What Bangkok tells us about Thainess

[overherebc]

1 hour ago, Kasane said:

Sure. TV farangs voted 32/68% in a recent informal survey. 68% want to leave. I think Thailand will say good riddance to those farangs. Many marginally survive here since their countries currencies crashed against the baht. They are bitter and carry the colonial baggage of hate of the locals. 

And in 10 years or more likely on an ongoing basis many of those who are happy now will be wanting to leave for lots of reasons.

Not everyone is happy all their life and not everyone is miserable all their life.

It's a funny old game.

Edit

The colonial thing is mainly an english attitude.

Edited April 29, 2019 by overherebc

[DrTuner]

Bangkok, the swampy crotch of Thailand. What it tells about Thainess is that a few have it all. Take a look at the buildings there.

[ocddave]

3 hours ago, bkk6060 said:

So typical of people that hate this place to say it is all about money and corruption.

Where are you from?

If honest and in touch with reality you can post this about the majority countries, cultures, religions in the world.

I have traveled to over 30 countries. If a person does not think most if not all peoples/countries are not all about the money,  they are extremely naive...

Get in touch with reality.  Thailand is no different.  Money is God just about everywhere...... 

Keep the blinders on my man, you have been assimilated.

[CGW]

4 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

Take a look at the buildings there.

Come on a long way in the past thirty years hasn't it, the long term plan is working out well for the select few 

[DrTuner]

3 minutes ago, CGW said:

Come on a long way in the past thirty years hasn't it, the long term plan is working out well for the select few 

It is indeed. Now what they need to do is move it out of Thailand (hence the higher baht) and then get out of dodge before hell breaks loose. Seems to be working quite well, too, as somchais and noks get slowly but surely shafted in their placid surrender. Been quite interesting to see how to screw a country from within it. 

[ocddave]

1 hour ago, Kasane said:

Just so that your dark glasses come off. "...the media reported, the "richest 1 percent in the United States now own more additional income than the bottom 90 percent". There you have, elites and serfs. Many farangs here in Thailand could be living a dumpster digging life in their own country if they stayed there.

Ummm, did you also miss the Thai's on that list? That coupled with the actual wealth gap, and how much it increased over the last 5 years?

 

 

[RobMuir]

2 hours ago, Kasane said:

Sure. TV farangs voted 32/68% in a recent informal survey. 68% want to leave. I think Thailand will say good riddance to those farangs. Many marginally survive here since their countries currencies crashed against the baht. They are bitter and carry the colonial baggage of hate of the locals. 

It would be great if they left. Less queues at immigration, less farangs killing Thais on the roads, less ugly farang incidents. 

 

I doubt if the 68% will leave though. If they struggle is easy, laid back Thailand they will really struggle elsewhere.

[Orton Rd]

7 hours ago, bkk6060 said:

So typical of people that hate this place to say it is all about money and corruption.

Where are you from?

If honest and in touch with reality you can post this about the majority countries, cultures, religions in the world.

I have traveled to over 30 countries. If a person does not think most if not all peoples/countries are not all about the money,  they are extremely naive...

Get in touch with reality.  Thailand is no different.  Money is God just about everywhere...... 

Having an honest opinion about the country is not 'hate', maybe you should be a bit more up to date and call it 'toxic' ? I think it is rather different, look at all the laughs we are getting over the election, sad if you are a Thai though. Then there is the vast wealth gap. Most countries in the world do not have 1% of the people owning over two thirds of the wealth, in fact no other country is as bad in wealth disparity, that is the harsh reality.

Edited April 29, 2019 by Orton Rd

[jayboy]

6 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

I seem to be an exception on this thread. Granted, I do not live in Bangkok. But I love it! Of all the many big city capitals I have been to, in the developing world, it is not only the most pleasant, but has the most enjoyable and light hearted locals I have ever seen. Most huge cities are populated by dour, bitter, disenfranchised, cold, stiff, unfriendly people. Think LA, London, Paris, Prague, and so many others. Not so in Bangkok. Sure, the city has its issues. Chief among them the horrendous air that has been plaguing the nation for four months now, crazy heat, and ridiculous traffic. But other than that it has alot to offer. I love the place. 

Like many on this forum, I love Bangkok or otherwise I would not live here. Nevertheless, it would be dishonest not to admit its middle-class are generally not a very impressive lot.The renowned scholar Benedict Anderson summed it up well.

