What Do You Miss Most?

[Totster]

I miss my mama!

And me .. espcially this one..

totster

[taxexile]

[jingjoe]

Jack Daniels. you just cant find a decent JD in Asia

Excellent little bottleshop & cigar shop near the Emporium in bkk. Out the front, take a left, about 200 meters down Suk Road.

[jingjoe]

Apart from one little joint in Patong beach Phuket (next to the safari beach hotel... at least it was..) Jim Beam and Cola cans??? anyone know a place?

[leftcross]

i miss fat, fat women thinking they are desirable

[alexth]

i miss fat, fat women thinking they are desirable

[alexth]

For all you long term residence, what items from home do you find you can not get in Thailand?

Jack Daniels. you just cant find a decent JD in Asia

That's also true. The taste is so different from the one in the West.

[OldAsiaHand]

For all you long term residence, what items from home do you find you can not get in Thailand?

I presume you mean 'residents,' not 'residence.'

Which brings me quite nicely to my answer....

Intelligent people.

[AlexLah]

I miss the change of seasons.

Alex

[kat]

II miss men who have more than 2 templates for a woman (bad girl/good girl; whore/madonna; girlfriend/prostitute; Thai/farang).

I forgot one other example of the above "templates": I miss men who don't categorize women into paid sex/free sex. I also miss men who can listen to a woman's point of view - or even remember what is a woman with a point of view - without condescension or attempts at degradation.

[tourleadersi]

II miss men who have more than 2 templates for a woman (bad girl/good girl; whore/madonna; girlfriend/prostitute; Thai/farang).

I forgot one other example of the above "templates": I miss men who don't categorize women into paid sex/free sex. I also miss men who can listen to a woman's point of view - or even remember what is a woman with a point of view - without condescension or attempts at degradation.

Thats quite interesting Kat. I read your first post on this thread and took it all as your opinions. Whilst I didn't agree with some of your points of view I respect all of them as they are yours, not mine. Then you come back for more, virtually accusing men on this forum of not allowing women the right to their own opinions!

Were you disappointed that no one attacked you after the first post? Do you want some man to attack so that you can emphasise your point? Did you realise you were laying bait in an attempt to draw a man out?

What I did find very interesting is that most men on here are listing consumer goods, or natural wonders such as the changing seasons, views of the Lake District (stunning) whilst you listed a high number of more personal things that you miss. I'm guessing that this is possibly due to some women who choose to live in Thailand finding it very difficult to feel fulfilled, something that doesn't appear to be a problem for a similar number of men?

[kat]

Am I the only one laying out bait? Or did I get away with the cheese? Either way, it doesn't really matter. I responded fully to the OPs question.

[CalicoConsulting]

Let me come at this question with a different slant. I lived in China for over 6 years. The things I missed most were salads and Vegemite. Chiang Mai has both in abundance. So I can think of nothing at all.

In China, I managed to cook some mighty good Italian food (I'm a LaRocca) and some passable Mexican food. (Years as the only white boy on Latino hog farms in the US made me love it.) Chiang Mai has them.

I was a major NFL junkie when I left the US in 1999, and know about every NFL website there is, since China only televised two Super Bowls in this millenium, but Chiang Mai has ESPN and some other channels as well. Oh, be still my redneck heart.

If you've read some of my other posts, you know I dote over my cat way too much. Well, Chiang Mai has the best scratching posts I've ever seen.

(Right about now a reader or two is realizing I've mentioned loving Vegemite and being from the US, and is confused. I met my Australian wife in Hong Kong, where they have Vegemite. She introduced me to it and I was immediately hooked, thereby shattering one stereotype. Loved it enough to make a friend bring me some from Indonesia, in fact. The other stereotypes about Americans are probably accurate.)

China taught me that I hate driving, so here in Chiang Mai I have a bicycle, same as in China, except that it's a better bicycle and I hope to hang onto it longer than 6 months. I bought 5 or 6 or I forget how many over there. In short, I do NOT miss driving. And haggling with tuk tuk and songtaew guys? Just like China.

Hot dogs? Not exactly my thang, but go to Hangzhou and eat what Dairy Queen passes off as a Chicago Style Hot Dog. That's an insult to anybody who's ever hung a Ditka poster on the wall. Not that I have. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

In China, most farangs, which we call lao wei, missed cheese and chocolate. They're here. (Years of manufacturing M&Ms made me hate chocolate. Cheese is good.) Me, I mised pretzels. They're here. And when I lived in a town without real coffee, that was a problem. But you've been to Rimping. You know that's not a problem here.

I used to live in a place where the best way to get books in English was from Amazon. Did you ever look at their shipping costs? It's a wonder I didn't wind up in debtors prison. No, books matter to me. I write them. And you KNOW the book scene here is awesome. The last place I lived in, in the USA, had 98 people, and I was the only one who didn't breed cows. (I worked on the hog farm up the road with my amigos.) So you know WE didn't have books. Or teeth.

