Family Of Man In Skytrain Scuffle Threatened

[EyesWideOpen]

Sign or no sign, when a person in charge says no, please show a little respect by following the rules especially if you are in a foreign country.

For example, there is no sign indicating no spitting. Does it mean I can spit all over the station. And when the station guard tells me to stop...do I just ignore and expect no retaliation.

A little mutual respect goes a long way!

Hmmm gaining respect by adhering to the rules of the country..... Like the rule / law that prostitution is illegal. I can see that everyone follows that law closely. :-) This case is a simple problem of excessive violence on the part of the guards. Any long term expat who has been around will at some point experience this. I was sitting on some steps in front of a hotel. The guard came rushing out and demanded I move. I was in the middle of an important phone call and ignored him. Next thing I know he is coming at me with a night stick. So a quick review here:

Crime >> Sitting on the steps

Response >> Attacked by a guard with a night stick

I think he expected me to run away like a scare rabbit. Instead I slowly walked towards him, and commented in Thai to him about his future life expectancy. At that exact moment a policeman came by and defused the situation, and apologized to me about hot tempered Thais.

So yeah, I pretty much believe that excessive force was used upon Behan by poorly trained moronic wanna be policemen who are in fact lowly guards......

Or..

Quick review:

"crime" = sitting on private property that the guard may have been scolded many times and even threatened to lose his job if he doesn't keep them clear. Or perhaps he was directly told to clear you by his boss.

Response = "ignore" the guard's request, and make a threat about guard's life expectancy

Expectation = the guard to leave me alone so I can make my "important phone call" (much more important than anything the guard has to do of course). Oh, and never mind the fact that I verbally threatened him.

Determination: I am right and these idiotic Thai guards are all wrong.

Who are you people? Seriously? Please go away, and not from Thailand or from some steps, but just from life in general.

The point you have succeeded in proving here: it was just too much of an inconvenience for important me to simply get off those steps. Getting off the steps would have just been too easy for a guy like you, no? I'm sure you will prove many of my points about farang pretentiousness, tempers, arrogance and problem causing penchant with your ensuing posts. The more people like you that come out of the woodwork to support Behan, the more he looks like he is in the wrong. Do the poor guy a favor and just keep your "Thai's are moronic" experiences to yourself.

Do yourself a favor, and try to use a bit of critical thinking. The issue raised by myself and others was the fact the guard took a balloon rule violation and turned it into physical violence. Behan was the only one at the hospital. Only you are using the insulting phrase " Thais are moronic", some sort of bizarre twist on my comment regarding Thai security guards. The guard was fired, gee I wonder if BTS thought he was wrong.....

So you think a guard threatening to strike me with a night stick is an appropriate response to sitting on steps ??? Wow you must come from a really strange place. I think you need to get out more....Regarding my threat to him, I only said that after he clearly indicated he was going to attack me. This was done to stop him , which it did.

I only use this story to illustrate that Thai security guards seem pretty quick to use violence to enforce a rule. I believe that that is what happened here. If it was otherwise, the tapes would be released. If this type of event has never happened to you, and you instantly obey every command given to you, then that is your life , thankfully not mine....... Ok school is out...

Edited April 10, 2012 by EyesWideOpen

[metisdead]

Off topic discussion of grammar usage has been removed as well as some other off topic posts.

[FangFerang]

@Longstebe, touche, but the airport has not the same tolerances as a skytrain either.

True. At the airport, supervisors can box the ears of subordinates doing their jobs and walk away empty handed...er, well, with their hands clean.

[eagleflyinghigh]

Another example of a superior attitude that leads some farangs into a rude awakening.

Very correct !

We foreigners should learn from the Thai hi so people. They are so "classy", very polite in a condescendent way and most importantly get away with virtually everything.

The art is having a superior attitude and become untouchable without showing it. Of course the behaviour af many foreigners is far from that and this is why even the guards who are at the lowest of the social ladder in Thailand don't respect us.

[F4UCorsair]

I left this thread a week ago thinking it had died a natural death, but it's kicked on.