 

Money quote:" timid, selfish, uncultured, consumerist, and  without any decent vision of the future of the country."

 

"There is no doubt that the 19th-century effloration of so many great novelists, painters, poets, playwrights, architects, social thinkers, and philosophers came out of the rise of middle classes to cultural dominance.  The contrast with Thailand could not be more striking.  So far as I know, Bangkok has yet to give birth to a great novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher, architect, or social thinker.  It is Kongkhaen, not Bangkok, that gave birth to Apichatpong Weerasetakul who, barely in his 40s, is internationally regarded as among the very top of  world cinema directors, and this year won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. You might have expected that an artist of this calibre would be the object of immense pride by a bourgeoisie always anxious to show its international credentials.  But no, the bourgeoisie continues passively to swallow up  Hollywood junk,  repetitive Chinese martial arts junk, imported videogames and trashy soaps.   Middle-class Bangkok, if one reads the advertisements,  is interested only in good food,  fashions from abroad,  expensive resorts, and shopping trips in East Asia and Europe.  It is really hard to find a beautiful public building in the Thai capital, and there is no Thai temple that can beat Wat Xian Thong in Luang Prabang.    The shameful hubbub about Preah Wihan is one way of covering up what should be obvious to anyone,  i.e. that there are no Thai-thai buildings than can compare with Cambodia’s  Angkor,  Java’s Borobudur, or Burma’s Pukan. One can suspect that Bangkok has a hidden inferiority complex in this regard.  Two minutes at Preah Wihan tells anyone with brains that this gorgeous building is Khmer not Thai, so some Thais can’t bear this, so it has to be ‘ours.’

It would be difficult to expect anything from a capital city middle class of this type.  It timidly supported the demonstrations of October 73, but turned its back on the students in 1976  I should say that in this way the Bangkok bourgeoisie isn’t far from that of Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Jakarta: timid, selfish, uncultured, consumerist, and  without any decent vision of the future of the country."

[JAG]

 

 

 

6 minutes ago, jayboy said:

SNIP...I should say that in this way the Bangkok bourgeoisie isn’t far from that of Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Jakarta: timid, selfish, uncultured, consumerist, and  without any decent vision of the future of the country."

And as such both dependant on, and very probably ultimately at the mercy of, the transient exploited labour pool of which the OP misspeaks. 

 

Their security, both physical and economic is largely based on foundations in sand. It won't take much of a shaking to bring the whole structure crashing down.

[allanpatty]

Life sucks. Bangkok sucks too.

Sad if you think the two are the same


Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[White Christmas13]

4 hours ago, RobMuir said:

It would be great if they left. Less queues at immigration, less farangs killing Thais on the roads, less ugly farang incidents. 

 

I doubt if the 68% will leave though. If they struggle is easy, laid back Thailand they will really struggle elsewhere.

and another apologist

[geoffbezoz]

10 hours ago, VocalNeal said:

Many cities are not built on a grid system. That just leads to a traffic light at every corner. 

 

There are dickheads everywhere. I.E. A BMW driver not using turn signals. That is almost universal!

Yes but Bangkok is the Hub of dickheads.

[DrTuner]

8 hours ago, RobMuir said:

i am only new on this forum, but been many years living in Thailand. In real life I find people love living here, as I do, but this forum is full of hatred.

It's called living in a bubble and most people do it. Why not, it works. However in certain circumstances where you wouldn't normally voluntarily join, like a mandatory draft, you get to see the larger population in it's whole misery. Then things like IQ 100 being average will start to make sense, once you stumble on one that's got a 70. 

 

So, welcome to hoi polloi. We got cookies.

[rabas]

9 hours ago, Sticky Wicket said:

9 hours ago, Kasane said:

Just so that your dark glasses come off. "...the media reported, the "richest 1 percent in the United States now own more additional income than the bottom 90 percent". There you have, elites and serfs. Many farangs here in Thailand could be living a dumpster digging life in their own country if they stayed there.

Thailand's differential between rich and poor is the worst in the world

Well no....

 

The US is much worse than Thailand based on the World Bank GINI scale that measures such things and there are almost 100 countries worse off than Thailand based on income inequality.  I bet you just made that up.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality

Edited April 29, 2019 by rabas

[rabas]

2 hours ago, DrTuner said:

10 hours ago, RobMuir said:

i am only new on this forum, but been many years living in Thailand. In real life I find people love living here, as I do, but this forum is full of hatred.

