dazdaz

Well said, thank you.  The rat race, seems to becoming even more of an issue.  People can't stop working, have less time, and are even more irritated.  Of course nowehere is perfect, and it would be nieve to say LOS was perfect, but it's the best #### place i've ever visited, and probably ever will visit, because of the beautiful scenery outside of BKK of course, but it's the people, the purity and friendliness really has me hooked.  The hook seems greater depending where you come from.  If you were from New York for example, and wanted a better life, the hook would be huge, because you would of seen how shallow life can be, once you think you've made it, in fact you've only made your grave a few years early.

I think the rat race can also be a perspecetive that people are moulded into, especially those who don't manage time very well and those who can't switch off from work mode to leisure mode.

And if your expat, then it means you'll most likely work in Bangkok, and won't be sipping pina coladas on Karong beach all day long, you'll be hard at work in an office, this is the mistake that a lot of people I think make.  This is the important difference, something that i've not really been able to find much information on the day to day living for a BKK expat. So when I say difference, I mean how do you cope with BKK, do you leave at the weekend, is there enough to do on a long term basis?

It's the strive for a great career so you can prepare for the future, but everyone seems to forget the present except the Thai's, this is something i've noticed.  Just living a quiet life, day by day, taking things as they come.  And yet we have management meetings to plan the next 5 to 10 years etc, you can quite easily forget to focus on the day to day events which are more important than things that may not happen.  The high stress, high stakes, high career, there comes a point when it becomes a waste of time and effort if you can't get that balance going.

Car and house don't mean much to me.  Those with cars i've noticed spend most of their driving around, going nowhere fast, what's the point?  House does'nt mean so much, something comfortable, the grand palace does'nt matter.

Regards  

I've been giving some thought to the supposed improved quality of life for an expat living in Thailand compared to elsewhere.  

I'm curious what other people think of this? Especially those who've made the journey a long time ago.  Has the quality of your life drastically improved, or gone downhill since arriving in Thailand?

It can depend upon what you value as important.  Having clean laundary, a working train service and a huge salary etc are all great, but then that's not so good if the people are arrogrant and self centered as sharing your wealth won't be  much fun.

I've found the Thai's helpful, giving and open among other quality's which for me is more important than clean laundary, trains which run on time and more money than you know what to spend it on.

Regards

Unfortunately i'm not an expert on this topic, but you don't see much porn in Thailand.  I think this is because of Thailand's traditions.  Exactly why Buddhism does not allow pornography, I don't know, but it's a very good question, something i'd like to know the answer to.

I think it would also depend upon how you define pornography as well.  Soft or hard?  Soft or very soft.

And I also think it would depend if this is a strictly export business or not, I think if it were then it may be easier.

It's also worth scouting the market, pornography is just an industry I suppose, what existing industry exists?  

Regards

Jealousy is human nature.  I've decided that t's not worth tying human facets to certain cultures, it's just humanity, you may have another name for it, but it's still the same thing.

I was'nt going to be petty by replying to Toybox's comments, but he's probably not been to Thailand, and only has a brief glimpse of the tourist areas from what he's heard fifth hand.  You should'nt be hard on him though, 95% of people stereotype an entire country like this, that's just society.

Toybox, stop and read the forum some more, there's more to Thailand than just sex, although if that's your primary interest, read this website http://www.stickmanbangkok.com/ this is'nt a site for sex in Thailand and those kind of comments are not welcomed here, it's an expat's site (there is a small difference ;-) but also try to look into Buddhism for example, or the diving in Phang na, the diversity of the culture etc  You will be surprised.

nikkdk, take things here with a pinch of salt, in other words don't take things too seriously, it's not worth it.  Anyway, i'm not sure we're on thread from the original posting, hehe.

Regards

Just hand the receipt back to the bar girl.  

Regards

Would this mean that this is the first step needed for dual citizenship?  Or would you need to renounce you British / American / whatever citizenship first?  Can you be of dual nationality in other Asian countries?

I have no idea what the international law or constitution is on this, but that would surely be great, you could have the best of both worlds.

Interested to know what people think.

Regards

1. He has a wonderful wife who can help him learn Thai.

2. It's a skill highly in demand, and medical profession related, I may be wrong, but I think things will fall into place which some good research.

Regards

Interesting, yes.  I've been curious about this for years.  What's it with facial hair and attraction.  Does it display some form of cultured experience or something?  Why don't Thai's have beards?  It will probably be the trend next week now.

I think that beer gut means wealth to Thai's does it not? Beard could be taken to mean lots of responsibility, lots of senior people do, or are well educated which of course means their rich farang!! So attractive because their rich, oh i'm so stereotypical, sorry folks.

