Pierrot

I'm surprised that nobody mentionned that there is a better alternative than selling the wood but maybe we're not talking about the same thing, I'm not a wood expert.

A cousin up north planted teak trees around 15 years ago. Two years ago, when the trees started to reach the required maturity, he sold his restaurant to start making furniture with his own trees, small operation, a big warehouse and a couple of employees. We bought an garden table and a couple of chairs from him, nothing outstanding, but honest quality and very fair price. He sell to small resorts and home owners and as I far as I know he's doing ok, much better than just selling the trees. Maybe an example to follow.

<br />Just re'read your post mate, yes he is a civil servant and yes he is also the supreme authority in the village.<br />

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My wife says you dont have to go with their advice or you can go higher than the poo yai baan. Recently when buying land this guy told us nobody will sell less than 350000 baht per rai but my wife said he is "stupid man" ......... we paid 250000 baht gufffffffffawwwwwwwwwww Wife correct poo yai ban was stupid man!!

You can go higher than the poo yai baan, but who ?

I may have to negociate some land purchase / border problem in the near future. I think we are lucky, people in our area seem very nice, so it should be ok. But I don't want to find out that the law is with us but the poo yai baan against us without having a plan "B".

I find that "just looking sheepish and staring at the ground, or disappearing for a few days" is an acceptable way to apologize. Sometime people use other way to apologize than words. I recently found out that among young people in Hong Kong a kind of military salute means "sorry".

Also, please don't flame me for that, it's just a personnal feeling, Asian societies are very heriarchicals. If people have the feeling to be superior to you, they won't apologize. In this regard, I have sometime the feeling to belong to a dog pack. You have to establish very early your place in the hierachy and sometime to "bark and bite" to put contestants back in their place. Then apologizes will come in confirmation of your status.

This I agree with, new members, new questions, old answers, it doesn't negate the reason for asking, so good shout here, but what it doesn't negate is your statement of, ' Asian Face', I have seen considerable Western Face too, but that is just a statement on my part.

Have a good night

Pierrot

Thank you I will.

Moss

Good morning Moss !

I think I need to explain that I didn't use "Asian Face" by opposition to western face, but to emphasize it was something that was common in East Asia (I'm not familiar with India) and not specific to Thailand.

Asian people are much more master of their expression that western people are and they play this card very well, like bluff in a poker game. When you see people upset, sad or angry for what seems no real reason, try to call the bluff and you will see sometime the feeling disappears as fast as it's appeared. But play the game sensibly, you won't bet all your money in a casino against a professional player, will you ?

I'm sure you will have a good day

Pierrot

Rue Fang is not Thai, so not sure what your issue is here Pierrot.

As for the idea of "phony statistics" perhaps you need to re-read her point instead of nitpick on numbers. The exaggeration was made for a reason, if you can't grasp that reason without attacking her then perhaps you really do need to do the search.

This topic has been discussed ad nauseum, which is the point she was trying to make. Over and over and over and usually ends up being an excuse to complain, gripe, moan and bitch about a country and a culture most of us have chosen to live in.

One basic concept that many people fail to grasp here is that this is not Europe, North America or Australia or New Zealand. They do things differently here, they think in a different manner and have a different world view. Instead of constant complaining perhaps people should attempt to understand the idea that they aren't in their home countries anymore.

Different cultures have different ways of doing things and dealing with issues and instead of standing in judgment, as if coming from some superior culture, it would be better if more people made an effort to grasp the concept that it is just different.

Sure, some things are wrong, some things are bad, but, so are some things good. However, if all some people can do is focus on the negative and complain then I am really not sure what they are doing here. If a person refuses to come to terms with the place they live is that really the fault of the people around them?

My point has nothing to do with RueFang being Thai or not, but on her technique which, this is my point, illustrates how people in Asia use "Face" to force their arguments upon others.

Regarding the numbers, there is no exageration and I did the search, I found about the same number she mentions, but the results include "face treatments", "face masks" ....absolutely no relation with the subject. That why I call using this number a "phony" statistic.

