Acharn

My (Thai) niece has been buying this type of plant recently, but only priced at ฿50-100. She seems to envision eventually selling them, and they're a good fit for her existing business, a small building materials company, but I think she has realistic expectations. She'd have a dozen or so plants for sale displayed in front of her shop and probably could expect a profit of a couple thousand baht a month, at best. At least she isn't sinking ridiculous amounts of cash in the project -- yet.

I don't know if Thai law requires signaling before changing lanes. I grew up and learned to drive in a time when cars didn't have signal lights, so drivers were expected to pay attention and anticipate what other drivers were likely to do. The driver ahead of you changing lanes shouldn't be a big deal. I don't know if the law has been changed, but one of the things that appalled me when I still drove was that the law did not require drivers to pull over to the side of the road when they heard an emergency vehicle. I have seen one story about a person who was arrested for purposely blocking an ambulance, but that seems to have been deliberate obstruction, not just ignoring it. When I had driver's training in Germany while stationed there, the law was the same, and we were warned the Polizei were very strict about all traffic rules.

Is this the place to ask about how to use the Mor Prom app? On my phone I don't see any way to change language to English. I can read Thai, but it's a painful process and I usually choose the English option if I can find it.

I recently got an email from Bangkok Bank informing me that I will be charged ฿300 for my "debit card." I thought it was just an ATM card, and never tried to use it to make a payment online. The reason you can't use it with foreign vendors is because their payment systems don't recognize the card. It's not a credit card.

Yes. I have never heard the definition given here, before. In American political the word is only positive to the center right group called "centrists," primarily fans of the Clintons. People on both the left and right denounce the attitude, The term gained currency after NAFTA Billy Clinton imposed the Republican agenda on the government and got legislation passed which greatly widened the inequality of wealth by making it legal to do things which had been illegal before, like outsourcing productive capacity to countries with lower labor costs and borrowing money to pay as dividends or stock buy-backs. Government propagandists had some success in the Clinton and early Bush years putting lipstick on this pig by claiming it would raise everybody's standard of living and the downsides were not really felt until the Great Recession. Since then a great many people have come to consider the movement a policy to de-industrialize America and reduce the former middle class to serfs who will own nothing and like it.

Yes. It arises primarily from the Free Trade doctrine established by NAFTA Bill Clinton and the propagandists hailing "globalism" as bringing prosperity to everybody in the world. I never heard the definition given here before, but that certainly is not what the word means in political discourse in America. It is not only criticized by the right. Critics on the left think the ideology tries to justify the great inequality of wealth brought about by de-industrializing the U.S. and outsourcing production to countries with low labor costs.

I sometimes wonder about this. I do not use the internet on my telephone account, which is prepaid. I only use internet on WiFi, so when I go to the local BigC, for example, I am not able to upload the QR to the app, because they don't have an open, free WiFi . It seems a lot of other people don't, either, because they have a notebook that almost everybody signs in on. Is this also true in Bangkok?

And you know that how? They certainly had brothels. Have you ever heard the word "mangda?" There used to be folklore about kidnapping women on the street and forcing them to work in brothels. The mangdas were the men who controlled them. I don't know if the stories had a factual basis, but believe they did.

He's just wrong about his history, which surprises me, because he used to own several "ap, op, nuads." The sex industry as an openly acknowledged institution goes back probably to the Kingdom of Sukhothai. It certainly was well established by the time Bangkok became the capital. Thailand took advice from the World Bank back during the 1950s (even before the CIA started sending " military aid" to Field Marshal Sarit, which was immediately followed by the first "communist insurrection." I don't have a link, but it's been reported in reputable magazines that they advised the Kingdom to take advantage of the existing sex trade to attract tourists. I know there are people who try to claim that it's the GIs' fault, but they just supported an existing institution. There's a segment of the elite who are extremely puritanical and want to deny the past, just as there are many Americans who want to deny the reality of racially based slavery. I'm a little disappointed, because I quite like Chuwit because of the unorthodox way he broke into politics. Glad to see he's still around and feisty.

But you need to find the balance. A certain amount of salt is essential to good health. That's why ancient empires either taxed it or used it as money. The problem is much modern processed food adds lots of either sugar or salt (or both, I guess) because it tastes good. I think naam blaa counts as salt. Anyway, keep an eye on the amount you take in. You can avoid sugar completely and have good health, but you can't entirely cut out salt.

My niece and her husband run a small business. They usually have three or four employees, usually paid daily, no other benefits. Part of the traditional Thai patron/client culture requires them to treat their loyal workers to parties on their birthdays. What I hate is when they crank up the karaoke machine to 11, because they think the neighbor half a mile away would enjoy the music, too.

It's a good question. Thailand is incredibly more prosperous than it was in the 1950s, when the World Bank recommended developing the sex trade as Thailand's best prospect for development. I don't think the kind of tourists Prayuth wants will be attracted in the numbers he wants needs, but what do I know. Covid has so completely disrupted the old economy the future is more unpredictable than usual. There is still a large reservoir of rural poor who have been accustomed for decades, if not centuries, to sending their daughters to work in the sex trade for a few years. I'm sure the business is still operating at a reduced level everywhere in the country, and will resume in full when Covid restrictions end. Just don't know if their customer base will return.