It's called living in a bubble and most people do it. Why not, it works. However in certain circumstances where you wouldn't normally voluntarily join, like a mandatory draft, you get to see the larger population in it's whole misery. Then things like IQ 100 being average will start to make sense, once you stumble on one that's got a 70. 

 

So, welcome to hoi polloi. We got cookies.

Is the echo chamber calling the bubble isolated?

 

[Sealbash]

and another apologist

Apologist?? So anyone who is happy here is an apologist? Anyone who has a differing opinion is an apologist? Why create these labels to try to diminish opinions that do not exactly mesh with your own?


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[DrTuner]

33 minutes ago, rabas said:

Is the echo chamber calling the bubble isolated?

Not a really good echo chamber here, too many apologists. We'll get rid of them yet.

[RobMuir]

5 hours ago, Father Fintan Stack said:

 

If you hate all the negativity on this forum, then why are you here?

 

See how that works?

Trying to help the sad sacks see the light.

 

I ended up here because I was looking for information on windows and instead was confronted by the most negative group of people I have ever heard. 

 

I saw a bit of a write up on the Andrew Drummond website about how this all works, so I know the reality isn’t quite as bad as it seems. 

[RobMuir]

2 hours ago, White Christmas13 said:

and another apologist

When are you off?

[RobMuir]

24 minutes ago, Sealbash said:

Apologist?? So anyone who is happy here is an apologist? Anyone who has a differing opinion is an apologist? Why create these labels to try to diminish opinions that do not exactly mesh with your own?


Sent from my iPad using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

I like living here. I love it actually.

 

If I didn’t think it was the best country in the world to live, I would move to the country I thought was the best. Pretty simple.

 

If I did something wrong I would apologize. Which I suppose would make me an “apologist”.

 

I have copped a few abusive posts here for being too happy. I never cop that in real life.

Maybe the “non apologists” don’t get out much.

 

 

[DrTuner]

27 minutes ago, RobMuir said:

Trying to help the sad sacks see the light.

 

I ended up here because I was looking for information on windows ...

I take it the original quest for information was a success then, given that you now can see the light?

 

Be careful not to look too closely in the light though or it's red pill time. Ignorance is bliss.

[timendres]

14 hours ago, WalkingOrders said:

Bangkok is a mess. You could die walking down the street. You could touch a pole and be electrocuted, you could have your head cut off by a wire hanging a neck level, you could be mysteriously be found to have jumped to your death from a rental condo. Far different then any city I have ever lived.

Pussy.   ????

[Sticky Wicket]

9 hours ago, rabas said:

Well no....

 

The US is much worse than Thailand based on the World Bank GINI scale that measures such things and there are almost 100 countries worse off than Thailand based on income inequality.  I bet you just made that up.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality

My mistake, it was actually Asia. 7th in the world though, no mean feat!

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30360902

Edited April 29, 2019 by Sticky Wicket

[spidermike007]

15 hours ago, jayboy said:

Like many on this forum, I love Bangkok or otherwise I would not live here. Nevertheless, it would be dishonest not to admit its middle-class are generally not a very impressive lot.The renowned scholar Benedict Anderson summed it up well.

 

Money quote:" timid, selfish, uncultured, consumerist, and  without any decent vision of the future of the country."

 

"There is no doubt that the 19th-century effloration of so many great novelists, painters, poets, playwrights, architects, social thinkers, and philosophers came out of the rise of middle classes to cultural dominance.  The contrast with Thailand could not be more striking.  So far as I know, Bangkok has yet to give birth to a great novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher, architect, or social thinker.  It is Kongkhaen, not Bangkok, that gave birth to Apichatpong Weerasetakul who, barely in his 40s, is internationally regarded as among the very top of  world cinema directors, and this year won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. You might have expected that an artist of this calibre would be the object of immense pride by a bourgeoisie always anxious to show its international credentials.  But no, the bourgeoisie continues passively to swallow up  Hollywood junk,  repetitive Chinese martial arts junk, imported videogames and trashy soaps.   Middle-class Bangkok, if one reads the advertisements,  is interested only in good food,  fashions from abroad,  expensive resorts, and shopping trips in East Asia and Europe.  It is really hard to find a beautiful public building in the Thai capital, and there is no Thai temple that can beat Wat Xian Thong in Luang Prabang.    The shameful hubbub about Preah Wihan is one way of covering up what should be obvious to anyone,  i.e. that there are no Thai-thai buildings than can compare with Cambodia’s  Angkor,  Java’s Borobudur, or Burma’s Pukan. One can suspect that Bangkok has a hidden inferiority complex in this regard.  Two minutes at Preah Wihan tells anyone with brains that this gorgeous building is Khmer not Thai, so some Thais can’t bear this, so it has to be ‘ours.’