Ulysses and Nisa are on the money. Behan was told by a security guard not to take balloons on; whether there is signage to that effect is IRRELEVANT, end of story on that issue. Behan felt he'd test the water and copped a mallet on the melon and didn't like it. Have we, or indeed has anybody, yet seen the entire BTS CCTV video? Until it's released and shows the guard as the aggressor, i.e., belting Behan without provocation, then there's no case for anybody here to bag the guard. BTS has no obligation to release the video to the general public, so for anybody to suggest because they haven't means the guard is at fault is demonstrating cock eyed logic at best and gross stupidity at worst.

Behan was a goose, tested the system, and copped the consequences. My money is still on Behan being the aggressor at all stages of the confrontation, but without the full CCTV video we will never know.

Edited April 10, 2012 by F4UCorsair

[sparebox2]

People such as this Thai security guard who, I guess, now earn an extraordinary inflated 300 baht a day, is some of the top reason why tourist kept away from LOS.

[F4UCorsair]

Me too Ulysses. No guard, no matter how undertrained, would just clobber a traveler for the hell of it.

Not me.

I do believe some words may have been exchanged, or maybe the falang just ignored him and that upset the guard, but that is still no reason to club someone. Well, at least not in a civilized world. In the mind of a Thai male it seems like a perfectly good reason to club, stab, or shoot.

I've seen Thais do really bad things to foreigners for no reason at all. Most were in Pattaya I may note, but some of them have a deep resentment towards falangs and are looking for any excuse to let out some of that resentment on them.

PoodMaiDai, please tell me what the security guards are to do then. A guy walks onto the platform smoking (slightly different case here) and is told to extinguish the fag but refuses to do so. The guard attempts to take it from him and he throws one at, or pushes, the guard.

What happens next?? Should the guard just let him on the train whilst smoking? Is that really what should happen?

I think posters here are losing track of the situation. We have only seen part of the video taken by somebody on a mobile 'phone, and that doesn't tell the full story, but if someone chooses to disregard instructions from a security guard, however insignificant they may think he is because of his income, or otherwise, that person is running a risk of escalating the situation.

I understand some Thais having a resentment toward foreigners, particularly those of the ilk of Behan, but consider it from their POV. Foreigners come to their country, most of them in significantly better financial positions than everyday Thais with whom they deal, get drunk, hire hookers, make jerks of themselves, crash motorcycles, fight with security guards, etc. How would you feel toward Thais if they did that in your country? Would you feel resentment? I bet you would.

Take a stroll down Soi Nana, Soi Cowboy, Khao San Road, when you're sober, and note the behaviour of drunken foreigners, and tell me, seriously, that if Thais behaved like that in your home city you wouldn't be offended, and feel resentment toward them.

You wouldn't dare argue with a security guard at a train station back home, wherever home is, regardless of how little authority you thought he had, for fear of the consequences.

Sparebox, that's drawing a long bow. A security guard hitting somebody is a reason why tourists are staying away??? Come on man, be serious!! Nobody has anything to fear from Thai security guards unless they choose to do the wrong thing. Guards are not walking the streets indiscriminately belting tourists over the head with batons, and to suggest that is downright foolish.

Edited April 10, 2012 by F4UCorsair

[EyesWideOpen]

@Longstebe, touche, but the airport has not the same tolerances as a skytrain either.

True. At the airport, supervisors can box the ears of subordinates doing their jobs and walk away empty handed...er, well, with their hands clean.

These two situations are interesting if they are compared side by side. Both Behan and the ranking customs official chose to ignore instructions from a security guard. But the outcome was vastly different. The guard at the BTS station whacked Behan, and the customs official whacked the security guard. So how does that fit in with the rose colored glasses brigade who dream of achieving " Thainess" ?? The powerful are immune to laws??? Farangs are ranked lower than buffaloes, so to hit them is no problem ?? Food for thought. What if it was a hi so Thai with his child carrying balloons? Will never know the answer, but will make a wild guess that nothing would have happened......

