I prefer to give respect to everyone who should be respected. Age is somewhat irrelevent.

14 minutes ago, Gecko123 said:

Respect for elders, IMHO, has become more of an aspirational cultural value than one which is adhered to in real life. When it is practiced, it's strictly limited to parents, and usually it's motivated by a fear of being disinherited. Yeah, you heard what I said. Anybody who imagines you're gonna be listened to attentively as you reminisce about your youthful exploits and pass on all of your corny and boring life knowledge in mangled Thai in between being lovingly spoon fed apple sauce by a pimple faced candy-striper in a Thai nursing home had better think again. That respect for elders mumbo-jumbo sure as heck doesn't apply to your non-Thai butt, buck-o. You'll be lucky if you're not given a hot-shot injection by a nurse Ratched type who just wants your endless blabbering to stop. Just fishing for some laugh emojis, here, but at the same time, see myself as providing a public service by keeping it real.

I agree, as greed is a good motivator. Thais do one thing that others might not. There are assisted living places here but most are only affordable to those well off. Thais live together a long time, sometimes three generations as I've seen many times, and grandma or grandpa are there until they pass when they can't take care of themselves in their own , separate homes (if they had one). As far as a foreigner being taken care of, not sure but the Nurse might help..........

38 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

Ask yourself why you get replies like you do, although I don't see them as as nasty or unprovoked as you do. You're constantly berating foreigners and you are one.

Do I deserve to be insulted and abused on this forum Fred, you got it wrong again.

I don't agree with every comment posted on every thread, at times the comments make me angry but I'm an adult, I just keep scrolling. I would never attack anyone with abuse on a comment they made to an article or OP.

The problem is, there are a children here, idiots on their warrior keyboards that attack others, they can't keep scrolling

Edited July 10Jul 10 by SAFETY FIRST

1 minute ago, SAFETY FIRST said:

Do I deserve to be insulted and abused on this forum Fred, you got it wrong again.

I don't agree with every comment posted on every thread, at times the comments make me angry but I'm an adult, I just keep scrolling. I would never attack anyone with abuse on a comment they made to an article or OP.

The problem is, there are a children here, idiots on their warrior keyboards that attack others, they can't keep scrolling

As I stated, you aren't being abused when others point out your prejudice about other foreigners. If there's something else, I'm not sure what you're referring to. For sure there are man-boys here, a couple of them.

To add, I see that you talk about your women in a positive way, as well as providing for your children, so no one in their right minds can comment otherwise, as it would be just assuming like a couple do religiously here. No one sees how you live, so it's no one's business or right to demean.

Edited July 10Jul 10 by fredwiggy

22 hours ago, papa al said:

respect

humility

😎

Faith, Family, and Country. Patriots.

2 hours ago, IsaanT said:

@Rockyroad , the numbers don't lie. You (in your latest incarnation) have posted 4,600 times and have a reputation score of minus 3,218. I think it's clear to everyone else that you are the problem.

Other posters appear to tolerate you when you are reasonable but you are growing your bad reputation score when you start insulting other posters. It is tiresome and this type of behaviour dissuades reasonable folk from wishing to participate on this forum. And, lastly, don't be a hypocrite.

Forumadvertising space

Not clear to me at all. He might be the most popular poster on the site. Any thread he starts gets more participation than any other poster. He seems to get more popular with each reincarnation. Look at the people that follow him around to downvote his post. Are these types the people you respect?

Sure some of his posts are not well thought out and can even be mean. He has a huge chip on his shoulder and has a hard time with empathy but he is funny at times and more authentic than most posters.

23 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

I agree, as greed is a good motivator. Thais do one thing that others might not. There are assisted living places here but most are only affordable to those well off. Thais live together a long time, sometimes three generations as I've seen many times, and grandma or grandpa are there until they pass when they can't take care of themselves in their own , separate homes (if they had one). As far as a foreigner being taken care of, not sure but the Nurse might help..........

Welcome to a text wall!

The house that I lease had three generations living in it until 2022. Both the grandparents (parents of my landlady) died in the same room, six years apart. The father died in October 2016 and, surprisingly, I was invited by the males of the family to help wash his body before putting it in the coffin and afterward the mobile refrigerated thing which was parked under cover outside the front door for three days with the wreaths and so on. Then, of course, because he had died in that room, "Mom" couldn't use that room for a year. So there was switch around; that room became a defacto laundry, the unused loungeroom became Mom's new bedroom where her daughter (my landlady) would sleep on a separate pallet next to her. The landlady (TLL) 's old room was renovated (with funds left over from funeral donations) and the granddaughter moved into that room, and I moved down from my suite (a term I use loosely) upstairs to the granddaughter's old room. Which I renovated and had an air-conditioner installed. The reason I was asked to move downstairs is, and this is through Google Translate "you are the only man in the house for security". I thought it quite odd, considering poor old Dad hadn't be able to walk since I'd met the guy but, anyway...
After a year or so, the room he'd died in had a darned good blessing from three monks. "Mom" moved back into the "laundry" with TLL, and the loungeroom became the clothes rack room for the whole house's clothes.
After a five and half year battle with Alzheimer's disease, "Mom" died in December 2022.
Landlady moved in with her daughter as the room became uninhabitable for a year, again. Blessed again.
Then that was renovated and my landlady sleeps in there on a real bed.
There is a house "down the road" - everything is "down the road" when you live on a property this big - there is a family of four generations living, the eldest being a far older cousin of my landlady (the woman's mother was "Dad"'s oldest sister who didn't live there otherwise it'd have been FIVE generations until she died in 2025 aged 97 or so) , and I've been here to watch the grandaughter go through high school and then have two kids of her own. Which she leaves with great-grandma and grandma as she lives and works (and breeds, obviously) in Lop Buri or Sara Buri (I forget which) some two-three hours away.
Hopefully, the daughter here - currently studying Mor 6 /Grade 12 and living in the city 80km away in a hostel - holds off breeding (I'm sure she will as she's off to Khon KAen University next year) as I'm too old to have to care for some screaming kid that I'm not related to (to be honest, even I were related to it, I'm still too old and detest kids anyway even though I'm a grandfather) while she's doing whatever and her mother is at work. I shudder at the thought.

But on the actual topic of respect for elders, I get it from children up until school age maybe Bor 2 / Grade 2 then nationalism indoctrination kicks in, then from about Mor 2 / Grade 8 onward when they realise that the only white guy they've seen doesn't stack up to the dirty, disrespectful, uneducated piece of filth they were warned about on TV
I've had the typical, "Hey farang!" ( a word they're taught in school) yelled at me from kids - who were born after I got here - at the market or on my bike. What has happened a few times, not often, another kid with them will say, "Not farang, that Da Tee-Oh" as their mother or father knows me and they've been around me a fair bit and brought up properly.
But the respect due to age, and one's role in the community (teachers, nurses, phu yai, phu chuay, doctors, and government officials) is there. And the rich, like the family I live amongst who employ dozens of people, also get an extra scintilla of respect.
I had to earn mine through hard work: learning Thai from a person who didn't speak much English (it being her fifth language she sort of learned on Hong Kong working for Philips) in the short times between her finishing work or looking after her ill parent/s 24/7 to help with pronunciation. And learning was made even harder during the mask mandate era when I couldn't read lips either. Eating the food has never been a problem except like 99% of people on here I can't eat pla ra (except in minor amounts in somtam) and I absolutely hate liver and kidneys. Everything else: intestines, feet, cheeks, rats, snakes, mongoose, hearts? Come at me. And I was a chilli head for decades before coming here, too.

