Funeral Of Thai Family Member

[onzestan]

Last week the husband of my wife’s oldest sister died of natural causes.

This family lives in a small community very near to Pibun Mangsahan, itself a good 50 km away from Ubon Ratchathani. Since the majority of the rest of the family resides in Ubon itself, and since he died in Ubon’s hospital it was decided to have all the ceremonial things done there in Ubon. This was a 3 day happening ending with the burning of the mortal remains of the person in question. I could not attend, for personal reasons not relevant to this story.

So on Thursday morning when my sister in law returned to her home in Pibun she found that the house was completely ransacked, everything from 1 motorcycle to the pieces of cutlery via TV, refrigerator, stereo was gone. Even the chickens and ducks that they kept were stolen including 1 fifty kilo bag of rice, and of course the neighbours haven’t seen or heard anything.

Now I can be classified as a pro Thai person, even to the point of “If you don’t like it here go away”, but this made the hairs on the back of my head stand op in rage over the inhumanity of this all.

Now I realize that such things can happen everywhere in the world, but I do have a couple of questions on my mind, that I didn’t have before and next time I read a post about how peaceful Isaan is in the countryside, allow me to have my doubts.

A pity.

Regards

onzestan

Edited June 1, 2007 by onzestan

[plachon]

Very sorry to hear it Onze. But something in your story about the neighbour's not "seeing or hearing anything", suggests that there is another story or two untold. I've seen not only neighbours, but even close relatives fighting and cheating over the most trivial of things, so maybe there was some bad blood going way back which just came to the surface??

Anyway, a terrible thing to happen to anyone, and I hope she gets over it and rebuilds her life again (perhaps in a new neighbourhood?).

[Mid]

commiserations ,

things like this will become more common as the reality of the current economy bits deeper .....................

[ronw]

Last week the husband of my wife’s oldest sister died of natural causes.

This family lives in a small community very near to Pibun Mangsahan, itself a good 50 km away from Ubon Ratchathani. Since the majority of the rest of the family resides in Ubon itself, and since he died in Ubon’s hospital it was decided to have all the ceremonial things done there in Ubon. This was a 3 day happening ending with the burning of the mortal remains of the person in question. I could not attend, for personal reasons not relevant to this story.

So on Thursday morning when my sister in law returned to her home in Pibun she found that the house was completely ransacked, everything from 1 motorcycle to the pieces of cutlery via TV, refrigerator, stereo was gone. Even the chickens and ducks that they kept were stolen including 1 fifty kilo bag of rice, and of course the neighbours haven’t seen or heard anything.

Now I can be classified as a pro Thai person, even to the point of “If you don’t like it here go away”, but this made the hairs on the back of my head stand op in rage over the inhumanity of this all.

Now I realize that such things can happen everywhere in the world, but I do have a couple of questions on my mind, that I didn’t have before and next time I read a post about how peaceful Isaan is in the countryside, allow me to have my doubts.

A pity.

Regards

onzestan

Sorry to hear that,but Thailand is not the only place this happens......when the brother of my dad died...my family went to the house, and were there in under three hour after being told of his death.

When they arrived at the house, in Plymouth, the house had been totally cleared......and I mean totally cleared....the body lay naked on the floor.....and even the kitchen cupboards had been taken away.....

and none of the neighbours saw anything...............there are some sad bastards about!

[marginline]

Geeze, what a terrible, TERRIBLE thing to happen in both reports. I only hope karma will rear its head on those who stole from your loved ones.

[Dakhar]

commiserations ,

things like this will become more common as the reality of the current economy bits deeper .....................

Yea, some freak stole our mail box the other night. It was made out of stainless steel, so I guess it had some value. Or maybe they planned on hammering out a medallion or two out of the metal.....

who knows?

[Kerryd]

As mentioned, it doesn't only happen in Thailand. Remember when the Tsunami hit ?

I think it was the Swedish Embassy that posted a list of names of Swedes thought to be missing as a result of the tsunami. Within days there were reports that the homes of many of those people had been burgaled.

If I recall correctly, they and other embassies hurriedly removed the lists of names off the internet.

It's a sad world when things like that happen, especially in places where the average citizen isn't as poor as in other parts of the world.

[villagefarang]

Just reading your story brought on a strong emotional response. I feel real sorry for your inlaw. Sometimes it is family members or the neighbors that do this stuff. There is a very strong trend toward the idea that if I don't grab it somebody else will so I better get there first. Also happens with nature. Why do you think there are so few trees, no fish in the ponds and no wild animals. They simply take everything they possible can. The only thing that stops them is standing guard constantly or not having anything to take. Same thing with burning too. They only stop burning when there is nothing left to burn or it is too wet.