[carra]

If anyone wants to question the wisdom of the BTS as a whole one just needs to remember the fantastic advertising campaign that they allowed on the trains recently, the 'These seats are reserved for white people' to understand the level of stupidity and lack of understanding from the management, so to expect a guard of anything other than being in full control of himself or an understanding of rules, or indeed of what is acceptable in relation to other people, is asking a little too much.

now to repeat it again for the hard of thinking, even if Behan was a little mouthy before the first blow from the guard, the fact is the guard over reacted to a verbal excahnge and resorted to violence, this is from the witness statements guys, the guard struck the first blow and he struck the first blow because he was not in a position to control his temper, how dare the nasty farang question is authority.

The issue here is not whether Behan got a bit lippy, the issue is that he was assaulted a number of times, and from the witness statement this assault was not justified as he was not a direct threat to anyone. If anyone thinks this is acceptable behaviour to beat someone around the head because of a minor argument they need to have a long hard look at themselves. In fact deep down they probably already know this but are now too entrenched in their defence of everything Thai they have developed the Thainess of losing face disease which stops them from now backing away from their stance and starting to talk some sense on this matter.

[Nisa]

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain ... or in the case the gentleman who became irate while refusing to follow direction of those in charge of enforcing security and safety at the BTS and then continued on a path of using physical force and intimidation to trespass into a public transportation facility. All over balloons in front of his 7-year old daughter ... who by the way you can see in the video walk over and hand her balloons to the station manager right before her father, being restrained by a colleague, throws a kick into the the station manager's chest.

Of course some believe this is not what the story is about and we should ignore his actions and solely focus on the way guards may have handled his outburst, rule breaking, refusal to follow direction and then his assaults on non-threatening staff while he illegally forced his way into the facility and up to the train.

Clearly the guards didn't handle this right but any attempt to excuse this guy's behavior is very odd ... especially when trying to make this about a racial feelings Thai security may have had against a westerner. Any psychologist would clearly see this as a transfer of ones own feelings on to others.

Edited April 10, 2012 by Nisa

[eagleflyinghigh]

The guard at the BTS station whacked Behan, and the customs official whacked the security guard. So how does that fit in with the rose colored glasses brigade who dream of achieving " Thainess" ?? The powerful are immune to laws??? Farangs are ranked lower than buffaloes, so to hit them is no problem ?? Food for thought. What if it was a hi so Thai with his child carrying balloons? Will never know the answer, but will make a wild guess that nothing would have happened......

Congratulations and thank you for this post.

Real Thainess is to abuse as much people of a lower social level as possible and getting away with it. You can observe it in everyday's life.This real Thainess has an extremely ugly face many of us foreigners refuse to see.

[sparebox2]

If anyone wants to question the wisdom of the BTS as a whole one just needs to remember the fantastic advertising campaign that they allowed on the trains recently, the 'These seats are reserved for white people' to understand the level of stupidity and lack of understanding from the management, so to expect a guard of anything other than being in full control of himself or an understanding of rules, or indeed of what is acceptable in relation to other people, is asking a little too much.

now to repeat it again for the hard of thinking, even if Behan was a little mouthy before the first blow from the guard, the fact is the guard over reacted to a verbal excahnge and resorted to violence, this is from the witness statements guys, the guard struck the first blow and he struck the first blow because he was not in a position to control his temper, how dare the nasty farang question is authority.

The issue here is not whether Behan got a bit lippy, the issue is that he was assaulted a number of times, and from the witness statement this assault was not justified as he was not a direct threat to anyone. If anyone thinks this is acceptable behaviour to beat someone around the head because of a minor argument they need to have a long hard look at themselves. In fact deep down they probably already know this but are now too entrenched in their defence of everything Thai they have developed the Thainess of losing face disease which stops them from now backing away from their stance and starting to talk some sense on this matter.

http://ramblingsofanurbancrazyman.blogspot.com/2011/03/thai-ad-reserves-train-seats-for-white.html

No blacks allowed?

[Gweiloman]

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain ... or in the case the gentleman who became irate while refusing to follow direction of those in charge of enforcing security and safety at the BTS and then continued on a path of using physical force and intimidation to trespass into a public transportation facility. All over balloons in front of his 7-year old daughter ... who by the way you can see in the video walk over and hand her balloons to the station manager right before her father, being restrained by a colleague, throws a kick into the the station manager's chest.

