.

2. An average bright indian student has a cgpa upwards of 9/10 (thats over 4.0 in gpa scoring) - this is at the same a levels stage that you are bragging about.

3. Universities in india purely admit on merit basis. This year alone the brigtest of lads scored in the range of 97% upwards - that should give you an idea of how competitive is the education system - this directly translates into HR workforce and so on. This system is uniformly spread across the entire education sector.

4. Education is extremely light on the pocket , in comparison to the standards it provides.

Businesses in india eventually use this talent pool , again on the basis of merit - to further train candidates during inception.

If you are a teacher by any chance in thailand - you will realise that most indians here go back to indian schools for completing high-school - those who take this decision are prepared to take on cut-throat competition.

As for how the west stands - unless they decide to change the way they educate - they will be heading west - in the direction of sundown ! UK is an exception to this argument.

This is btw a good read - http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2008/01/30/comparing-american-students-with-those-in-china-and-india

The Indian government has lost out to the Chinese on several high profile trade deals in Myanmar. The Chinese were seen as being able to deliver on their promises of money and technical support to get thing done. Anyone that has work experience with India will understand why. The Thai government should proceed with caution when it comes to anything involving investments or joint developments with Indian government agencies. One can wait for ages to be paid by an Indian client and even longer to get anything out of the Indian bureaucracy. Why help India with logistics when India would only use the network to move its rice and manufactured goods that compete with Thailand.

Thailand shouldn't waste time on India, but should instead try and work with Myanmar because Myanmar has the resources Thailand desperately needs, especially oil & gas and young employable males..

Well, this is a typical stereotyped comparison being posted here !

Yes, indians are tough clients to deal with - but its also the "high value - high risk" proposition with them. I run a software business where a good majority of our products are high value. When indian clients invest in any our software products, it is known that the payment cycle would be stretched like a rubberband (but then it also gives us the opportunity to charge a premium margin for such clients).

As for resources - india is one of the few countries which invests in knowledge accounting. And the "knowledge levels" of an average indian graduate far exceeds that of myanmar and/or thai's put together.

Good question, but no idea, but privacy laws (or concerns about this) in Thailand seems to be non-existing.

For example: I have asked my Condo Manager if they have a shredder, she told me no.

Follow up question: "What do you do then with private personal documents" she said we just trow them in the garbage

bro !

it took me a while to figure that the little ant walking all over your avatar... is ur avatar !

Yes, we do !

We provide document scanning and digitization services. At the moment, we can handle document volume of upto 10,000 sheets per day.

Details sent to you via pm !

I have been hearing this since I came to Thailand in 1966. All talk no action. SSDD!

another NATO "No action Talk Only" case !

"bleached blonde German cow"

wonder what does it translate to in thai....

the gent is lucky to be alive !
frankly, lucifers in pattaya is the only place left to visit ... you go and come out in once peice !

you ran into a robot @ work !

bangkok will soon see a "terminator"

In the thai social circle, Guns and Cars are two important keeps of any thai man - it attracts both power and women.
Before they decide to clamp down on gun culture, they really need to figure how to deal with it at the social / cultural level.

somehow the man sounds completely without any friends....

How could they tell they were ladyboys?

the pic posted is surely a crop of the original !

For a foreigner it might look like the cost of medical treatment in Thailand is very cheap but the truth is that for the common Thai people is very, very expensive, specially when you go to a private hospital and buy ur medicine ther, the prices of something so simple as an antibiotic very often is 30 times more expensive than if you go to a normal drugstore and buy it for yourself, so hope the goverment improve this situation because this is something that is a very important issue for must of the people, amen

My wife uses an antibiotic which the hospital provides @ THB 1,350.00 per file (ie 10 tablets)

After about 3 rounds, missus decided to take the empty foil to a local chemist and was shocked to find out that the same medicine - same brand - same packaging and same dosage : THB 107.00

Such is the state of affairs !

We complain about expats being looted given the chance, how about thais looting their own !

Yes !! But only the following categories :

1. Lookthung

2. Anything Carabao

3. Some JoeyBoy songs - his music is original

4. Old songs that go back to the 50-70's : they have original melodies, good instrumentation and most importantly good *music*

Most of the young singers today barely can sing (barring a few). And, i have to admit the music is plain noise , but anything musical.

In thailand, a mediocre singer will go a long way if he/she just has *good looks* ; the first immediate break being into TV soaps. In you understand spoken thai, and watch programmes like the star, fantasy asia you will know what i mean.

Become friends with mother and you gain much greater control of everything. I have found this very useful in solving arguments...

haaaa...hahahah !

oh yeah... this does work like a charm !

okay, i have to admit there is some truth in this post - and is subject to more than 1 interpretation.