BUT one of the biggest bits of acceptance (now I actually get my own invitations to weddings) was when I held a massive party for my 50th birthday. Big milestone, no family or foreign friends for thousands of miles, so I got a bit carried away. As did TLL and her family with their ideas about who was to be invited. I think they started with a list of everybody and then whittled it down. Food for 140-160 people, beers (Chang and Leo) lau khao, Hong Thong, and Blend 285 (and I wasn't expecting kids to turn up so I under-catered on the fanta and coke so a quick strip-mine of all the M&D shops fixed that. And a five-piece band which played off the back off a flat-bed truck in the front yard. Fireworks. The lot. There were around two dozen cops of various types - I didn't know the place had more than three, but there you go...Some guy who was, apparently, the head of the local government administration was there. It was great.
The culture shock was people turned up with envelopes with money in them. I went to refuse but I was told in no uncertain terms that I couldn't refuse as it'd be rude.
While the party helped - even though I'd been here a few years - I still had to keep my western thoughts down. Part of my career before early retirement due to PTSD was in various types of electronic, remote, and personal security and, as a result, I have Resting Angry Face. My joviality at weddings, and monk investitures dispelled the idea I was an angry farang.

So, now I am, as far as any foreigner in a remote area can be, "accepted". They talk to me as if I'm one of them - which, of course is difficult as I'm not fluent but good enough to get the gist and respond (poorly, no doubt). And they know how bad my Thai is but help by talking normally - except one of TLL's brothers-in-law who does the "If I Yell Loudly Enough The Guy Will Understand Me Better" mode of speaking to foreigners. They know I'm deaf. And they help. Before The Plague they were worried that I might find it offensive if they corrected me. Nup. Any help is good help.
(and some of the corrections have helped me not repeat some very funny, and often rude, phrases)
And, I help them with their kids' English if they ask. Especially those children who work in the M&D's shop.

The worst lack of respect is from people outside the immediate area. The village straddles a highway (#21 from M.Lop Buri to Lom Sak, Phetchabun) so is an arterial road for those going to some of the northern/north eastern provinces. The typical "big smoke" attitude toward the "lowlife, tanned" villager. They barge into queues and demand service rather than showing common courtesy to stall holders. Only last month or so (maybe early as May) i was getting the dogs their breakfast (a chicken carcass) and some tool in a button-down shirt just walks up to me and asks me, in Thai, "can you speak Thai?" Weow (the butcher) replies before I get a word out, "Yes, he can!" and then I turn to look at him, "are you going to buy or do you have a problem?" he walked off. Weow apologised to me. I thought I'd lost her a customer so I bought a kilo of pork shoulder as well.
Respect solely due to age or social position is anathema to me. Employment, military, and government hierarchies, of course need to be adhered to.
But I try to keep my Resting Angry Face impassive when confronted by an older person who, for whatever reason, is just an effin anus. That's when I can pull out the "I don't understand"or "I can't hear you" card due to me being a foreigner or deaf respectively, and walk off.

Troll post removed @IsmeUno

Rule 11. You will not troll or stalk other members by misusing forum posts, private messages, reactions, emojis or by any other means.

5 minutes ago, The Oracle said:

Welcome to a text wall!

The house that I lease had three generations living in it until 2022. Both the grandparents (parents of my landlady) died in the same room, six years apart. The father died in October 2016 and, surprisingly, I was invited by the males of the family to help wash his body before putting it in the coffin and afterward the mobile refrigerated thing which was parked under cover outside the front door for three days with the wreaths and so on. Then, of course, because he had died in that room, "Mom" couldn't use that room for a year. So there was switch around; that room became a defacto laundry, the unused loungeroom became Mom's new bedroom where her daughter (my landlady) would sleep on a separate pallet next to her. The landlady (TLL) 's old room was renovated (with funds left over from funeral donations) and the granddaughter moved into that room, and I moved down from my suite (a term I use loosely) upstairs to the granddaughter's old room. Which I renovated and had an air-conditioner installed. The reason I was asked to move downstairs is, and this is through Google Translate "you are the only man in the house for security". I thought it quite odd, considering poor old Dad hadn't be able to walk since I'd met the guy but, anyway...
After a year or so, the room he'd died in had a darned good blessing from three monks. "Mom" moved back into the "laundry" with TLL, and the loungeroom became the clothes rack room for the whole house's clothes.
After a five and half year battle with Alzheimer's disease, "Mom" died in December 2022.
Landlady moved in with her daughter as the room became uninhabitable for a year, again. Blessed again.
Then that was renovated and my landlady sleeps in there on a real bed.
There is a house "down the road" - everything is "down the road" when you live on a property this big - there is a family of four generations living, the eldest being a far older cousin of my landlady (the woman's mother was "Dad"'s oldest sister who didn't live there otherwise it'd have been FIVE generations until she died in 2025 aged 97 or so) , and I've been here to watch the grandaughter go through high school and then have two kids of her own. Which she leaves with great-grandma and grandma as she lives and works (and breeds, obviously) in Lop Buri or Sara Buri (I forget which) some two-three hours away.
Hopefully, the daughter here - currently studying Mor 6 /Grade 12 and living in the city 80km away in a hostel - holds off breeding (I'm sure she will as she's off to Khon KAen University next year) as I'm too old to have to care for some screaming kid that I'm not related to (to be honest, even I were related to it, I'm still too old and detest kids anyway even though I'm a grandfather) while she's doing whatever and her mother is at work. I shudder at the thought.

But on the actual topic of respect for elders, I get it from children up until school age maybe Bor 2 / Grade 2 then nationalism indoctrination kicks in, then from about Mor 2 / Grade 8 onward when they realise that the only white guy they've seen doesn't stack up to the dirty, disrespectful, uneducated piece of filth they were warned about on TV
I've had the typical, "Hey farang!" ( a word they're taught in school) yelled at me from kids - who were born after I got here - at the market or on my bike. What has happened a few times, not often, another kid with them will say, "Not farang, that Da Tee-Oh" as their mother or father knows me and they've been around me a fair bit and brought up properly.
But the respect due to age, and one's role in the community (teachers, nurses, phu yai, phu chuay, doctors, and government officials) is there. And the rich, like the family I live amongst who employ dozens of people, also get an extra scintilla of respect.
I had to earn mine through hard work: learning Thai from a person who didn't speak much English (it being her fifth language she sort of learned on Hong Kong working for Philips) in the short times between her finishing work or looking after her ill parent/s 24/7 to help with pronunciation. And learning was made even harder during the mask mandate era when I couldn't read lips either. Eating the food has never been a problem except like 99% of people on here I can't eat pla ra (except in minor amounts in somtam) and I absolutely hate liver and kidneys. Everything else: intestines, feet, cheeks, rats, snakes, mongoose, hearts? Come at me. And I was a chilli head for decades before coming here, too.

