sirineou

One thing though. Emotionally Thai women are very weak. They may do alot for their husband, clean and take care of the kids, while the Thai husband goes out and gets drunk and more importantly goes out with his mia noi. But it's OK, because the wife knows about the mia noi and she is OK with it. Apparently! It makes me sick. When she does go out with her husband, she sits there, pours his drink and waits to be spoken to before she'll speak.

Now I am a woman too, and it frustrates me! I have a Thai boyfriend, and I wouldn't put up with it! I wish these kind of women would grow some backbone and get shot of these type of guys instead of letting them use and walk all over her.

In this way Thai women are weak. But of course, it's only a percentage, I don't want to generalise. (Maybe this is for another thread, anyway.)

I personally think that the traditional "til death do us part" monogamous marriage is too much to ask, in fact biologically impossible for many men. If a traditional (non-wage-earning) wife has to choose between long-term commitment and looking the other way, most choose the former, especially if the outside relationships are not serious and not too expensive.

I guess different cultures have different levels of tolerance toward extramarital relationships. The culture I come from is not very tolerant in that respect, and I bring that baggage to the discussion, Realizing that I try not to be judgmental.

But looking at it from an academic point of view, for any relationship to be successful the economics of that relationship, and when I talk about economics I dot mean money, but the give and take,

The economics must balance.

In my uneducated in the subject opinion,,, in Thailand, I don’t think, in a very large part, they do.

My opinion is based on what I see in my limited circle of family and friends in Thailand and it might not be representative of the population in whole.

From all the family and friend members that I know, I don’t know any Thai woman that are having any extramarital affairs, but I know of plenty of man, I know of man that have taken all the savings out of the bank, to pay for the GF.

Most of the woman I know work very hard, cant say the same for all of the man

I don’t know of any woman that drink to excess, cant say the same about the man.

I am not saying all that to be critical toward Thai man, just to illustrate that the economics of the Thai relationships don’t balance in my opinion,

Now I might be missing something, maybe Thai man have some strong point that I don’t know about, that makes up for these sort comings, maybe they are great lovers, or maybe something else,I dont know, but looking at it from my perspective, it looks like the women are contributing a lot more.

And personally I dont think that it is too much to ask men to be faithful, when they enter a marital relationship man make certain promises, and based on these promises the woman makes a decision to either marry that man or to not. To renege on these promises I don’t think is very admirable, to say the least.

I understand the inherent biological promiscuity of man, but man are not simply animals, I hope.

But if you are disputing all this, please feel free to exclude Sweden and your self from the list of responsible parties.

I was referring to 500 years ago, because in your first post you talked about how "we" have committed these terrible sins "for hundreds of years".

If you prefer we talk about the last 50 years , or last week, that is fine by me.

You miss the point. I am not Swedish, I was born there and carry the passport out of legal necessity, but I have lived allover the world & I consider myself literally a citizen of the universe, for the sake of this argument a citizen of Earth. I do not consider myself a Swedish person, I am an Earth person. For that reason I don't care about your nationalistic stuff - you feel ashamed because somebody from your nation committed a crime last week or ten thousand years ago - that is your right to feel that way. But you lumped everyone together "we raped and pillaged" ; actually we did not - those people present that that scene of rape /murder were the ones who did those crimes - not we.

I refuse to be judged on the actions of other people on the grounds that I am born on one piece of this big blue marble & 50-->5000 years ago some people on that same piece of the marble did bad things. I don't do bad things so I will not be tarred with their brush on the grounds of common nationalism.

This not about you

Yes I'll agree with that but reading a book is looking at words. If I read the book that this guy has been imprisoned for should I be put in gaol? I'm a white middle aged non-Muslim. If I shouldn't be put in gaol for reading a book why should he?

I believe the law should apply to the book itself not the ethnicity of the reader, and the punishment should be based on you having a banned book.

George Orwell where art thou

What I have should have said so not as to appear overly negative was ...

that the argument presented by the OP is making a generalised statement based on the observation and recanted story of one woman and redirects that to a population of over 60 million people.

But in fairness, I am sure the OP, has seen his story played out many times, in different situations and simply used that one story to illustrate his point.

We all have different stories and different experiences.

I often get frustrated by the level of responses in this and other Thai based forums, and then we have responses such as this , and bigjohnny, and others too many to mention, in this and so many other threads, containing wisdom, and common sense

when I read them.I often think, why did't I think to say that?