It would be difficult to expect anything from a capital city middle class of this type.  It timidly supported the demonstrations of October 73, but turned its back on the students in 1976  I should say that in this way the Bangkok bourgeoisie isn’t far from that of Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Jakarta: timid, selfish, uncultured, consumerist, and  without any decent vision of the future of the country."

Hard to argue with alot of your valid points. From a cultural standpoint, I would have to place MOCA Bangkok at the very pinnacle of what Thailand has to offer. And it is an outstanding museum, with some astonishingly good Thai fine art.

 

MOCA BANGKOK has been purposely built to showcase and exhibit the exceptional works of art collected over the past three decades by Boonchai Bencharongkul, whose passion for art runs deep. MOCA BANGKOK displays works of art inspired by traditional Thai modes of expression alongside art that has been influenced by the introduction of Western artistic styles and techniques. Some 800 works selected from Boonchai Bencharongkul’s private collection are exhibited in the 20,000 square metres of well – lit white space. These artworks stand as a statement of Thai creativity, beliefs, and thought processes. They also place for the first time on permanent display, a large quantity of what can be considered the best works of Thai art.

 

Boonchia in my opinion is a great example of a young Thai entrepreneur. He founded Dtac. And he is putting his money where his mouth is. When the government, out of an astonishing degree of ignorance refused to come up with the money to house his collection in a museum, he bought the land and build it out of pocket. Talk about showing up the ignorant authorities, who possess not even one iota of vision toward the future. 

 

There is a small art scene in Thailand, with creative, younger artists doing good work. But, it is a very small community. The majority seem indifferent. I blame that on one of the worst educational systems on the planet. It seems to literally squash the curiosity out of nearly every youth in the nation, prevents them from questioning teachers, and life in general, and tends to foster a relatively closed mind, not particularly interested in the world at large. The very insularity of the place is a horrific tendency, and diminishes the nation on so many levels. 

[spidermike007]

10 hours ago, RobMuir said:

I like living here. I love it actually.

 

If I didn’t think it was the best country in the world to live, I would move to the country I thought was the best. Pretty simple.

 

If I did something wrong I would apologize. Which I suppose would make me an “apologist”.

 

I have copped a few abusive posts here for being too happy. I never cop that in real life.

Maybe the “non apologists” don’t get out much.

 

 

Sounds like you have good perspective. That is worth a million bucks. What some would do to be able to have a good attitude in life. It makes all the difference in the world. Anyplace is what you make it, to some extent. And no matter where we go, we cannot escape our minds. Pays to spend some time and effort making our minds a comfortable and lovely place to live our lives. Otherwise, hell is where we are!

 

In comparison to many places in the world, Bangkok is amazing. So is the rest of Thailand, on alot of levels. If we choose to see it. 

[overherebc]

42 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

Hard to argue with alot of your valid points. From a cultural standpoint, I would have to place MOCA Bangkok at the very pinnacle of what Thailand has to offer. And it is an outstanding museum, with some astonishingly good Thai fine art.

 

MOCA BANGKOK has been purposely built to showcase and exhibit the exceptional works of art collected over the past three decades by Boonchai Bencharongkul, whose passion for art runs deep. MOCA BANGKOK displays works of art inspired by traditional Thai modes of expression alongside art that has been influenced by the introduction of Western artistic styles and techniques. Some 800 works selected from Boonchai Bencharongkul’s private collection are exhibited in the 20,000 square metres of well – lit white space. These artworks stand as a statement of Thai creativity, beliefs, and thought processes. They also place for the first time on permanent display, a large quantity of what can be considered the best works of Thai art.