BUT one of the biggest bits of acceptance (now I actually get my own invitations to weddings) was when I held a massive party for my 50th birthday. Big milestone, no family or foreign friends for thousands of miles, so I got a bit carried away. As did TLL and her family with their ideas about who was to be invited. I think they started with a list of everybody and then whittled it down. Food for 140-160 people, beers (Chang and Leo) lau khao, Hong Thong, and Blend 285 (and I wasn't expecting kids to turn up so I under-catered on the fanta and coke so a quick strip-mine of all the M&D shops fixed that. And a five-piece band which played off the back off a flat-bed truck in the front yard. Fireworks. The lot. There were around two dozen cops of various types - I didn't know the place had more than three, but there you go...Some guy who was, apparently, the head of the local government administration was there. It was great.
The culture shock was people turned up with envelopes with money in them. I went to refuse but I was told in no uncertain terms that I couldn't refuse as it'd be rude.
While the party helped - even though I'd been here a few years - I still had to keep my western thoughts down. Part of my career before early retirement due to PTSD was in various types of electronic, remote, and personal security and, as a result, I have Resting Angry Face. My joviality at weddings, and monk investitures dispelled the idea I was an angry farang.

So, now I am, as far as any foreigner in a remote area can be, "accepted". They talk to me as if I'm one of them - which, of course is difficult as I'm not fluent but good enough to get the gist and respond (poorly, no doubt). And they know how bad my Thai is but help by talking normally - except one of TLL's brothers-in-law who does the "If I Yell Loudly Enough The Guy Will Understand Me Better" mode of speaking to foreigners. They know I'm deaf. And they help. Before The Plague they were worried that I might find it offensive if they corrected me. Nup. Any help is good help.
(and some of the corrections have helped me not repeat some very funny, and often rude, phrases)
And, I help them with their kids' English if they ask. Especially those children who work in the M&D's shop.

The worst lack of respect is from people outside the immediate area. The village straddles a highway (#21 from M.Lop Buri to Lom Sak, Phetchabun) so is an arterial road for those going to some of the northern/north eastern provinces. The typical "big smoke" attitude toward the "lowlife, tanned" villager. They barge into queues and demand service rather than showing common courtesy to stall holders. Only last month or so (maybe early as May) i was getting the dogs their breakfast (a chicken carcass) and some tool in a button-down shirt just walks up to me and asks me, in Thai, "can you speak Thai?" Weow (the butcher) replies before I get a word out, "Yes, he can!" and then I turn to look at him, "are you going to buy or do you have a problem?" he walked off. Weow apologised to me. I thought I'd lost her a customer so I bought a kilo of pork shoulder as well.
Respect solely due to age or social position is anathema to me. Employment, military, and government hierarchies, of course need to be adhered to.
But I try to keep my Resting Angry Face impassive when confronted by an older person who, for whatever reason, is just an effin anus. That's when I can pull out the "I don't understand"or "I can't hear you" card due to me being a foreigner or deaf respectively, and walk off.

Sounds like you've blended in rather well, which is good, and if you're comfortable, like it seems you are, that's good all around.

Yes, most will accept you here when you show you're a decent person, but some have ingrained prejudice that will never leave, so just smile.

Advice, stay away from that Pla Ra, as it kills hundreds here every year, even though it's loved by many. A friend here, a Brit, lost his wife to it a few years ago. Nice lady, they used to come to the fishing pond near my house weekly.

Do you have monkeys near you, seeing it's in Phetchabun?

18 hours ago, BonnieandClyde said:

Unless they are provoked, most Thais of all classes seem to have an instinctive courtesy.

You don't see it so much in big cities and tourist areas, but it may still exist beneath several layers of greed, selfishness,and deceit.

3 hours ago, atpeace said:

You have never been attacked by Thais online but that is because you are a not a native Thai speaker on their forums. In real life you also aren't attached by foreigners. It is an online issue and I think people expose their true self because they have no restaints.

Some posters discuss topics. Others just follows posters around non stop and say nasty things at a computer screen. I find that bizarre.

It is a THAI forum and they talk about a stranger online 90% of the time.

28 minutes ago, The Oracle said:

Welcome to a text wall!

The house that I lease had three generations living in it until 2022. Both the grandparents (parents of my landlady) died in the same room, six years apart. The father died in October 2016 and, surprisingly, I was invited by the males of the family to help wash his body before putting it in the coffin and afterward the mobile refrigerated thing which was parked under cover outside the front door for three days with the wreaths and so on. Then, of course, because he had died in that room, "Mom" couldn't use that room for a year. So there was switch around; that room became a defacto laundry, the unused loungeroom became Mom's new bedroom where her daughter (my landlady) would sleep on a separate pallet next to her. The landlady (TLL) 's old room was renovated (with funds left over from funeral donations) and the granddaughter moved into that room, and I moved down from my suite (a term I use loosely) upstairs to the granddaughter's old room. Which I renovated and had an air-conditioner installed. The reason I was asked to move downstairs is, and this is through Google Translate "you are the only man in the house for security". I thought it quite odd, considering poor old Dad hadn't be able to walk since I'd met the guy but, anyway...
After a year or so, the room he'd died in had a darned good blessing from three monks. "Mom" moved back into the "laundry" with TLL, and the loungeroom became the clothes rack room for the whole house's clothes.
After a five and half year battle with Alzheimer's disease, "Mom" died in December 2022.
Landlady moved in with her daughter as the room became uninhabitable for a year, again. Blessed again.
Then that was renovated and my landlady sleeps in there on a real bed.
There is a house "down the road" - everything is "down the road" when you live on a property this big - there is a family of four generations living, the eldest being a far older cousin of my landlady (the woman's mother was "Dad"'s oldest sister who didn't live there otherwise it'd have been FIVE generations until she died in 2025 aged 97 or so) , and I've been here to watch the grandaughter go through high school and then have two kids of her own. Which she leaves with great-grandma and grandma as she lives and works (and breeds, obviously) in Lop Buri or Sara Buri (I forget which) some two-three hours away.
Hopefully, the daughter here - currently studying Mor 6 /Grade 12 and living in the city 80km away in a hostel - holds off breeding (I'm sure she will as she's off to Khon KAen University next year) as I'm too old to have to care for some screaming kid that I'm not related to (to be honest, even I were related to it, I'm still too old and detest kids anyway even though I'm a grandfather) while she's doing whatever and her mother is at work. I shudder at the thought.

But on the actual topic of respect for elders, I get it from children up until school age maybe Bor 2 / Grade 2 then nationalism indoctrination kicks in, then from about Mor 2 / Grade 8 onward when they realise that the only white guy they've seen doesn't stack up to the dirty, disrespectful, uneducated piece of filth they were warned about on TV
I've had the typical, "Hey farang!" ( a word they're taught in school) yelled at me from kids - who were born after I got here - at the market or on my bike. What has happened a few times, not often, another kid with them will say, "Not farang, that Da Tee-Oh" as their mother or father knows me and they've been around me a fair bit and brought up properly.
But the respect due to age, and one's role in the community (teachers, nurses, phu yai, phu chuay, doctors, and government officials) is there. And the rich, like the family I live amongst who employ dozens of people, also get an extra scintilla of respect.
I had to earn mine through hard work: learning Thai from a person who didn't speak much English (it being her fifth language she sort of learned on Hong Kong working for Philips) in the short times between her finishing work or looking after her ill parent/s 24/7 to help with pronunciation. And learning was made even harder during the mask mandate era when I couldn't read lips either. Eating the food has never been a problem except like 99% of people on here I can't eat pla ra (except in minor amounts in somtam) and I absolutely hate liver and kidneys. Everything else: intestines, feet, cheeks, rats, snakes, mongoose, hearts? Come at me. And I was a chilli head for decades before coming here, too.

