Shaunduhpostman

If I'm not mistaken, there were some alleged Cambodian 12th century relics, or whenever the classic Khmer epoch was, that were among this guy's cache. The relics were re-patriated to CAmbodia and we saw the report in the media, something along the lines of, "CAmbodia says 'Gee, thanks for the fakes Thailand!'"

The point is, buyer beware, may be a few more in there they are trying to auction.

Well, lets hope they are not pardoned in a month or two and released. The red shirt actions have had serious consequences. I wonder if Jatuporn will ever be punished?

And yes, they need to punish all who have violated laws, not just the red shirts. Though I would not bet on it.

What does drinking or not drinking have to do with Buddhism?

Nothing.

Oh! Well! Sabai sabai then! Don't complain, you all have a job! How lucky you are!

Thanks Bloomberg!

As difficult as I am sure it is, I would work on trying to get your papers together to be permitted to teach in Australia or another developed and non-Asian country. The problem with numerous Asian countries is that the students won't accept an Asian teacher. They will like hine or her more than the caucasian teachers usually there will be more rapportand understanding then comes the notion of how things are supposed to be and that always wins out. There are many Asian-American and educated in the west Asian teachers in Thailand, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia where I have taught. They are some of the most highly regarded teachers, but then they say, "Oh...but you aren't white. You can teach a few more months but its time to go back home after that." The schools never have the integrity to stand by the teachers no matter what the ethnicity but in your case that will be the unspoken issue. I worked for nearly 20 years over here and saw many excellent Asian teachers educated or born or immigrated to the west, it quickly all went wrong for all of them. It defies logic, I always felt the Asian teachers had so much more rapport and motivation to make a difference for the students, they seem usually to be so much more well liked. But because people will never challenge what has always been done, what people's expectations are they always say you are great, but no.

Nothing else I need to do for immigration, other than bring the two passports correct?

No just use both passports, Sometimes immigration will say something about that this should not be done.

But it is completely legal and the whole visa duration can be used with both passports.

Yes, I fully expect I may meet someone who is going to grumble and make up rules that I didn't follow as has happened a few times before. Perhaps I can print some statements from the U.S. Embassy web page or wherever about the procedure and its legality and show it to them if they insist I am going about things the wrong way and try and cause a problem. I may call the US embassy and ask what they suggest to stymie any stunts that might be used to grease my palm or what have you.

Though to be fair, 90 percent of the time, albeit with one passport, not two, entry/exit point immigration officers have been polite, efficient and done their job without hassle. Always going to be a few bad apples.

Thanks all, much appreciated.

A member of the Thai tourism board has come to the defense of the film, stating it was not meant for European markets. Meant to be a creative story, the mini-film is intended for the Asian markets where similar concepts are seen on popular television shows.

If it is meant for Asian markets then why is it in English and Subtitled with English and Thai? Who do they think they are fooling?

This is not going to help TAT reach their goals with tourism. They keep wasting money on stupid vdos such as this instead of hard marketing tactics to other countries...

They use English because that is the language most often used between Thais and any nationality, not just western markets.

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Now the boring, droning, interminable high school essay part:

It's actually quite a clever video if they want to put off western visitors, particularly western women and men who think people's privacy should be respected, while appealing to Asian tourists whose cultural values don't often include a strong sense of a right to privacy. I am a farang, so forgive my ignorance if I got that wrong about generalizing that Asians do not value privacy as much as westerners, but that is how it appears to me looking in from the outside.

It also seems that more and more Thais are making up their minds that they don't particularly like westerners. It's their prerogative, but I don't think they will like anyone else they decide to try and woo either in the end. But perhaps they are right, perhaps we are actually more of a pain and a hassle for them and now that Chinese and Indians and others from other areas of Asia have more income Thailand can now choose, why not? But the point is that it is conceivable the TAT has decided they want to gross westerners out while appealing to Asia and have found a way to do it, good on them, better than the last video about poor Timmy who lost his wallet and was taken in and nursed back to full human status by a kind and forgiving Thai community.

As for the new video, while westerners might view the guy as creepy, I would guess his style would be viewed by many in Asia as polite and indirect if not very persistent showing that he is truly interested in the girl he is stalking. He sort of cushions the blows of his advances by referring to the instagram posts. He is actually half chasing instagram posts and only half chasing a real girl. He focuses on her posts and the technology as opposed to someone who is just baldly and nakedly playing some kind of numbers game and hitting on her and 1000 other chicks, making a complete public nuisance of himself in hopes that million to one odds work out and he and she will fall madly in love forever. By snooping around in her instagram posts he may well have gotten an idea that she is someone with whom he could actually have a decent relationship, egads. Maybe he isn't a creep, maybe he is a guy who wants to find true love afterall!