[keebone]

I used to work with a few Jamaicans and I was told that when there's a funeral in Jamaica people often don't tell anybody including their own relatives they're going to the funeral if it entails staying somewhere overnight because of the risk of burglary.

My Father was taken away in an ambulance once and when we took him back home later that evening someone had forced a window. We got back about 9.30pm which in mid summer is when it's just getting dark in London so I think they waited until it was dark to break in and we probably disturbed them. It's a shame they didn't get in because me and my Brother would of taught them a very painful lesson. Pretty certain I know who it was, Pakistani family directly opposite who have had a few run ins with the law and whose next door neighbour happened to be burgled twice on occasions she had gone away on vacation.

[LinkPopularity]

it's all give and take ... if this was a more modern and better regulated country, things like that are less likely to happen, but then again, I love the chaos here and hate the over-regulations in the West, it's sad for her, but it's one of the disadvantages of a culture that has from the same causes many advantages ...

by the way ... "love it or leave it ?" think again !

[LinkPopularity]

emporer tud ... I love your avatar !

[LinkPopularity]

ok, I can't resist any longer ....

I read this forum almost daily and only post little

I hate the love-it-or-leave-it-gang !

simply because I hate stupid people !

don't get me wrong, I love my life here, but that doesn't mean I'm stupid enough to think that it's all great here, I simply accept the fact that most Thais are corrupt and have hardly any moral values, I don't care, I manage, but I really hate people who are trying to deny those facts !

I'm not one of those angry bitter people, although I can bash Thai from time to time to, but that's mostly after I've been driving around, when they treaten my life with their selfishness and stupidity it's makes me angry, but when they try to rip me off for 5 Baht, I just have a laugh at them, because they fail.

here is the core of my view ... 50 years ago, due to the constilation of the stars the world suffered severely under extreme right, now it's extreme left ######ing it up for everybody else, so I to me the extreme lefts are the real enemy to the world and should be fought with all means.

I know it's rather of topic, but then again, the fact that you're surprised about something like this happening make me wonder if you're one of those extreme lefties ...

[keebone]

here is the core of my view ... 50 years ago, due to the constilation of the stars the world suffered severely under extreme right, now it's extreme left ######ing it up for everybody else, so I to me the extreme lefts are the real enemy to the world and should be fought with all means.

I know it's rather of topic, but then again, the fact that you're surprised about something like this happening make me wonder if you're one of those extreme lefties ...

Very off topic for sure but more people were killed by the left in the period of 50 - 80 years ago than were killed by the right.

Think Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse Tung.

[farang prince]

I'm sorry for the burglary at your sister-in-law's house. When I was a cop in the USA, we had a rash of these type of break-ins. The offenders would read the death notices in the newspaper, note when the funeral would take place, look up the address of the deceased in the newspaper, and while the funeral was taking place, go in and clean the place out. It took about six of these cases to draw our attention to the crime trend and so we started staking out the houses of the deceased. Soon enough we caught a team of three burglars breaking into one of the houses. We cleared 22 burglaries and these guys spent about eight years in prison apiece. So this is not limited to Thailand, believe me.

[Thaifan2]

Yes it happens in Ireland too .Its a low down thing to do .Would not like to have their karma .

[LinkPopularity]

here is the core of my view ... 50 years ago, due to the constilation of the stars the world suffered severely under extreme right, now it's extreme left ######ing it up for everybody else, so I to me the extreme lefts are the real enemy to the world and should be fought with all means.

I know it's rather of topic, but then again, the fact that you're surprised about something like this happening make me wonder if you're one of those extreme lefties ...

Very off topic for sure but more people were killed by the left in the period of 50 - 80 years ago than were killed by the right.

Think Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse Tung.

I don't know if it's sad or funny that you see communism as being left ... sure it was in theory, but not in practice.

are you trying to tell me that Stalin was a communist as ment in the manifest (by the way writing in my county) ?

to me Stalin was just an other extreme right nazi !

[LinkPopularity]

I'll add something to it ....

all countries at that time were extrem right, the USA as well as any other, the only differnce was the fact that they won

now it comes

because extreme right thinking worked out well for the USA, they still have more of it in they current thinking then Germany has now !

[Kerryd]

It's a sad world when things like that happen, especially in places where the average citizen isn't as poor as in other parts of the world

Are you saying being poor is an excuse for criminal behaviour? Or the fact that the perpetrator being poor somehow lessens the impact of the crime on the victims?

Please.

What I was trying to say is that in countries where the citizens are better off (on average), you would expect that behaviour like this would be less likely than in countries where the majority of the people are poor. But as the case in Sweden shows, this kind of behaviour happens all over the world, and not just among poor people. It's not excusable in either case, and I'm pretty sure most victims would be impacted regardless of who robbed them.