BUT one of the biggest bits of acceptance (now I actually get my own invitations to weddings) was when I held a massive party for my 50th birthday. Big milestone, no family or foreign friends for thousands of miles, so I got a bit carried away. As did TLL and her family with their ideas about who was to be invited. I think they started with a list of everybody and then whittled it down. Food for 140-160 people, beers (Chang and Leo) lau khao, Hong Thong, and Blend 285 (and I wasn't expecting kids to turn up so I under-catered on the fanta and coke so a quick strip-mine of all the M&D shops fixed that. And a five-piece band which played off the back off a flat-bed truck in the front yard. Fireworks. The lot. There were around two dozen cops of various types - I didn't know the place had more than three, but there you go...Some guy who was, apparently, the head of the local government administration was there. It was great.
The culture shock was people turned up with envelopes with money in them. I went to refuse but I was told in no uncertain terms that I couldn't refuse as it'd be rude.
While the party helped - even though I'd been here a few years - I still had to keep my western thoughts down. Part of my career before early retirement due to PTSD was in various types of electronic, remote, and personal security and, as a result, I have Resting Angry Face. My joviality at weddings, and monk investitures dispelled the idea I was an angry farang.

So, now I am, as far as any foreigner in a remote area can be, "accepted". They talk to me as if I'm one of them - which, of course is difficult as I'm not fluent but good enough to get the gist and respond (poorly, no doubt). And they know how bad my Thai is but help by talking normally - except one of TLL's brothers-in-law who does the "If I Yell Loudly Enough The Guy Will Understand Me Better" mode of speaking to foreigners. They know I'm deaf. And they help. Before The Plague they were worried that I might find it offensive if they corrected me. Nup. Any help is good help.
(and some of the corrections have helped me not repeat some very funny, and often rude, phrases)
And, I help them with their kids' English if they ask. Especially those children who work in the M&D's shop.

The worst lack of respect is from people outside the immediate area. The village straddles a highway (#21 from M.Lop Buri to Lom Sak, Phetchabun) so is an arterial road for those going to some of the northern/north eastern provinces. The typical "big smoke" attitude toward the "lowlife, tanned" villager. They barge into queues and demand service rather than showing common courtesy to stall holders. Only last month or so (maybe early as May) i was getting the dogs their breakfast (a chicken carcass) and some tool in a button-down shirt just walks up to me and asks me, in Thai, "can you speak Thai?" Weow (the butcher) replies before I get a word out, "Yes, he can!" and then I turn to look at him, "are you going to buy or do you have a problem?" he walked off. Weow apologised to me. I thought I'd lost her a customer so I bought a kilo of pork shoulder as well.
Respect solely due to age or social position is anathema to me. Employment, military, and government hierarchies, of course need to be adhered to.
But I try to keep my Resting Angry Face impassive when confronted by an older person who, for whatever reason, is just an effin anus. That's when I can pull out the "I don't understand"or "I can't hear you" card due to me being a foreigner or deaf respectively, and walk off.

Crikey, I was scrolling up, it just kept scrolling, up and up, thought it was Fred's 31st book 😀

2 hours ago, SAFETY FIRST said:

Do I deserve to be insulted and abused on this forum Fred, you got it wrong again.

I don't agree with every comment posted on every thread, at times the comments make me angry but I'm an adult, I just keep scrolling. I would never attack anyone with abuse on a comment they made to an article or OP.

The problem is, there are a children here, idiots on their warrior keyboards that attack others, they can't keep scrolling

But you act normal. You skip topics you have no interest in. Some here just want arguments with strangers. They obviously enjoy it cause they do it non stop.

2 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

Sounds like you've blended in rather well, which is good, and if you're comfortable, like it seems you are, that's good all around.

Yes, most will accept you here when you show you're a decent person, but some have ingrained prejudice that will never leave, so just smile.

Advice, stay away from that Pla Ra, as it kills hundreds here every year, even though it's loved by many. A friend here, a Brit, lost his wife to it a few years ago. Nice lady, they used to come to the fishing pond near my house weekly.

Do you have monkeys near you, seeing it's in Phetchabun?

There is a troop about 20-odd kms south of here. TTL's sister was up from Bangkok and she and her daughter wanted to visit a particular temple and, as I'm the one with a car, drove them there. On th way back there were a dozen or so on the road (this isn't the highway, it'd be a C-road) so we stopped. There were probably another two dozen off the side of the verge in th trees and on the grass. Pretty cool.
But around this area specifically? No. TLL said when she was about four (she's mid fifties now) her father was off in the field and saw her sitting under the tamarind tree (under which I am now typing - it's about 60 feet tall, now) and he came over to her to get some water. It wasn't her. It was a bear!
So, with expansion of cultivation and infrastructure, it's all farmland now with tree borders.
Pla ra? TLL boils it every now and then - which is quite a noisome surprise sometimes as my bedroom window opens out to the kitchen - to keep it from turning into something sentient. But I don't eat it at home. My only exposure is if I buy somtam from a streetside stall and forget to ask for fish sauce instead.
I also take a prophylactic for various intestinal worms each June, and each December I take the anti- Asian-fluke one. I don't eat raw anything. I grew up in a developing country having to take malaria tablets more often than I had cereal for breakfast. My body is literally flooded with anti-parasitics and anti-virals.
The far north east - I can't remember specifically which province so, for agument's sake, let's just say Skaon Nakhon - has the highest rate of liver cancer in the world. Sure, while we all love a lao khao now and then, some get a tad carried away insofar as they need a shot in he morning to stop the shakes so they can go off and use power tools for twelve hours. But the other thing I read, and this leads into your comment, is that the laab pla and other raw fish dishes can be riddled with flukes which enter a human's liver. And that doesn't sound good.

The most prevalent disease I've seen - and you've been here a lot longer than I - is diabetes. In the older population, not so much in the children, it seems.

The local clinic on the highway often (I'd say at least monthly) has a reasonably sized crowd out front to get their diabetic medications and/or have their blood taken/tested.

10 minutes ago, SAFETY FIRST said:

Crikey, I was scrolling up, it just kept scrolling, up and up, thought it was Fred's 31st book 😀

Warned you! LOL

Advantage of using a computer over a phone, and having decades experience writing for a living, I suppose.

5 minutes ago, Rockyroad said:

But you act normal. You skip topics you have no interest in. Some here just want arguments with strangers. They obviously enjoy it cause they do it non stop.

Yes, I haven't got the time, some here have, most are retired, maybe lonely, living alone. Nothing wrong with that, some enjoy it, not me I've got a big family, demanding girlfriend (joking 😂), she loves me to pieces 😯

I pop in and out for a laugh (I love Georgie Boys postings) or to offer advice, I've been here a long time.

Edited July 10Jul 10 by SAFETY FIRST

37 minutes ago, The Oracle said:

Welcome to a text wall!

