During my time in Thailand I've encountered a few people who are living on an extremely small sum of money month to month which in and of itself isn't a problem if they can keep their heads above water and maintain decent mental health. However I have also known guys who for some reason refuse to return to their formative Country to find some employment until their fortunes change/improve and then can return to LOS once more with a decent wedge in the bank. 

 

I've contemplated this second group and tried to understand why you would not make that move back home. A bit about myself, I lost my job at one stage a few years back and when my own funds dropped below a level which I was personally comfortable with, I booked a flight and headed on home to pick up some work. It was tough but I managed it without any major difficulties and a couple of years later I was back in Thailand working again and enjoying my life in Asia once more. I didn't feel any shame or reverse culture shock upon returning home. Simply a matter of fact to that my circumstances dictated that I needed to pull on the strengths of my own passport and education. Not a single person talked down to me as if I didn't "make it". Quite the opposite in fact. 

 

The thing is, one particular guy I knew in Chiang Mai fell on very similar hard times at a very similar time yet his choice was to remain in Thailand and (no joke) turn to crime to sustain himself. US Citizen. Came from a pretty decent family from what I was told and I was completely astounded and can never understand why an otherwise decent guy who appeared level headed and like minded, concluded that his best option was to become a criminal, in Thailand of all places - so unfortunately you end up distancing yourself for obvious reasons. 

 

I wonder how many thousands of farang are living in Thailand on the bones of their asses when you include the mentally unstable like the beggars along lower Suk in BKK, Beach bums in Patts etc all at the lower end of the spectrum regarding bones of ass - probably a lot less than there used to be with all the visa restrictions being put in place but interested to hear from board members own experiences with these types who have fallen on hard times and what they think motivates them to remain close to/actually destitute in Asia?

Does it really matter?

2 minutes ago, VocalNeal said:

Does it really matter?

I take it your user name is supposed to be ironic then....

Good to hear you manage to get a job when you went home, many cannot.

15 minutes ago, DDBKK said:

motivates them to remain close to/actually destitute in Asia?

meowwwww !!

Well it is OK to ponder. 

 

The meaning of life?

How the Universe was formed?

Where is home?

 

and the like 

 

But I'm sure nobody wants to know about your life and why you wonder about other's? They do what they want , you do what you want. Still it keeps the forum hit number up?

 

6 minutes ago, VocalNeal said:

Well it is OK to ponder. 

 

The meaning of life?

How the Universe was formed?

Where is home?

 

and the like 

 

But I'm sure nobody wants to know about your life and why you wonder about other's? They do what they want , you do what you want. Still it keeps the forum hit number up?

 

I'm unsure if you are replying to the OP or another poster but for someone who doesn't care much about the topic you sure are committed to bumping the thread. 

Agree many have trapped themselves, others have learned to live with the bare minimums.

 

Why not go home raises even more questions?

 

Do they have a place to go home to in their own country?

 

Do they have the funds to rent a place, get the utilities turned on, transportation to their job?

 

Perhaps the answer for many they don't even have the funds to get the airfare home.

 

Perhaps they have no skills to get a job?

 

I think in the end it all comes down to either having money, which affords you different paths, or none and the path is stay in Thailand.

 

I know a Swiss Guy, has a business in Koh Chang. Built a lot of that business working 6 months in Switzerland then staying in Thailand for 6 months.

 

It always amazed me how he could go home any time he needed to and find a good paying job.

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, DDBKK said:

The thing is, one particular guy I knew in Chiang Mai fell on very similar hard times at a very similar time yet his choice was to remain in Thailand and (no joke) turn to crime to sustain himself. US Citizen. Came from a pretty decent family from what I was told and I was completely astounded and can never understand why an otherwise decent guy who appeared level headed and like minded, concluded that his best option was to become a criminal, in Thailand of all places - so unfortunately you end up distancing yourself for obvious reasons. 