So what do I miss? Nothing at all. See, I told you I was coming at this from a different mindset than you are. Anybody else come to Thailand after burning out in China? If so, well, I don't wanna know about it. I'm trying to forget. Hee.

Edited August 13, 2006 by CalicoConsulting

[kat]

Is that your cat or the consultant?

[CalicoConsulting]

Kat,

That's Picasso. I found her at the Hong Kong SPCA in February 2000. She was 7 months old, even though her paperwork said she was only 4 months old. She was malnourished. Also a tail bent by being slammed into a door, head bald from stress, and some wicked ear mites.

(I learned later she's got those bald streaks because her brain's too good. Burns those hairs outta there from the inside.)

I decided my wife (Jan) needed a cat. I found Picasso, whose name wasn't Picasso yet. I took her home to Jan. But Picasso decided she was Daddy's girl. Years later, Jan's acceptable, but Picasso is still Daddy's girl.

I used to say stuff like "Jan needs a cat" and "I'm not a cat person." I'm a redneck. I had dawgs. To explain the current Picasso relationship was hard enough when I talked to Daddy about it. But now I have to explain it to Asians all the time. They don't get it. Ah well. I don't care.

So is Picasso the consultant? Nah. She's my master more than anything. I suppose she could also be my consultant if I had the good sense to listen to her more often.

And what the heck, here's another photo. I got a million of em. This is an oldie, complete with spaying scar.

Edited August 13, 2006 by CalicoConsulting

[kat]

She sounds great. That's another thing I miss:

being able to keep pets.

[migrant]

For all you long term residence, what items from home do you find you can not get in Thailand?

I presume you mean 'residents,' not 'residence.'

Which brings me quite nicely to my answer....

Intelligent people.

Sure, understandable. Wherever I'm at I sometimes miss people with a sense of humor

[CalicoConsulting]

Howdy!

Okay, I play redneck a lot. Not on TV, but on the Internet. Why? Because I am one. I remember when my folks sent grits and country ham to me in China.

Okay, okay, no more jokes. Although they did.

"Getting redneck" is a phrase we use to refer to insisting upon something that is near and dear to us when nobody else gets it. As in, we're ready to Hatfield & McCoy you on this. We don't use these words lightly.

(Keeping in mind that I wasn't raised by a redneck. I finally got to know my redneck father when I was 26 years old and embraced what I thought was the best of his redneckedness.)

I've only put my "getting redneck" moments into writing twice. I've published five novels and about 300 issues of my free newsletter, so I write a lot, okay? But only two instances of getting redneck.

Number one, as a student, when all my classmates hated to hear the name "Shakespeare," I'd throw down with the whole room about it. I was always always ALWAYS the smallest and quietest student in the room, even smaller than the girls, but I have a deep and sincere love of Shakespeare. Not BS. I got redneck about Shakespeare. One of the best things about my time teaching in China, in fact, is that my students were equally sincere when I'd invoke the name of Willie the Shake. Or show them a DVD that The Bard wrote. No BS.

Number two, right here right now, I get redneck about my cat. Yes I do. I think that's why Daddy is okay with it. Not with cats. He's told me things about cats that I won't repeat. But the fact that I "get redneck" about my cat is how we bond. Or something.

Yeah, it's getting late in the evening. My coherence is fading fast, so I'm gonna log off now and sleep. I love the sound of the rain. And hey, something else I REALLY missed in China was thunderstorms. Never had one. Chiang Mai has them. I am happy.

And hey, another photo! You don't care. You got nothing better to do. You're gonna go outside and find your car's been towed away.

(Yes, that WAS a Richard Pryor reference. We'll have to start another thread if you wanna ask me about him.)

[CalicoConsulting]

Can't keep pets in Thailand? Why the heck not?

Edited August 13, 2006 by CalicoConsulting

[sonthaya]

Nothing

[CalicoConsulting]

Wilbeforce Humphries and Cuthbert Rumbold. And I am unanimous in this!

[Alreadyinuse]

I miss the hugs from my whole family. Forced longdistance relationships are torture.

[CalicoConsulting]

Alreadyinuse,

Sincerity. I wondered if it still existed. Yes it does. I grew up in a family of three. But in 1985, my little brother killed himself. Four years later, to the day, Mom died on her 52nd birthday. So I was an orphan, if you will, at age 26.

That's part of why I moved back to my hometown, designed a gorgeous home with Daddy which he sold to me at his cost, and became his neighbor. Ten years later, the very hard decision to move to Asia. I do not miss "my country." That's just silly. But yeah, my family is something, or in this case some ONE, that I do miss. A lot. About the only way you can possibly get through my jaded crust is to talk about my family. Meaning, my father.

Dude can't type, and for the first four years of my Asia thang he didn't even own a computer. I happened to have spent over half of my life computer literate, and I type 120 word per minute, whereas he can manage about less than one word per minute, and I completely understand where he's coming from on that. I swear I'm not saying or even thinking anything disrespectful about my father. A guy who was a stranger to me until after I turned 26. But he can't type. What about it?