The house that I lease had three generations living in it until 2022. Both the grandparents (parents of my landlady) died in the same room, six years apart. The father died in October 2016 and, surprisingly, I was invited by the males of the family to help wash his body before putting it in the coffin and afterward the mobile refrigerated thing which was parked under cover outside the front door for three days with the wreaths and so on. Then, of course, because he had died in that room, "Mom" couldn't use that room for a year. So there was switch around; that room became a defacto laundry, the unused loungeroom became Mom's new bedroom where her daughter (my landlady) would sleep on a separate pallet next to her. The landlady (TLL) 's old room was renovated (with funds left over from funeral donations) and the granddaughter moved into that room, and I moved down from my suite (a term I use loosely) upstairs to the granddaughter's old room. Which I renovated and had an air-conditioner installed. The reason I was asked to move downstairs is, and this is through Google Translate "you are the only man in the house for security". I thought it quite odd, considering poor old Dad hadn't be able to walk since I'd met the guy but, anyway...
After a year or so, the room he'd died in had a darned good blessing from three monks. "Mom" moved back into the "laundry" with TLL, and the loungeroom became the clothes rack room for the whole house's clothes.
After a five and half year battle with Alzheimer's disease, "Mom" died in December 2022.
Landlady moved in with her daughter as the room became uninhabitable for a year, again. Blessed again.
Then that was renovated and my landlady sleeps in there on a real bed.
There is a house "down the road" - everything is "down the road" when you live on a property this big - there is a family of four generations living, the eldest being a far older cousin of my landlady (the woman's mother was "Dad"'s oldest sister who didn't live there otherwise it'd have been FIVE generations until she died in 2025 aged 97 or so) , and I've been here to watch the grandaughter go through high school and then have two kids of her own. Which she leaves with great-grandma and grandma as she lives and works (and breeds, obviously) in Lop Buri or Sara Buri (I forget which) some two-three hours away.
Hopefully, the daughter here - currently studying Mor 6 /Grade 12 and living in the city 80km away in a hostel - holds off breeding (I'm sure she will as she's off to Khon KAen University next year) as I'm too old to have to care for some screaming kid that I'm not related to (to be honest, even I were related to it, I'm still too old and detest kids anyway even though I'm a grandfather) while she's doing whatever and her mother is at work. I shudder at the thought.

But on the actual topic of respect for elders, I get it from children up until school age maybe Bor 2 / Grade 2 then nationalism indoctrination kicks in, then from about Mor 2 / Grade 8 onward when they realise that the only white guy they've seen doesn't stack up to the dirty, disrespectful, uneducated piece of filth they were warned about on TV
I've had the typical, "Hey farang!" ( a word they're taught in school) yelled at me from kids - who were born after I got here - at the market or on my bike. What has happened a few times, not often, another kid with them will say, "Not farang, that Da Tee-Oh" as their mother or father knows me and they've been around me a fair bit and brought up properly.
But the respect due to age, and one's role in the community (teachers, nurses, phu yai, phu chuay, doctors, and government officials) is there. And the rich, like the family I live amongst who employ dozens of people, also get an extra scintilla of respect.
I had to earn mine through hard work: learning Thai from a person who didn't speak much English (it being her fifth language she sort of learned on Hong Kong working for Philips) in the short times between her finishing work or looking after her ill parent/s 24/7 to help with pronunciation. And learning was made even harder during the mask mandate era when I couldn't read lips either. Eating the food has never been a problem except like 99% of people on here I can't eat pla ra (except in minor amounts in somtam) and I absolutely hate liver and kidneys. Everything else: intestines, feet, cheeks, rats, snakes, mongoose, hearts? Come at me. And I was a chilli head for decades before coming here, too.

BUT one of the biggest bits of acceptance (now I actually get my own invitations to weddings) was when I held a massive party for my 50th birthday. Big milestone, no family or foreign friends for thousands of miles, so I got a bit carried away. As did TLL and her family with their ideas about who was to be invited. I think they started with a list of everybody and then whittled it down. Food for 140-160 people, beers (Chang and Leo) lau khao, Hong Thong, and Blend 285 (and I wasn't expecting kids to turn up so I under-catered on the fanta and coke so a quick strip-mine of all the M&D shops fixed that. And a five-piece band which played off the back off a flat-bed truck in the front yard. Fireworks. The lot. There were around two dozen cops of various types - I didn't know the place had more than three, but there you go...Some guy who was, apparently, the head of the local government administration was there. It was great.
The culture shock was people turned up with envelopes with money in them. I went to refuse but I was told in no uncertain terms that I couldn't refuse as it'd be rude.
While the party helped - even though I'd been here a few years - I still had to keep my western thoughts down. Part of my career before early retirement due to PTSD was in various types of electronic, remote, and personal security and, as a result, I have Resting Angry Face. My joviality at weddings, and monk investitures dispelled the idea I was an angry farang.

So, now I am, as far as any foreigner in a remote area can be, "accepted". They talk to me as if I'm one of them - which, of course is difficult as I'm not fluent but good enough to get the gist and respond (poorly, no doubt). And they know how bad my Thai is but help by talking normally - except one of TLL's brothers-in-law who does the "If I Yell Loudly Enough The Guy Will Understand Me Better" mode of speaking to foreigners. They know I'm deaf. And they help. Before The Plague they were worried that I might find it offensive if they corrected me. Nup. Any help is good help.
(and some of the corrections have helped me not repeat some very funny, and often rude, phrases)
And, I help them with their kids' English if they ask. Especially those children who work in the M&D's shop.

The worst lack of respect is from people outside the immediate area. The village straddles a highway (#21 from M.Lop Buri to Lom Sak, Phetchabun) so is an arterial road for those going to some of the northern/north eastern provinces. The typical "big smoke" attitude toward the "lowlife, tanned" villager. They barge into queues and demand service rather than showing common courtesy to stall holders. Only last month or so (maybe early as May) i was getting the dogs their breakfast (a chicken carcass) and some tool in a button-down shirt just walks up to me and asks me, in Thai, "can you speak Thai?" Weow (the butcher) replies before I get a word out, "Yes, he can!" and then I turn to look at him, "are you going to buy or do you have a problem?" he walked off. Weow apologised to me. I thought I'd lost her a customer so I bought a kilo of pork shoulder as well.
Respect solely due to age or social position is anathema to me. Employment, military, and government hierarchies, of course need to be adhered to.
But I try to keep my Resting Angry Face impassive when confronted by an older person who, for whatever reason, is just an effin anus. That's when I can pull out the "I don't understand"or "I can't hear you" card due to me being a foreigner or deaf respectively, and walk off.

Thanks and enjoyed the read. I live a simple life but you my man are doing something I could never do. How did you find this home? You are around 54?

Your description of your hard face is interesting. A neighbor has such a face and me being the fool, I disliked him going on 4 years until last week. Was hiking with my wife a last week and pumped into him. He was one of the nicest guys I've met in years.

Best of times!