" it would be better if more people made an effort to grasp the concept" It was my intent. "Face" in its annoying aspect, is, for me, mostly a bullying technique that people shouldn't be afraid of. On the other hand, nobody likes to be humiliated in front of others but this is not specific to Thai culture.

"This topic has been discussed ad nauseum" It's possible, but it seems to me that new members are joining everyday and a forum is a place to share experiences. So on a regular basis, there will be new comers discussing the same subjects all over again (this thread has been started by someone who joined less than one month ago !!!)

For a lot of people, this forum is a safety valve where they can express their frustation when faced with situation they don't really understand and meet other people with similar problems. Read the comments from Thai abroad in Pantip, it's not really different. If you could understand that too, it would ne nice.

Have a good night

Pierrot

I didn't really know where to post this question. I'm sure I'll sound stupid for a number a people but what is a "village head" ? What is his function?

I just bought a piece of land in Isaan, and every time I have a problem, people ask "Have you asked the village head? What does he think?"

Is he the supreme authority in the village? Or just a civil servant? And if we don't agree with him, what are the options ?

Thanks in advance

Pierrot

I have much more experience with Chinese (from China) but I believe face is the same everywhere, a bullying tactic.

Asian societies are based on strict hierarchy. You should have noticed that when two people meet for the firt time, the fist thing they do is guess who is "superior" to the other one. "Face" is a way to force the result.

It is also a negociation tactic, between bluff and bullying, to get the upper hand in a deal or just a better table in a restaurant.

Just look at RueFang last two posts, how she tries to shut down the thread in a very typical Asian way of using the "face", bold letters in 1st post, phony statistics in the second. You give her face and you back off, or you call the bluff ...

I agree that the main problem is in case of the unfortunate death of the Thai spouse. In my case I completely trust my wife but should something happend I would rather solve some issues now than to have to negociate with my inlaws later.

If you're alone, you just move away, probably the best thing to do, but if you have kids or if you're involved in some kind of commercial activity, things may get a bit more complicated.

Glad to hear the problem was solved - am lying in bed with my laptop chatting to the other half about this: she shook her head in disbelief. Without long term formal right of way or access you were going to have a never ending headache.

You new to this forum Pierrot (and to Thailand?) - just as a matter of interest, if you don't mind sharing this info: how have you structured the ownership of the land and the house?

Are you treating them as a single asset or have you kept them as 2 seperate assets?

It's true I didn't pay too much attention to this problem until I read recent posts on other forums and I now realize that I completely trust my wife but should something happend I would rather solve some issues now than to have to negociate with my inlaws later.

One important point is my wife is working with an international company with a very decent salary, and beside the name on the papers, she provides her fair share of the money to buy our land/house too. So any solution we may consider needs to give us a shared control of our property. I say that because I have explored different solution including an userfruct, but it seems that with an userfruct we go for one extreme to the other, from the thai side having total control to the property to the other side getting this total control after signing the usurfruct.

Is it any solution that you could recommend that could be suitable for "farming" in Isaan? (means owning land, but also heavy equipement and probably live stocks), and also a commercial activity in the future.

I'm not so sure I understand well but it seems that with the userfruct, we go for one extreme to the other, from the thai side having total control to the property to the other side getting this total control after signing the usurfruct.

My case may be a little different as my wife is working with an international company with a very decent salary, and beside the name on the papers, she provides her fair share of the money to buy our house too. So it seems fair that we share the control of our property.

To your knowledge, is it possible that we share the usurfruct of the property, with a provision that the total usurfruct goes to the last living person?

It could be a good idea.

We are in a similar situation that Alexboy describes in an other thread, I don't believe that farming incomes can match those of our city jobs and unfortunately we need them for the time being. So why not forget commercial farming for the time being and try to do something useful.

Does anybody has experience of working on an agricultural project with an university, a research centre or an NGO? What do they usually request ? What kind of help can they provide ? ....

