GinBoy2

Yeah I had a pretty happy childhood. Wasn't rich that's for sure, both my Mom and Dad were farm workers in the CA Central Valley. But I felt very loved, and as a rare thing back in the 60's, especially as an Hispanic I was an only child, so they poured their love into me. It was a happy time, all us kids played out in the street, and of course back then during the summer vacation you told after breakfast, "Go out and play" and you weren't expected to come home until dinner! My parents, especially my Mom pushed me hard at school and I ended up at UC Berkeley That said saw a bunch of school friends who were from less loving families fall to the drugs, gangs and ultimately prison. It's not a cliche to say that our childhood 'can' make or destroy your life

Hmm google translate is a wonderful thing, but it's a far cry from actually having a conversation. I'm a bit of a polyglot, I speak English, Spanish, my native languages, then Mandarin, Thai and Lao as my learned languages, plus a little bit of terrible French I've tried the translate app for languages I don't speak. They work OK but a far cry from actually having a conversation

Drop a pin in any city/town in Issan and forget about seeing many farangs. You can make it what you want, but won't be the Soi 6 world for sure I like Khon Kaen. Fairly cosmopolitan, infrastructure not bad. Decent night life, without the hooker shops and not bad restaurants A lot depends of course on language skills. In the tourist traps, hate them or not you can live without speaking Thai. Live upcountry and you better learn Thai pretty quick or you're going to find yourself in a pickle

Jeez three pages of total nonsense We're all human, I can disagree with the views and lifestyle of someone from my own country, but I don't think they are lessor, inferior to me. The English/Aussie thing, well you got some issues which deserve therapy

As stupid as it sounds, with endless posts from AI or deranged folks, I kinda enjoy a little human to human antagonism banter.. At least I think it's real not some bot churning out nonsense clickbate

OMG how many times do we have to go through this clickbate? Might as well resurrect the 'do you wai' threads! I hate myself for even responding to this

I wasn't trying to be negative, but more practical. I tried to tell my kids, unsuccessfully as it turned out, was something that can look great on 20 year old skin, may not be quite so great on a 50/60/70 year old body. Aging has a cruel way of tat's looking ridiculous Piercing, well get fed up with it, take out the hardware and soon enough you're back to normal. Tat's remember you live with them forever

Thats actually quite true I think. The young kids who work for me are at a total loss with mental arithmetic, and without the calculator on their phones go into a tailspin. I'm pretty sure most of us here are of an age when we recited multiplication tables at school, and did what I consider basic mental math. Doesn't work like like that anymore. As a high schooler one of my part time jobs was working as a cashier at a local store. Long before electronic cash registers, you did the math to calculate change in your head. A skill long gone I fear. One good solar flare to knock out the electricity grid, and we'll be back in the dark ages. So no, this is a problem not confined to Thailand, but given the Thai education system a little worse

My car insurance is cheaper. I talk to the young boys at work and what they pay is eye watering As you age you clutch onto the small things lol

You're a braver man than me to have ended up with four!

I've never experienced the OP's premise of a farang with western wife in tow leave for a much younger Thai woman. Seen plenty of older divorced guys fall for the 20-30 year old younger than them and it end in tears. At the end of the day, guys can delude themselves that a woman, Thai or whatever, is actually attracted to a man old enough to be their father

Now I'm totally confused. Is porridge different to what North Americans would call oatmeal? I've always believed oatmeal was one of the healthiest breakfasts ....and it hasn't killed me in the past six decades!

Well ain't that the truth. Humans aren't a one size fits all species. I think a lot, if not most all on here have been previously married in their home country. People can drift apart, that happens and hopefully not too acrimoniously. I met my Thai wife at work in Singapore. I'd already drifted apart from my wife, too much travel for work, and i delved into the workplace affair. Not too honorable I'll admit, but it happens. We aren't far apart in age, and she had grown up as a teenager in Chicago, so we shared a lot of cultural things, maybe with the exception of baseball. She's a diehard Cubs fan whereas I'm a Giants fan So on to marriage. We were OK in Thailand until our son went to college in Chicago and told us he wasn't coming home. So, only only reason we actually got legally married was to get MrsG a green card So I don't think the OP's premise is really valid. Marriage in all cultures is an up and down thing. Maybe cross cultures is more difficult, but in my case Mrs G was a bit of a hybrid so I've never really thought about it

Hmm have you noticed that half the world have tats? I sometimes feel I'm the only man on the planet without ink. When I was a kid tats were the realm of drunken sailors and women of ill repute. Today everyone gets them. I begged my kids, pierce what you want but don't ink it. Of course all three of them totally ignored me. So definitely sure tats aren't nowadays restricted to ladies of the night, and most certainly not mental illness, although maybe I'd go with social pressure or todays norms.

Simple answer is No I'll talk to my kids, if they will pick up which is rare, other than that I text