3 minutes ago, The Oracle said:

There is a troop about 20-odd kms south of here. TTL's sister was up from Bangkok and she and her daughter wanted to visit a particular temple and, as I'm the one with a car, drove them there. On th way back there were a dozen or so on the road (this isn't the highway, it'd be a C-road) so we stopped. There were probably another two dozen off the side of the verge in th trees and on the grass. Pretty cool.
But around this area specifically? No. TLL said when she was about four (she's mid fifties now) her father was off in the field and saw her sitting under the tamarind tree (under which I am now typing - it's about 60 feet tall, now) and he came over to her to get some water. It wasn't her. It was a bear!
So, with expansion of cultivation and infrastructure, it's all farmland now with tree borders.
Pla ra? TLL boils it every now and then - which is quite a noisome surprise sometimes as my bedroom window opens out to the kitchen - to keep it from turning into something sentient. But I don't eat it at home. My only exposure is if I buy somtam from a streetside stall and forget to ask for fish sauce instead.
I also take a prophylactic for various intestinal worms each June, and each December I take the anti- Asian-fluke one. I don't eat raw anything. I grew up in a developing country having to take malaria tablets more often than I had cereal for breakfast. My body is literally flooded with anti-parasitics and anti-virals.
The far north east - I can't remember specifically which province so, for agument's sake, let's just say Skaon Nakhon - has the highest rate of liver cancer in the world. Sure, while we all love a lao khao now and then, some get a tad carried away insofar as they need a shot in he morning to stop the shakes so they can go off and use power tools for twelve hours. But the other thing I read, and this leads into your comment, is that the laab pla and other raw fish dishes can be riddled with flukes which enter a human's liver. And that doesn't sound good.

The most prevalent disease I've seen - and you've been here a lot longer than I - is diabetes. In the older population, not so much in the children, it seems.

The local clinic on the highway often (I'd say at least monthly) has a reasonably sized crowd out front to get their diabetic medications and/or have their blood taken/tested.

I see many dying from Lao Khao here, going to their funerals with my girlfriend, and a lot are in their 50's. You see it at most shops in the villages, a shot for 10 baht, and they'll take one before they go to their farms like it's having a coffee. It's garbage and eats their stomach and liver.

I and my ex have diabetes in our families. Half her family here is taking medicine and the other half I'm not sure, as most live away from grandma's house. My brother, son, aunt and uncles had (have) it. I've never been anything but lean, and eaten healthy all my life, so I either never developed it, or wouldn't have anyway.

They eat rice every meal here, even suffering from diabetes, and it's one of the worst things, white rice being high glycemic, to have so often, but it's their staple. The children usually won't show symptoms until they're checked, as bed wetting, thirst and tiredness are symptoms that many children already have.

Where I live I only see Asian Tree Squirrels and the black ones occasionally. No monkeys near here besides in the provincial park that I know of, the Macaques. Everything that moves is eaten. I won't eat rats or insects, but snake is okay.

Edited July 10Jul 10 by fredwiggy

10 minutes ago, SAFETY FIRST said:

I pop in and out for a laugh (I love Georgie Boys postings)

I read that you love something else about @georgegeorgia ...don't be coy now.

14 minutes ago, IsmeUno said:

I read that you love something else about @georgegeorgia ...don't be coy now.

I got angry with him the other day, he wanted to give fruit to the Aussie murderer

46 minutes ago, atpeace said:

Was hiking with my wife a last week and pumped into him.

Sounds like quite an encounter. Freudian slip or typo? 😉

20 minutes ago, atpeace said:

Thanks and enjoyed the read. I live a simple life but you my man are doing something I could never do. How did you find this home? You are around 54?

Your description of your hard face is interesting. A neighbor has such a face and me being the fool, I disliked him going on 4 years until last week. Was hiking with my wife a last week and pumped into him. He was one of the nicest guys I've met in years.

Best of times!

Try not going into another text wall. But I doubt I'll be successful.
Knew a bloke that ran a pub in Phuket. Hostess bar. I was on my post-retirement holiday. Was there for about six weeks. One of girls' sister turns up but didn't speak English -she was a tour guide for a Chinese tour bus group. She'd drop into the pub for a knock off beer and see her sister (daylight hours) and then go to wherever it was she lived. She wouldn't talk to me, thinking, I suppose " white man in a hostess bar." Obviously t some point the sister told her I didn't partake so after about two weeks she said hello. Google translate. Facebook friends. That was it. I went back to The Motherland. Four months later, FB message out of the blue asked if I wanted a tour of upcountry Thailand. She'd gone back home as her father was sick and to look after her daughter who'd been living with the other grandmother (yaa) and she was sick, too. Anyway, I thought. "Why not?" So. Fly into Bangkok, she's bussed down. Walked around for two days, being all touristy, also caught up with a friend who'd been working here since 1991 (still is here, just retired now). Flew to Khon Kaen, taxied to her former mother-in-laws place in Chaiyaphum. Had my first ever first lao khao. Went to buy another bottle with how to say "small bottle of lao khao" on a piece of paper. Got to shop, I read the phonetics off the paper. Twice. Then the proprietor says, "not bad, you'll get better."
"What?"
He had worked in Australia for thirty years and spoke English but he only told me that after I'd made a tool of myself. Nice one. LOL. Stayed in a local hotel for 200 baht. Then a guy comes up and brings her and me to this village. Cost 5 baht a kilometre.
Looked around. Quiet. Cool (January) and with trees and mountains. People smiling as I went to the market on the back of her scooter. Four days then bus to Bangkok, one night, plane home.
I decided that I didn't have anything to stay in The Motherland for. Adult child that lived in another part of the country anyway so I thought, "Why not? I can always come back."
Over the next few months I got my stuff stored at a friends shed, got out google translte and strted to learn numbers, colors, animals (the basics) and with her on FB messenger every couple of days teching me as well (which is difficult when she doesn't remember much English)
I suppose what sort of nailed it was her use of what we'd call "big words"when she wrote stuff in Thai and translated it. I could have a decent conversation. Even if we couldn't understand each other's native language. It was then then I found out not only was she not "just" a tour guide that spoke Chinese fluently, she had a degree, and was a former quality assurance manager at Philips in Hong Kong and had 400 staff (most SE Asians) under her. She speaks Thai, Lao (her parents were originally from Korat and there is a fair numbver of Lao-speaking sub-villages around here), Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, and English (in that order of fluency) and translated from her boss to her staff and smatterings of others. And then her dad got sick so, after paying for his (then) uncovered medical bills from Honkers, she came back in (I think) 2008.
Full forward to April 2016, I packed a 30kg suitcase and a carry-on. Bangkok. Mor Chit bus terminal. Her (future) brother-in-law who was educated in the US met me and made sure I got on the right bus. Four-odd hours later, I was picked up at the bus stop by her mid-twenties son who'd made his Daihatsu Charade a giant speaker box for his car stereo so there was no back seat. Suitcase went up front. I was on the back of a scooter.

For the first four weeks (after the first night) I actually stayed in the top floor of a house half a mile away so I walked to her house for breakfast and then went fishing after caring for her father, read books, relaxed, then, after dinner I'd walk back again.
After a month, by which time I'd learned the days of the week, how to get around the weird ways Thais say the time, fruit and vegetbles and so on, we decided I'd take over the top floor of her house (which she had had built by her brothers/BiL for their parents) and pay her rent instead. Saved me the walk. Been here pretty much ever since.
I do know people strewn around the country Brits, Aussies, Americans, German, couple of Swedes and a Norwegian and I have had friends stay here.
If you look t my "location" in my profile, you can see I'm pretty far from most tourist places and I think my nearest friend is in Kalasin (about four hours) then down in NaKlua (Pattaya) - the friend that starting working ere in '91 - which is almost exactly five hours to his front door from mine everyone else takes seven+ hours.

And, yep! Another text wall. Sorry.

