Johpa

When Thai government runs out of excuses Saudi will likely give the full story to the world press.

And such a telling might also violate some notorious Thai laws on the books.

Find a young bi-lingual (I assume Kham Muang- English) your son can relate too, someone young enough to be fun to hang out with, probably a guy in his young 20s. You can get an older professional teacher, but in a one-on-one situation the social dynamic will be more important than the pedagogic dynamic. A formal teaching background is essential to manage a large class to obtain a modicum of success across the group, but is far less essential for a private tutorial and may actually be counter productive. So let your son spend a few hours with the countless applicants you will get and see who he would be motivated to hang out with for awhile each day.

I note however that better native speakers of Thai language do not use the phrase at all. I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but native Bangkok people do not seem to use it, but Isaan people do quite regularly.

Not rude, just ignorant. No native speaker speaks better than another. Not to mention that Issan folks speak a different, closely related, but different language than is spoken in Bangkok. You are perhaps spending too much time with rude Bangkok people who look down upon Isaan people and others from regions that do not speak Central Thai.

The markings on these bars are probably acceptable for later sale inside Thailand,

overseas it may not be so easy!!

Not only bars, but any Thai baat gold chain and jewelery is a tough sell in the Asian gold shops outside of Thailand. The Thai elite buys their gold bars and jewelery in Hong Kong.

Oh good - another climate change thread.

Yes, and another opportunity to show the world the dim witted nature of the post 1997 IMF inspired ex-pat crowd that now dominates TV with endless uninspired chatter, including how stupid they, of all people, find the global scientific community. By their way of thinking, the next Nobel prize committee need only but hand out the prize to any random beer bar stool occupant down in Pattaya or Nana Plaza.

Or to paraphrase their real role model, their brains think in 3B, - three beers - and it looks good, eh?

It is laughable that the author of the article uses a foreigner as an example when such foreigner involved incidents represent an insignificant number of such cases. Perhaps a review and reminder (as well as an introduction to the many newbies around since the IMF forced opened the gates in 1997) regarding the Saudi gem scandal would better highlight the issue.

China like Thailand gives drug smuggling very short shrift.

Just as in Thailand, or Singapore, and elsewhere, low level smugglers and hapless mules are given short shrift whilst the financiers, the bankers, and the kingpins are bestowed national honors.

There is no human being on earth let alone Thailand that can state with any degree of certainty what part of Asia anyone comes from.

Crikey, are you also going to claim that you can't beat a random outcome determining, given only the information that a person is from a NATO country, that the person is from a Northern European NATO country located north of the Alps as opposed to coming from a Mediterranean NATO country located south of the Alps? You don't see a difference between an average looking Norske with light skin, blond hair (square head?) and an average dark haired, darker toned Italian? So given a random sampling of say 100 Norwegians and 100 Italians you can only get a 50% correct identity rate? Are you suggesting that large scale geographic genetic features, thought to exist partly as a result of human Darwinian adaptation to climate, that exist in the Occident do not exist in the Orient? I am not claiming to be able to be 100% accurate, but I am certain that most Asians, and a few Farangs, can beat the null hypothesis that you are suggesting, that there are no average differences in appearance.

So like I said, go back far enough in time and ALL thais are of Chinese ancestry.

Whistle all you want, but Tai folks did not originate, not culturally, not linguistically, from the same place as the Han Chinese. Perhaps there are ancient genetic relationships that far predate the historical era. But the homeland of the Han was north of the Yangtze and, although still in academic debate and leaning towards Hainan Island, the Tai's ancestral homeland was clearly south of the Yangtze.

And I am sorry, and although there are now plenty of people of mix ancestry, there are still large numbers of people in Thailand I can look at and state with a very high degree of certainty that the person is either of Southeast Asian or East ancestry.

And to the poster who did not want a reply from me to their question, perhaps you should refrain from posting to a public board and instead keep your thoughts confined to personal messages.

Define "native Thai" please

Thai is a political designation. When we speak of a "native Thai" we are speaking of not only the political designation but more to a genetic designation, specifically someone whose ancestry is native to Southeast Asia and who uses Thai as a native language, as opposed to someone whose family is from South Asia, East Asia, or Europe. My children are now Thai citizens, they speak Thai and act like Thais. But nobody would describe them as being "native Thai" just as most people do not describe those of East Asian ancestry as being native Thai. On the other hand, my wife comes from a non-Tai indigenous Southeast Asian minority group, speaks Thai as her native tongue (but not her mother tongue)and nobody thinks she is anything other than a "native Thai" and are often quite shocked to hear her speak to her family in the mother tongue.