Did you ever bother to ask this guy why he didn't just go home?  Then you'll at least understand his reasoning....but not necessarily all the other guys in the same predicament.

4 hours ago, DDBKK said:

what they think motivates them to remain close to/actually destitute in Asia

It must beat the alternative, at least in their view. To quote the old proverb, better the Devil you know.

 

Young guys might be able to return and get work, but once you're much over 50 it becomes more difficult. Over 60 and you can just about forget it. The UK doesn't have much in the way of generous welfare payments any more for its own retired but poor citizens. It's very difficult to get a council house, long waiting lists, and until you've got an address it's very hard to sort anything else out. All these bureaucratic problems, combined with the UK still being a more expensive place than Thailand to live for these guys, who'll be happy with a 20 Baht bowl of food from a street vendor and have no need for air con. Plus the weather is generally atrocious compared with Thailand's benevolent warmth. Some of those things won't apply to Australia, but some will, and you've probably got others that make returning unattractive that don't apply in the UK. Plus, don't forget, that these guys you consider to be "on their ass bones" might not see themselves that way. Obviously, they'd like to have more money, but I'm sure you would too. Maybe they feel that in some respects they're still "living the dream" here in Thailand.

2 hours ago, Berkshire said:

Did you ever bother to ask this guy why he didn't just go home?  Then you'll at least understand his reasoning....but not necessarily all the other guys in the same predicament.

I know of a few people who could not go home because they would have been arrested as soon as they landed.

It is all about(personal)choices.

I think "Guderian" pretty much spelled it out for the US as well.   The number of homeless people currently overwhelming many American cities and suburban areas is testament to how difficult it can now be to even find a place to live.  

These are not all alcoholics or drug dependent bums.  A lot are normal people with insufficient education or job skills to find jobs that pay enough to support what used to be normal housing expenses.  A job at Wallmart or McDonald's just doesn't cut it in many locations.  Many landlords require credit checks, 2 months security and often broker fees are involved as well.

I'm past 60.  If I didn't have family members in the US who would put me up if I had to return, I'd pretty much be out in the streets.  At 60+, finding any kind of employment would be very difficult, especially employment that would pay enough to be able to put money aside for a return to Thailand.

Many expats residing here were loners in the first place and had long ago severed or worn out family ties and support.  There is no safety net awaiting them there, instead, there is the very frightening possibility of life on the streets and in homeless shelters, not something I, or most people would want to deal with.

 

At least in Thailand, shelter and food are within almost anybodies means.  You don't starve to death here and there are rooms in provincial areas costing next to nothing.

Given the choice of living on the streets of America or sustaining myself here, I'd take here any day.

 

4 hours ago, mr mr said:

meowwwww !!

woof woof!!

5 hours ago, DDBKK said:

my own funds dropped below a level which I was personally comfortable with

I guess not so for them... some seem comfortable with next to nothing... 

 

and I imagine some are not employable... 

 

I had a guy tell me that there were 2 baht on the sidewalk a couple of blocks away and I could go get them... he had a bad back and couldn't bend... 

I've always found it a bit weird when people worry about what everyone else is doing.

Live your own life, ignore everyone else outside those living with you.

8 minutes ago, kenk24 said:

.. 

 

I had a guy tell me that there were 2 baht on the sidewalk a couple of blocks away and I could go get them... he had a bad back and couldn't bend... 

1 Baht each ?

What's the point? Is simple NOT your business...

13 minutes ago, Accidental Tourist said:

What's the point? Is simple NOT your business...

If people stuck to that concept TV would cease to exist 

@DDBKK You have touched on the rawest bone on this forum!

For many reasons, some expats who has chosen Thailand to live in, have done so not purely because they have any liking for the country, but because they are compelled to.

Some arrive in an OK status, but due to wrong decisions and extravagant lifestyles, make a mess of everything. In the end, they try to live their life in TH by hook or by crook as they have no other choice, even to return back to their own home country.