Oh yeah, was that "Please" at the end of your post supposed to indicate some kind of attitude, like you think you know better than anyone else what is right and wrong in the world ?

[LinkPopularity]

1 more ...

intellectual = inter lecture = reading between the lines !

yes, I had latin in high school, you know, no use, just a way to select the intellectuals from the others

Edited June 1, 2007 by LinkPopularity

[Maigo6]

Happens in Uk too for sure, thing is when these things happen in Thailand, Farangs tend to think "Those Thais, they are all the same". I lived in a building once in London, a guys gas water heater flue got blocked and he died of Monoxide poisoning in his bedsit, within an hour of that guy being taken away, his room was stripped by half the occupants of the building.

So to the OP, I would not let one event alter your general viewpoint of a 65 Million person population.

These things happen in your own country too.

Edited June 1, 2007 by Maigo6

[Jimjim]

That's nuts. I've never heard of that happening. Very rarely, at least.

[skydiver1]

thats about as low a thing as you could do,here in the usa people read the funeral notices in the paper then go steal from all the relatives who are also listed

[Lickey]

Lesson on this thread for the world over then, get a security firm to watch the house of the bereaved on the funeral day, or put up some Beware of Dangerous Dogs, or CCTV in operation, notices, small deterant, but might save a lot of heartache.

[Robski]

I hate stupid people !

the fact that you're surprised about something like this happening make me wonder if you're one of those extreme lefties ...

don't hate yourself, let us do it for you.

[pop_corn]

I hate stupid people !

the fact that you're surprised about something like this happening make me wonder if you're one of those extreme lefties ...

don't hate yourself, let us do it for you.

hahaha, that's funny.

[torito]

It's a sad world when things like that happen, especially in places where the average citizen isn't as poor as in other parts of the world

Are you saying being poor is an excuse for criminal behaviour? Or the fact that the perpetrator being poor somehow lessens the impact of the crime on the victims?

Please.

What I was trying to say is that in countries where the citizens are better off (on average), you would expect that behaviour like this would be less likely than in countries where the majority of the people are poor. But as the case in Sweden shows, this kind of behaviour happens all over the world, and not just among poor people. It's not excusable in either case, and I'm pretty sure most victims would be impacted regardless of who robbed them.

Oh yeah, was that "Please" at the end of your post supposed to indicate some kind of attitude, like you think you know better than anyone else what is right and wrong in the world ?

Correct, there is no excuse, but a more feasible explatation.

In some places in Australia breaking homes and stealing cars appears to be an sport....what's the reason? necessity?

This is a very sad incident, and as somebody mentioned, it does not appear to be common, and by no means reflect the general attitude of thai people. Rather the character opportunits of the thai delinquence.

Edited June 1, 2007 by torito

[Maigo6]

That's nuts. I've never heard of that happening. Very rarely, at least.

?

You have never heard of that happening or you have ?

[JR Texas]

That's nuts. I've never heard of that happening. Very rarely, at least.

?

You have never heard of that happening or you have ?

JR Texas: Sorry to hear about the family loss................I guess no region is perfect in Thailand. I think I have recently painted Isan as having the best Thai people. Guess there are worms in every basket of apples these days.

Before your account, I had only heard of this type of thing happening to a farang who went to Europe and then returned to Thailand only to find his house cleaned out. He had left his keys with his "maid" and that was the mistake.

As an aside, I remember a time when it was not necessary to lock your door in the USA (at least in my neighborhood).......too many neighbors around to see everything and no crime.........probably was the same in Thailand many years ago..........times have changed..........and not all of the changes have been good.

[soundman]

I'm under the impression that it happens legally in the UK. Die & death taxes pretty much clean out your estate don't they?

Cheers,

Soundman.

PS. Sorry to hear that Onzestan.

[onzestan]

To all that showed sympathy my gratitude.

To the guy who lost his mailbox, don't worry I'm sure it will have a better life away from you.

To Maigo6 : I'm from Antwerp, Flanders, Belgium (in that order of importance to me) and yes it happens in my country too.

As I tried to make clear I love Thailand, and I know that we the rest of the family will do everything to make sure that my sister in law will not suffer financially from this, it's enough that she lost her loving husband, who was a genuinely nice fellow.

It's just that I had the impression every time I visited that this place was a small, tight, friendly community where everyone knows all the others and stuck together in times of hardships, as long ago small communities did in my country to.

My idyllic view has been shattered and that hurts.

Also to the guy that hates people like me that defend Thailand when we feel that it's being attacked, I'm sure that you hate the rest of the world also, and that's fine with me, but please go away.

Once again my sincere gratitude to everybody that showed sympathy.

regards

onzestan