That aside, it seems to be OK in the west for businesses to "stalk" us for market research data which easily becomes some kind of intel file on us, it seems to be OK for the NSA to stalk you, but god forbid an individual do basically the same thing. Though perhaps it is only that people are helpless to do anything about the situation, I don't know, haven't been back in years. But if thats how people are treated n the west, if people just sit bu and tolerate the developing surveillance culture, you can hardly complain if every year there is more and more cases of individuals stalking and harrassing others.

Though I don't like the video, so what. It isn't meant for me and that's fine, glad to know where I stand. I find it also to be quite interesting, so thanks TAT.

Nothing else I need to do for immigration, other than bring the two passports correct?

I have a one year multiple entry Non-O visa in my old passport which has been cancelled out. I have my new passport as well and I'm due to exit the country for another 90 day entry stamp in a week or so. I assume I am just supposed to bring both passports with me to show to immigration and that if all goes normally they will put my exit stamps in the new passport and then I go on to Laos immigration (Savanakhet) do the usual visa application, fees, etc. and then upon re-entering Thailand again just show them both passports once again and get another 90 day entry stamp in the new passport, or no? Can anyone on here confirm that or is there something or some things I've missed?

Also, if you have had any hitches due to having to use two passports or met with border immigration officials who have tried to exploit the double passport situation, I'm all ears and eyes. Best to come prepared with a strategy in the case of any shennangins.

Thanks, much appreciated.

Perhaps the rather vague and brief article about such an important topic says it all. It was just the wind blowing, you can go back to sleep.

Since 2011 when I began getting them nothing has changed, I have not found it to be more difficult by any stretch by keeping informed as to which embassies will do what. That's what Thai Visa is great for! It will be difficult if you just pop in at any embassy and see if you can't get what your looking for. Chances are it won't fly. Savanakhet has been the old stand by and Jakarta worked for me once in 2011. The Thai embassies in the U.S. where I come from, last I checked, it's difficult. Perhaps it is payback for making things difficult for Thais who want to immigrate.

Of course it looks like "getting harder" is just around the corner, but who knows maybe we will wake up one day to a rosy future in which it will begin to get easier every year!

I would go with Kunming. That salary in Phuket seems suspiciously high to me not low as you seem to think. 30,000/month is the going rate in Thailand, another reason not to work in teaching here. Phuket is one dodgy place it seems these days and I think that adds to the dubiousness of the promised 50,000 monthly salary. I would also read the accurate and frank reports of the travails of teaching in Thailand as can be read on ajarn.com. I know you have said that you think the school is reputable, it may well be, but the schools here are just about all really bad places to be, good reputation or not. A year or two is about all anyone can deal with without becoming seriously emotionally disturbed.

I have never been to Kunming let alone lived and worked there, but I have worked in three other Asian countries and worked in Japanese only situations in Thailand and all were miles ahead of my many Thai jobs over the last 20 years. Things are rapidly getting much worse here and it has long been a real shambles for teachers. Even if your school is otherwise good, many schools can't be bothered to help you with the visa process anymore. Suddenly you may find you are not working legally and likely it will be something you discover yourself. Being in trouble with immigration isn't their problem. China is more deserving of the services of a good and committed teacher which I assume you are. Save Thailand for summer and winter vacations and even then if it were me I wouldn't even be bothered with that, plenty of other nicer places not full of tourist rip offs, nasty disenfranchised locals and cops looking to get over on foreigners, and not nearly as environmentally desecrated.

I taught for 20 years in ESL, OP, in every situation imaginable and in 4 different countries and under management of 7 different nationalities. Sadly, the way you are being treated has become par for the course. I have left teaching because I am fed up, despite having enjoyed teaching immensely, the amount flack from incompetent management with MBAs and the current prevailing notion of education as nothing more than being about business just ruins it and ruins the students' educational possibilities pretty well I might add.

I would also add that they probably simply just don't like you because you sound like you have a sense of what's right and wrong and try and hold them to it. Anything less than silent smiling obedience with a dash of obsequiousness is sadly considered how an employee should behave in Thailand and many other countries I might add. Like many others are saying, it is about money and numbers and they can get someone from the Philippines or Camerouns for 15,000/month anyway, so they are already resenting you from the get go having to pay you more and that is one of the handfull of things that matter in education as a business.

As for going to some authority to make the school worry about consequences, that kind of tack just isn't going to fly in Thai culture at all. The last thing people should be asked to do here is worry or consider consequences. Any authorities that do exist, I'd be really surprised, they likely have had to buy their job position, so have no sense that they have any further obligations.