1. Too many tourists out here claiming to be IT experts, but basically trying to get the job done by googling + using half-knowledge ?? YES
Recently , i came across a property developer who had intentions of getting his web site developed with a lot of business driven knowledge in it. The processes he designed were probably his own brainchild and could not be really accomplished using any standard off-the-shelf CMS. But again - a tourist IT expert quoted him under 1000 US for a job which was *supposed* to finish 2 months back. The guy's domain is still sitting without its website - and i am only guessing that the relationship has gone sour.

These so called IT experts spoil genuine market dynamics, leave the prospective clients hanging nowhere and at the end of the day its everybody's waste of time. I must also add - from a visa point of view - its illegal as well !

2. The same theory BTW also extends to thai graduates who are passing out with IT Degrees. I have come to an understanding now, that amongst these grads "passing" is enough ! Most CS grads show up with "websites" as their year-end / internship projects - which is a shocker for me ! But then, as long as they have good soft skills - they can be trained to generate output for genuine real-world projects.

Perhaps there are other members here who run software related / IT businesses and would share their experiences as well ...

well done.... its about time someone took notice and did something !

Just walk with a stick in your hand !
We have a shih-tzu at home - and a few soi dogs who like to chase / engage to keep their territory. But when they see a stick in my hand, they only limit themselves to barking.

There are no clear laws about animal control here in thailand - so even a comparison with the west is plain useless. So let common sense + presence of mind prevail and it should be all fine.

Anyone who has been here long enough knows that the numbers are WAY down in (Nana, Soi Cowboy, and Patpong), it's called simple observation. This is the only way they can make up the income.

Maybe if they learned to embrace the nightlife they could all benefit from it,for example stop charging 120 baht for beers !

i frankly cant remember the last time i visited any of these places, but it was at least 5-6 years back ! The ripoff's / scamming will continue - and these places will continue to lose money.

This speaks for itself. Education Ministry should have educated top of the line IT people taking care of their servers with firewall protection. But is guess that is expecting too much.

IT infrastructure is one of the least priority expenses within most thai companies. We recently were at a mid-sized construction business and were shocked to find there server ( an old white assembled PC ) sitting at the corner of their swanky reception office. Attached to it was an external USB drive which apparently had extremely sensitive accounting and engineering data backups.

After almost a month - we realised that this client was not even willing to invest in 15000 baht work of antivirus licenses for about 10 users (out of the 55 ppl that sit in that office) - forget about any attempts to even consider replacing their existing hardware to a more secure and foolproof system !

Brother ! You are on a collision course with disaster...

1. "I have an MBA so once I know Thai there shouldn't be a problem finding a decent job" : there's no guarantee, in fact there's a higher probability of not finding a job ! Its not about the MBA / Thai language skills - its about the hassle that prospective employers have to go through to employ a foreigner.

2. I" want to remove all of my cash (around $300k) from US banks when I leave" : very very bad idea, specially when the dollar is losing value on a daily basis in thailand. Plz do your homework well on this - if you really want all your cash here in thailand - plz get part of it only in a "foreign currency deposit account" - that ways your cash is stored in USD - you liquidate into THB only on a need-basis.

At the end of the day, there is a good chance that you will also make a thai girlfriend and an evetual social circle - so plz dont disclose your nett worth to everyone !

To the best of my knowledge (and plz correct me if i am wrong), here are the facts if you are caught in a DUI situation -

1. You must score at least a 50% or above to qualify for any further police action

2. In case you are proved drunk - there is an instant THB 5000 fine , vehicle+license confiscated and next day you are supposed to appear in court the following day

3. The court rules your punishment

Amongst all fine - DUI is very strictly dealt with by the police. Although, i have known about a case here n there where ppl have got off by paying off heavy cash.

At the end of the day - we are all bashing thai pickup drivers / van drivers for recklessly driving at 140 and smashing into ppl , trees, soi dogs, bridges alike. So in retrospect, 32 days jailtime for someone from our own clan, caught doing 200 + DUI is perhaps well warranted!

Oh good ... grief. Next she will suggest that that all get a plastic card which will give them privileges .....

Its getting there bro !

Well you see gents, to be able to co-relate hitler to the holocaust - you need to have a basic reading of "world history". Sadly enough, thai's are only well-versed with their own history which is not too old in the global comparison At the same time, if you go back a few hundred years - no such "thai" event in particular affected RoW. US, EUROPE, ASIA particularly (Russia, China, India) and JAPAN went through major events which has led to the world we all live in today.

The only knowledge that thai's have during the world war era is of being the only unoccupied territory during that period - but the average individual is not even aware of how the WW1 started and what factors led to WWII.

Sometimes you have to just take all this with one shut eye - and at least feel privileged to receive the kind of education we all received back in our home countries.

Although thailand is blessed in a way to not have gone through much historical chaos, perhaps inclusion of the historical matters in school textbooks would be a better solution for the long term !