56 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

I see many dying from Lao Khao here, going to their funerals with my girlfriend, and a lot are in their 50's. You see it at most shops in the villages, a shot for 10 baht, and they'll take one before they go to their farms like it's having a coffee. It's garbage and eats their stomach and liver.

I and my ex have diabetes in our families. Half her family here is taking medicine and the other half I'm not sure, as most live away from grandma's house. My brother, son, aunt and uncles had (have) it. I've never been anything but lean, and eaten healthy all my life, so I either never developed it, or wouldn't have anyway.

They eat rice every meal here, even suffering from diabetes, and it's one of the worst things, white rice being high glycemic, to have so often, but it's their staple. The children usually won't show symptoms until they're checked, as bed wetting, thirst and tiredness are symptoms that many children already have.

Where I live I only see Asian Tree Squirrels and the black ones occasionally. No monkeys near here besides in the provincial park that I know of, the Macaques. Everything that moves is eaten. I won't eat rats or insects, but snake is okay.

I eat the crickets, fried, with rott dee and bai toey during chinglit season. Before TTL's yuongest sister had her second kid, she and her husband would come up quite frequently - they'd stay at a resort miles up the road because he's scared of tokay/tu'kair geckos. They'd bring a couple of boxes of Singha (which I personally find a bit too hoppy for this heat but free beer is good beer) and I'd go to the market two villages away for two bags of fresh chinglit which would be fried at home, along with, moo tod, kai dao and namjim seafood.
Saturday is chinglit day during the season.
I'm not keen on the various worms, though. Bit too earthy for my taste but I'll eat them to be polite if I'm at someone else's house. I refused to eat scarab becasue it was so big and reminded me too much of a cockroach.

Yeah, as I said in my original War and Peace epic post, a shot of lao khao to steady the hands so they can use a chainsaw. Who needs OSHA when you can have 40% proof rice whiskey for breakfast. I often see a 500ml can of beer had for breakfast, too, when I'm off to the market for the dog's breakfast.

Edited July 10Jul 10 by The Oracle

43 minutes ago, The Oracle said:

Try not going into another text wall. But I doubt I'll be successful.
Knew a bloke that ran a pub in Phuket. Hostess bar. I was on my post-retirement holiday. Was there for about six weeks. One of girls' sister turns up but didn't speak English -she was a tour guide for a Chinese tour bus group. She'd drop into the pub for a knock off beer and see her sister (daylight hours) and then go to wherever it was she lived. She wouldn't talk to me, thinking, I suppose " white man in a hostess bar." Obviously t some point the sister told her I didn't partake so after about two weeks she said hello. Google translate. Facebook friends. That was it. I went back to The Motherland. Four months later, FB message out of the blue asked if I wanted a tour of upcountry Thailand. She'd gone back home as her father was sick and to look after her daughter who'd been living with the other grandmother (yaa) and she was sick, too. Anyway, I thought. "Why not?" So. Fly into Bangkok, she's bussed down. Walked around for two days, being all touristy, also caught up with a friend who'd been working here since 1991 (still is here, just retired now). Flew to Khon Kaen, taxied to her former mother-in-laws place in Chaiyaphum. Had my first ever first lao khao. Went to buy another bottle with how to say "small bottle of lao khao" on a piece of paper. Got to shop, I read the phonetics off the paper. Twice. Then the proprietor says, "not bad, you'll get better."
"What?"
He had worked in Australia for thirty years and spoke English but he only told me that after I'd made a tool of myself. Nice one. LOL. Stayed in a local hotel for 200 baht. Then a guy comes up and brings her and me to this village. Cost 5 baht a kilometre.
Looked around. Quiet. Cool (January) and with trees and mountains. People smiling as I went to the market on the back of her scooter. Four days then bus to Bangkok, one night, plane home.
I decided that I didn't have anything to stay in The Motherland for. Adult child that lived in another part of the country anyway so I thought, "Why not? I can always come back."
Over the next few months I got my stuff stored at a friends shed, got out google translte and strted to learn numbers, colors, animals (the basics) and with her on FB messenger every couple of days teching me as well (which is difficult when she doesn't remember much English)
I suppose what sort of nailed it was her use of what we'd call "big words"when she wrote stuff in Thai and translated it. I could have a decent conversation. Even if we couldn't understand each other's native language. It was then then I found out not only was she not "just" a tour guide that spoke Chinese fluently, she had a degree, and was a former quality assurance manager at Philips in Hong Kong and had 400 staff (most SE Asians) under her. She speaks Thai, Lao (her parents were originally from Korat and there is a fair numbver of Lao-speaking sub-villages around here), Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, and English (in that order of fluency) and translated from her boss to her staff and smatterings of others. And then her dad got sick so, after paying for his (then) uncovered medical bills from Honkers, she came back in (I think) 2008.
Full forward to April 2016, I packed a 30kg suitcase and a carry-on. Bangkok. Mor Chit bus terminal. Her (future) brother-in-law who was educated in the US met me and made sure I got on the right bus. Four-odd hours later, I was picked up at the bus stop by her mid-twenties son who'd made his Daihatsu Charade a giant speaker box for his car stereo so there was no back seat. Suitcase went up front. I was on the back of a scooter.

For the first four weeks (after the first night) I actually stayed in the top floor of a house half a mile away so I walked to her house for breakfast and then went fishing after caring for her father, read books, relaxed, then, after dinner I'd walk back again.
After a month, by which time I'd learned the days of the week, how to get around the weird ways Thais say the time, fruit and vegetbles and so on, we decided I'd take over the top floor of her house (which she had had built by her brothers/BiL for their parents) and pay her rent instead. Saved me the walk. Been here pretty much ever since.
I do know people strewn around the country Brits, Aussies, Americans, German, couple of Swedes and a Norwegian and I have had friends stay here.
If you look t my "location" in my profile, you can see I'm pretty far from most tourist places and I think my nearest friend is in Kalasin (about four hours) then down in NaKlua (Pattaya) - the friend that starting working ere in '91 - which is almost exactly five hours to his front door from mine everyone else takes seven+ hours.

And, yep! Another text wall. Sorry.

Don't' apologize. Interesting writing style and read the whole thing. Usually I just skim text blocks.

47 minutes ago, The Oracle said:

I eat the crickets, fried, with rott dee and bai toey during chinglit season. Before TTL's yuongest sister had her second kid, she and her husband would come up quite frequently - they'd stay at a resort miles up the road because he's scared of tokay/tu'kair geckos. They'd bring a couple of boxes of Singha (which I personally find a bit too hoppy for this heat but free beer is good beer) and I'd go to the market two villages away for two bags of fresh chinglit which would be fried at home, along with, moo tod, kai dao and namjim seafood.
Saturday is chinglit day during the season.
I'm not keen on the various worms, though. Bit too earthy for my taste but I'll eat them to be polite if I'm at someone else's house. I refused to eat scarab becasue it was so big and reminded me too much of a cockroach.

Yeah, as I said in my original War and Peace epic post, a shot of lao khao to steady the hands so they can use a chainsaw. Who needs OSHA when you can have 40% proof rice whiskey for breakfast. I often see a 500ml can of beer had for breakfast, too, when I'm off to the market for the dog's breakfast.

My girlfriend loves crickets, actually raises them from babies now. I accidentally ate some, along with those tiny frogs, when my ex's mom made some concoction. It tasted okay, until I looked closer at what it was and said no thanks. I ate a lizard also there and it was like eating leather. I was always a wine freak back in America, along with an occasional beer, Guinness a favorite with a few others, but drink beer with my girlfriend occasionally. Heineken, Singha, and Leo. Chang to me is like Miller back home, piss.