I cast my vote with many of the others, it is best to get out of the situation asap and start afresh. It is very hard to find a good place to teach in Thailand, but you likely could get a better situation. At the meeting I would be compromising and trying to set the tone for at least getting a dishonourable discharge from the school as opposed to going on the offense. I would apologise for whatever problems they bring up, whether real or not, express regret that the arrangement hasn't worked out and ask to be let go when it is convenient for the school. Perhaps you could get some kind of a good reference or letter of recommendation out of it, though that may be a long shot, and I personally would have great difficulty trusting them to give a good reference as they do sound as though they are angry with you about something and perhaps someone has lost face over some mysterious perhaps even semi-imagined issue. Even if a reference would be useless, the whole psychology of getting them to write a good recommendation letter might help ease them into a better frame of mind about you, help them see perhaps that you are not that bad actually and which could help to defuse the whole situation and smooth out the last month so that they don't continue trying to get back at you or attack you further as you are going out the door or even after should the opportunity arise.

Sorry to be cynical but no good deed goes unpunished. Someone will lose face at some point if he doesn't desist and he'll have a problem. If not, people will think he is weird or be suspicious. I hope I am wrong, but that is what I have found out here is that doing good is asking for trouble.

Whatever.

And the score at the end of February:

Shin Dynasty- 530 billion

Junta- 67 million

Hope the shop actually sees what was stolen, they'd be pretty lucky. One can imagine all kinds of scenarios as to how the diamonds were stolen in the first place. Hopefully they learned their lesson, otherwise more thieves will be back and the word on the street in China is probably already that Thai shops are an easy hit.

Wouldn't surprise me if it is a future resources grab, they'll claim Mars belongs to China.

"Public Health officials are expected to act as positive role models for other organizations by not going over the speed limit or drunk driving, and always wearing safety gear."

OK, so if we just begin to entertain the expectation that the Public Health officials control themselves when behind the wheel it will all work itself out and many many lives will begin to be saved. OK. And we have the Disease Control people on it with their perspective of poor driving being the symptom of a bacterial or virus infection? Gotchya.

With ideas and plans like that I'm sure the ministers can count on bales of cash from the WHO for proposals on studies for improving road safety in Thailand. They really are pulling out all the stops down there at the ministry. Thailand the hub of expectations.

I haven't read anything that hollow and meaningless in a long time. Seems a computer algorithm was used to write it. Zero relevance or thought given to Thailand. Throwing around Thai professors names and Buddhist concepts is not going fool anyone.

Feel sorry for the kids having to go to college and pay through the nose for it with people like this guy and their ideas about education or lack thereof who obviously are interested in little else than making the right gesticulations and sounds at the right time to get their careerist Skinner box payola peanut to come out of the hatch.

Open the wiki link they have different dishes their names and ingredients.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Thai_dishes

Awesome link deonvz.

Who woulda thunk such an exhaustive and descriptive coverage of Thai food could be found on Wikipedia. Not that wikipedia doesn't often have informative pages, but this is better than the average wiki page.

Yet another nail in the coffin as far as this place being a viable place to try and live anymore. That the detained don't get to see a judge is hardly any kind of loss, given the apparent preference of judges to regard most cases as a forgone conclusion.

That said, few US citizens seem to realize or even care, even when it potentially applies to them, that the situation as far as detentions is even more draconian in the United States. Can't speak for UK or EU, but I doubt it is much better. But as far as US law, last time I checked,1 year ago, according to recent amendments to the Patriot Act, US military may arrest anyone without cause and detain them indefinitely, not just 84 days. Essentially, as far as I can tell US law has legalized what was once an instrument of state terror in their sponsored right wing dictatorships in Chile, El Salvador, Argentina, Guatamala etc. the act of dissapearing people. Though of course the Thai military can do what they like, I doubt the bit about 84 days and you're free means much.

That's what I've been sayin on here, too many people think they are too slick, smart, lucky for anything to happen to them on Ko Tao etc. and many of them are right, nothing will happen or even be about to happen. If it doesn't bother them or they can't be bothered, well then just keep on rollin into Ko Tao and give 'em a 10 on Toruist Advisor. I'm about done with caring about it. The word is out and if people want to ignore it they are almost as bad as the people perpetrating the problems to begin with.

Honestly, how difficult can a solution be. It is like watching elephants drowning in a teaspoon of water. Can the governor even find his way out of bed in the morning without confusing himself, or is it deliberate, they are just trying to make sure nobody has any idea what they can and can't do on Patong Beach. How lugubrious and frankly hilarious.

Welcome to Patong Beach! Please enjoy being totally confused while you enjoy the sunset and wonder, "Could it be that my food is actually waste scraps or not? When is it exactly when food becomes waste? Can I sit down or is my non-chair a chair? How about my ass? I sit on it, so is it a chair? Maybe! I am prohibited from disposing of waste at the beach? So, I have to just throw my trash on the ground? A crisp bag is not garbage but disposable bags are? What if I eat my som tom out of a platic to go bag, is that ok? If the som tam is put in the container before I eat it, isn't it pre-packed? When is something that is packed pre-packed? Aren't all items that are packed pre-packed?"