Poll- Do You Feel That Thailand Wants You Or Wants You Out?

[Edonista]

The same reason driving a tuk-tuk or a taxi isn't a woman's job.

Actually here in Pattaya there are many women driving baht-bus. They often make turns with their husbands.

I don't think it is a matter of culture, but simply of opportunity.

If your husband owns or rents a baht bus, why not exploit more the vehicle making turns ?

And wether your husband works in a factory or is a lazy drunk, why not try to make up some baht with a market stall ?

[Edonista]

He is complaining Immigration wants him to show a domestic income of 40,000baht/months, that he will have to create fictitiously, just to allow Income department to tax it.

when exactly where the regulations changed to domestic income?

Don't know but that's the way Immigration officers are applying the rule.

Or you think that if you have bonds in a Singapore bank yelding you 40,000 baht each month and you swift them to Thailand monthly the Immigration would give you a visa ?

[PeaceBlondie]

Maybe the terms for what we're trying to discuss about the Thai work ethic include motivation, education, opportunity. Compared to many of our home countries, Thai culture doesn't stress individual motivation, doesn't properly educate most secondary students for a lifetime of productive work, and doesn't give them the chances to excel at a real job Our home countries have lots of marginal workers and non-workers as well.

If a farang wants his luk-krung kid growing up with motivation, education, and opportunity, he might be able to counteract the prevailing culture. There's also a chance that he'll move to the USA, enroll his kids in a supposedly good school district full of pot-heads and ne'er-do-wells, and the kid won't finish ninth grade. I know from experience.

[Edonista]

You all remind me of the losers who sit around the View Talay 1 drinking and gumming all night long moving from one bar to the next as each one closes. You'll notice none of them sit beyond the edge for fear one of their own may kill them as they do a dive from floor 15.

No, I can assure you they sit there to take cover from the unforgiving sun.

Anyway I admit that if I owned a car I would avoid to park it in the row near the building edge , hail is extremely rare here, but when it happens the hailstones are sooo big !

[cdnvic]

In a country full of Katoeys you have all proven yourselves to be women - talk about gender confusion ....

So, you're saying you won't get a job so you can take care of your family then?

Don't cast doubt on other's masculinity when you won't get off your duff and do whats needed for you to stay in Thailand and take care of your kid.

You can abandon intelligent discourse to make all the katooey comments you want but at the end of the day it's you who are unwilling to do what's needed for your son. Even a katooey is more man than that.

[click2delete]

I just noticed that there is now a fourth option to the poll.

Which moderator took it upon himself to modify the original poll? Who asked you to modify it?

I didn't do it so who did?

[Edonista]

Much of this is due to the new visa regs which encourage a one year visa and the sense of security and belonging that comes with that as opposed to the old "run to the border" ridiculousness of years past.

I tell you, now that I have to fly to Penang or Singapore or Vientiane to ask for a tourist visa that can be denied me at officer's caprice, I feel so much more secure then before when I could just make a visa run to Ban Laem and be back by 4 p.m.

[jumnien]

It sounds like a plot has been launched evidenced by this covert action by "evil - doers" to modify the original poll. So, not only Thailand doesn't want you, sounds like TV doesn't either. I know this sounds paranoid, but doesn't everyone agree it's true? It's subtle but it's all becoming clear now. There is a massive organization behind this move with a personal agenda motivating them.

[Edonista]

I just noticed that there is now a fourth option to the poll.

Which moderator took it upon himself to modify the original poll? Who asked you to modify it?

I didn't do it so who did?

They are trying to dilute the plebiscitary YES response by adding a new option.

Truly pathetic.

[astral]

I added another option.

I see it already has 2 votes, as well as my own.

[dumspero]

Easy, there...just ease your font back to 12 and back away from the computer...just don't get too close to the balcony. Your wife and child need you...

[ray23]

Interesting response from the original op, seems he really doesn't like the word NO. You don't see it his way, your a ghoul. Well I think the problem lies in him and not Thailand.

[jumnien]

Much of this is due to the new visa regs which encourage a one year visa and the sense of security and belonging that comes with that as opposed to the old "run to the border" ridiculousness of years past.

I tell you, now that I have to fly to Penang or Singapore or Vientiane to ask for a tourist visa that can be denied me at officer's caprice, I feel so much more secure then before when I could just make a visa run to Ban Laem and be back by 4 p.m.

Just get a one year visa and join the rest of the crowd. It's really not that difficult and you'll feel a lot better and lighter without the weight of that iron chip on your shoulder.

[bdenner]

I just noticed that there is now a fourth option to the poll.

