Mango Head:

MsNina says there are billions of dollars being spent to solve the problems but very little is getting accomplished.  Now they will think laterally (whatever that means) and come up with the solutions.

The billions being spent are probably going into the pockets of those that are spending it.  NGOs are bad about that sort of thing.  MsNina will be paid a year's salary and will come up with nothing too, despite all this lateral thinking.  I hope she knows what she is in for.

I just hope she doesn't come to Pattaya and make me give up my fornicating ways.

I bother to answer a post seriously and thoughtfully and get a johan-type reply in response...

For what it's worth, the billions being spent largely goes to the villages its meant to get to... but what's billions of dollars going to do against the trillions of the multi-national corporations, military-industrial complexes etc?

And don't worry, I've no wish to meet you in Pattaya to try to make you give up your abusive ways.

MsNina:

Let's examine your last post a little more closely and discuss it.

Obviously your only contact with working girls has been of the Aussie variety. I am not a fair evaluator of that venue, never having been to Australia. I have, however, utilized the services of working girls wordwide over a thirty year span so I am, while perhaps not considered an expert, am certainly knowledgable about the business. But let's look at the Thai p4p scene.

You state you do not see a choice being made between the rice paddy and the bedroom as being a real choice. Well, what would you call it? If the young lady can either work in the rice paddy to make some money or work in a bar to make some money and she chooses to work in the bar, that is a choice she has made. You dismiss the discussion on choice by saying if all options are bad, then there can be no choice? Pshaw! I say. She looks around her in the rice paddy and sees women, old, long before their time from the sun, water, constant work and unpleasant conditions. She then sees Noi or Nit just back from Bangkok with a pocket full of money, helping to support her family after working in the prostitution field. Now, put yourself in her place and tell me you would not make a choice, one way or the other. Rice paddy or the bedroom?

These girls have little formal education. You are obviously college educated, have a Western upbringing and are now coming over here to work with these girls with which you will have absolutely NO common ground. They do not have the opportunities for a career that you have. They can work in the rice paddy or the bar and that is it. They normally can't even get a job at one of the better restaurants unless they present their school papers and have the proper education.

As you look at the structure of their lives, you will rapidly see that education and poverty are the primary reasons they make the choices they do. Please don't bring any N. O. W. issues to the table. That isn't an issue over here. The issues are money and support for the family and how best to do this with what they have to work with.

I am happy to say I have contributed indirectly to many a family dinner up north over the past 25 years or so.

PS: I told you I was sarcastic. I see you chose not to forgive me in advance. Not "abusive", "fornicating".

Trafficking of women for prostitution is a fact, and Thailand is a major centre for this, as a source, transit and destination country.

You should first check out the opinion of your own cohorts.....

http://www.vachss.com/mission/dbt_update.html

An Update on Don't! Buy! Thai!

December 20, 2000

In response to all those who have asked about (and strongly supported) "Don't! Buy! Thai!" while it was still operational, we want to say that many things have changed since we began our effort. For one thing, Thailand is no longer the major offender, nor is the traffic so concentrated in any one country. And Thailand appears to have changed both its laws and its enforcement to some significant extent (numerous authenticated reports of child sex tourists being imprisoned there; no longer being billed as "Pedophile Paradise" by the freak groups, clear evidence of international cooperation against perpetrators, participation of organizations such as UNICEF with prosecution, etc.).

by MsNina: I bother to answer a post seriously and thoughtfully and get a johan-type reply in response

However some radical people are rational thinking, and some others do not.....

This above impression was not written by Johann. 1998 I had, together with a group of young female students and a medical doctor the wildest fights on the internet with the not-buy-Thai-activists....

They were careful however in their research, and offered a very good statement later on and it is still on their website for everybody.

This statement is already three years old, and I recommend that you should update your informations.

You consider Thailand much more backward than it is in reality....

OK, this is my opinion, as you said, a johann-type reply.....

Johann

MsNina:

In spite of your emotional response, exactly what has the "trillions being spent by the military-industrial complex" have to do with this?

That sounds like a knee-jerk liberal reaction to everything. Blame big business...blame the military...blame everybody that is nameless and faceless.