You know, we type something, using a different part of the brain than we do when we talk, and send it out there, and later we look at it and we think, "boy I should had said that differently, but now it is too late to take it back. So when we read peoples responses we need to take in to consideration the limitation of this type of communication, and cut the responded some slack before we think the worst and jump down their throat.

I guess David said it best when he said, "We all have different stories and different experiences. "

I have being following this thread and I read some scary disturbing stuff, by some who advocate "common sense" while lucking any of their own.

For hundreds of years we have being in their lands, WE have raped and pillaged, interfered in their internal politics, and compromised their lives. All in the name of corporate profits, and personal gain.

And now when the chickens are coming home to roost, all we can think is how to build bigger fences?

Is that common sense?

How about, apologizing for all the wrongs we have committed,

Instead of spending Billions on building fences, and maintaining them, spend some of that money on restitution for all we stole,

getting out of their lands, and living with in our own means?

But that would be impossible, we need their recourses to maintain our own greed and "standard of living".

I think they've got their priorities straight, no one ever lay on their deathbed wishing they'd spent more time at the office.

Nifty motivational poster aside, there are PLENTY of folks who lay on their deathbeds wishing they had done more for their children, their spouses, and their families. These are the guys who are dying while knowing full well that their children's or grandchildren's college fund is vastly underfunded (if it even exists), that there is X left to pay on a mortgage and that they are the sole breadwinners so that probably won't end well, those who know they shouldn't have let their health and or life insurance policies lapse X years ago, etc.

And I bet most of them are western.

I spend most of my life being a control freak. insurances for everything, investments everywhere, , spinning my wheels.

Insuring for the future.5 years here, 10 years there,Then one day I looked in the mirror and an older man looked back at me.

<deleted>, What happened? what was wrong with that mirror?

There was nothing wrong with the mirror, what was wrong was with me, in getting my self worth from providing for others I had forgotten to provide for my self.

I thought to myself, if I was to die tomorrow, how would the world be affected, and the answer was, except for my Daughter, not at all,

So I gave it all up, and started spending more time with my daughter, sisters, and family I had not seen for a long time.

And we are all the happier for it

And when my time in this world is over, no one would remember me for the money, insurances, and cars, and expensive cloths ,

They will remember me for the times we had together.

Perhaps the Thais need to provide for the future more and perhaps we need to think of the future a little less.

as Bigjohnny said, "balance"

One thing I really love about Thailand is the near-universal total lack of respect for work and career.

Family comes first by far, friends a close second. Comfort and ease, not worrying about tomorrow, enjoying the moment.

The cultural programming I grew up with sees this as "lazy" and "bad", valuing goal-oriented striving, improving yourself work work work above everything and most people end up unloved and alone.

I think they've got their priorities straight, no one ever lay on their deathbed wishing they'd spent more time at the office.

But of course you have to live with the consequences of your choices.

Balance is the hardest thing.

So true

**YES**.

, world would be a much better place if the women were in charge.

except for that one week of the month , when all hell would brake loose

Nice story ... thanks for the read.

I come from a family where my mother was considered a saint, and never worked a day in her life

Are you inferring that Thai woman work harder then woman of other Cultures?

No Not really, I made sure in my OP to say "In My limited experiences" I don; t know many other cultures,and I dont entirely know the Thai culture ,But I have being exposed to a few cultures, I am American of Greek decent, and have spend a considerable amount of time in Greece, where one of my sisters lives, and in Italy, where my other sister lives, and consequently I have travel extensively through out Europe, I have imported silver from Mexico, so I have spend some time there,and have spend a litle time in China, and based on that limited exposure, I cant help but be impressed by Thai women. , I can only talk about what I know. I am sure that there are other hard working women in the world,as others have pointed out ,but I don't feel qualified to talk about them..I am barely qualified to talk about Thai women, if that.

search! there's a zillion threads about this topic in thaivisa. read one or two of them and you will abandon the idea of any "alternative" power supply that is economical because... it is not feasible.

I did not ask about costs or price for a alternative system. I did ask about in case i will use a alternative power supply how big in KwH the photovoltaics or diesel generator need to be for my house.

Regards

Thomas

your question can't be answered because the information you supplied is rubbish insufficient.

example: there are aircons which draw 0.9kWh and aircons which draw 7.5kWh. fridges exist with a volume of 20 liters and 1,200 liters or more. the same goes for the power supply of water heaters.

boy we are cranky today, what's the matter, are the Romulans encroaching on your neutral space?