Which moderator took it upon himself to modify the original poll? Who asked you to modify it?

I didn't do it so who did?

Can I suggest you go back to bed and get out of the other side ---- It may improve you day.

[ColPyat]

They are trying to dilute the plebiscitary YES response by adding a new option.

Truly pathetic.

It's the aliens, it's all part of their plan...

[alexth]

We should have had this option from the start, anyway, this being Thailand, I'm used to having no or very limited options

[astral]

They are trying to dilute the plebiscitary YES response by adding a new option.

Truly pathetic.

It's the aliens, it's all part of their plan...

That could be true, after all the Thai government does consider me to be an alien.

[ColPyat]

Much of this is due to the new visa regs which encourage a one year visa and the sense of security and belonging that comes with that as opposed to the old "run to the border" ridiculousness of years past.

I tell you, now that I have to fly to Penang or Singapore or Vientiane to ask for a tourist visa that can be denied me at officer's caprice, I feel so much more secure then before when I could just make a visa run to Ban Laem and be back by 4 p.m.

Just get a one year visa and join the rest of the crowd. It's really not that difficult and you'll feel a lot better and lighter without the weight of that iron chip on your shoulder.

To be fair - some people simply cannot get a one year visa due to financial constraints. They still have enough income to support their families, and often have done so for many years or even decades, when such rules were not existing.

These new rules do put enormous strain on many families here, especially "going back" is often not an option for them as their home countries will not issue visas to their Thai families due to lack of proof of income there.

I am aware of several such cases, where people fell through the gaps, and even though able to provide for their families without being a burden on anyone, they are now forced into illegality as they do not want their families to be split up. This also is an increasing problem for many western embassies here now.

[bannork]

Surely the moderators could further spice up the poll by suggesting which countries the angry American could move to. I recommend Southern Ireland, in particular Connemara, a relaxed place with beautiful views and excellent fiddle players in the pubs. It could calm him down.

[jumnien]

Just to lighten the spirit of things and encourage a little optimism with the OP I'll tell you a little secret. My wife is Thai, we have a child, I'm under 50 years old, I don't work, my wife doesn't work, we've never shown them evidence that I have a job outside of Thailand. We're just nice people and arrive every year at the immigration office with an attitude of deferrence and humility and above all humor. Sometimes it goes smooth as silk, some years it's been a couple times in and out the door and back in again - always it's been an adventure!

If your dream is to stay in Thailand and not work and stay married and take care of your wonderful son, I'm willing to be your mentor!

[ColPyat]

Just to lighten the spirit of things and encourage a little optimism with the OP I'll tell you a little secret. My wife is Thai, we have a child, I'm under 50 years old, I don't work, my wife doesn't work, we've never shown them evidence that I have a job outside of Thailand. We're just nice people and arrive every year at the immigration office with an attitude of deferrence and humility and above all humor. Sometimes it goes smooth as silk, some years it's been a couple times in and out the door and back in again - always it's been an adventure!

If your dream is to stay in Thailand and not work and stay married and take care of your wonderful son, I'm willing to be your mentor!

I honestly hope for you that the obviously lenient department head will not one day be exchanged with one of the xenophobes, which are around as well. Because then you are shit out of luck, and there is nothing you can do about it if you do not fulfill any of the rules. And even if you do, it still might be a struggle.

[KhunMarco]

I just noticed that there is now a fourth option to the poll.

Which moderator took it upon himself to modify the original poll? Who asked you to modify it?

I didn't do it so who did?

Lol, modifying the poll when hundreds of members already voted... is this a new trick? We want a recount !

Son of a Bush!

[jumnien]

What rule do I not fulfill? I'm totally honest about all my finances and my status and intentions and they are always helpful. I can honestly think of no rule I don't fulfill. Please educate me.

[BAF]

No wonder that people get a slightly skewed idea about life for the average Thai when most interaction with the natives during a relatively short stay was with whom you can meet during the "adventure" destinations in a developing nation, where you get lots of "available pussy and cheap booze".

Reality for most Thais is rather different though.

Careful to assume any thing. I got pretty fluent in Thai (my native language is Italian, see how good my English is? This is the English I picked up in my little over a year stay in the US and my Thai is almost as good, very basic reading/writing skills though) and I was young, fit and very "adventurous". I have been seeking and enjoying those "available pussy and cheap booze" in many different places and situations ALL across Thailand and Thai social classes, I have 4 years of deep interactions with all kinds of Thais in all kinds of places (and I haven't made any farang friends in Thailand since, for various reasons, I have frequented them VERY little). As you know we don't fit in any of their social classes and are thus free to move across them as much as our education, money and smarts allow us hence getting to know and interact with very different kind of peoples, probably more than we could do in our home countries and certainly much more than Thais themselves could ever dream...