Glad to hear the problem was solved - am lying in bed with my laptop chatting to the other half about this: she shook her head in disbelief. Without long term formal right of way or access you were going to have a never ending headache.

You new to this forum Pierrot (and to Thailand?) - just as a matter of interest, if you don't mind sharing this info: how have you structured the ownership of the land and the house?

Are you treating them as a single asset or have you kept them as 2 seperate assets?

Funny question, the answer is single asset. Are you concerned that my wife may have the sole ownership of the land and the house? You should be even more worry, we have a house in Bangkok under her name too .

To answer you other question, tomorrow is very special day for me, I arrived in Asia (Hong Kong) on Feb 10, 1993, exactly 15 years ago, and I never went back to Europe.

To late I fear MF ,on another thread he is talking about his newly finished house.

Thanks for your concern too, but as I explained in my reply to MF, there is no need to worry. In the worst case scenario, we will just need to fill a pond and make a new road. As I said, it was just a case of willing to have his cake and eat it.

We bought a piece of land a while ago, everything was fine until one of our neighbour came and told us that the path from the main road to our land belongs to him, goes through his property. It seems he has papers to prove it but as far a people rembember, this path has always been there. As always, what he wanted was money for us to still be able to use this path. Fortunately, he also needed water from our pond so we were able to find an arrangement.

My question is : does someone has the right to block the way to our property ? In other countries, the right to access one's property is always garanteed, even if one needs to go through other people properties. Furthermore, if it can be established that a path has been used for some period of time, the owner lose the right to block it.

I'm afraid that our neighbour will come again next time he needs money, and I would like to find a definitive answer to this problem.

Pierrot

I see trouble on the horizon - "pan handle" access is a big issue in Thailand over which a lot of fists have being thrown.

You need to get yourself down to a lawyer - this idea that you have come to an ammicable agreement with your neighbour is not worth a cent - nothing. You need to get it in writing and registered at the district land office, and you need to do all this - before you do anything with the land - and for gods sake - don't start building anything on it.

What makes me shake my head here, is that no-one said anthing to you when you purchased this land. Every Thai is familiair with "pan handle" problems in Thailand. The first thing a Thai looks at when buying land are the borders of land relative to the nearest road - and if one of those borders is not up against the road the first thing they ask the seller is "who owns the land between my land and the road?" Every Thai knows this Pierrot - and while I can expect an ex-pat to maybe fall through on this, I roll my eyes when they say my partner, and her family didn't know either - because it inevitably turns out a few years down the road that they knew all along.

Okay, this what you need to do to protect you investment, because as it stand you are sitting with a piece of land that is effectively worthless - untill you purchase a neighbouring plot with road access (yer - how convienient it all is for the seller).

The verbal amicable agreement you have with your neighbour ain't worth anything - you need to get it in writing from him, and its needs to be noted in the land reg doc's. And to get that done properly in accordance Thai law, you need to see a lawyer who is aquainted with pan handle law - not just the local legal specialist (so send me your email by private message and I'll send you some names and tel numbers).

Untill then whatever you do - do not build on the land It has the potential to open up a can of worms.

Thank you for your concern but don't worry, we do have an access to the main road. We had the family lawyer to assist us when we made the purchase and we actually did purchase an additional plot to secure the access to the main road. The main point of discussion is our neighbour claims that this access is through a pond, and that the path we use belongs to him. So, worse come to worse, we fill the pond (or make a bridge as suggested, but filling the pond will be cheaper) and the problem is solved. My question was more about to have the cake and eat it, keep the road access AND the pond. And fortunately, water is more a problem for our neighbour than for us, that why we have the upper hand for the time being.

Thanks again for your concern, it's nice to know one can get support when one needs it.

Maybe a farang couple might be better suited for you and they would find out how they like living in the area, you might not even need to pay them. You would both gain.

Could be a good idea but they would probably insist on a better housing that the one we plan to offer. On the other hand, we may be interested by young people (farangs or locals) who, in the course of their study, may help us develop sustainable land use.