The word rubbish was entirely unnecessary,

I read far more negative posts about Thai men on TA, including yours ``And this is not an Isolated incident, every where I go i watch women work very hard, while men sit around."

So, what`s the true meaning of your post? To praise Thai women or to bash Thai men? Why even have the above comment in your post.

The meaning of my post is to praise Thai women, I should not had made the comment about the men sitting around as I opened a separate issue that distracts from my main purpose.

I read all these negative posts about Thai woman , I thought I would post a little bit about my limited experience, and hear some of yours.

I am in the process of building a perimeter wall around our property.For this I have hired a Husband and wife team, The team consists of the Husband, the wife , a young son, the son-law, and an other unrelated worker.The Husband does all the lay-out, and finish work, The son does very little, the son in-law and other worker helps with the digging and cement block work, and the wife does everything else and is by far the hardest worker in the bunch.

I have never seen a wooman work harder, she mixess mixes cement, puts the steel together, caries block, does everything while her son sits on his motorbike and looks at himself in the mirror all day.

She does all that with a smile, and at lunch time when every one else stops and rests she prepares lunch for them,then when everyone goes for a nap after lunch, she cleans their mess.,I come from a family where my mother was considered a saint, and never worked a day in her life, outside the home,and I am embarrassed to watch her work.

And this is not an Isolated incident, every where I go i watch women work very hard, while men sit around.

Then you have the girls in the sex industry, where they give up their lives in their village, to sell theme selves to strangers, endanger their health and life, to provide for their families. In essence screw them selves (pardon the pun) for their families, and then you have some idiot farang complain that he was screwed by them. If the girl is willing to give up everything and screw her self for her family, what makes you think she will not also screw you for her family, when push comes to shove?

You got to respect these women

did you require any backfill on the land (din)? ... i just leveled one rai needed 116 trucks @ 350 baht per truck incl leveling using the very same ford tractor you used ...gutsy machines ....and my operators were great ..i think the 350 per truck was good and it was a painless exercise over and done in one day ...onto my wall next ... look forward to your next update

cheers

No I was Lucky, The property is high and dry, and well compacted over the years, which was not so lucky for the people doing the digging as the clay was hard as cement.

I will wait until I finish building the house next year ro bring a few inches of good topsoil as I am sure I could not grow any grass on this clay, and to assist with my gardening, I dont want to do it now as I am sure the topsoil will get trashed during the building process.

The fence building is coming along nicely, after a few days of for RR and a visa run to Laos. we are back hard at work.

The corners on the front portion of the fence were straitened, in preparation for rendering,and the 1"x3" inch steel was welded to the reed bar sticking out of the columns in preparation for the pickets.

The front walls columns and beams were rendered, started to install the pickets, and started work on the sides and read walls.

Steel was painted with oil based enamel

Installed the pickets with self tapping screws,the pickets are Shera wood, which is not wood at all, but it looks like wood .They are 6" wide and are spaced 4 " apart

Paid 107 bht for each length of shera wood, and was able to get 5 pickets out of every length, at a cost of 21 bht per picket,

each section required 7 pickets, and I had 10 sections.

All in all , an attractive and inexpensive solution IMO

Work continues on the sides

tonight's dinner for some of the crew

The kids are pretty brave with it as they think it is dead, you should see them pun when I poke it with a stick and it moved

Me included.

Work was proceeding a little too slow for my taste, as I have to return to the States at the end of the month, so I decided to order a couple of cubes of ready mix concrete,at a cost of 3800 bth for 2 cubes This speed things up, I think I will do the same for the columns and beams.

Today we are getting ready to finish with the block and start on the Columns and beams,

will post pictures when we pour them

No, not all Islamic countries are as bad as Iran on this issue, but to suggest that any of them are on a path towards legal same sex marriage is utterly ridiculous.

A civil Union with all the protections under the law would be a better way

I have no idea what this idea of "civil union" might be, unless it's going to just be a secret code word for "non-mainstream marriage". Marriage for legal purposes, which defines tax/employment benefits etc, is defined by the government.

A village or church ceremony, having it sanctified by the flying spaghetti monster or whatever, has nothing to do with anything important, or at least the issue only concerns those gays that believe in such nonsense.

IMO people that haven't registered their marriage legally aren't actually married for the purposes of this discussion, no matter what their culture or family or religion might have to say about it.

What is the difference between civil unions and Marriage?

The differences are out lined in the document below.

http://www.glad.org/...vs-marriage.pdf

if any one would take the time to read it, you will see that there are equal under US federal law protection concerns,such as the right to sponsor a spouse for immigration purposes, Social Security survivor

benefits

and social dignity concerns.

