Loosing control while being bored.

[CMKiwi]

Couple of years military service should sort them out.

Sort out what?

Teach them better aiming next time they decide to settle things with shooting?

I dont see how idling around in military would be solution for the villagers.

Getting a job would be, but there isnt that many jobs, especially in the countryside, period.

Thai stat is a big fat lie about unemployment beeing 1% in the country.

I think what Bpuumike was trying to point out is that in general terms, military service teaches individuals a lot of life skills. The military is not just about teaching people to point and shoot a gun/rifle.

A lot of kids in Thailand (And other countries) do not have a great deal of self esteem nor personal discipline. This in turn can lead to a lack of focus or goals in life, The military also offers education to varying levels dependant on the individuals requirements or desires. This in turn increases their employability after military service.

Sure there will be those few individuals that drop out or are kicked out of the service due to being 'untrainable' or having undesireable qualities that cannot be 'corrected'. However the majority of those that do join the military, do go on to become an upstanding citizen who contributes to society in general.

Yes I did my time in the military....not in this country, some things I may not have agreed with but over all the systems in place worked. And those systems or Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) were constantly being reviewed. Draconian measures were not used or accepted as a form of discipline, education was paramount. Recruits were taught about integrity, loyalty and dedication. The majority of recruits gained so much more out of 3 months training, than what they had in their 17+ years previously. I still believe in what the military 'system' has to offer. It works.

[Toscano]

Many Thais are very lazy , if work is there they may do it , but won't go looking for it . Many Thai children are brought up to do nothing , even to help around the home . Mothers often don't want their children , especially boys to go away from their home village . This also encourages in breeding of close relationships in rural communities , so the problem re-perpetutes itself .

[MobileContent]

'The devil makes work for idle hands' is the phrase I grew up with in Yorkshire - same same.

I have 2 BILs, both early thirties and have the same background, education and opportunities. One is a lazy @rse who sits around does nothing and still lives with his wife and two daughters in one bedroom in my in-laws family home. The other is on the go all the time doing jobs here there and everywhere and has just finished building, with local help, his own small home for his family. I give him plenty of work around the house and so does my wife around her farm, which he always does with dilligence and application. We've given up employing the other worthless to$$er.

Limited opportunity in an Issan village is too easy an excuse.

I fully agree with you.

My FIL has a small construction business and their are plenty on unemployed in the age of 18 - 25 years. When they really need money they will come and work for two days, get their 600 Baht from my FIL and then they will just drink for the next 3-4 days Lao Khao. Their parents seems to be not caring with their Never mind attitude. I told my FIL, dump them all from your payroll and ship two good workers in from the North and he has listened to my advise. He now only employs workers from Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai and some cousins that either follow the rules or more workers will be shipped in from the North.

He pays above the price with 300 Baht per day plus free food, free pickup/return from/to their home and he is a very good boss by giving a few bottles of beer after the day is done.

He also stopped giving advance payments for the Isaan workers (except the workers from the North) because once they got advance, they will spend it on the nearest KTV and the next day they are MIA again.

[robertson468]

Psychological issues apart, the top and bottom of this issue is Parenting. The Parental responsibility towards their children is to prepare them to become useful members of society. If they do not, then this is clearly a parental failure and this needs to be made known in Thailand. My Sister-in-Law has three children, and like many Thais, does not like confrontation. The Eldest Daughter has a strong and at times rebellious character. Mother's solution was to ignore her and the problem. In fact the problem was quite simple - she always praised the other two for whatever they did and would say to the Eldest, "why can't you be like them and be good at school/help at home" or whatever. The Girl, at the difficult age of 13 years of age was heading for a slippery slope. My Wife and I said we would take her in and take care of her. Three years later, she realised that people love her and came out of her belligerence and started to study hard at school and eventually won a place at Uni. My Wife has had a Sisterly chat with her Mother to point out the error of her ways. She now seeks to praise her Daughter when she can. As they say in the story book..............."and they lived happily ever after". We hope!