Of course they could just be unclean, but it's too easy to see ketchup and salad cream etc, yesterdays dinner, so you can tell quite easily.  Oh and the smell.

ok i'm going to duck right about NOW, in case anyone does have a shiny beard or spongy whiskers, obligatory sandles and khaki shorts  

Regards

Hi George!

I noticed they have a network status webpage.

http://swd3.loxinfo.co.th/NetworkStatus/index.asp

However I doubt their as honest as Demon Internet or others with their *real* status.

You probably want to find their international routers and setup your own monitoring system / periodically test routing to them from various web services.

Regards

Here's an extreme solution that i've just thought of. I don't personally agree with it, but others may...

Make an Excel spreadsheet of her parents income.  They've survived all their life, why has their income gone down, or their expenses increased as soon as you married her, hehe.

With this spreadsheet you can make sure your not being cheated, and contribute a small percentage say each quarter.  Then you have a good idea of what's really going on.

*Any* "abuse" to the expense account and your charity stops forever.  Let me repeat that so it's clear.  Any cheating of the spreadsheet and that's it for life, no more money.

I can't see it working and I certainly would'nt want to do it,  but if you show that you trust them, they take away that trust which will probably happen, sorry folks that's generalised human nature, then you have a good case for no more payouts, they will feel guilty and are less likely to hassle you because of their guilt in betraying you.

I never knew I was such a cynic.

Regards :laugh:

If you give money to beggers, they ask for more.  Yes, even family can become beggers.

By not giving them money, your teaching them how to spend carefully, else how will they learn in the future, if they've never learnt all their life.

If the wife thinks she married the ATM and not you, then show her there are many other beautiful women who are more appreciative than you. She'll either snap into shape, or go even further into the greed role.  If that happens, then that's who she really is, and you should ask yourself if you really want a wife like that or not.  Does she really love you, or does she love to abuse your hard earned money.

Don't take any strop, else people will walk all over you.  Take a harsh army sergeant perspective and you'll get on ok.

Do I sound harsh?  This is the same the world over, Thailand is no different imho, it's merely human nature.  Make a stand today, else people will abuse you and take advantage of you in every way.  They've found a weakness and are exploiting you.

I expect some flames for this, but I think see nothing wrong.  Yes Thailand has some very poor people, but nor are you a registered charity. Show some compassion sure, but be very careful how you do it.  Ways to do this could be done by buying them some food every so often, making sure they know you've donated money to charity, helped the local Buddhist temple reconstruction project etc.  Help them get educated to get a proper job.

If you give them money and they buy alcohol, drugs etc with it, are you really helping them, or making them worse off.

Of course the wife will get grumpy, scream etc, but so can you.  Men seemed scared of a woman screaming, especially Thai women, but hear my roar, it may be seem as bad behaviour by the Thai's, but it's much louder and is sometimes required  

Don't forget the family is the center of their perspective so know that whilst you may say no to money, show some understanding, appreciation and compassion.

I sometimes wonder if money does not solve problems, only creates them.  Well that's my take on things.

Regards  

Optometrist, that's a eye doctor, right?

He could setup a private practise.

Funny that, I just came across this website.

http://www.thaioptometry.org/

There are 504 optometrists in Thailand at present and many more are in demand!  Looks like he's in the right profession at the right time, lucky you.

BTW He may want to try a private clinic first for the best jobs, like BUPA etc.

Regards

You don't by any chance have a moustache?  What's it with men with moustache's and sexual attraction, they seem to have all the fun.  It does'nt really suit me, else i'd probably look like an ex-con, well maybe just a con.

Regards

Would someone mind reposting that great guide on bar girls?

I would like to archive it.  I think it'd also be appropriate.

Regards

You have a fast internet connection in Thailand?  A friend of mine has bandwidth capping, it's terrible.  He says their really annoying about charging and calculating how much you've used.  

Regards

Cool thanks.

Yeah thats more like it.  Bangkok has a UV-Index of 12.4 in clear sky which is extremely dangerous and a UV-Index of 6.2 in cloud with a sun burn time in clear sky at just 10 minutes.

I wonder what Phuket is, because it's further down there, gathering much more rays.

Great site, thanks :-)

Thanks.  Having had a look at the website, I don't trust that weather guide.  I don't believe even with cloud the UV Index can be 0 (Minimal).  I mean this is Thailand, sun shines through clouds, even if not visible aka ultra violet, that looks highly suspect.  Got any others?

Regards

I find the UV(ultra violet) as opposed to the temperature more of an issue because of my fair skin when in Thailand.  Those sun rays really fry my skin quite severely and that's in spring!

I can't find a good website that displays the UV Index forecasts for Thailand, i've just been reading up and they seem to change daily.  Does anyone have a good website that does this and ideally the pollen count too.