The legal concerns can easily be addressed via legislation in any country. If all the Gay community wanted was equal protection under the law, then , IMHO , I would advise them to take the civil Union Option, and address it's inequalities trough the federal and state legislative and Judiciary system.Instead of forcing the issue with loaded terms such as marriage, and painting politicians that might be sympathetic to their plight, in to a corner.

The social acceptance aspect will come with a little time as people see that with Gay Unions , the sky did not fall, as the voting in this forum indicates.

In short, if you don't want to read all that, there are very strong possibilities that having gay members in any human populations is very much part of the "human condition."

Who said that it isn't?

There are many things that are part of the human condition that might not be conducive ti it's well being.

I give up!!!

Marriage is none of the governments business. Get rid of the government defining, sanctifying, and tracking marriages. People should be free to define a marriage as whatever they want it to be. I think it would be nice if the government stayed out of peoples lives, but the will of the people in our generation is to take away freedoms and be more regulated. Gay marriage may have a chance of becoming legal, but what about polygamy and others. It's not fair to discriminate like this. Remember someone in Thailand married a snake and had a ceremony which was big news and became a movie.

Sorry Canopy,

But it is not that simple.

The legal union of two people is the governments concern,

"Marriage"is a a bilateral contract that two people enter in to, and it defines the responsibilities that each person has toward each other and toward the rest of society. All concern have to perform based on their responsibilities, and when they fail to perform, the contract becomes a non-performing contract and is subject to dissolution.

Such contractual arrangement can only be entered in to by consenting adults,,

children, animals fruit, and vegetables , can not enter in to a legal y binding contract

The Government as the elected representative of society,and has every right to regulate the legal aspects of this contractual agreement.

What it does not have is the right, or the ability to define the human condition,whether that human condition pertains to heterosexual or homosexual relationships. Only nature has that ability.

The Gay community , and rightly so, does not want governments to define the nature of homosexual relationships,yet in a strange to me way, want government to define the nature of heterosexual relationships.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by the human condition, but, assuming I understand correctly, there have been scientists who have put forth theories that gay genes could possibly be passed on generation to generation by way of altruism -- in other words, a mechanism that would be viable by way of helping a group as a whole (as opposed to passing the genes sexually/individually). So again, if I understand you correctly, being gay could be part of the "human condition". Of course, since there is really no way to say for certain if this is true or not, it doesn't help anybody under your argument.... but the important point being, the human condition isn't necessarily confined to man with woman.

Quote from Wikipedia "The human condition encompasses the unique and believed to be inescapable features of being human in a social, cultural, and personal context. It can be described as the irreducible part of humanity that is inherent and not connected to factors such as gender, race or class."

I am not sure of the mechanism that causes some one to be sexually attracted to members of the same sex. It could be genetic, or it could be something that occurs during the first few weeks of the development of a fetus where sexual differentiation takes place, and physical development might go one way, but the brain wiring that determines sexual preference go an other way. Either way it is not a personal choice, and one should not be punished for something they can not help, nor should some one with homosexual tendencies should have to compromise their lives to satisfy some one else s homophobic tendencies

Having said that , at the most basic level, the "human condition" is geared toward passing once genes

The question has being asked "what came first, the Egg or the chicken" the answer is simple, The Egg, the chicken is simple the eggs Idea of making an other Egg.

If you accepted this proposition, (and there is substantial scientific support for this proposition) then you have to except that homosexuality, though part of the "human condition", is not conducive to basic human, or for that case any other animals, long term survival, and anything that is not conducive towards the long term survival of any organism, is a aberration.

Non the less a small percentage of the human population, and for no fault of their own, would be homosexual. And accommodations must be made for these people to live happy productive ,lives. and for as, to benefit from the unique perspective .

​But to change the institution of marriage , an institution that has developed,through thousands of years of social evolution , as a system best suited for the long term survival of humanity, would be a mistake in my opinion.

A civil Union with all the protections under the law would be a better way

Sorry for the cursory explanation of my position, it is a subject that would take much more time than I have to invest in this forum.I hope I did not confuse more than explain.

Right, but these things should be able to be defined by the persons involved just like writing a will.

or a prenuptial agreement,

And for those sophisticated enough, and unaffected by l"love" to construct a comprehensive agreement that for-sees all eventualities,this can be an option, for all others , the government has to provide a legal frame work.

But it is not that simple.