Pierrot: Shelter I refer to is a tin sheet roof, wood floor, sides of wood or bamboo siding, with porch for cooking etc, we called them shotgun housing where I come from, primitive but dry. Most in my area are put up in a week by 3 or 4 people. Of course a outhouse and bathing facilities would be avaliable. Full time help on farm is 3500 for a man while wife can work outside or do daywork with man as needed. There are a lot of Burma people in our area so prices may be higher in your area. If you give them access to some land for garden and have water for it it would give them a sense of belonging and taking care. ( possible) Congradulations on the house and land and good luck.

What we plan is a bit nicer, concrete structure with indoor shower, it can be a part of the bargain and, as you said, give them a better sense of belonging.

We are currently narrowing out choice on a family with kids, we feel they will be more stable and responsible. Given the size of the land, to give them access some land for their own use won't be any problem, it should help too.

We have a medium size piece of land where we just finished building our house. Very unfortunately, we don't live there and we plan to hire a local couple to take care of our land and the house. Basically, it's for security purpose (my wife doesn't feel comfortable leaving her house with nobody watching) Also watering the the few plants we have, maybe in the future taking care of some tree plantation ...For information, we have around 40 rais.

Then we have many questions: Is it a good idea to begin with ? What can we expect from them ? I hired the last few days a couple of local guys to help me do some land cleaning, I'm not impress at all !

How much should we pay them? What about the accomodation? Is there any other important question I should ask ?

Thanks in advance

This is not the same piece of land with pan handle access to it by chance you discussed on the other thread ?????????????????????

What can we expect from anyone looking after your hosue who is not family? - anything, anything could happen. AS Lickey said - not a position I'd wanted to be in.

Not a position you wanted to be in ? I should send you a picture of the view I have when I'm typing this message and I'm 100% sure you will change your mind. As I said, we didn't buy this land because of some family connection but because it's awfully beautiful here !

Regarding dealing with family, I know it is the usual way here but it's the reason why I never did any business in Thailand. I don't mix family, friends and business and I'm much better off this way. So obviously I'll have to find an other solution ...

Ah, I heard about that. It is what they called a leasing contract ?

She bought the house and she leases back to me.

The only odd thing is taxes are quite high for this contract.

is this contract what you are referring to ?

No. Not the same.

Have a look through the land and house forum. Lots of info in there.

Have a read of this.

http://www.sunbeltlegaladvisors.com/Thailand-Usufruct.php

Very useful link. But it is under the title "Thai - US Amity Treaty" Is it available only for US citizen or everybody ?

As to the specifics of Thai access/tresspass laws, who knows? However, I cannot imagine in a million years that anyone has rights of access across another persons land. Thai people have crossed oneanothers land to access their own for centuries, theres millions of rai technically landlocked here, it is all owned & worked by someone!

I would suggest to anyone in the same situation to basically follow the 'when in Rome etc' route, it always pays to be 'nice' about such things in order to maintain the 'goodwill' Forget about legal redress, a civil matter such as this would take many costly years to resolve & there are no winners, especially the farang!

Agree to maintain the goodwill. In any country, it's never been a good idea to fight with the locals when you belong to out of town. But blackmail is an other matter. What I'm afraid is if we pay, there will be a line from our door to the next village from people who have some other matters to "settle" with us.

Generally speaking, people in our area are quite nice and play by the rules. So far we had trouble with only a couple of trouble makers, and they are generally recognized as troublemakers so no blame on us.

From the BBC online : " The US has announced a resumption of military aid to Thailand, hours after a new democratically elected government was sworn in there."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7231922.stm

How much in funding Thailand has lost? I remember it was about 14 million dollars, that's it. Not a leverage against any country, even the poorest ones.

If you're not yet convince, there isn't much I can do …

Admit you were mistaken?

Plus, I must admit that it makes a much better story, that 'western powers' took action which forced the junta to give up power, the fact that there is no evidence & that the military-backed caretaker-government held the elections when they had always promised to, before incidentally the U.S. had even temporarily-cut their piffling aid, would not register.