[salapau]

Time for the village leaders and political leaders to provide something, some facility or opportunity, for bored young men to work off their energy and frustrations. In some countries the police and similar institutions like the military provide boxing and fight training, or a gym or some physical outlet to give kids a sense of worth and community. Leaving them to rot is setting the fuse to a bomb that will explode in the face of innocent bystanders.

In Thailand ? No chance.

[smotherb]

Forgive me if this was intended to be a Thai only complaint, but have any of you noticed the youth in your own countries?

[SOTIRIOS]

Time for the village leaders and political leaders to provide something, some facility or opportunity, for bored young men to work off their energy and frustrations. In some countries the police and similar institutions like the military provide boxing and fight training, or a gym or some physical outlet to give kids a sense of worth and community. Leaving them to rot is setting the fuse to a bomb that will explode in the face of innocent bystanders.

......where is all the money allocated to the villages.......millions....billions.....trillions.....have disappeared...

[Mudcrab]

'An idle mind is a devil's workshop' if i remember correctly. Very true.

Did you know his grandpa?

Great memory. Anyway, just joking.

We get the point and its a national shame and very reflective of a lot of Thai consciousness especially in the villages. Up to you. Its too hot.

and so on . . .

Within our village family we have some very bright kids whose parents are illiterate and who are top of their school. Very studious, very driven,

and lovely natures. . .

despite illiteracy, all the parents are very active. . . industrious, with the little they have

Know his Grandpa???....I married his sister!!!

[Maggusoil]

'An idle mind is a devil's workshop' if i remember correctly. Very true.

Did you know his grandpa?

Great memory. Anyway, just joking.

We get the point and its a national shame and very reflective of a lot of Thai consciousness especially in the villages. Up to you. Its too hot.

and so on . . .

Within our village family we have some very bright kids whose parents are illiterate and who are top of their school. Very studious, very driven,

and lovely natures. . .

despite illiteracy, all the parents are very active. . . industrious, with the little they have

Know his Grandpa???....I married his sister!!!

One big wise and happy family . . .

[krisb]

Forgive me if this was intended to be a Thai only complaint, but have any of you noticed the youth in your own countries?

Your right but it's not to the scale of Thai villages imo

[SantiSuk]

I am going to float a theory that will seem odd, but I think there is something to it:

A lot of this laziness regarding young men is due to the easy access to sex for the young men. Hear me out.

When I think about the guys I knew back at home, even the ones who went straight from high school to a job, their primary motivation to work was women. Sure, they wanted cars and games and excitement, but you needed money to get women--to take them out to dinner, to have transportation for that, to have decent enough clothes and a haircut, to mention a few.

Here, I see many guys like my BIL (kind of...long story). He is about 20 now. For the last 2 or 3 years, he has worked off and on, but mostly he specializes in loafing around the house, smoking the odd cigarette, making omelets for himself and cooking up some pork....maybe some whiskey with when he runs into 60 baht or whatever it costs now turns up. So, he is not a degenerate or anything...no trouble with the law or any drugs or anything and he really doesn't drink much. It is just odd that he doesn't feel the need to make money (I would estimate that, on any given day, he wakes up with somewhere between 0 and 50 baht in his pockets).

Amazingly, the guy still gets girls and gets laid! And not the paid kind. So, he has no need to actively strive to get more money or even to get a date with a woman.

Again, I am not saying that this explains the whole phenomenon, but it must play a role. I know it would have for me as well when I was that age.

Yes - you have something there. I see it in my lazy ba$tard BIL of an earlier posting. He's a pretty-boy (ex-Muay Thai fighter - I think that's his problem that he can't come to terms with being too old to fight for decent money at 32) and my SIL, who loves him to bits, and will not kick him out of the house, despite the fact that she has to raise all the money for their family to live and despite the fact that she has to search the local villages to find which wench he is screwing tonight and plead with him to come home. Tragic waste for the entire family.

PS - can some mod change the title - the typo is a bit irritating!

Edited September 22, 2013 by SantiSuk

[Squigy]

i am aware of two kids (same mother) in the village where I reside who are looked after by their eldely grandparents who are just about past it, after working many hard years in the rice fields.

