Well......who Doesnt Want To Live In Thailand?

[toptuan]

...having lived in countries with much higher corruption levels than Thailand i have acquired a liking for it. corruption makes life much easier for some individuals (like me) and i wish there was much more corruption in Thailand...

Birds of a feather flock together....

"Good" Thai people still hate corruption.

[mizzi39]

Don't get me wrong, I much rather live in Thailand, but people who think that everything is cheap here, really bug the heck of me.

I always get people who tell me that I'm charging "US prices" for books, and I'm in Thailand, so they should be cheap. I explain that Thailand is mostly Thai people who don't read English, so I have to mostly import my good books from the US and UK and pay the price there and a high price for shipping and customs charges and taxes. How can I possibly sell them cheaply when I have to pay so much to get them here?

Mostly I'm wasting my breath, but usually they shut up for the moment anyway.

You are so right about this. I am an avid reader living in Issan and order my books from kinokuniya. I used to order them from amazon, have them shipped to my mothers in the US and then she would ship them to me but with shipping costs this just was not practical. Books written in English costs about the same retail as in USA. I compare prices all the time. The problem here in Thailand is that there are no deals (discounts) unless you can find what you are looking for second hand.

As far as living in LOS well the cost of living really comes down to where you live and where you came from. I grew up outside of Boston (USA). The northeast of the US is one of the most expensive areas to live. A nice 1 bedroom apt. will set you back $800-$1000 US dollars a month. Food is outragous, petrol? will not even go there. Mortgage? Before i sold my house and moved to LOS i was paying $1600.00 a month ($200,000 over 30 years)for a cape style (upstairs and downstairs) 3 bedroom home. This is an average mortgage for an average home. Sure I got paid a lot more in the states but everything cost so much more in my opinion. I get paid much less living in the LOS but the cost of living is much cheaper (excluding cars, and some electronics) So in the end everything is relative. I am glad to be living in the LOS especially now considering many friends of mine back in the states are suffering do to forclosures (highest in the world) uneployment, etc. and still faced with a high cost of living. US is in a major recession and recessions can really F%*@ u$% your life.

[jonniebkk]

The northeast of the US is one of the most expensive areas to live. A nice 1 bedroom apt. will set you back $800-$1000 US dollars a month. Food is outragous, petrol? will not even go there.

Your analysis is spot-on. The only quibble I have is when you comment on gas. It is about the same price in both countries (in case you haven't noticed, the price in Thailand is for a litre...not a gallon ).

I am from SFO and it's as expensive (or more so) than living in Boston. But go to the Mid-West or South and costs drop dramatically.

[mizzi39]

The northeast of the US is one of the most expensive areas to live. A nice 1 bedroom apt. will set you back $800-$1000 US dollars a month. Food is outragous, petrol? will not even go there.

Your analysis is spot-on. The only quibble I have is when you comment on gas. It is about the same price in both countries (in case you haven't noticed, the price in Thailand is for a litre...not a gallon ).

I am from SFO and it's as expensive (or more so) than living in Boston. But go to the Mid-West or South and costs drop dramatically.

I guess I do not pay to much attention to gas since i only have a couple of motorbikes and they seem reasonable to fill. I know that SF, LA, actually most of Ca. is very expensive. My father lives in Las Vegas although he owns his home outright the rest of the city is feeling the crunch of the recession. Although the Midwest and South may be cheaper as far as cost of living, the average pay is much less, sort of like here, When I lived in Bkk. I found it to be rather expensive, and i wasn't even living in the Sukhumvit area but in Bangkapi. Now living in Issan I make 10% less than I was making in Bkk. but the cost of living is much cheaper. I don't pay rent which is a plus since my inlaws gave the misses and I one of their homes to live in (they have 3) but my friend rents a 3 bedroom house for 4,000 baht a month which i find to be cheap!

Some people can adjust very well to Thailand and some people can't. Everyone is different and different attitudes and circumstances useually determines ones direction in life.

