Thai Editorial: Why Can't We Learn From Past Experience?

[bigbamboo]

It is a shame and I feel sad for the farmers trying to make a living and also people having to sell their livestock.

It seems that the people in power of these issues only report the problem and actually do nothing about solving it.

As a foreigner there is really nothing we can do about it. (Or is there? Im not sure?) It is a big problem for Thailand so therefore it is a shame that the problem falls on the Thai people trying to make a living. From what I have seen they work really hard to make that living, the farmers that is.

I wish there is a way to help these kind of isues!

floods, drought and weather were there before people tried to make a living and before that floods, drought and weather weren't a problem.

Ah, but there was a point at which farmers used to simply grow stuff to feed themselves. Can there be a crop anywhere in the world that is more wasteful of such a precious resource as water, as rice?

Or as easy and cheap to produce....... pre PTP of course.

[Publicus]

Why can't we learn? There has to be a willingness to learn. From experience here Thai's want it all to themselves and love to suck ideas from the farang but never want to pay for it or include the farang in the overall results. It's a one way street and Thai's will not change. We just have to work within 'their' system and apply their rules. JIT management does not work but try telling that to them - they will just smile back.

A Thai wanted me to help him in an Exim business startup which interested me greatly, until it became clear that my only return on my investment of my human resource was the personal satisfaction and the professional accomplishment I would get from the endeavor - he would get ALL the bucks, so I told him to get lost.

The most telling failure of Thai culture and intellect (generous words, I know ) is that we all are "falang," without any distinction or difference. The Thai mind bundles all of us into one word irrespective of which continent we are from, which country, which version of native English or learned English we speak. I explain to Thais that the word "Farang" is a French word and from the vocabulary of the French language - it literally means "French" or "France," alternating in its application according to simple context. That Thais call all of us French or of France indicates the failure of Thais to learn differences, distinctions or to delineate. The word "foreigner" is a legitimate broad and sweeping word that does apply well in daily life. Calling me French, however, may offend the French more than it offends me .

Thais don't learn. Thais can't learn.

[nuananddon]

The wife and I are farmers from North America, one thing that is never certain is the weather, some years crops are good, some years they are not and it pretty much depends on Mother Nature. There's and old saying, "where there is rain there will be grain". These rain making scams are junk science,predicting long range weather(months in advance) is also junk science. There's only one certainty the weather is unpredictable is is never a certainty.