Of course some believe this is not what the story is about and we should ignore his actions and solely focus on the way guards may have handled his outburst, rule breaking, refusal to follow direction and then his assaults on non-threatening staff while he illegally forced his way into the facility and up to the train.

Clearly the guards didn't handle this right but any attempt to excuse this guy's behavior is very odd ... especially when trying to make this about a racial feelings Thai security may have had against a westerner. Any psychologist would clearly see this as a transfer of ones own feelings on to others.

The only conclusion I can draw is that some farangs are outraged that they are not being treated as superior and above the law. Don't the Thais know that farangs rule the world? If not for the farangs, the Thais would still be living in trees and caves and eating raw meat and fish instead of McDonalds and KFC. How dare these sub-human Thais question the rights and actions of any farang who has condescended to visit this country and spend their very valuable money here, who has taken many a poor abject Thai female out of poverty and shown her the good life, the civilised life. The Thais should be grovelling at the farangs feet instead of challenging them.

[carra]

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain ... or in the case the gentleman who became irate while refusing to follow direction of those in charge of enforcing security and safety at the BTS and then continued on a path of using physical force and intimidation to trespass into a public transportation facility. All over balloons in front of his 7-year old daughter ... who by the way you can see in the video walk over and hand her balloons to the station manager right before her father, being restrained by a colleague, throws a kick into the the station manager's chest.

Of course some believe this is not what the story is about and we should ignore his actions and solely focus on the way guards may have handled his outburst, rule breaking, refusal to follow direction and then his assaults on non-threatening staff while he illegally forced his way into the facility and up to the train.

Clearly the guards didn't handle this right but any attempt to excuse this guy's behavior is very odd ... especially when trying to make this about a racial feelings Thai security may have had against a westerner. Any psychologist would clearly see this as a transfer of ones own feelings on to others.

The only conclusion I can draw is that some farangs are outraged that they are not being treated as superior and above the law. Don't the Thais know that farangs rule the world? If not for the farangs, the Thais would still be living in trees and caves and eating raw meat and fish instead of McDonalds and KFC. How dare these sub-human Thais question the rights and actions of any farang who has condescended to visit this country and spend their very valuable money here, who has taken many a poor abject Thai female out of poverty and shown her the good life, the civilised life. The Thais should be grovelling at the farangs feet instead of challenging them.

unbelievable., do you actually believe that drivel you have just put out there for all to see??

Oh I get it, its sarcasm, phew for a minute there i thought you was being serious.

[thaihome]

@Longstebe, touche, but the airport has not the same tolerances as a skytrain either.

True. At the airport, supervisors can box the ears of subordinates doing their jobs and walk away empty handed...er, well, with their hands clean.

These two situations are interesting if they are compared side by side. Both Behan and the ranking customs official chose to ignore instructions from a security guard. But the outcome was vastly different. The guard at the BTS station whacked Behan, and the customs official whacked the security guard. So how does that fit in with the rose colored glasses brigade who dream of achieving " Thainess" ?? The powerful are immune to laws??? Farangs are ranked lower than buffaloes, so to hit them is no problem ?? Food for thought. What if it was a hi so Thai with his child carrying balloons? Will never know the answer, but will make a wild guess that nothing would have happened......

Just so the whole story is told, the C-7 airport supervisor that struck the security gurad was relieved of his position and is facing a civil lawsuit for his actions.

TH

[carra]

Me too Ulysses. No guard, no matter how undertrained, would just clobber a traveler for the hell of it.

Not me.

I do believe some words may have been exchanged, or maybe the falang just ignored him and that upset the guard, but that is still no reason to club someone. Well, at least not in a civilized world. In the mind of a Thai male it seems like a perfectly good reason to club, stab, or shoot.

I've seen Thais do really bad things to foreigners for no reason at all. Most were in Pattaya I may note, but some of them have a deep resentment towards falangs and are looking for any excuse to let out some of that resentment on them.

PoodMaiDai, please tell me what the security guards are to do then. A guy walks onto the platform smoking (slightly different case here) and is told to extinguish the fag but refuses to do so. The guard attempts to take it from him and he throws one at, or pushes, the guard.

What happens next?? Should the guard just let him on the train whilst smoking? Is that really what should happen?