My memory's a bit more crusty and rusty than it used to be. Same as Daddy. But I suspect we've hugged twice in my life. Number three would involve one of us flying halfway across the earth. I have no money and he has no health. So we have to think on this. And we will. If he really can't make the trip, I will. But yeah, you got me. I miss hugging Big Jim.

Why did I say Big Jim? If you really wonder, visit http://www.chinarice.org/bigjim.html and you will wonder no more. All kids grow up thinking their fathers are larger than life, and that's right. But my father happens to be over twice my size, so he really is larger than life. And he also has a very big heart.

Edited August 13, 2006 by CalicoConsulting

[Alreadyinuse]

Yep.

finished my contract in Vietnam little over one year ago. As a family of 4 we moved to Phuket, where the kids started school and I was in search of another job in Thailand. Place of origin of my wife is Nakhon Si Thammarat. I had to leave them as my VISA was running out and I needed to get a new job. So I went back to Sweden. When I 10 months later came back to Phuket and got myself a hug from my 3 year old daughter it was heaven. Not to mention my wife,, thats a different forum. Thing is my daughter was now growing up, and I was missing out.

[Mossfinn]

And what the heck, here's another photo. I got a million of em. This is an oldie, complete with spaying scar.

Nice Pic CC,

Picasso is bigger than both my Chihauhaus put together by the look of it

Good Luck

Moss

[tourleadersi]

Been a few of these threads around and I've already said Branston Pickle and walks in the English Countryside on cold bright winter days, but I have a new one....

I miss raking up the autumn leaves in my parents garden on one of those lovely autuminal days, you know where the last few birds are singing, the ground is damp with dew, the air is starting to turn crisp and the battle between summer and winter enters its final stages.

I sometimes miss the sounds of cars driving in the rain on a winters evening, picking strawberries in the sun, finding a new B and B in the countryside, seeing new born lambs ( Mint Sauce! Now!) summer birdsong (not a twitcher though) and driving though villages and seeing a game of cricket on the common.

I love Thailand dearly, and this is now my home, but I will never give up the things I hold special from my homeland.

[Alreadyinuse]

Been a few of these threads around and I've already said Branston Pickle and walks in the English Countryside on cold bright winter days, but I have a new one....

I miss raking up the autumn leaves in my parents garden on one of those lovely autuminal days, you know where the last few birds are singing, the ground is damp with dew, the air is starting to turn crisp and the battle between summer and winter enters its final stages.

I sometimes miss the sounds of cars driving in the rain on a winters evening, picking strawberries in the sun, finding a new B and B in the countryside, seeing new born lambs ( Mint Sauce! Now!) summer birdsong (not a twitcher though) and driving though villages and seeing a game of cricket on the common.

I love Thailand dearly, and this is now my home, but I will never give up the things I hold special from my homeland.

Sounds like England

[kc_phil]

1. Me Mum.

2. Me ex wife.

3. Me tax collector.

4. Me priest.

5. Me girlfriend.

6. Me shrink.

7. Me boss.

8. Me accountant.

I have had no one try to make me feel guilty, inadequate, un hip, uncivilized, uncultured, unethical, or mal adjusted since I moved to Thailand.

That is one of the reasons I read Thai Visa regularly. It is good to see the Western values that drove me crazy displayed here every once in a while. It makes me more tolerant of bad sidewalks, shoddy infrastructure and odd behavior.

Thanks for listing exactly what I am aiming to get away from...

That aside, i am sure i will miss my Hot Rod. Hopped up Tuk-Tuks just don't measure up against classic American Muscle.

[Lacoste]

Been a few of these threads around and I've already said Branston Pickle and walks in the English Countryside on cold bright winter days, but I have a new one....

I miss raking up the autumn leaves in my parents garden on one of those lovely autuminal days, you know where the last few birds are singing, the ground is damp with dew, the air is starting to turn crisp and the battle between summer and winter enters its final stages.

I sometimes miss the sounds of cars driving in the rain on a winters evening, picking strawberries in the sun, finding a new B and B in the countryside, seeing new born lambs ( Mint Sauce! Now!) summer birdsong (not a twitcher though) and driving though villages and seeing a game of cricket on the common.

I love Thailand dearly, and this is now my home, but I will never give up the things I hold special from my homeland.

Sounds like England

Yeh, sounds bloody good though

[migrant]

Been a few of these threads around and I've already said Branston Pickle and walks in the English Countryside on cold bright winter days, but I have a new one....

I miss raking up the autumn leaves in my parents garden on one of those lovely autuminal days, you know where the last few birds are singing, the ground is damp with dew, the air is starting to turn crisp and the battle between summer and winter enters its final stages.

I currently live in southern California but am from, and have lived much of my life, in colder US climates.

Autumn is a time of year I really miss, along with rainstorms, old testament style with thunder and lightning. California doesn't have this.

At least Thailand has the thunderstorms, guess I am SOL on autumn.