You can't convince a 'true-believer' with mere facts ! Which doesn't however make them any more correct.

Or any less. ...

I read in an other forum that you don't trust the foreign press, ok, but do you trust the local one?

Ricardo, if you don't trust what you read, where do you find all these informations that makes you so knowledgeable about what's really going on ? Honnestly, I'm really insterested...

Ricardo, sorry for the personnal attacks, I maybe overeacted, I apologize for that.

Let's agree we disagree, will you ?

First I never believed, or said, that someone put a gun on someone else head to force a change in Thai politic. It doesn't work this way. They have more subtle ways to act, a mix of international pressures to give the people in charge a hint of what is their best interest. Therefore it's much harder to bring hard evidence of such pressures.

Second, it's not specific to Thailand. Think of the pressure and the abuse France had to suffer when they made the "wrong" choice regarding the war in Iraq, the economic choices Taiwan, Japan or Korea have to make to preserve their "special friendship" with their protector. And it's not only the USA, China or Russia don't even bother with "subtle messages" when they want something done.

The US stopped FTA negotiations, true, but Thais didn't want to go into it on Thaksin's terms anyway. They don't even want to resume them anymore.

Americans were far more pissed off about compulsory licensing than about the coup.

Do you know that under the junta Thailand signed trade agreement with Japan, it's second largest trade and investment partner? That is directly opposite of pressure and threats.

Japan governments doesn't have the same pressure from its electors to behave in an "ethical" manner. The same reason China's policy in Africa and other countries is widely condemned.

It a bit the same with big companies who ask their suppliers to behave in an "ethical" manner and ask for "social audit" . They don't give a shit, for them it's just more trouble, make things more complicated, but they are scare to death of the negative publicity if some "rights"group publish picture of a sweat shop with their logo on the products manufactured. Same for Western governments.

Lickey asked the important question, Does your wife have family near or who can live on site (trusted I may add also) In the Northern area, the pay is 3000 to 3500 per month, with shelter furnished. This would normally be a couple, who would live on the property. Single males have a habit of disappearing on a fairly regular basis, or inviting friends in for a party, and they never seem to want to go home. With 40 rai, wanting to make improvements and just keep the land cleared would almost require a full time laborer, I would think.

Sorry, no help to expect from my wife family, we chose the area (80 km south of Korat) because we really like it, not because of family connection.

For the choice of a couple, you answered my question, I understand better, thank you.

For the salary, it seems it is a lot more in our area, we heard of 8,000, does it seem reasonable or are they "taking advantage of foreigners" ???

What do you call a shelter ? We have some basic standard for what it should be, I understand it's a bit above what it is usually offered, but we can use it in the negociation.

Any other point to consider ?

You have a situation i would not want! Does your wife have a family member who could be trusted to look after your house and land? or even a close friend that has the time to do this for you, is you farm fenced off? we dont live on our 40 rai farm, and it has barbed wire all round, on the farm is a borehole pump,booster pump, sprinklers, small wood house for all the fertilizer and weedkillers ect, carpenters building [not secure] with lots of eletric machines for wood preperation,I was worried about security, my wife talked to the man [Mr Poo] who lives across the road from farm entrance and for over a year now, he has helped on the farm, with market traders early in the morning buying fruits and salad things, irrigation ect, he gets paid for his efforts, but if there is nothing to do, wife will pay him 200bht a week to keep him sweet and watch farm, ok, kids go on farm, take papaya, banana,tamarind, oranges, thats small things, but if a pick-up goes on the farm, and takes all the water pumps and fertizer, plus the wood working tools, i could loose 100.000 bht in 1 night, so is your farm fenced off, is there somebody near main gate to watch for you?

Thanks for your concern. My wife is from Bangkok with some relatives up north and the farm is near Korat, so not much help to expect from this side.