I am not certain about the pubic hair, it was all good to this old school gentleman who appreciated those secondary characteristics back in the days of bachelorhood when such comparisons could be made. But back to the topic, yes, there are many people in Thailand one can quickly take note who are not of East Asian descent. Go live in any rural area in the north or northeast and you will soon be able to detect who is not likely to have East Asian family and who does probably have East Asian ancestors. You can look at the combination of facial characteristics as well as skin tone, with East Asians tending to have lighter skin tone. That is not to say one will be 100% accurate, as there has been lots of mixing over the past 200 years, especially in the urban centers. But in the country side I would bet my guesses are at least 80% accurate.

Thais are descendants of Thi, which where Chinese , they came south to get away from our man Genghis Khan,

Ethnic Tai populations do not seem to be descended from Chinese Han populations although there is still academic debate as to the origins of the Tai languages, such as the Tai-Kadai hypothesis. It is thought that the Tai migrations southward into Southeast Asia were a result of Han migrations south across the Yangtze River, possibly as a result of Mongol pressure on the Han populations further to the north. I don't think there is much evidence showing Mongol presence south of the Yangtze.

So you have the Mongols putting pressure (the fear of death) on populations such as the Han (Chinese) who now migrate southwards causing similar pressure on many indigenous peoples living south of the Yangtze to move even further south or upwards to less desirable mountainous habitat.

Age of consent....troll....the real issue is how someone who writes so poorly could pretend to become an English teacher. But hey, welcome to ThaiVisa circa 2010.

The OP's thesis is that an individual cannot be racist if s/he has not been 'indoctrinated with western history' or s/he doesn't know what racism is.

Yes I also picked up that hint of naivete that often results from over exposure to post-modernist blather lathered onto impressionable minds in institutions of higher learning throughout the Occident. Also, the OP has clearly lived a rather closeted life in Thailand if they have not encountered any racism. That being said, the vast majority of Thais do not seem to have any issues with white folks. The numbers change a bit in regards to black folks and escalate dramatically when talking of either Burmese or highland minorities.

And to further debunk the western basis of racism, the OP could read about the African students who rioted in Beijing a few decades ago to protest the over racism in that country.

China will rape the world of its natural resources. Whether it does so fairly and responsibly, we shall see. But it is decadent negligence to think 1.3 billion people don't want our lifestyles, because they will.

And enough with the 'PRC'. It's China. It's Vietnam. It's Congo. It's North Korea. Enough with dignifying oppressive, crackpot regimes and the whims of their tyrant leaders.

Odd that business reports coming out of the Shanghai Expo 2010 are highlighting China's lead in "green" technology. You won't meet too many global warming denialists in Beijing.

And is there anything left to rape after the previous rapacious century led by the US based corporations? Not to mention that combining the PRC and Vietnam into the same grouping as North Vietnam is simply ludicrous.

They are being a bully and aren't taking opportunities to be a force for good (North Korea for example). Why our governments do so much to hand wealth and power to their unworthy regime eludes me. All we get back is cynicism and veiled threats.

For an alternative view of China being a "bully" I suggest reading Joshua Kurlantzick's "Charm Offensive: How China's Soft Power is Transforming the World". There is no question that China is becoming increasingly influential and increasing its influence outside its borders, but I don't see too many Chinese troops stationed outside of China other than in Tibet. And nobody in the west cares about Tibet and even otherwise enlightened and educated Chinese are blind to the injustice there. So yes, China has the potential to be a bully, but for the most part is acting rather circumspectly rather than as a outright bully.

Thailand has long been the most southern monthol of the PRC. How else do you explain that a Buddhist nation would refuse a visa to the Dalai Lama. Thailand, having little power in the bigger game and courting both the US and the PRC, is like your typical bar girl with one husband in England and another in Germany, and as long as they don't visit during the same time week all is well

The Thai State has long profited from the presence of Christian missionaries, they represent a nice source of steady income that has been around for generation. There is also a small yet economically powerful Thai-Christian elite in Bangkok that is aligned politically with what we call the "old guard" down there. Thus they represent a conservative political presence with long standing connections to the highest ranks of the Thai polity and serve as a bridge to other conservative Christian groups in the west. Many of the long-term missionaries, especially the Baptist and Catholics, have Thai citizenship, as do their children. They have provided superior secondary education options to the children of the Thai elite for generations without requiring conversions to Christianity. In fact, one of the reasons they are so tolerated is that they make little headway within Thai Buddhist circles. They are given the highland minorities as a bone to keep them around in such numbers, and to keep the money flowing and to keep those schools going.