5 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

My girlfriend loves crickets, actually raises them from babies now. I accidentally ate some, along with those tiny frogs, when my ex's mom made some concoction. It tasted okay, until I looked closer at what it was and said no thanks. I ate a lizard also there and it was like eating leather. I was always a wine freak back in America, along with an occasional beer, Guinness a favorite with a few others, but drink beer with my girlfriend occasionally. Heineken, Singha, and Leo. Chang to me is like Miller back home, piss.

My father collected wine but wasn't a "wine snob". He knew what he liked, knew what some would age into, and bought them by the case. While I grew up around wine and beer drinking, I didn't like the stuff until I was about 16. Don't like Guinness (tastes "burnt"to me) but do like some other stouts, dark ales and porters. I was recently in the UK and gave the pubs there a darned good seeing to.
Currently off the beer to lose weight. Down seven kilos in eight weeks so going okay. Only five more to go. (Drinking SangSom and soda instead, lol) Beer-wise, though, I drink Leo at home. Chang,as you say, is a bit how's your father nd it's a bit gassy. Singha, as I said a rply text wall earlier, is a bit hoppy but, like Chang, if it's free, I'll drink it. The Heinejen here seems different to that in Europe, the UK, and Australia, also a bit more gassy BUT when out with my my friend who's been here for thirty-odd years, who drinks Heineken, so will I. Or Carlsberg, if they have it.
Regarding the wines here; considering the prices South African, Australian, and Chilean wines are in their home countries, the pricing isn't too bad even if the quality is basically box/cask - level. I buy The Land Lady a bottle of (real) Prosecco for her birthday each year. And sometimes, maybe three times a year, I'll buy a bottle of Mont Clair (?) and use the top part of the contents for a bolognese-style ragu and the bottom part to drink alongside the lasagne I "build" the next day.

10 minutes ago, The Oracle said:

My father collected wine but wasn't a "wine snob". He knew what he liked, knew what some would age into, and bought them by the case. While I grew up around wine and beer drinking, I didn't like the stuff until I was about 16. Don't like Guinness (tastes "burnt"to me) but do like some other stouts, dark ales and porters. I was recently in the UK and gave the pubs there a darned good seeing to.
Currently off the beer to lose weight. Down seven kilos in eight weeks so going okay. Only five more to go. (Drinking SangSom and soda instead, lol) Beer-wise, though, I drink Leo at home. Chang,as you say, is a bit how's your father nd it's a bit gassy. Singha, as I said a rply text wall earlier, is a bit hoppy but, like Chang, if it's free, I'll drink it. The Heinejen here seems different to that in Europe, the UK, and Australia, also a bit more gassy BUT when out with my my friend who's been here for thirty-odd years, who drinks Heineken, so will I. Or Carlsberg, if they have it.
Regarding the wines here; considering the prices South African, Australian, and Chilean wines are in their home countries, the pricing isn't too bad even if the quality is basically box/cask - level. I buy The Land Lady a bottle of (real) Prosecco for her birthday each year. And sometimes, maybe three times a year, I'll buy a bottle of Mont Clair (?) and use the top part of the contents for a bolognese-style ragu and the bottom part to drink alongside the lasagne I "build" the next day.

One of my bucket list things is visiting England, Scotland and my ancestor country, Ireland, and going to a few pubs and having beer with the locals. I lived near NYC 30 years and enjoyed 100's of killer bottles of wine. had a good collection that withered down to a few bottles before I moved here. Yep, drinking calories is the best way not to lose weight. I only have a couple of glasses with my girlfriend when I visit, so it's not too much. Yes, the Heineken here isn't the same as back in America either. When we return to the states, I'll get back into wine again, as my daughter there and her hubby likes it, along with my son. I used to add wine to sauce back home also. My lasagne is as good as Italian, as I got the making from observing Italian relatives.

3 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

One of my bucket list things is visiting England, Scotland and my ancestor country, Ireland

Pointless going to Aberdeen, I visit there regularly for training. The buildings are granite grey, it matches the skyline, always bleak and miserable.

4 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

One of my bucket list things is visiting England, Scotland and my ancestor country, Ireland, and going to a few pubs and having beer with the locals. I lived near NYC 30 years and enjoyed 100's of killer bottles of wine. had a good collection that withered down to a few bottles before I moved here. Yep, drinking calories is the best way not to lose weight. I only have a couple of glasses with my girlfriend when I visit, so it's not too much. Yes, the Heineken here isn't the same as back in America either. When we return to the states, I'll get back into wine again, as my daughter there and her hubby likes it, along with my son. I used to add wine to sauce back home also. My lasagne is as good as Italian, as I got the making from observing Italian relatives.

I was in Nashville in 2009, for a memorial concert for a very close friend who'd been killed by a drunk/drug driver (yes, he tested positive to both and got 22 years in prison for it) for about two weeks. There was a bar that had 99 beers on tap. It was called the UFO or The Flying Saucer or something. While I only entered the place twice, it gave me the idea of trying as many beers as I could while I was there. My Nashville friends - of which I had many back then - were predominantly musicians so me joining them for gigs around Tennessee was a fine old time to drink like a man possessed and get a free trip home with the band!
So, since then, including my last trip to England and Scotland in June-August last year, I've been taking photos of every new type of beer I've tried - the tap and the poured glass.
It comes out to a staggering "I think your friends and family need to hold an intervention" number.
But, hey! I don't cause anyone any trouble. At all. And I can afford it.

5 minutes ago, SAFETY FIRST said:

Pointless going to Aberdeen, I visit there regularly for training. The buildings are granite grey, it matches the skyline, always bleak and miserable.

Just want to hit the country areas, see a few castles, London, see if I can find any on mom's relatives, Scotland's countryside. Bleak is always how I saw the UK, and from what I hear from expats that moved here because of it, it sounds like what I see in the movies like Braveheart. lot of history though.

2 minutes ago, The Oracle said:

I was in Nashville in 2009, for a memorial concert for a very close friend who'd been killed by a drunk/drug driver (yes, he tested positive to both and got 22 years in prison for it) for about two weeks. There was a bar that had 99 beers on tap. It was called the UFO or The Flying Saucer or something. While I only entered the place twice, it gave me the idea of trying as many beers as I could while I was there. My Nashville friends - of which I had many back then - were predominantly musicians so me joining them for gigs around Tennessee was a fine old time to drink like a man possessed and get a free trip home with the band!
So, since then, including my last trip to England and Scotland in June-August last year, I've been taking photos of every new type of beer I've tried - the tap and the poured glass.
It comes out to a staggering "I think your friends and family need to hold an intervention" number.
But, hey! I don't cause anyone any trouble. At all. And I can afford it.

I've had quite a few different beers from around the world, but didn't scratch the surface of what's out there, especially with all the craft beers. Austin is huge on beer with many bar and grills having a lot on tap along with bottled. Texas actually has some excellent wines after many wineries popped up there. New Jersey /New York of course has the best of everything worldwide. I remember having a 1953 Chateau Latour in a good Chinese restaurant in New Jersey called Peking, along with Tung Ting Shrimp, which was one of their top dishes.