The mother has moved to BKK and comes back about once a year to see her kids. The father disappeared when the kids were born and has never come back to the village.

Consquently they are brought up by the grandparents who never discpilne them, nor bother to feed them. The mother has moved on to another bf in BKK... Yes they go to the local govt school but anybody who has stepped into a govt school will know that they get a very limited education. These kids have been born to work the fields by the self centred grand parents. These kids life is what you called finished as they have no money not hope for a better education to get thenselves out of this cycle of rut, No doubt they will go on to have kids later and the same thing will happen to their kids. A life in the rice fields of Isaan.

[DILLIGAD]

Ambition / bettering ones self, seems a foreign idea in deepest Isaan, do ya think?

[BookMan]

I am going to float a theory that will seem odd, but I think there is something to it:

A lot of this laziness regarding young men is due to the easy access to sex for the young men. Hear me out.

When I think about the guys I knew back at home, even the ones who went straight from high school to a job, their primary motivation to work was women. Sure, they wanted cars and games and excitement, but you needed money to get women--to take them out to dinner, to have transportation for that, to have decent enough clothes and a haircut, to mention a few.

Here, I see many guys like my BIL (kind of...long story). He is about 20 now. For the last 2 or 3 years, he has worked off and on, but mostly he specializes in loafing around the house, smoking the odd cigarette, making omelets for himself and cooking up some pork....maybe some whiskey with when he runs into 60 baht or whatever it costs now turns up. So, he is not a degenerate or anything...no trouble with the law or any drugs or anything and he really doesn't drink much. It is just odd that he doesn't feel the need to make money (I would estimate that, on any given day, he wakes up with somewhere between 0 and 50 baht in his pockets).

Amazingly, the guy still gets girls and gets laid! And not the paid kind. So, he has no need to actively strive to get more money or even to get a date with a woman.

Again, I am not saying that this explains the whole phenomenon, but it must play a role. I know it would have for me as well when I was that age.

Your theory is that there is a strong attraction between men and women?

[harrry]

Forgive me if this was intended to be a Thai only complaint, but have any of you noticed the youth in your own countries?

Your right but it's not to the scale of Thai villages imo

Just check out an australian housing commission type suburb. THere are many good people there but these days they are outnumbered.

[harrry]

A few years ago and in another country it would not be unusual for youths to settle a score on someone physically. Most of the time it resulted in a couple of black eyes and a few bruises. Now both there and here the same behaviour results in much more serious injuries because of the weopons available (and I know many are homemade). Still I guess as we are allways being told guns do not kill people.

[rgs2001uk]

Ambition / bettering ones self, seems a foreign idea in deepest Isaan, do ya think?

You can educate them all you want, you can provide more training courses than you can shake a stick at, you can even provide them with a job, all to no avail, the one thing you cant do is install a work ethic.

Bone idle wasters content to scrounge off the family and anyone else dumb enough to give them money.

[Dancealot]

Forgive me if this was intended to be a Thai only complaint, but have any of you noticed the youth in your own countries?

Your right but it's not to the scale of Thai villages imo

So how do you figure that, Krisb? The crux of the thread is based on this assumption.

[dao16]

I am going to float a theory that will seem odd, but I think there is something to it:

A lot of this laziness regarding young men is due to the easy access to sex for the young men. Hear me out.

When I think about the guys I knew back at home, even the ones who went straight from high school to a job, their primary motivation to work was women. Sure, they wanted cars and games and excitement, but you needed money to get women--to take them out to dinner, to have transportation for that, to have decent enough clothes and a haircut, to mention a few.

Here, I see many guys like my BIL (kind of...long story). He is about 20 now. For the last 2 or 3 years, he has worked off and on, but mostly he specializes in loafing around the house, smoking the odd cigarette, making omelets for himself and cooking up some pork....maybe some whiskey with when he runs into 60 baht or whatever it costs now turns up. So, he is not a degenerate or anything...no trouble with the law or any drugs or anything and he really doesn't drink much. It is just odd that he doesn't feel the need to make money (I would estimate that, on any given day, he wakes up with somewhere between 0 and 50 baht in his pockets).

