Mai Krap

Sorry if I'm skeptical, but tv member Snowdog whose post was just recently deleted and tv member HuskyDog (joined today about a half hour after Snowdog's post was deleted) who has just posted the above... well, it seems almost like a coincidence or something.

Sorry, but I'm a completely different person. No idea who Snowdog is or what he said

Perhaps it's just coincidence or something , but he just happened to write the same anti-Islamic diatribe you did.

I'll say again that I am not the same person as Snowdog. Also please read what I said properly and you'll see that there is no anti-Islamic diatribe. My point was basically stating what Islamic law says, and I did not write Islamic law. Islamic law puts anyone who does not believe in Islam on the same level as excrement, therefore any Muslim who takes their law literally is seeing non-believers as unclean.

I also said that most people want to live in peace, and that includes most Muslims too. I don't think that the majority of Muslims think this way, but at the very heart of Islam is the fact that you can't question what the Prophet said.

However, I do not think that you or anyone likes to looked down upon a s**t! If you can say that the following is not Islamic law then I'll take the whole thing back.

Islamic law

According to Ruhollah Khomeini, the entire list of things that are considered najis in Shi’ism includes: “urine, excrement, sperm, blood, a dog, a pig, bones [of a dead body], a non-Muslim man and woman, wine, beer, [and] perspiration of the camel that eats filth.”[3] Khomeini further specifies that “[t]he whole body of a non-Muslim is unclean, even his hair, his nails, and all the secretions of his body.… A child below the age of puberty is unclean if his parents and grandparents are not Muslims; but if he has a Muslim for a forebear, then he is clean.… The body, saliva, nasal secretions, and perspirations of a non-Muslim man or woman who converts to Islam automatically become pure. As for their garments, if they were in contact with the sweat of the body before their conversion, they will remain unclean.”

Thank you for qouting a Shia Muslim from Iran. Do I understand that you see them as being very influential in the southern troubles in Thailand? Maybe you should consider going back to the drawing board for a rethink and figure out exactly where you are and who your talking about before you add dramatic qoutes. If you need a gps and a map please send pm.

Some of the supposed history being presented here is pretty far off the mark. Ive had a good laugh on a couple of the comments like Iran supporting the southern insurgancy and europeons bringing Muslims to Southeast Asia as labourers. The thread would be for the most part humor if the core of the matterwere not so bitter as the deaths of innocents on both sides.

The following is a easy read and goes into some of the details of the long history in Thailand of Muslims. It is not a history book by any standard but could provide one with enough curiosity to induldge themselves into further indepth study of the subject matter. Nice article by the way Ken if you read this.

Full article by Ken May on Ajarn dot com

Also added to the global mix: Sometime between 1595 and 1602 two brothers arrived for trade from the Islamic holy city of Qom in Persia. Sheik Ahmad served as an advisor to the King from around 1610-1628. Muhamad Said, his brother, was not an ordinary trader either. The two aristocratic brothers relocated to Ayutthaya to stay permanently, bringing with them fleets of servants. This family (linked to the Bunnnag) had a lasting impact in terms of architecture, politics, and intellectual development. In the early 1600s, Muslims from the Mughal dynasty started to pour into Ayutthaya from South Asia. These were traders from the eastern coast of India (sometimes they are inaccurately referred to as Moors). Later, following Malay rebellions in the 1630s, a third group of Muslims was forced to settle in central and northern provinces. Many Muslims insurgents, who opposed King Prasat Thong’s usurping of the throne in Ayutthaya, were made to relocate to Ayutthaya from Patani and Tenasserim due to these uprisings. A fourth group of Muslims arrived in Ayutthaya from Cambodia, the Cham, who were promised land after serving as volunteer mercenaries. A fifth Muslim group, from the Celebes (now Sulawesi) of Indonesia, migrated to Ayutthya with King Narai’s consent after the Dutch occupied their island in 1666-1667. These were the Makassars. Like the French, they also settled at the mouth of Klong Takian.