I think you should blame the Psych 101 professor in college that has screwed with your mind, not everybody else. You seem to have some personal issues you should resolve before you ever think about coming to Thailand.

I'm moving to Bangkok for a year to work there on a government project on the traffic in women and children. I have no particular aims for my year other than to do my job well, to learn first-hand about the traffic in women and children, to do volunteer work and to give back to these women, to learn some Thai and to learn about Thai culture, and to enjoy myself. I don't think these aims are particularly sinister nor ambitious even.

I do not plan, as you suggest, to 'save' a Thai woman from the bar scene, from a life of 'sin' and 'depravity'. Prostitution is not sin, nor a career, it's exploitation. A prostitute woman is not a sinful woman, who needs saving. She is more likely a woman who has limited resources in relation to her needs who needs more options in her life. So if I want to do anything about prostitution, I wouldn't be so imperialist or short-sighted as to try to convince the individual woman to leave prostitution. I would instead try to address the demand for prostitute and trafficked women, and I would try to create real alternatives of earning money to prostitution.

I haven't been to Thailand before, which you should be able to tell from my posts because I have never said anything specific about Thai women's situation, only commented upon the structural aspects. Nor have I ever claimed to speak for Thai women. I do however know a lot about prostitution and trafficking in women in Australia and Asia through my study and work experience.

Ms Nina,

just wanted to wish you all the best in your endevours.

Trust me, this thread does not represent the vast majority of expats who actually are living in Thailand. Hopefully you'll get to meet a few of them while there.

There does seem to be a bit of a boys club consisting of blokes who are actually living out the hollywood ideal of teenage years they never had, and like any establishment club, want to protect their own. Most of us got over the ultimately unfulfilling "get pissed, try and get a shag" cycle long ago in our youth. I suspect that some of these blokes never had that to begin with and are living it out now.

Others are coming from situations where they were the unhappy ones in pretty much unhappy relationships back home, and have found genuine happiness. They actually may have met a BG who they now live with and all parties are content and living simple happy lives monogomous lives. Live and let live I say (although I'd drop an atomic bomb on Pattaya and sections of Sukhumvit, Phetchaburi and Silom if I could).

There are also a third group here (based on their posts in other places) who simply just fell in love with the place and the people and are concerned that what your views, if expressed directly, no matter how innocuous they actually are, will simply be counter productive to your cause. I am probably one of them.

My advice is spend a year there learning, especially from senior Thai's who will undboutedly teach you a thing or two. Don't expect to acheive terribly much, although you may want to try. Keep your head down, bite your tongue and defer always someone older than you (at least to their face) and that will be the best way to eventually make a difference.

If you do this for the first bit, and like your time in Thailand so that you stay longer, I guarantee that by some magical process, the people who count will eventually seek you out for your advice. Thailand is also a good place to use the Jedi mind trick, make someone think that your idea is theirs, and your way to making a difference in whatever field you are in.

Me being the economist that I am, have my own not well thought through thoughts, which actually involve the legalisation of prostitution. It would cut out the incentive to make money of illegal activities for the police, government and mafia.

Opening the whole system up would actually make it a whole less profitable to run a majority of the brothels and people will lose interest. The "industry" that remains afterwards and the issues associated (it is the worlds oldest profession after all) will then be alot easier to deal with then from your point of view without the overarching power of the Thai establisment indirectly hindering your efforts. But thats just me.

Good luck with it all.

samran says...."Live and let live, I say (although I'd drop an atomic bomb on Pattaya and sections of Sukhumvit, Phetchaburi and Silom, if I could)."

Now that is an interesting remark. You are ready to condemn the entire city of Pattaya and large sections of BKK for what reason? Because there is prostitution and you don't think there should be? Or is it because you have this not well thought out idea about legalizing prostitution? If you think you are going to cut out government officials, police and the so-called mafia, then you really are an "economist"....certainly not a "realist".

I guess you could put me in the old boy network. I first came to Thailand in 1976 and have been coming ever since. I lived in BKK in 1987-89, moved to Pattaya and bought a home. Got married to a Thai, divorced and got custody of my daughter, now aged 11. We now have a new home. I am raising my daughter as best I can and still working in the Middle East. She is with me here at the present. I will be retiring in 3 months and living in Pattaya (if it is still there after your nuclear attack!). I play golf, have many old friends (thus the old boy network thingie), drink very little and have a semi-regular TGF.