Hence you see the frustrations leashed out 24x7 sitting behind a keyboard. Sad, but true.

27 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

I've always found it a bit weird when people worry about what everyone else is doing.

Live your own life, ignore everyone else outside those living with you.

How very compassionate your are! Glad that I can't call you a 'friend'.

They get addicted to a lifestyle which cannot be found in their home country.

1 minute ago, Syduan said:

They get addicted to a lifestyle which cannot be found in their home country.

Do you mean it not being freezing cold all the time?

If so I agree, nice to sit with the windows and doors open all day, every day.

I could only do that for a week, maybe two each year in the UK.

See this in samui a lot , some are more than likely wanted by police in their own country , others hang on just about in not very good job or business and go around borrowing money from anyone they can to sustain staying and never pay it back . Then there are 20-40 year olds who basically have what they class  as a job but they don’t seem to do anything and don’t need to as their parents pay them money to stay where they are . I know a guy who was paid 100,000bht a month by his parents to stay in samui as they didn’t want him hanging around their nice home in France !

Everybody has their own circumstances. I chose to live in Thailand rather hand to mouth each month by renting out my house in the UK as my only income so I could live with my wife. Course when the guy I was renting out to , turned out to be a drug fueled unemployed hippie that falsified all his documents it fell apart and I had to return for a year to redo my house up (yes it took that long as he wrecked it and I only had universal credit). Now, I have a good tenant (one that I worked with previously and know his work ethic), an early 55 year old pension and a nice lump sum for emergencies and whereas previously I did not meet a lot of the financial requirement before, I do now.

 

I worried that the 39,000 baht a monthly income was not enough to live on with my wife and kid back then, that the rest of the farang world in Pattaya had much more income than us. but we lived pretty much OK. Ate well, always paid the bills and had happy life with each other which was really all we wanted. My wife was an ex-teacher and not a demanding bar girl which helped enormously !

 

Since returning to Pattaya I found out that the 39,000 we used to live on was quite higher than what a lot of my friends actually have now. I know Frenchmen living on 30,000 a month, men from Australia living on 32,000 and others just on UK state pension which I guess is a little less than 30k.

 

Their reason for living and staying in Thailand is pretty much they have nothing back in their own country to go back for - no family, no jobs (too old) and no house other than a box on the street. A beach ion the sun, is a better option for most old people than a cardboard house in the snow.

Course that said they were mostly daft enough to spend all their money in the sweetie shop.

 

 

 

Pretty simple, really. Here, I live well, and as I want to. In Australia, I would not be on the bones of my a$$, but I'd be pretty close.

The ages of people in these situations would be important, if in 60s maybe finding a job back home would be very difficult, now virtually impossible.

 

Strange thread this where people are basically saying to the Op mind your own business, where we are on a forum where people discuss different subjects all the time

Once one has lived for a long enough time away from their native home, you become an alien when you return there, perhaps after a great number of years.  Often, the country you fondly remember has changed beyond all recognition in the meantime.  Life moves on and it is easy to forget that fact until you are confronted with the reality of it.

 

Many of us tend to cling to the new lives me made for ourselves on foreign shores, betting on the belief that even a mediocre existence among familiar surroundings is better than the risk of returning to a country that was not ticking all of the boxes when you first decided to leave.   Why take the chance that even less of those boxes will be ticked should one feel obliged to go back "home"?

 

We cannot possibly know the fundamental reasons why people tend to linger when in adverse circumstances, but it is possible, maybe probable, that this is one of them.

I guess as long as they are in Thailand legally and comply with the immigration rules and regulations why should we worry.  If they are not the right side of the immigration rules they should go home Voluntarily, although that’s  brave move. If they get caught they will be doing that anyway.

Just my view.

Some people just like to live simply as possible and not have a bunch of responsibilities or people telling them what to do and when to do it.

1 hour ago, BritManToo said:

Do you mean it not being freezing cold all the time?

 

 

Not everyone comes from the UK !!