[actiondell4]

........"there is no respect for foreigners at all in Thailand and that was learned the hard way..i lived there 1 1/2 years and don't need it again...."

What happened? You lived there for 18 months,what did you learn the hard way that you would never move back?

[kankaroo]

If I were really, really rich and could go to Thailand whenever I wanted, for as long as I wanted, I would live there part of the year and go to San Francisco, London, New York or Montreal for the hot season eating at all the best restaurants and seeing the best plays and concerts.

That way, Thailand would never stop being exciting and I could have the best of both worlds.

Amen

[bkk_mike]

think they were Dutch as they said they were from Norway

que?

Only an American can be that confused geographically

Sorry, but Jeffrey Stanthorpe is a well-known, upper-class Brit!

Are you sure it's the same person... This guy has posts about how his country bombed Vietnam. (Fairly sure Britain wasn't in that war).

edit: re-checking his posts, he also said his country won the Vietnam war, so he must actually be Vietnamese.

Edited May 5, 2008 by bkk_mike

[Pepe']

........"there is no respect for foreigners at all in Thailand and that was learned the hard way..i lived there 1 1/2 years and don't need it again...."

What happened? You lived there for 18 months,what did you learn the hard way that you would never move back?

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I did learn what Thai women are good for...

[qwertz]

They weren't always like that, I've been visiting LOS for about 30 years now, but I realised some time ago that I'd never be more than a "farang" to them. And that's the hard part because as much as you want integrate, learn the language, etc. when push comes to shove, it's their turf and they'll make you know it.

Isn't that pretty much the case for any immigrant group anywhere in the world? They often get treated badly and are discriminated against by the native population.

That is pretty much what all the foreign retirees amount too when they come to Thailand to live out the rest of their days...a group of immigrants. And like all immigrants, they generally don't know the language, culture, or customs of their adopted land and therefore run into conflicts. Add in the fact that most of these "immigrants" are orders of magnitude more wealthy than most of their hosts and you get more envy and scams.

Maybe the "second generation" of these immigrants, all the luk krung children that are being produced, will be more accepted as they will have been born and raised in Thailand and therefore fully integrated in the culture. It worked for the Chinese and look where it got the Shinawatra family

I wasn't saying that the expats there are totally blameless for the contempt heaped on them.

Most of those I've seen are living in a private bubble, insulated by foreign exchange from a meagre pension or investments outside of

Thailand.

The very few I know who took the trouble to immerse themselves in the Thai culture, religion, language and philosophy strike me as

somewhat supercilious if not downright pompous.

[Pepe']

They weren't always like that, I've been visiting LOS for about 30 years now, but I realised some time ago that I'd never be more than a "farang" to them. And that's the hard part because as much as you want integrate, learn the language, etc. when push comes to shove, it's their turf and they'll make you know it.

Isn't that pretty much the case for any immigrant group anywhere in the world? They often get treated badly and are discriminated against by the native population.

That is pretty much what all the foreign retirees amount too when they come to Thailand to live out the rest of their days...a group of immigrants. And like all immigrants, they generally don't know the language, culture, or customs of their adopted land and therefore run into conflicts. Add in the fact that most of these "immigrants" are orders of magnitude more wealthy than most of their hosts and you get more envy and scams.

Maybe the "second generation" of these immigrants, all the luk krung children that are being produced, will be more accepted as they will have been born and raised in Thailand and therefore fully integrated in the culture. It worked for the Chinese and look where it got the Shinawatra family

I wasn't saying that the expats there are totally blameless for the contempt heaped on them.

Most of those I've seen are living in a private bubble, insulated by foreign exchange from a meagre pension or investments outside of

Thailand.

The very few I know who took the trouble to immerse themselves in the Thai culture, religion, language and philosophy strike me as

somewhat supercilious if not downright pompous.

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"From your mouth to God's ear"