I think posters here are losing track of the situation. We have only seen part of the video taken by somebody on a mobile 'phone, and that doesn't tell the full story, but if someone chooses to disregard instructions from a security guard, however insignificant they may think he is because of his income, or otherwise, that person is running a risk of escalating the situation.

I understand some Thais having a resentment toward foreigners, particularly those of the ilk of Behan, but consider it from their POV. Foreigners come to their country, most of them in significantly better financial positions than everyday Thais with whom they deal, get drunk, hire hookers, make jerks of themselves, crash motorcycles, fight with security guards, etc. How would you feel toward Thais if they did that in your country? Would you feel resentment? I bet you would.

Take a stroll down Soi Nana, Soi Cowboy, Khao San Road, when you're sober, and note the behaviour of drunken foreigners, and tell me, seriously, that if Thais behaved like that in your home city you wouldn't be offended, and feel resentment toward them.

You wouldn't dare argue with a security guard at a train station back home, wherever home is, regardless of how little authority you thought he had, for fear of the consequences.

Sparebox, that's drawing a long bow. A security guard hitting somebody is a reason why tourists are staying away??? Come on man, be serious!! Nobody has anything to fear from Thai security guards unless they choose to do the wrong thing. Guards are not walking the streets indiscriminately belting tourists over the head with batons, and to suggest that is downright foolish.

Stopped reading when you say the smoker pushed the guard first in your example, anything after that is irrelivent as in the real instance (as per the witness statement) the guard became physical first.

[carra]

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain ... or in the case the gentleman who became irate while refusing to follow direction of those in charge of enforcing security and safety at the BTS and then continued on a path of using physical force and intimidation to trespass into a public transportation facility. All over balloons in front of his 7-year old daughter ... who by the way you can see in the video walk over and hand her balloons to the station manager right before her father, being restrained by a colleague, throws a kick into the the station manager's chest.

Of course some believe this is not what the story is about and we should ignore his actions and solely focus on the way guards may have handled his outburst, rule breaking, refusal to follow direction and then his assaults on non-threatening staff while he illegally forced his way into the facility and up to the train.

Clearly the guards didn't handle this right but any attempt to excuse this guy's behavior is very odd ... especially when trying to make this about a racial feelings Thai security may have had against a westerner. Any psychologist would clearly see this as a transfer of ones own feelings on to others.

Oh deary me, who has tried to excuse Behand behaviour? I don't recall this in the thread.

As for psychologists, I would think they would have a field day in here with many of the posters showing a new form of 'stockholm syndrome', just agreeing with everything Thai no matter how wrong it is, love the people that are doing wrong, make excuses for them, blame the victim etc etc etc, anything but admit that the Thai was very very wrong in this matter, and even those that grudgingly eventually admit this they always add the disclaimer about Behan deserving it a little.

[Gweiloman]

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain ... or in the case the gentleman who became irate while refusing to follow direction of those in charge of enforcing security and safety at the BTS and then continued on a path of using physical force and intimidation to trespass into a public transportation facility. All over balloons in front of his 7-year old daughter ... who by the way you can see in the video walk over and hand her balloons to the station manager right before her father, being restrained by a colleague, throws a kick into the the station manager's chest.

Of course some believe this is not what the story is about and we should ignore his actions and solely focus on the way guards may have handled his outburst, rule breaking, refusal to follow direction and then his assaults on non-threatening staff while he illegally forced his way into the facility and up to the train.

Clearly the guards didn't handle this right but any attempt to excuse this guy's behavior is very odd ... especially when trying to make this about a racial feelings Thai security may have had against a westerner. Any psychologist would clearly see this as a transfer of ones own feelings on to others.

The only conclusion I can draw is that some farangs are outraged that they are not being treated as superior and above the law. Don't the Thais know that farangs rule the world? If not for the farangs, the Thais would still be living in trees and caves and eating raw meat and fish instead of McDonalds and KFC. How dare these sub-human Thais question the rights and actions of any farang who has condescended to visit this country and spend their very valuable money here, who has taken many a poor abject Thai female out of poverty and shown her the good life, the civilised life. The Thais should be grovelling at the farangs feet instead of challenging them.

unbelievable., do you actually believe that drivel you have just put out there for all to see??