Amazingly, the guy still gets girls and gets laid! And not the paid kind. So, he has no need to actively strive to get more money or even to get a date with a woman.

Again, I am not saying that this explains the whole phenomenon, but it must play a role. I know it would have for me as well when I was that age.

Your theory is that there is a strong attraction between men and women?

Uh, no.

[Dancealot]

I am going to float a theory that will seem odd, but I think there is something to it:

A lot of this laziness regarding young men is due to the easy access to sex for the young men. Hear me out.

When I think about the guys I knew back at home, even the ones who went straight from high school to a job, their primary motivation to work was women. Sure, they wanted cars and games and excitement, but you needed money to get women--to take them out to dinner, to have transportation for that, to have decent enough clothes and a haircut, to mention a few.

Here, I see many guys like my BIL (kind of...long story). He is about 20 now. For the last 2 or 3 years, he has worked off and on, but mostly he specializes in loafing around the house, smoking the odd cigarette, making omelets for himself and cooking up some pork....maybe some whiskey with when he runs into 60 baht or whatever it costs now turns up. So, he is not a degenerate or anything...no trouble with the law or any drugs or anything and he really doesn't drink much. It is just odd that he doesn't feel the need to make money (I would estimate that, on any given day, he wakes up with somewhere between 0 and 50 baht in his pockets).

Amazingly, the guy still gets girls and gets laid! And not the paid kind. So, he has no need to actively strive to get more money or even to get a date with a woman.

Again, I am not saying that this explains the whole phenomenon, but it must play a role. I know it would have for me as well when I was that age.

Your theory is that there is a strong attraction between men and women?

Uh, no.

But you are saying if a guy like that gets laid all the time, he won't be motivated to get his lazy ass of to work..?

[Dancealot]

Ambition / bettering ones self, seems a foreign idea in deepest Isaan, do ya think?

You can educate them all you want, you can provide more training courses than you can shake a stick at, you can even provide them with a job, all to no avail, the one thing you cant do is install a work ethic.

Bone idle wasters content to scrounge off the family and anyone else dumb enough to give them money.

I would like to add this is only a small but significant percentage of guys. Most families have the odd outcast. They just have to be dealt with, properly..

Don't forget the majority of guys are doing their best and are highly motivated to work. Sadly the oppertunity lacks.

Edited September 22, 2013 by Dancealot

[krisb]

Here's 1 that really really pizzes me right off....

Being able to pay your way out of jail time from crimes such as violent assault and death caused from acts of crime. Why is this allowed in Thailand? Its a joke and a mockery imo. What's prison for then?

Do the crime, do the time.

[Dancealot]

Here's 1 that really really pizzes me right off....

Being able to pay your way out of jail time from crimes such as violent assault and death caused from acts of crime. Why is this allowed in Thailand? Its a joke and a mockery imo. What's prison for then?

Do the crime, do the time.

I don't suppose this has got anything to do with some people's susceptibility to take on bribes? I think it goes further that that, you see, even in high(more educated) places this is going on.

Frankly, I think this knowing is the same in many countrys in the world. Just Thailand has a bad rep on soliciting.... so general consensus associates corruption. The pre-disposition that is invoked by the media and general consensus has to be taken into account while establishing your personal opinion.

[rgs2001uk]

Ambition / bettering ones self, seems a foreign idea in deepest Isaan, do ya think?

You can educate them all you want, you can provide more training courses than you can shake a stick at, you can even provide them with a job, all to no avail, the one thing you cant do is install a work ethic.

Bone idle wasters content to scrounge off the family and anyone else dumb enough to give them money.

I would like to add this is only a small but significant percentage of guys. Most families have the odd outcast. They just have to be dealt with, properly..

Don't forget the majority of guys are doing their best and are highly motivated to work. Sadly the oppertunity lacks.

Don't forget the majority of guys are doing their best and are highly motivated to work. Sadly the oppertunity lacks.