Klong Takian is an important location for various Muslim communities in Ayutthaya. This narrow canal was the population centre for most Pattani, Moor, and Makassar residents. Klong Takian also had strategic value, since the man-made canal acted as a backdoor to Ayutthaya Island. It bypassed the main trading quay. Although scholars neglect to point this out, Klong Takian might have also served alternatives purposes in terms of military value and smuggling. Muslims held power in Klong Takian precisely because that is where they lived. However, by the time that the Makassar arrived the Muslim influence in Ayutthaya was already waning. The death of an important Persian trader, Muhammad Sayyid Ardestani, weakened trade in 1665; Many South Asians had also been expelled from the country due to corruption; and King Narai seized more monopolistic power over the trading of goods. More importantly, however, the king had started to favor newly emerging western alliances.

There is no bother to worry about any of this getting resolved without the charging of crimes, trial, and possible executions for every military and government officer involved in the Tak Bai Massacre. Furthermore the charging of crime, trial, and convictions of those police and government officials involved in the dissiperance of of the Muslim lawyer Somchai. The conviction and three year sentance of one police officer concerning this matter is a slap in the face and adds more fuel to the fires of the deep south. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out people in the south are still enraged over these two incidents. It also played directly in the favor of the most hardend of the insurgents by showing that if one does get captured or come forward he will be tortured and murdered with impunity whether this is true or not it is now whispered in the darkness of the deep southern jungles of Thailand. While some might view my opinions on the matter as that of an apologist I can live with that. I consider myself one who looks beyond the smile.

January 13, 2006

Thailand: PM Confirms Muslim Lawyer Was Murdered

Nguen ThongsukWe reported yesterday that a Thai policeman, Nguen Thongsuk (pictured, left), was found guilty of coercion, in a case concerning lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit, who disappeared on Friday evening, March 12, 2004. At Nguen Thongsuk's trial, a witness said that the lawyer was last seen with the policeman in Bangkok that day, being bundled into a police vehicle. Nguen was given a sentence of three years, a punishment criticised as too lenient by the lawyer's family and human rights groups.

Somchai had been a prominent human rights lawyer, chairman of Thailand's Muslim Lawyers Association and vice-chairman of the Human Rights Committee. At the time of his disappearance, Somchai had taken on the role of defending individuals who were suspected of committing violence in the southern provinces of Thailand. He claimed that in some instances, suspects were tortured by the Thai authorities.

He had taken on the case of two suspected Jemaah Islamiyah members accused of bomb plots against Thailand, and also he had defended nine other Muslim individuals from the south, accused of involvement in violence in the insurgency which began in January 2004. At the time, the unrest had cost 50 lives. Now the toll has reached 1000. Since Somchai took on the case of the two Jemaah Islamiyah suspects, he had received death threats.

At the time, the prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra (pictured below, right), did not take his disappearance too seriously. He apparently said: "Somchai had disputes with his wife. Perhaps, he just wants to be away from his family problems for a while."

Thaksin ShinawatraToday, the Turkish Press relates that prime minister Thaksin is more realistic, and is stating that Somchai is dead. He is also candid about his own government officials' involvement in the disappearance. It is the first time that Thaksin has spoken publicly on the matter since the immediate aftermath of Somchai's disappearance.

"I know that Somchai is dead, and more than four government officials were involved, but witnesses and evidence are still being collected," he told a press conference.

He announced that the department of special investigations was involved in examining the case, with a view to bringing murder charges. "Circumstantial evidence confirmed that he's dead. But this case is not easy at all, and because it involves government officials, it's very difficult to find evidence and witnesses," the prime minister said.

He said that murder charges had not been previously filed against Nguen Thongsuk and four others (who were acquitted) because Somchai's body has not been found.

The Turkish Press states that there were four Jemaah Islamiyah suspects being defended by Somchai at the time of his abduction, and that these individuals, who had claimed torture, were acquitted in June 2005.

Justice Elizabeth Evatt of the International Commission of Jurists said "It's extremely satisfactory that the prime minister has publicly acknowledged that Somchai has in fact been killed, murdered of course, and that this was done by public officials."

Here are a couple homes built recently where Im living, the nice wooden one was a cost of one million baht and Im not sure about the more modern one with the car. If anyone is building a home from wood and you need some just drop me a private mail. These will be much nicer once they get the gardens started.

and this is the man who thinks he can run the country. in thai this is behaviour that we call 'len khai khong' which means children playing buy and sell. you pretend to sell, then at the end of the day the 'goods' goes back to the first person..and next day they start the same game all over

shin corp was a private entity...its a business...was never a 'national asset' the owners chose to sell it for a profit (thats what businesses exist for) temasek happened to buy it. end of story.

now move on. geee. makes us thais look like fools.