Call me what you want but I believe I have a much better idea of the average Thai's everyday life and Thai culture (and I remember you that the average Thai, by the sheer force of the numbers and stats, is a villager, not the small -and still of moslty peasant origins- Bangkokian and some other smaller "big city" middle class) than most of the blind daydreaming Thai apologists on these boards.

For the urban working classes it is mostly very hard work in factories, many hours of OT, both husband and wife working. And in farms people do hang out and do nothing, because in the the dry season there simply is nothing to do. When though wet season starts people work very hard, from before sunrise until after sunset, and that goes on until harvest.

In the farming villages it's still the men who mostly "hang out doing nothing" and most of the women often find a way of busying themselves (cooking, babysitting the children etc)...

When it's farming time (or building a house or ...) they all farm together but when it's over women have something to do and men just drink and gamble (women do that as well, simply don't do ONLY that).

Elsewhere, the men would be taking care of the house (I mean maintenance, upkeeping and upgrading stuff etc) but here it simply isn't "part of the culture"...

They all live in dumps. Villages are often dirty dumps when with some care they could be much better and more liveable places WITH NO MONEY REQUIRED, JUST SOME WORK during the idle times.

Obviously in a country like Thailand, with such enormous social inequalities, you will have a huge underground economy, and yes, you will have slums, desperation, and large sectors of society who have given up all hope.

Go back to to the days of the industrial revolution in the west, and you can read about very similar conditions in descriptions of those times.

NO. Men's and women's roles have always been much different in the West than typical and traditional Asian (and particular SE Asian) roles even at the time (not so long ago) when we ourselves were poor, developing and male dominated societies.

For example, it's never been a so integral part of any Western culture (as it is Thai/SE Asian) to let women do HARD WORKING men's jobs with men laying around drunk in the background, or to have women figthing wars with the men, on the front line.

You see something very similar, for example, in some parts of South America yet I have never witnessed there "so many young women working as construction workers and garbage collectors as in the Land of Smiles"

Yes, i have already stated that i do agree with the point that presently the government is rather xenophobic, no debate on that point. And i am not blindly in love with Thailand so i don't see anymore the many serious problems this country has. And i do accept that the new regulations regarding visas make undue pressure to lower income mixed culture families, it is so bad that many families are split up because they cannot get visas to the home countries of the foreign partner.

But i want to clearly distance myself from the not very intelligent sweeping generalizations made here in this thread. Reality is a lot more complex. Often here, as shown, people who lack the ability of adapting do project their own failures on Thailand, and extrapolate from this position to judge the whole people.

Complain about the new visa rules, but please don't make unjustified judgments on large sectors of Thai society. Their live is not exactly easy either.

Distancing oneself from what one believes untrue generalizations is one thing, distancing oneself from "sweeping generalizations" just because they are "sweeping generalizations" and regardless of their trueness is entirely another.

These evil "generalizations" are nothing else than the observation and the description of the "average", "typical", "normal", "usual", "general".

They aren't meant to cover all cases and to describe everybody. They mean MOST, not ALL.

"Thais are xenophobic" (BTW, a true generalization IMO).

It doesn't mean each and every one of them. It simply means most of them (maybe the 50.001%).

Edited May 14, 2007 by BAF

[dumspero]

ColPyat- It's sad that families are caught in the changing circumstances, and to some of them it can even be tragic.

There is a bigger lesson for all of us (such as most in such families) who put ourselves at risk by our choices. Freedom is great, but along with it goes the reality that the choices we make have consequences.

And just like I know when I eat too much fat food and drink too much that I'm putting myself at risk for a personal tragedy down the road, so too a person living on the edge in Thailand or elsewhere knows he's taking chances (and maybe even taking chances for his family). I have no problem with that.

What I do have a problem with is when people knowingly make risky choices and then complain when things turn out badly. This is particularly so since we are surrounded by billions who are worse off and never had the luxury to make a bunch of choices. This is why the OP's situation is not so sympathetic to me. He really has not told us why he has anything to complaint about.

Gee, he lives in a developing country with changing laws and in particular, changing visa rules. Whew, who could possibly have seen that coming? What's next, there may be a new government at some point? Come on, where's the surprise here?

[ilyushin]

Probably want most of the trash out, but I don't get the feeling they want the experts out or people with family.