I dont know the last time you were in either Pattaya or Bangkok, there are plenty of jobs advertised.

Perhaps these guys should follow the example of the plenty of hard working people from Issan who make the journey south to find employment, and stay for years trying to better themselves and at the same time support elderly relatives upcountry whilst also raising a family in Bangkok.

[DILLIGAD]

I dont know the last time you were in either Pattaya or Bangkok, there are plenty of jobs advertised.

Perhaps these guys should follow the example of the plenty of hard working people from Issan who make the journey south to find employment, and stay for years trying to better themselves and at the same time support elderly relatives upcountry whilst also raising a family in Bangkok.

Maybe they think that that move is only for their Isaan sisters???

[richardjm65]

As long as the poorly educated youngsters continue to be indulged and supported by their mothers/sisters/aunts/girlfriends, they'll continue to believe that the world owes them a living. We know that employment opportunities exist, and so do they, but as long as there's fuel for the 'bike, a bit for either alcohol and/or drugs, where's the encouragement to get up and make an effort? A bit of inter-village violence is simply normal fun. Unfortunate if someone gets killed, but that's how it goes.

I know of families nearby who are exclusively supplied with their needs by their mothers who, oddly enough, are living with foreigners. These young, able-bodied guys are able to spawn kids in the certain knowledge that they will be provided for, without any useful input, (other than sperm), to the family well being. Questioned about it, the supporting grandmother will say 'what can I do - they're my sons and my grandchildren - if not me, then who?'

Johnny foreigner will foot the bill.

[simonuk]

Forgive me if this was intended to be a Thai only complaint, but have any of you noticed the youth in your own countries?

Your right but it's not to the scale of Thai villages imo

I liken the villages to red brick council estates in the uk. Full of salt of the earth types, generally good people. But low education levels and few job oportunities for several generations have created some long standing social issues.

[krisb]

So what job options does a 16 year old who didn't finish school have?

[krisb]

Forgive me if this was intended to be a Thai only complaint, but have any of you noticed the youth in your own countries?

Your right but it's not to the scale of Thai villages imo

I liken the villages to red brick council estates in the uk. Full of salt of the earth types, generally good people. But low education levels and few job oportunities for several generations have created some long standing social issues.

From an Australian perspective I compare it to the Australian aboriginals.

[dao16]

I am going to float a theory that will seem odd, but I think there is something to it:

A lot of this laziness regarding young men is due to the easy access to sex for the young men. Hear me out.

When I think about the guys I knew back at home, even the ones who went straight from high school to a job, their primary motivation to work was women. Sure, they wanted cars and games and excitement, but you needed money to get women--to take them out to dinner, to have transportation for that, to have decent enough clothes and a haircut, to mention a few.

Here, I see many guys like my BIL (kind of...long story). He is about 20 now. For the last 2 or 3 years, he has worked off and on, but mostly he specializes in loafing around the house, smoking the odd cigarette, making omelets for himself and cooking up some pork....maybe some whiskey with when he runs into 60 baht or whatever it costs now turns up. So, he is not a degenerate or anything...no trouble with the law or any drugs or anything and he really doesn't drink much. It is just odd that he doesn't feel the need to make money (I would estimate that, on any given day, he wakes up with somewhere between 0 and 50 baht in his pockets).

Amazingly, the guy still gets girls and gets laid! And not the paid kind. So, he has no need to actively strive to get more money or even to get a date with a woman.

Again, I am not saying that this explains the whole phenomenon, but it must play a role. I know it would have for me as well when I was that age.

Your theory is that there is a strong attraction between men and women?

Uh, no.

But you are saying if a guy like that gets laid all the time, he won't be motivated to get his lazy ass of to work..?

I am just saying that it is a big motivator for young guys. Don't even necessarily mean sex, just going out with girls. Try picking up women in the West by telling them that you live at home and don't work (and the vast majority of countries in Asia, for that matter--although the living at home thing isn't as big of a deal).

I am not saying it is the sole explanation--it wasn't the sole motivator for people I knew at that age--but it was a big one.