It is obvious you know as little about parts of Thailand as MsNina does. Perhaps you should come down from the ivory tower you are in and really "live and let live".

And yet again in a debate, people take their defensive corners, refuse to openly acknowledge the valid points of the other side... Loosen up on your pride a little.

I welcome MsNina to Thailand. I also think she should look at this as a learning experience more than anything else, but if you really read her posts, this is also what she seems to be preparing for. She has a firm belief in there being a "system" in place which perpetuates poverty and prostitution, which is of course one way of looking at it - but it is not the best way to handle the problem, I think, because it will make everything seem impossible, except for writing reports based on the statistics of others.

I sort of agree with chuckD saying that these girls do have a choice, and I have changed my mind about this since I came here.

It is surely a very crappy choice, and you may argue that it is a choice nobody should have to make, but a choice it is all the same. There are other girls from similar circumstances who manage to break the circle of poverty in other ways than prostitution. They show that creative people can find a way out of extremely grim circumstances. The truth is that the more resourceful of the bar girls are intelligent enough to find other ways of making a living which are less stigmatized, but may require harder work and more thinking. I don't blame them for choosing the path of least resistance though. And just to explain myself more completely, I mean after the initial stage, which surely must be extremely hard for anyone.

I think a lot of you guys have a hard time understanding the feeling of coming in from Isarn and be "broken in" by your first male customers. Of course, as a matter of survival, most of these girls will sooner or later develop the strength and cunning they need to deal with men who are physically stronger and drunk, but imagine the psychological pressure before they do.

You are fooling yourselves if you think it is that easy.

I find many Thais have the ability to cope with so much more than most Westerners. Their patience can be truly, truly amazing.

I am not saying the bar girls are just victims, that is far too simple. But if their options increased, if the economic situation in the Isarn villages improved, there would be less bar girls, because, let's face it, it is only a tiny minority who chose to become BGs because they like the job as such.

When it comes to the question of coercion, no, the majority of the girls at the bars patronized by Westerners are not directly forced to work there.

But that trafficking occurs, and that Thailand still is a major thoroughfare for the trafficking of women and children is still an undisputable truth, and it does not disappear because of some statements posted on the Internet.

It is also true that this situation seems to have improved of late - BUT WHY? Because NGOs, police and other forces have tried to stop it - it does not disappear out of itself, and even though we don't see it happening in front of our eyes living here, it still goes on, and if nobody tried to prevent it, it would increase, because the money-making potential is huge.

Most people would agree that a large number of paedophiles have moved over to neighbouring countries and elsewhere where the authorities are more lax and where the international community have less of a say, but there is still a disproportionately large number of paedophiles being caught in Thailand. All power to those who can manage to catch more of them.

An open mind will show that the world is a colourful place, and the truth tends to be grey, not black and white.

QUOTE (Yohan @ Fri 2004-05-07, 09:08:04)

I consider the RISK out of a marriage one rather important reason, that a man prefers to relay more on happy hours with some girls, and pays per hour.

Sounds so respectless, but makes sense to me....

Johann

I thought it would.

The psychoactive medication you get from your doc in Japan should be taken with caution, Herr Johann !

--------------------

Hey,hey, I managed to cut and paste this from another thread, my computer skills are quite formidable these days...

You are ready to condemn the entire city of Pattaya and large sections of BKK for what reason?  Because there is prostitution and you don't think there should be?  Or is it because you have this not well thought out idea about legalizing prostitution?  If you think you are going to cut out government officials, police and the so-called mafia, then you really are an "economist"....certainly not a "realist".

Chuckd,

Not really for any of the above reasons. Actually don't have a problem with people going into prostitution, as long as it is a genuine choice. I guess what a lot of people are arguing though is that for most BG's it is really a claytons option. Until it is a genuine choice, then I don't feel comfortable with places like Pattaya being in existence. I find the place degrading for all involved and not what Thailand is about. I mean, lets turn the question around. If you had the genuine choice to go into something else, or go into prostitution, what would you do Chucky??