Something happened when I was 18, in the Air Force, and stationed on a little island on the 38th parallel in Korea that made me understand at a very deep level that I might die at any moment. I think I felt enough fear that night to use up my lifetime's supply, but I suppose when I face the real thing I'll find it wasn't all used up. I saw a really schlock Chinese movie on TV back about 1985 where this Chinese warrior expressed pretty much what I feel. "I don't fear dying, I fear getting hurt." There's many ways of dying that are stretched out for years of helplessness and pain. I hope for something like a massive heart attack or brain blowout that takes me quickly.

I don't do opera, so I've never heard of the Italian, but Lisa is pretty, and she works hard. ฿100 million baht is only (approximately) $3 million, not bad for the bush leagues, but she's gotta grab it while she can. I don't think her dancing is very interesting, but I'm not in her target demographic.

You got it. From time to time I wonder how that worked out with Khao San Road. They were so happy to "clean it up" after the coup. Do people still go there?

I live about 10 km outside the city of Nakhon Sawan and have had 3BB for at least 12 years, upgrading until my contract now is for 100Mb. Whenever I think to run a speed test I get 300Mb for download, so no problem.

I had not seen that the ownership of the gun was established. Thanks for telling me. That's important and should have been reported more widely. I've lived here a long time too, and would agree many Thai high ranking police officers seem a bit dim, but if you ever watched the TV show Hogan's Heroes you must remember Sgt. Schulz, "I know nodding, nodding." I generally do not know why Thais do and say whatever it is they do, even when it's obvious they are not being entirely accurate. I'm a little oversensitive to assertions that don't cite evidence since 2016 and the collapse of critical thinking in the U.S.. Well, since 9/11, really, but it went into overdrive after She Who Must Be Elected lost. Also, news media have pretty much lost all credibility.

I have two credit cards issued in America, one BofA, the other from Pentagon Federal Credit Union (much better). Neither one has been denied renewal yet, and I'm 84. I should say my Army pension and Social Security are both direct deposited to my credit union and there's an automatic monthly transfer to Bank of America which is more than the monthly minimum. That might have something to do with it, but I don't know. I've never used a debit card. I remember once having my credit card refused because it was foreign and the vendor wasn't approved to receive payments from overseas VISA, but I found other places that did accept them and have never had any denial since.

The first time I extended after they changed the system one of my transfers did not show the FTT code, but my IO accepted it anyway based on the amount and day of the month, but that year the other officers in the office reminded her (which she knew already) that they were supposed to be lenient on the requirements. I'm in Nakhon Sawan and there aren't many expats here, so the relation with Immigration isn't stressful. Like it used to be at Soi Suan Phlu until they set up the lines with numbered tickets. Perhaps Immigration will take into account this system breakdown, although it seems some offices are just xenophobic.

That happened to me last month when I transferred another amount and did not select "funds for long stay in Thailand." I got the notice from my bank that a transfer had arrived in the account almost immediately, but when I transferred my pension on 1 Oct. it took until 2:00 PM as usual. This is worrying, indeed. There's a step where you have to choose a method of transfer. I've always left it on ACH, even though it's usually a dollar or two more expensive that Wire Transfer. I wonder if choosing Wire Transfer will solve the problem.

Not sure if that's true. 45 years ago when I was considering divorcing my Thai wife I contacted a firm of farang lawyers (they had Thai lawyer partners, too) named Tilleke and Gibbons. I think they were Australian, but might have been British. It may have been that only their Thai partners could actually plead the case in court, but they certainly offered legal services.

Well, the story the Swiss guy told makes perfect sense. One of the things that gripes me about Thai action soap operas, the hero never kicks the gun away from the hand of the bad guy(s) after he knocks him out, or picks it up. Of course there are other possible explanations for how and why the gun might have gotten into the pond. Maybe I'm too cynical, but it's well known in America that many police officers have handy a "throw-down gun," an unregistered/untraceable gun that can be tossed on the ground near a dead body after a shooting. I'm afraid I'm not as ready to take this story at face value as most of the posters here.

Ah. "Man with a gun entered another mans house" And you know this how? Because the house owner said so. A gun was found in the pond? Yeah. Where did it come from? I can think of a couple of alternatives. Dead body with lacerations on its face in the house when police arrive. House owner says he fought with intruder. House owner has lacerations and/or bruises? Story doesn't say. I infer you think Thais are stupid, especially Thai police, but I disagree.

Funny, that's like the reason President Obama gave for the Department of Justice not prosecuting the bankers in 2009. Of course, "most of" implies that "some of" IS illegal. I don't know about Thai law, or Finnish or Estonian law, but it's become known that under American law a lot of income that IS taxable gets hidden in Cayman Islands, Lichtenstein, Isle of Man, and Las Vegas. Yes, America provides some of the most opaque tax shelters in the world, but of course we never mention that. Sorry, I'm going off topic. From what I've been able to learn of Thai history, they have reasons to distrust people with foreign connections.