[ColPyat]

What rule do I not fulfill? I'm totally honest about all my finances and my status and intentions and they are always helpful. I can honestly think of no rule I don't fulfill. Please educate me.

I just go from what you stated, which basically said that you don't work, and don't show any income, and get your 1 year because you are a nice guy.

Do you have the required sums in the bank, and/or can show the necessary monthly income, and are you sure that this will cover any possible future changes in the law? If yes, than you are in the lucky position many people are not, and should not judge them.

Thai rules and laws, and sudden changes, are an ever present Sword of Damocles over us foreigners. I am in many ways far more secure than you - i have a consecutive work permit since many years, and one that makes it a very risky business for any official to play a nasty game with me. But i am aware that things might change easily here, and any security is an illusion.

[ColPyat]

ColPyat- It's sad that families are caught in the changing circumstances, and to some of them it can even be tragic.

There is a bigger lesson for all of us (such as most in such families) who put ourselves at risk by our choices. Freedom is great, but along with it goes the reality that the choices we make have consequences.

And just like I know when I eat too much fat food and drink too much that I'm putting myself at risk for a personal tragedy down the road, so too a person living on the edge in Thailand or elsewhere knows he's taking chances (and maybe even taking chances for his family). I have no problem with that.

What I do have a problem with is when people knowingly make risky choices and then complain when things turn out badly. This is particularly so since we are surrounded by billions who are worse off and never had the luxury to make a bunch of choices. This is why the OP's situation is not so sympathetic to me. He really has not told us why he has anything to complaint about.

Gee, he lives in a developing country with changing laws and in particular, changing visa rules. Whew, who could possibly have seen that coming? What's next, there may be a new government at some point? Come on, where's the surprise here?

Very well done post. I completely agree with it.

I have sympathy for people who fell through the gaps, even if it was partly caused by their lack of foresight (are we perfect?). I have very little sympathy though for the bitterness many people here spread, and their lack of compassion and understanding, and the resulting semi racist posts.

[ColPyat]

I have 4 years of deep interactions with all kinds of Thais in all kinds of places

I am sorry, but i am not exactly impressed. There are people with far more years of "deep interaction", who did not leave when the period of 'i am sick of third world countries' set in. This bitterness is just one of the stages of adapting to live here. Just like the stage of 'i am in love, everything is so great here'.

I have had that stage about 15 years ago, and got over it. I have had until about ten years ago a few relapses, but knew for what they were, and that the problem was mine mostly.

[jumnien]

What rule do I not fulfill? I'm totally honest about all my finances and my status and intentions and they are always helpful. I can honestly think of no rule I don't fulfill. Please educate me.

I just go from what you stated, which basically said that you don't work, and don't show any income, and get your 1 year because you are a nice guy.

Do you have the required sums in the bank, and/or can show the necessary monthly income, and are you sure that this will cover any possible future changes in the law? If yes, than you are in the lucky position many people are not, and should not judge them.

Thai rules and laws, and sudden changes, are an ever present Sword of Damocles over us foreigners. I am in many ways far more secure than you - i have a consecutive work permit since many years, and one that makes it a very risky business for any official to play a nasty game with me. But i am aware that things might change easily here, and any security is an illusion.

I said I don't show any evidence of having a job outside of Thailand. I did not say I don't show any income (not lacking in that area). The OP was inferring that the Thai authorities want some sort of evidence of a job here or outside Thailand and that just isn't true. I'm sure they didn't give me the visa just because I'm a nice guy. I do have far more than any required funds in the bank and have shown lots of income and absolutely I am not sure that this will cover any future changes in the law. One can never be.

One must be in a constant state of readiness to adapt to circumstances as they change. In the Buddhist sense, much of what we commonly think of as security is an illusion. In this,you are absolutely right. This thread is primarily about a spiritual dilemma being experienced by the OP, an internal struggle frought with resentment and anger and confusion. You can perceive that there is a Sword of Damocles over you as a foreigner if you like. I prefer a more relaxed approach. It's worked for quite a while now and I do what I can to keep it working. It's an inside job, a one day at a time journey. Keep my side of the street clean and it's amazing how most people keep their side clean.

I don't judge other people who are not as fortunate as I because they are not as fortunate as I. I have been very poor many years ago here in Thailand. No violins need play, but it was 100 baht maximum for a room and non-aircon buses and noodles on the street. I didn't resent folks who had more than me, I didn't envy them. I admired them as there was often much to admire in them and their story. These were the happiest days of my life! But I accepted life on life's terms and Thailand on Thailand's terms.

The gods have been good to me, may they continue to be!

Edited May 14, 2007 by mdeland