Oh I get it, its sarcasm, phew for a minute there i thought you was being serious.

No sarcasm.

[Gweiloman]

Me too Ulysses. No guard, no matter how undertrained, would just clobber a traveler for the hell of it.

Not me.

I do believe some words may have been exchanged, or maybe the falang just ignored him and that upset the guard, but that is still no reason to club someone. Well, at least not in a civilized world. In the mind of a Thai male it seems like a perfectly good reason to club, stab, or shoot.

I've seen Thais do really bad things to foreigners for no reason at all. Most were in Pattaya I may note, but some of them have a deep resentment towards falangs and are looking for any excuse to let out some of that resentment on them.

PoodMaiDai, please tell me what the security guards are to do then. A guy walks onto the platform smoking (slightly different case here) and is told to extinguish the fag but refuses to do so. The guard attempts to take it from him and he throws one at, or pushes, the guard.

What happens next?? Should the guard just let him on the train whilst smoking? Is that really what should happen?

I think posters here are losing track of the situation. We have only seen part of the video taken by somebody on a mobile 'phone, and that doesn't tell the full story, but if someone chooses to disregard instructions from a security guard, however insignificant they may think he is because of his income, or otherwise, that person is running a risk of escalating the situation.

I understand some Thais having a resentment toward foreigners, particularly those of the ilk of Behan, but consider it from their POV. Foreigners come to their country, most of them in significantly better financial positions than everyday Thais with whom they deal, get drunk, hire hookers, make jerks of themselves, crash motorcycles, fight with security guards, etc. How would you feel toward Thais if they did that in your country? Would you feel resentment? I bet you would.

Take a stroll down Soi Nana, Soi Cowboy, Khao San Road, when you're sober, and note the behaviour of drunken foreigners, and tell me, seriously, that if Thais behaved like that in your home city you wouldn't be offended, and feel resentment toward them.

You wouldn't dare argue with a security guard at a train station back home, wherever home is, regardless of how little authority you thought he had, for fear of the consequences.

Sparebox, that's drawing a long bow. A security guard hitting somebody is a reason why tourists are staying away??? Come on man, be serious!! Nobody has anything to fear from Thai security guards unless they choose to do the wrong thing. Guards are not walking the streets indiscriminately belting tourists over the head with batons, and to suggest that is downright foolish.

Stopped reading when you say the smoker pushed the guard first in your example, anything after that is irrelivent as in the real instance (as per the witness statement) the guard became physical first.

You are putting a lot of faith in the witness, aren't you? Won't it be better to believe what you eyes tell you, as evidenced from the video that is widely available?

[Curt1591]

Unfortunately, no one one these boards has seen the CCTV footage.

[animatic]

The guard at the BTS station whacked Behan, and the customs official whacked the security guard. So how does that fit in with the rose colored glasses brigade who dream of achieving " Thainess" ?? The powerful are immune to laws??? Farangs are ranked lower than buffaloes, so to hit them is no problem ?? Food for thought. What if it was a hi so Thai with his child carrying balloons? Will never know the answer, but will make a wild guess that nothing would have happened......

Congratulations and thank you for this post.

Real Thainess is to abuse as much people of a lower social level as possible and getting away with it. You can observe it in everyday's life.This real Thainess has an extremely ugly face many of us foreigners refuse to see.

Kow Tow society at it's most accurate Not it's best.

Just this is the logical end product of this type of indoctrinated culture.

[mauGR1]

The guard at the BTS station whacked Behan, and the customs official whacked the security guard. So how does that fit in with the rose colored glasses brigade who dream of achieving " Thainess" ?? The powerful are immune to laws??? Farangs are ranked lower than buffaloes, so to hit them is no problem ?? Food for thought. What if it was a hi so Thai with his child carrying balloons? Will never know the answer, but will make a wild guess that nothing would have happened......

Congratulations and thank you for this post.

Real Thainess is to abuse as much people of a lower social level as possible and getting away with it. You can observe it in everyday's life.This real Thainess has an extremely ugly face many of us foreigners refuse to see.

Kow Tow society at it's most accurate Not it's best.