Other than the fact your without a clue concerning this matter of business your Thai might be OK. What do you think would happen if G.E. decided to sell of strategic assets to the Chinese? Halliburton is a private company, What if Singapore wanted to buy and take over all the government contracts and know the secrets that Halliburton knows? A good example was the deal that was held up when Dubai Ports was not considered a trustworthy company to deal with U.S. security issues. Personaly I saw it (Dubai Ports Terrorist Threat) as a very stupid and childish argument but the argument was made by the democrats no less.

The fact of the matter is Thailand has every right to pick and choose who has top secret clearence to deal with their military communications.

I know of one bike shop in Udon that has high qaulity bikes and parts, Im sure there are others but this one is easy to get to. If you arrive from the south end of town when you get to the first traffic circle take the first turn left. From there go over the klong which is 2 hundred meters or so then look for the Caltex gas station on the right or oncoming traffic side of the road. There in the parking lot the the old gas station office has been converted into a mountain bike racing shop and coffee place. They have the best selection of things Ive seen outside of Bangkok. If you cant get what you want there just take the train to Bangkok and bring it back on the train.

Last nite was just the test party, The karaoke works great! About 20 people showed up and flooded my house with mediocre music until about midnite. They had a blast though so God bless em, I would never begrudge a man a party. Tonight is sure to be a all nighter and block traffic and drive me semi crazy but the reality is they have no idea it even disturbs me. Like I said, There is nothing I could do or say even if I wanted to and why bother. They are some of the best neighbors I have ever had in Thailand and if they want to sit around singing karoke all night, why not.

Our drunk cousin Ting tried to hire a karaoke at our last family funeral and give my wife the bill. Now my brother in law has totally ran him off as he has also borrowed around 5,000 baht from the family and made no effert to pay anyone back. Things have a way of working themselves out in the end. I have never to this day understood all night karaoke for the dead, but I guess it gets boring hanging around for three days and now its adapted into the culture. You cannot have a decent funeral without a guy who sells squid either for that matter. Maybe I should adapt popcorn makers to motercycles and send them throughout the country and make my first million baht.

Anybody got any suggestions, as to how you keep the rest of the family out !!

In my case the bedroom was not a problem - I gave dad in law a key so he can take care of the place when we are away, and he didn't want the key for the bedroom.

But otherwise, in my experience it comes down to a couple of difficult conversations, a little bad feeling, and then afterwards everyone knows what is what and the air is clear. Time heals. Got to have your wife on side.

I must say the kindness, helpfulness, support and generosity I receive from my in-laws far outweighs the "intrusions" and lack of privacy, and when I do get fed up with the latter I usually end up feeling like a selfish jerk afterwards. I try to live by judging peoples actions on their intention rather than the outcome.

Cheers,

Mike

The reality is the family has no concept of our need for any privacy. The worst fear for most Thais around the village is to be alone. When we express a need to be alone it is just completely off their radar. I cannot say enough good things about my immediate inlaws in general. Of course like any family we have a degenirate cousin who steals from the whole family but he was warned to never come around as my wifes brother wants to kill him or at least smack him up. One bad apple in a barrel of 50 is not bad, the rest of the family is very hard working rural people and I have a great respect for them. I will admit it took a couple years for them to understand me but now Im fully accepted as one of the family.

As far as Thailand attacking Singapore? That aint gonna happen, The place is defended by the United States and the United Kingdom. If you've ever been on the runway at the Airport you would know this and more.

I do believe something will happen here but what exactly I have no idea. Does anybody know whatever happend about the Singapore Air Force renting the airport at Udon Thani? I remember it was protested but was it a write off? Excuse me while I go make up some more popcorn!

I knew something was up when I saw the neighbor cleaning up the land I rent outside of my wall. I sent the wife out to ask about the time a truck showed up and started dropping off hundreds of plastic chairs, well maybe not hundreds but plenty. As I type the karaoke has began, its not horrible just yet but none of the party boys are drunk as its only 2 in the afternoon and this is just the warm up. There is nothing like getting a front seat to music you have no intrest in hearing. While I like Thai and Lao music and I enjoy a good show this is far from it. Its mostly guys who cant sing to save their life who turn up the PA as loud as it will go. Oh well, looks like another allnighter, good thing I have some headphones.