More that I think that Thailand has so much more potenital than just to be seen as the regions largest knock shop. Some people may think that is a worthy goal for Thailand, I don't. It annoys the crap out of me that when I tell people I am living in Thailand the first thing they think about is "Patpong" or Pattaya.

It is obvious you know as little about parts of Thailand as MsNina does. Perhaps you should come down from the ivory tower you are in and really "live and let live".

As for your other comments about my Thailand "cred". You are barking up the wrong tree. While I don't want to compare the lengths of our figuartive penis size as to who knows more about Thailand, let me say this, I am probably bit like your daughter, except alot older. I slip between Thai mode and Aussie mode like you would change a pair of shoes.

My mother is Thai. I was born in OZ, but spent significant amounts of time growing up going back and forth between the two. Educated in both. A good half of my work life has been in Thailand, working for the Thai government and related agencies. Speaking to people out in the villages. I know how the government works (and doesn't work).

I have a fairly solid idea of what is and isn't possible. I have been lucky enough to work with many brilliant people at the centre of government who are slowly changing things.

Granted I don't make a point of frequeting Nana, but otherwise, I think I have a fairly good grip on how many stratas of Thai society think. I know how Thai people think (well sometimes!) cause I live with them. Half my family and friendship circle is extremely wealthy and are old BKK'ians, the other half hails from Issan and arent so rich and most all of them are brilliant human beings with fairly similar view at the end of the day about how Thailand should be from now on. Sex tourism and prostiution in general is something more and more people are beginning to abhor. It ain't the swinging 60's and 70's any more. The times, as they say, are a changing.

Samran:

Very good post. My congratulations.

You ask what would I do if given the choice between Prostitution and ???

I couldn't honestly say without knowing what the other options are. Perhaps I would choose any of the above to prostitution but I just don't know. All I know is that these girls are in the "game" because they have made the choice to do so. I have never said it was an easy choice nor have I said it was the right choice. Neither of those answers are for me to say. I have merely said it was a choice made by the person involved.

I guess your comments about Pattaya got to me. There are many good people in Pattaya and painting everybody with the same broad stroke is not right. I live in a mixed Thai/Farang estate and the Thais there are good, honest, hard working people. Your inference that Pattaya should be done away with does not sit right with me.

I moved to Pattaya from BKK in 1992. I moved because the traffic in BKK was driving me nuts and, believe it or not, so I could get to a golf course in a reasonable amount of time.

I guess, Samran, you are a perfect example of what I have been expounding. You are obviously well educated, comfortable in life and you must have a good job. You have had some opportunities that most other Thai girls from Issan or BKK have not had. You have been blessed but you have also not had to make the choice.

I hope my daughter has the same opportunities. I am sending her to an English curriculum school and intend to send her through to college so she will not have to make the choice of one or the other.

In the meantime, we in Pattaya would appreciate not being nuked.

My advice is spend a year there learning, especially from senior Thai's who will undboutedly teach you a thing or two. Don't expect to acheive terribly much, although you may want to try. Keep your head down, bite your tongue and defer always someone older than you (at least to their face) and that will be the best way to eventually make a difference.

Is this really your advice to a radical feminist coming to Thailand?

Excellent.....I wonder, if it is acceptable.....

Speechless.....

Johann

Yohan~

I have to agree with you about Samran's advice. "Keep head down" and "bite your tongue" along with "defer always (to) someone older" are concepts that don't sit well with youth, radicals, or feminists. Combining all three doesn't make those pearls of advice more palatable.

But to be honest, it's not like you (and I) don't do our fair share of whining about perceived inequities. We both know that life is less than fair. That sometimes marriage is occasionally rigged game of craps. And that both sides (male or female) have come out the loser in it.

I will salute the various women that are moving to Thailand in that they are going to live there and experience it first hand. That in and of itself will be a learning opportunity. We all begin journeys with ideas and agendas that will be changed by experience. But whether one is a radical feminist, a sex tourist, or even a backpacker, a certain amount of baggage (emotional/mental carry ons) comes along and some of it will get lost or swapped along the way.