The hill people have long been successful targets as their lives and traditions, including their belief systems, have been under tremendous pressure for past several hundred years. The missionary activity amongst the hill people began with the British in Burma, having found a receptive audience that lent itself to the Empire's divide and conquer strategy. So today you find mostly Christian hill tribe villages in Thailand and a large number of missionaries to tend to these flocks. And yes, it attracts missionaries for the same reason that Thailand attracts other types of tourists, the ability to live far more comfortably for any given income than back home.

I think I read that it is for sale in Mae Salong.

Yes, it and many of the various medicinal alcoholic drinks, yaa dong, were found at the market in Mae Salong at the end of town just before the road drops down the mountain, by the school yard.

The bags in question show Mickey Mouse.

Mickey Mouse is an asset that belongs to the shareholders of Disney Corporation.

Who are the major shareholders of Disney?

Mutual fund investors on behalf of pension funds and individual investors.

Equal to, and perhaps greater than, the mutual fund investors are the hedge fund operators who represent the investments of the upper .5% of income earners. And these are the people who own the US congress, both Democrats as well as Republicans, and who caused the Bono Bill to be passed that prevented Mickey from falling into the public domain. You know that place, the public domain, where old Uncle Walt picked up at no cost toon characters such as Snow White and Cinderella.

I reckon there would be a rather minor dent put into Disney's earnings if Mickey went into the public domain as the law intended at the time many of the pension funds purchased shares. But it was never the intent that those same corporations could use their politcal-economic power to change the laws for their own personal profits at the expense of the larger public. Why should others not create and extrapolate and profit from Walt Disney's creation decades after his death just as Walt himself did from those two Danish brothers? Why should Eisner and a few retirees be the only ones to profit from something they had absolutely no connection to?

This is not a rant against IP protection, only against unreasonable extensions of IP protection to those who have no more skin into that property than you or I.

A criminal is a criminal regardless of scale.

In Thailand that is not the case. A small shop owner may be fined for counterfeiting but never the larger manufacturers, importers, or producers. A small time drug dealer may go to jail, or even be subject to extrajudicial justice, but never a major distributor or financier. In Thailand the people at the top of the criminal totem pole are not considered criminals, and are often actually the people entrusted to uphold the law wearing their khaki or brown shirts with lots of pretty ribbons atop.

As for Disney, Eisner was one of the main proponents behind the Bono Law, AKA Mickey Mouse Protection Act, AKA Copyright Extension Act, and was perhaps one of the most injurious legal machinations by the American corporate ruling elite against not only the people of the United States but, by extension of various international agreements, many others around the world. Although not defined under the US legal system as a crime, the implementation of the Bono Act and the associated blatant abuse of power by the purchasing of the politicians, is seen by many as a criminal act.

Question:

Ok, so why is a book that I have bought from the most famous second hand bookshop in Chiang Mai at 250 baht ( bit expensive but worth the money ) after three months worth only 70 baht? And why is the same book on the shelves again after a week @ 250 baht?

I will start handing out free books!! Better than begging people to PLEASE give me more than 70 baht for this amazing book.

Maybe it is because there is a cost to the time any one book may sit on a shelf. Not to mention that the "amazing" factor of any one title quickly depreciates over time. The time value of money means your "amazing" book, in the larger scheme of things, is simply not worth more than an average of 70 baat given the average amount of time any one book sits on the shelf awaiting that one other person who finds it "amazing". It is just basic retail business sense, something often found absent in the general public.

Disclaimer: I am not a book seller but do have many decades of retail experience under the belt.

FWIW, a few months ago I met a German gentlemen who volunteers with the local tourist police who is a pretty decent guy. You might try asking the tourist police to have their German volunteer go over and have a talk with your neighbor if issues arise again.

Try the Samoeng loop, or a variant of that loop. GT-Rider has a map that can be found about town of just the Samoeng loop that is as good for car touring as for motorcycles. Try the Pong Khwao hot spring in north Samoeng as an alternative to the hot spring out by Sankampeng. That way you can throw in any of the tourist spots in the Mae Sa Valley, including the elephant camp which may be a bit pricey but the elephants are also well cared for, but also includes orchids or monkeys or snakes or tigers, etc. For giggles take her to the bat cave (sorry, can't remember the name) west of Samoeng past the Samoeng Resort and on the left.

We would not want any oil spillage to negatively impact the long dead reefs along the windward side of Samui (east side). Nor would anyone want the hint of petroleum to be added to the delicate aroma of a cesspool that wafts around Chaweng night and day whenever the sea winds quiet down.

I know that jewelery stores in the States and Europe are not interested in purchasing Thai gold or asian gold unless they are specifically asian owned stores selling to asian customers. Tried it with no success.

My experience is that Asian owned gold shops catering to Asian customers in the US will not buy Thai "baat" gold.