I will go out and mingle for a hour or so to be social and keep a smile. Actually Im having agood laugh about the situation now as there is nothing I can do anyway. They will have a good time so good for them, I just wish it was by candlelight without the loud speakers. How absolutley fantastic Thailand must have been before electricity arrived, my God it must have been peaceful!

Mai Krap, You really have the life of living in rural Thailand down.It seems that everything that you have said in this thread rings true with us.The wife and I are presently surviving in USA.But have a home in the village that we try to visit as often as time and money allow.Good luck to anyone that does not have a high tolerance for other peoples ways.That is a must in rural Thailand.

This is grandmas house at the village, while not beutiful by western standards it is very comfortable. During the day its great under the house and I cant remember it ever feeling hot to me there. We are currently looking for land to build a home ourselves and Im thankful to have the experiance I have now to avoid the sauna box homes so many westerners insist on building. Currently I live in one of those overheated ovens that I have been complaining about. I have a nice cool place to hang out but it is basicly the servents kitchen of all things which is crazy. I plan to live in this rented house until I can build a proper home. I think Ive found the area but I wanted to live here for a while first, Im in no hurry. The second picture is some of the girls from the family sitting in the big open room under the house, everyone just loves to lay around down there.

Sorry Im not much on sympathy, Ive arrived on scene to many deaths here in Thailand. I dont know how many people Ive told to avoid tuk tuks, they are dangerous and in Bangkok more exspensive than a aircon meter taxi for farangs. Im sorry for the loss of life but I have no idea what makes one want to ride in tuk tuks outside of being poor and having no choice.

The only condition i will have is that, I will have my own air conditioned bedroom with en-suite, double glazing and farang bed, which will be strictly off limits to all.

Good idea..... it's enforcing the off-limits part that can be somehow difficult.... I woke up at 5am this morning with a month old puppy trying to get milk out of my nose.

Yeah, i want to be a bit more subtle than having a huge chain and padlock on the door.

Anybody got any suggestions, as to how you keep the rest of the family out !!

Since you have a nice bit of land you might consider 2 or 3 smaller Thai/Balinese type houses with one to serve as a kitchen. If you figured out the size you want your bedroom you could just build it as a single long house with a ultimate farang restoom with a huge bathtub. It would also be very nice in the hot season to have windows running down both sides of the room for the breeze, aircons here are horrible with their mold inside, Ive given up on them myself. If you put a nice lockable gate on the bottem of your stairs and built a nice private balcony upstairs you could maitain some level of privacy.

Heres a couple pictures of Thompsons in Bangkok,,,,,

To little to late, more total BS concerning this matter. Any idiot can see this is not enough, Commercial fishing intrests will not be happy till the last damm minnow gets netted up!

More total BS, the waters around Ko Chang are supposed to be protected already. Just go there and look off shore at all the lights of the hundreds of commercial fishing boats dragging up the corral and catching every single living thing not happy til they catch the very last fish. Maybe one should do a survey to see if they can find one boat crewman who can speak Thai for that matter, yea all the boats are Thai but not the crews. The one man one boat fishermen are not the problem around there, I doubt if most people would believe the large scale commercial fishing activity that goes within the boundries of the park.

I lived there for almost three years and I can tell you its not even worth bothering to cast a line in. The whole time I was there the local boys line fished and I saw one decent fish caught and that was a one kilo Cobia which they had never seen before and were not sure if you could even eat. The small boat local fishermen have been starved out and about the only thing they catch is a few stingrays. You can go to any peir in Florida and cast in and have the chance of catching a one kilo fish within the hour. When it happens in Ko Chang it is such a rare event the locals dont even know what the thing is, thats a story by itsself.

Start looking around where you live for these guys that do car upolstry. Every town seems to have a shop or two and if you check out their work you should be able to pick out out a good one. They have the heavy sewing machines and experiance to get the job done. The big question is where you will find materials to cover it and how much material you will need. I would try to get some ideas on how many meters of material on the internet and you could look around the material markets in Bangkok in Indian town which is the area across the klong and west of China town around the Merrie King department store.