 

Boonchia in my opinion is a great example of a young Thai entrepreneur. He founded Dtac. And he is putting his money where his mouth is. When the government, out of an astonishing degree of ignorance refused to come up with the money to house his collection in a museum, he bought the land and build it out of pocket. Talk about showing up the ignorant authorities, who possess not even one iota of vision toward the future. 

 

There is a small art scene in Thailand, with creative, younger artists doing good work. But, it is a very small community. The majority seem indifferent. I blame that on one of the worst educational systems on the planet. It seems to literally squash the curiosity out of nearly every youth in the nation, prevents them from questioning teachers, and life in general, and tends to foster a relatively closed mind, not particularly interested in the world at large. The very insularity of the place is a horrific tendency, and diminishes the nation on so many levels. 

Show the them a really good and important piece of art and the vast majority will ask only one question.

What's it worth?

[Kasane]

12 hours ago, rabas said:

Well no....

 

The US is much worse than Thailand based on the World Bank GINI scale that measures such things and there are almost 100 countries worse off than Thailand based on income inequality.  I bet you just made that up.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality

Of course it was made up. Otherwise OP would provide a reference.

Edited April 30, 2019 by Kasane

[Kasane]

17 hours ago, jayboy said:

Like many on this forum, I love Bangkok or otherwise I would not live here. Nevertheless, it would be dishonest not to admit its middle-class are generally not a very impressive lot.The renowned scholar Benedict Anderson summed it up well.

 

Money quote:" timid, selfish, uncultured, consumerist, and  without any decent vision of the future of the country."

 

"There is no doubt that the 19th-century effloration of so many great novelists, painters, poets, playwrights, architects, social thinkers, and philosophers came out of the rise of middle classes to cultural dominance.  The contrast with Thailand could not be more striking.  So far as I know, Bangkok has yet to give birth to a great novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher, architect, or social thinker.  It is Kongkhaen, not Bangkok, that gave birth to Apichatpong Weerasetakul who, barely in his 40s, is internationally regarded as among the very top of  world cinema directors, and this year won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. You might have expected that an artist of this calibre would be the object of immense pride by a bourgeoisie always anxious to show its international credentials.  But no, the bourgeoisie continues passively to swallow up  Hollywood junk,  repetitive Chinese martial arts junk, imported videogames and trashy soaps.   Middle-class Bangkok, if one reads the advertisements,  is interested only in good food,  fashions from abroad,  expensive resorts, and shopping trips in East Asia and Europe.  It is really hard to find a beautiful public building in the Thai capital, and there is no Thai temple that can beat Wat Xian Thong in Luang Prabang.    The shameful hubbub about Preah Wihan is one way of covering up what should be obvious to anyone,  i.e. that there are no Thai-thai buildings than can compare with Cambodia’s  Angkor,  Java’s Borobudur, or Burma’s Pukan. One can suspect that Bangkok has a hidden inferiority complex in this regard.  Two minutes at Preah Wihan tells anyone with brains that this gorgeous building is Khmer not Thai, so some Thais can’t bear this, so it has to be ‘ours.’

It would be difficult to expect anything from a capital city middle class of this type.  It timidly supported the demonstrations of October 73, but turned its back on the students in 1976  I should say that in this way the Bangkok bourgeoisie isn’t far from that of Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Jakarta: timid, selfish, uncultured, consumerist, and  without any decent vision of the future of the country."

 Military, political, cultural, and economic dominance of people and other nations is a Western concept based on aggression. This concept demeans our humanity and is rooted in colonialism with the inherent assumption of superiority of one people over other people by force. The Eastern philosophies and religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, and the concept of Zen) places aggression in its proper context as a negative trait.

[jayboy]

1 hour ago, Kasane said:

 Military, political, cultural, and economic dominance of people and other nations is a Western concept based on aggression. This concept demeans our humanity and is rooted in colonialism with the inherent assumption of superiority of one people over other people by force. The Eastern philosophies and religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, and the concept of Zen) places aggression in its proper context as a negative trait.

I don't see how your comment is of the slightest relevance to the subject. And on the subject of Eastern harmony and peacefulness, obviously the Khmer Rouge, Mao's murdering Red Guard, Tojo's fascists in Manchuria, Indonesian mass murderers in the 1960s, Tamil Tigers, Pakistani killers in Bangladesh, etc ad infinitum ....somehow failed to get that memo.