We too have barbed wire all around but it was mostly to settle some minor border dispute and because we were sick and tired to find cows in our garden eating our flowers and vegetables. But for security purpose honestly it's useless.

For the time being we have very little equipement, only two pumps, mostly for the house and the nearby garden. I'm working on a more serious irrigation system but, as advised, I'm doing my homework first before submitting my project to this forum for approval ...

The main reason to hire a caretaker (my wife thinks of a couple ???) is to let people know the land is occupied, that they don't get the wrong idea and start growing their stuff. Also, we spent quite a lot of time and effort to turn a piece of mostly jungle into something that looks nice and clean. As you know, vegetation is growing pretty fast in the area, so we need regular maintenance to keep it this way. We also plan to grow some trees but we are still doing our homework for that too.

So far we made quite a lot of error, as I said my wife is from Bangkok so she's as much a foreigner in Isaan as me, but compare to what happend to other people we know, we consider ourselves lucky. That's why at this stage we welcome all advises from more experienced people.

Thanks in advance

Pierrot

Odd, that we never hear 'thanks' to the Vietnamese who rolled their tanks in to Kampuchea to quell the mass murders and misery of the Cambodian people. And the Vietnamese didn't do it as a land grab. Neither the Thais, The Yanks, the Europeans, the Soviets, nor any other Asian country was ready to do such dynamic and needed action.

.....similar type of action that's needed to rid Burma of the yoke of its military oppressors.

BTW, China, who always seem to be on the wrong side of international problems, were rooting for the Khmer Rouge.

To be fair, until the end, almost everybody supported the Khmer rouges. Main reason: the communist Vietnamese were considered a worst evil !!!

In the 90’s, the FUNCIPEC , headed by Norodom Ranariddh, son of Norodom Sihanouk, who were sharing the power with Hun Sen, wanted to integrate the Khmer Rouges to the army to counter balance the influence of the regular army that was widely believed to support Hun Sen and the “Vietnamese”. Ranariddh , supported by the international community, then stopped all efforts to disband the Khmer Rouge, contributing to the general insecurity in the country. It was only in 97, when Ranariddh was forced out of the country, that the Khmer rouges lost their last support and within the next two years all faction surrendered, marking the end of the Khmer rouges and the beginning of a relative peace in Cambodia.

The thing is, Pierrot, none of your quotes - domestic or international, shows any sign of pressure on the junta to return to democracy any faster than they did themselves.

HRW report that came out last week was a wee bit too late to make any difference. US military funding was too insignificant to make any difference, and they didn't even cancel annual military exercises, afaik.

Lilawadee, alleged drop in foreign investment is not exactly what Pierrot had in mind. He said the junta returned country to democracy due to international pressure.

Altogether foreign investment rose some 20% year on year, btw. Apparently not everyone viewed the junta as critically unstable, last year of Thaksin was, perhaps, politically more frightening.

PS. Thanks for that HRW quote, Pierrot. It is an strong indictment of sham democracy Thaksin was running to cover his true nature.

First I never believed, or said, that someone put a gun on someone else head to force a change in Thai politic. It doesn't work this way. They have more subtle ways to act, a mix of international pressures to give the people in charge a hint of what is their best interest. Therefore it's much harder to bring hard evidence of such pressures.

Second, it's not specific to Thailand. Think of the pressure and the abuse France had to suffer when they made the "wrong" choice regarding the war in Iraq, the economic choices Taiwan, Japan or Korea have to make to preserve their "special friendship" with their protector. And it's not only the USA, China or Russia don't even bother with "subtle messages" when they want something done.

What the Junta came to understand was there will be consequence if a prompt return to democracy was not quickly organized, just in case they change their mind regarding the election calendar.

What you failed to notice in the BBC report was : "The SANCTIONS were an AUTOMATIC step under a law banning such aid to nations WHERE ELECTED LEADERS HAD BEEN DEPOSED". You can argue that the Junta can have easily ignored such sanctions, agree at least for these ones, but not that there was no pressure, sorry.