For sure if you spent the morning looking around Udon you could get it done. You can find materials there to but will have less selection. Just be picky about who you choose and get one price for the work.

Get the TOT IPStar 1 megabyte and skip UBC. Now you can download most news services for free in the background. I can download more than 4 hours of video every twentyfour hours the way things are running now for around 2,300 baht per month. When Joost comes online and gets out of beta it is promising live realtime TV over the internet.

There may be safety in numbers but when you live close to your neighbors you get to hear their dogs and roosters, cats in heat, late night vomiting after an entire evening of drunken karaoke which is loud enough for you to sing along even from your own home. Also you get to smell their pig pens and burning plastic. Even their early morning routines can be amusing.

Chownah

You left out late night sex noises (Mostly animal but sometimes human), lao khao marriage counsuling, obnoxious children, Three day drunken benders and all night karaoke with fireworks when somebody dies which seems to be about one time every week, bell ringing contests between rival wats and novice monks before daylight, If youre lucky and live close to Thai Muslims, the occaisonal all night calls for prayer over loud speakers, Pai being a example. Did I mention the day your neighbor decides to become a pro chicken fighter and shows up with twenty new roosters? How about the day the neighbors all move back from Bangkok and put 20 people in the house next door where you thought a normal family lived? What about the day the Phu Yai Bahn upgrades his loud speaker system to now overlap the village anouncments 4 kilometers away when you live one block over. If you live in rural Thailand no matter where you go you will have babies crying, buffalo shitt, obnoxious music, both good and bad neigbors to deal with, how you choose to live amongst them and deal with it is up to you.

In general there are things that go on that sometimes I have never even dreamed up but once you live in the countryside you learn to put up with much. Call it a kharma thing or Zen thing or Bhudda lessons or just the simple fact that in all likelyhood that those reading this as teens in a western country disturbed the middle age neigbors back home and now they themselves are the middle aged neighbors who are being disturbed. Thailand aint going to change much for better or worse as long as the locals have rice and the sun rises. For me I just curse on occaision and smile then move on to the next thing. Did I mention my driveway and the local improvement project that payed jackasses to dig it up for no reason, kharma baby, Peace is all in your head. In conclusion I would not change a thing, I love it all and if anything living back in the western world would be more disturbing for me than dealing with others lives here, The play is the thing, here you are offered a vip all access invitation to it.

Ya'll can talk until you're blue in the face and say, "Should, should, should" but it isn't going to happen just because you think it should. International background checks would be very costly to do for every foreign teacher. Most schools would probably have absolutely no idea how to do this, especially schools in rural places. I assume Nan is a rural upcountry location. That process (background checks) would have to be initiated by the Thai government in Bangkok, not the schools. Rural schools just don't have the resources or no-how to do this.

Also, it maybe hard to believe, but many government schools have no idea how to get a work permit for a foreigner. Some of them have just barely started hiring foreigners in the last few years. It's not an excuse, but there are explanations. I visited a very rural school in a very small village and they really wanted farang to teach their students. I can say the farang teachers they'd had up to that point were much more effective at teaching the language, at least in the communicative (speaking and listening) aspect, simply because they had to always use English when teaching. Not all the farang they'd had were necessarily technically qualified, but they did a pretty good job. However, since the school is in such a small village, the English coordinator was afraid to force the one farang teacher on staff to pay for a work permit, as they felt they wouldn't be able to get any farang teachers with that stipulation. They were a rural school and had few finances, and they couldn't pay for work permits. Also, they really had no idea how to get a foreigner a work permit. If the government wants to change situations like this, they need to get the information on work permits to the principals of all government schools. It's got to start from the top down. I have a lot of sympathy for the inadequacies of rural government schools, as I have seen their situation firshand.

So what do you suggest? Maybe you can make excuses for them till were blue in the face? Your kind of enabling is just the kind of thing that Thais no longer need. Its time to for them to get it done, That includes figuring out how to get English teachers who dont have a history violent sex crimes. Believe it or not youre not the only person commenting here who has first hand knowledge of the Thai educational system. Youre just the only one who is making excuses for them so they can continue their march into mediocracy!

For starters be careful where you put your house. There is safty in numbers, thats why in rural areas Thais live in villages. If you do choose to build away from others make sure somebody is always at your house, you can never leave it alone even for one afternoon. Go back and look through the forum where guys have gotten into trouble with thieves and other things, many times it happend because they chose to have privacy.