Someone did post a good resource, but I can't find it.

Regards

Great thanks.  I did'nt know this exists.

In case anyone gets stuck, the URL is here (without the dot).

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Thai-HOWTO.html

Yes, it does look like a lot of messing around, which makes me wonder if people will just make do with English.

Regards

Maybe now would be a good time for us all to discuss Thailand alternatives, something that we've not tackled.  Something that i'm keen to hear opinions about.  Obviously HK and Singapore being obvious easier expat destinations, easier but still not easy though.  Indonesia appears to be suffering from violence / terrorism issues.  Japan appears cool, i've not been there, but the whole work ethos/salary man does'nt appeal to me (nice women though).  China could be interesting, if you like culture, history, philosophy etc, I think the expat community will go through the roof in China.  South Korea always seems to be on the verge of a nuclear war with the North which concerns me a little.  Vietnam may appeal to you as an ex Navy man (by that time).  Cambodia and Laos interest me, the press has unfortunately given Cambodia a very bad name, but it does appear an interesting place, same for Laos, there's something nice about being in the third world, earning a decent salary, far far away from the west.

Again, i'd love to hear thoughts from anyone with more experience than me on this.

Malaysia

Laos

Cambodia

Singapore

Hong Kong

Indonesia

China

Japan

Taiwan

Korea

Vietnam

I know what you mean about wrong generation, i've got stuck in the IT market, and it's no fun, although I started out doing it as a hobby which it still is, so i'll go the distance, but at the moment it does'nt open the doors it used to, I do believe that technology will go through another wave some day.. although by that time, I think I will be ready to quit IT and move onto something else, perhaps something outdoors.

Perhaps you could setup your own business, that's a solution around getting an impossible position.  You'd have enough time to learn what was required, scout the market, learn Thai, learn some more about Thai culture and business, then you'd be the most prepared Businessman in Thailand  

Another approach would be to choose a niche skill, train in that and then try to sell your skills either as a consultant or try a few companies.

It's interesting that you say you can't see yourself returning to the States, I keep on hearing Americans repeating that, once they've seen other countries.

Regards

I would love to read some articles on the real state of the IT market in Thailand, and what the real hopes of would be expats as well as the Thai's are.  Would the Bangkok Post be the place who would be equipped to do the research?  I know we've talked about this several times on here and have some good advice, it'd be nice to get some feedback from employers and expose the reality, I feel they will have a great but stinking story to tell.  I noticed the agre discrimination from day 1 in the job adverts, to be honest i've given up looking, Europe is a better option short term because of the difficulty, but long term, i'm keen to probably get a transfer if I can to Thailand through an international company.  Once i'm established for a good few years, then I may be able to setup a business for myself.

Would you be able to post a quick guide on howto setup Thai fonts on Red Hat 9?  Was there any other Thai customisation you had to do?

Regards

Who provides funeral services for expats whilst in Thailand?

btw like the new logo Rinrada, very cool!  

Did'nt IBM change the name from OS/390 to to z/OS?  This is interesting because Thailand from what I can see has very old information technology infrastructure, and if you want to work there in I.T. you need to know about some older systems.

http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/zos/

Returning to IT work in Thailand topic for a bit.  Another interesting point is that a lot of positions want you to be multi dimensionally-skilled such as a systems analyst and a programmer.  Completely unrealistic if you ask me, I don't know where they find the staff, Thailand does'nt produce so many people with a higher standard of Technical ability than the West.  And yet they have unrealistic expectations.

Just see,

http://www.bangkokpostjobs.com/

Look at how ridiculous these positions are.

Computer/IT thats it.  That and your photo.  They will discriminate against your picture and then you have no hope.

OFFICE AUTOMATION TECHNICAL SUPPORT [ALL LEVELS]

(5 Positions)

Bachelor's Degree in Computer-related fields, with at least 2 years experience in Information Technology

Working knowledge of Windows 2000, Win/NT, Networking (TCP/IP, LAN, WAN) and design/support for end user environments

Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) or MCP qualification is an advantage

So for a desktop support jobbie, they want someone with a degree and Microsoft certifications which btw, cost a fortune in Thailand economy/currency.

Maybe we should start a forum on exposing some of these silly jobs they advertise for fun, many IT and Thai interested people here.  We could learn a lot, I think many people would be interested.

Sorry folks, I hate recruitment, and I hate Thai job advertisements.

Regards

Thought it would be interesting to put together a list of reasons for and against expatriation to Thailand.  Does anyone have any other reasons?  There must be 100 more, but I can't think of them at the moment.

For

===

Great weather

Great People

Buddhism

Emerging country, undefined

Not your everyday expat destination (different)

Challenging

Against

======

Corruption

Everywhere is becoming a tourist hot spot

Regards