Yes it can be that simple and in fact some people choose this alternative already. They sanctify their marriage with a ceremony of their choosing but never enter into a legal contract with the government. I am not the only one who advocates that marriages should have no government contract, no have special privileges, no have tax deductions, and have absolutely nothing to do with the government.

For those who do not want to enter in to a legal binding contract, there are advantages and disadvantages, and I guess it is their decision whether the advantages out-weight the disadvantages.,

Some of the problems associated with personal unregistered marriages,

is the control and distribution of common property, , the legal parental rights and obligations when children are involved, and the ability to make medical decisions, for your spouse or child..

A civil union addresses all of these problems with in heterosexual or homosexual union

Marriage is none of the governments business. Get rid of the government defining, sanctifying, and tracking marriages. People should be free to define a marriage as whatever they want it to be. I think it would be nice if the government stayed out of peoples lives, but the will of the people in our generation is to take away freedoms and be more regulated. Gay marriage may have a chance of becoming legal, but what about polygamy and others. It's not fair to discriminate like this. Remember someone in Thailand married a snake and had a ceremony which was big news and became a movie.

Sorry Canopy,

But it is not that simple.

The legal union of two people is the governments concern,

"Marriage"is a a bilateral contract that two people enter in to, and it defines the responsibilities that each person has toward each other and toward the rest of society. All concern have to perform based on their responsibilities, and when they fail to perform, the contract becomes a non-performing contract and is subject to dissolution.

Such contractual arrangement can only be entered in to by consenting adults,,

children, animals fruit, and vegetables , can not enter in to a legal y binding contract

The Government as the elected representative of society,and has every right to regulate the legal aspects of this contractual agreement.

What it does not have is the right, or the ability to define the human condition,whether that human condition pertains to heterosexual or homosexual relationships. Only nature has that ability.

The Gay community , and rightly so, does not want governments to define the nature of homosexual relationships,yet in a strange to me way, want government to define the nature of heterosexual relationships.

You seem to be endorsing the fact that there should be separate laws for people depending in their sexual orientation?

Quite the opposite.

Every union under a secular government is, or should be a civil union.

You seem to be endorsing the fact that there should be separate laws for people depending in their sexual orientation?

Sorry Samran, But that is exactly the point.

I have great respect for my gay friends, but in this issue, they are dead wrong.

They are trying to get the government to make a decision that re-classifies the human condition,

The human condition is defined by nature, and not the government,

if they were alowed to do this in this instance from pressure from a political group, what is to stop them from entering in to social engineering every time a group with adequate political power comes along?

In countries with legal same sex marriage, the state is not interested if the people marrying are actually homosexual, or not. Not clear why it would matter.

oh good, I am not the only one who cant sleep

If there is no distinction, as far s the state is concerned,, between homosexual couples, and asexual couples of the same sex getting married,, then why aren't civil unions adequate?

Why should same sex couples settle for less? Unless you're talking about downgrading all marriages to civil unions. Then you'd have equality.

Do civil unions offer inferior protection under the law? and if so, How?

In countries with legal same sex marriage, the state is not interested if the people marrying are actually homosexual, or not. Not clear why it would matter.

oh good, I am not the only one who cant sleep

If there is no distinction, as far s the state is concerned,, between homosexual couples, and asexual couples of the same sex getting married,, then why aren't civil unions adequate?

Why should same sex couples settle for less? Unless you're talking about downgrading all marriages to civil unions. Then you'd have equality.

As far as a secular government is concerned, all maters under it's jurisdiction are of a civil nature.

This is simply an attempt by the gay community to get the government to re-define marriage.

For a group that wants the government to stay out of the bedroom, The gay community is a little confused in this issue.

Pesonally i do not care what two men or women get up to sexually in the privacy of their own home,up to them ,but as to getting married or adopting ,no way , marriage and adoption is for couples of the opposit sex as nature intended.

Why not?

Homosexual couples in stable committed relationships have exactly the same rights to be miserable in marriage as the rest of us. As for raising kids, why not. If they are wanting to not have a decent nights sleep for the first 6 years of their young sprogs life and do school runs, then I don't think society should stop them.

Society does not stop them,They have the right to be just as mistakable as every one else,,under a properly constructed civil union.

In countries with legal same sex marriage, the state is not interested if the people marrying are actually homosexual, or not. Not clear why it would matter.

oh good, I am not the only one who cant sleep

If there is no distinction, as far s the state is concerned,, between homosexual couples, and asexual couples of the same sex getting married,, then why aren't civil unions adequate?