I guess location is more important than about anything. Just yesterday I was looking at a newly constructed Germans home who visets one time per year. The home is beutiful and surrounded by a wall enclosing 3 rai of land. The home is also covered in red clay dust as he built directly on the trail that leads to about 200 rice fields and everybody but the somtam lady goes by there about 1o times a day full speed dusting the entire place out. Pigs can also be problems, pig farmers dont mind the smells but Im sure any westerner including myself does. Then you have the charcoal industry, I was smoked out of a beutiful home I rented in Loie years ago. I doubt I would have ever moved and may have still been living there to this day if it were not for this guy moving in and then setting up first one and then 2 charcoal ovens. Yes he and his children lived right on top of the things and covered in suit, they will have a nice case of black lung for thier troubles.

Wires and plumbing is not to be worried about, it can all be redone or corrected unlike in western construction. The big worry is overall design and getting it right, that you cannot change. Please, please, please, do not build some monster of a enclosed house, you will be sorry for wasting your money. There is nothing like sitting around in some mold infested airconed room in the heat of summer. Nevermind trying to be active after you sit around in the airconditioning all day. Build on poles and leave the first floor open on three sides putting a Thai kitchen and one or two restrooms in. You will be having guests and parties, best to keep it all down stairs where you can wash up the afterparty with a hose. This also gives you the best place ever to hang around reading and drinking cool beverages during the very hotest part of summer. Jim Thompson was the smartest farang that ever built a house over here. While it would be near imposible to duplicate it you should at least go their and hang around to help you get some ideas. Smaller stilted and airy rooms are far superior to concrete eurocastles, try to adapt some design features and update it with concrete and rebar construction. The single biggest mistake Ive seen is guys listening to their wives and building walls everywhere which blocks the air from flowing leaving you in a sweat box.

Pole type construction can not be underestimated for raising the security level of your home. I dont think I need to bother with details here but bars on second story windows are much harder for a thief to deal with. This can also help you keep out the mice, rats, and the super evil ants that thrive within enclosed type structures.

I will try and get back to this but I have laid out some basic issues. Insulation, roof design, concrete mixes, concrete vibrators, water access, insects, tropical gardens, fish ponds, water gardens, geese, swimming pools, mold issues and few other things I didnt get into here but are important considerations before you start construction.

I forgot about this. Lady Isaan good. Then I got bored. Now I like Korea lady in America on student visa. I'm already tired of the food tho.

Korean women can be fantastic, Ive been there a few times. But man is that food boring, I told a couple guys I hated Korean food and they thought I was crazy but how in the helll can you compare Kimchi and Tofu with French Indochinese, Vietnamese, and Thai foods. The food around my house is beyond most peoples imagination and puts 5 star restraunts to shame most days. My wife just brought me a fantastic salad, everything garden fresh and toped over with virgen olive oil and imported feta cheese, time to go!

Good post.

Old Wanderer >> I have another side of a similar story to yours to tell. A family in a nearby village gained some extra cash from a farang. They built in the downstairs, concreted and tiled the garden... beautiful, everyone thought...

Now they have no breeze where they sit in the evening. They have no little bit of garden to grow their chili and papaya. They are living someone else's dream, not their own...

Na khrap.

It seems everyone wants to close in the down stairs. A few years ago my wifes 90 something yearold grandma needed some remodling so I got the bill, No problem there as I loved the woman dearly. The first thing that was brought up was closing in the down stairs. I put a stop on that before it got started and the reason was it had always been a dirt floor under the house with hammocks and everyone including 20 or more grandkids would just tend to walk right in and hang out with grandma. I knew if they inclosed it that it would no longer be such a welcoming and cool place to hide from the sun and I was worried that the kids would no longer hang around grandma. One family member even said I was being cheep but in the end I got my way since I was paying the bill. In a compremise we built 2 rooms on one side, a small one meter wall on one side with chainlink fence going up to semi enclose and seperate a area for the kitchen. We tiled and left the entire downstairs completely open aside from a bench that runs the length of the floor. I have to admit it worked out quite well and is the favorite place to this day for the whole family to hang out even one year after grandma has left this earth.