Just this is the logical end product of this type of indoctrinated culture.

3 very generalising posts.

If your education brought you to look down on a whole country's people, that education is flawed IMHO.

btw, never heard that "Thainess" is "abusing lower rank people" ; it happens everywhere when the boss is a idiot.

[heiwa]

Unless a verbal argument is now considered asking for it. Which many here believe is the case.

I've seen and dealt with many BTS station guards over the years... And I too certainly would like to see the full surveillance video to discern what really happened here.

But nothing in my past experience suggests the typical BTS guard is likely to whack a passenger in the head with their metal detector without considerable provocation... And the teacher guy's conduct on the video we have seen certainly is suggestive of him going well beyond a verbal dispute.

Are you really trying to suggest he was a perfectly polite, reasonable soul beforehand. But suddenly for no reason got whacked in the head. And then immediately turns into a raging maniac who's trying to kick a woman station chief while his friend has to restrain him by horse collar grabbing him around the neck as he continues to struggle???

I have always felt like royalty when I have spoken to BTS security guards. Would have thought they were incapable of hurting an ant.

[metisdead]

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[metisdead]

Off topic generalizations, derogatory posts, racist/bigoted posts and obfuscation posts have been removed:

:

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Edit: This topic is not about Buddhism, if you want to talk about Buddhism, go to the Buddhism forum, another post removed.

[Ulysses G.]

I hate to spoil the party, but without the CCTV footage no one on either side can be sure how the Irish fellow ended up getting wacked and the same arguments are going around and around in circles.

[animatic]

The guard at the BTS station whacked Behan, and the customs official whacked the security guard. So how does that fit in with the rose colored glasses brigade who dream of achieving " Thainess" ?? The powerful are immune to laws??? Farangs are ranked lower than buffaloes, so to hit them is no problem ?? Food for thought. What if it was a hi so Thai with his child carrying balloons? Will never know the answer, but will make a wild guess that nothing would have happened......

Congratulations and thank you for this post.

Real Thainess is to abuse as much people of a lower social level as possible and getting away with it. You can observe it in everyday's life.This real Thainess has an extremely ugly face many of us foreigners refuse to see.

Kow Tow society at it's most accurate. Not it's best.

Just this is the logical end product of this type of indoctrinated culture.

3 very generalising posts.

If your education brought you to look down on a whole country's people, that education is flawed IMHO.

btw, never heard that "Thainess" is "abusing lower rank people" ; it happens everywhere when the boss is a idiot.

Nothing more than applying anthropological and sociological observation to the culture.

If the observation offends, that is not my intent nor fault.

You, not I, impose some implied looking down element.

In my opinion the worst part of Thai culture that causes the most Thais the most problems in life is Kow Tow, passed on for millennia by the Chinese, and implemented in a particularly Thai fashion here.

And Kow Tow is tied directly to Face and how all facets of the society interact.

It was clearly in play in this incident.

Edited April 10, 2012 by animatic

[metisdead]

More off topic apologist/obfuscational nonsense posts have been removed.

[mauGR1]

I hate to spoil the party, but without the CCTV footage no one on either side can be sure how the Irish fellow ended up getting wacked and the same arguments are going around and around in circles.

Maybe we will never see any footage..

btw, a bit off topic and speculating, i noticed a few times our gracious hosts getting incensed when hearing the f word, even when not directed at them..

I noticed as well some nationality's people using that word frequently, and mostly in a jokingly way, without intentions to offend anyone..

Maybe just a misunderstanding at the beginning of the confrontation, which escalated dramatically.

[Nisa]

I hate to spoil the party, but without the CCTV footage no one on either side can be sure how the Irish fellow ended up getting wacked and the same arguments are going around and around in circles.

Maybe we will never see any footage..

btw, a bit off topic and speculating, i noticed a few times our gracious hosts getting incensed when hearing the f word, even when not directed at them..

I noticed as well some nationality's people using that word frequently, and mostly in a jokingly way, without intentions to offend anyone..

Maybe just a misunderstanding at the beginning of the confrontation, which escalated dramatically.

I think you are right on about the F word ... very bad choice of a word to use here when displaying anger.