The sex trade will continue at some level regardless of anything anyone here does. It has been around for longer than all of us, even if we added our ages together. It will, in some form or another, be around just as long afterwards. One may visably suppress it, but it is pretty darn nigh impossible to eradicate. Regardless of what you bring to bear. It wouldn't make a bit of difference if society was matriarchal, radical, socialist, or whatever in nature or not. Zero diff. Not an <deleted> iota of a smidgeon of diff. Sex trade would still be around.

Interestingly, for all the sex tourists travelling to Thailand, any one of them can likely get similar services right where they come from. Costs more maybe, but by the time you figure in plane ticket and so on, maybe not. I personally wouldn't mind seeing the overt aspects of prostitution go away, it does take its toll on everyone involved. Hookers and Johns. But I do enjoy listening to the young guys whine about having to watch some old geezer in a walker with his twenty-something girl friend parade down the street. Just makes me cackle until my dentures come loose.

Jeepz

All the arcane mumbo-jumbo, all the dozens of posts from Natee 1 and she (he) can only assert that we should know the answers to queries directed toward her (him). I think that the answer is that everyone is entitled to their opinion, no matter how baseless or unsupported. We should let this person alone to bask in her/his self pity of perceived inequality.

You may have any opinion you like, but you should get your basic facts right.

For example there has been only one person who's questions I have not answered to his satisfaction, and that is maybe not entirely due to my "self pity'.

Also, it is not difficult to obtain the information whether I am a man or a woman, why have you not done this before you posted?

Ms/Mr Natee.....Only one person...I think not. And were the questions unreasonable? I think not. Can you answer them? I think not. As to your gender.....why should anyone believe your latest assertion? You initially, purportedly, were female, now claim to be male; one is clearly (well, maybe not so clearly) a lie, and how are we to know which one? One of the dangers of internet correspondence is the ease of subterfuge, half truths, misrepresentations and misdirections, none of which are generally obvious to the casual reader. Can you blame anyone for not believing you self-rightous assertions/pseudo-facts? Back them up, answer reasonable questions with reasonable answers and you'll gain credibility. You remind me of a child at a playground shouting "oh, yeah?" at an adversary. I think you need to learn the rules of civil discourse.

Lord spare us from all these do-gooder wannabies...

...and big-mouthed Yanks.

Ms/Mr Natee.....Only one person...I think not. And were the questions unreasonable? I think not. Can you answer them? I think not. As to your gender.....why should anyone believe your latest assertion? You initially, purportedly, were female, now claim to be male; one is clearly (well, maybe not so clearly) a lie, and how are we to know which one? One of the dangers of internet correspondence is the ease of subterfuge, half truths, misrepresentations and misdirections, none of which are generally obvious to the casual reader. Can you blame anyone for not believing you self-rightous assertions/pseudo-facts? Back them up, answer reasonable questions with reasonable answers and you'll gain credibility. You remind me of a child at a playground shouting "oh, yeah?" at an adversary. I think you need to learn the rules of civil discourse.

My response to Yohan's questions were an explanation and an invitation to clarify further privately, neither were accepted by him.

Which question do you want to ask me?

Information about members is available at the push of a button. I am one of the few with a foto to look at. I never said or implied I am a woman, get your facts right!

Again, I get upset when people deny that men have privileges women do not have and question whether sexual exploitation exists in Thailand.

It is like saying the earth is not really round, I cannot see it bending from here.

1) This is a forum....are you (via you proposed mechanism of private correspondance) attempting to avoid answering an uncomfortable set of questions publicly?

2) Be as annoyed as you wish; you have made an assertion without basis which you refuse to address. If you have a point about men enjoying legal prerogatives which women do not enjoy (in the LOS, Australia, the US, the UK or any non muslim nation) then either make your point, with examples or proof, or admit that it is merely an opinion, without basis. And please do not ask me to meet/email you personally. Please remember that this is a forum, not some sort of semi-private ranting room, specifically aimed an individual, and that logic & reason ought to reign supreme. If you have a point that not all folks (male or female, Thai or Aussie, tall or short) are created equal, and that some folks disabuse others, I think it's been made.

1. It is not only the questions, but also how and in which context they are made. I tried to explain this already.

2. My point was not about men enjoying legal prerogatives, my point was much wider, including everyday 'cultural' differences, it's not about a law or statistics, but an argument of observation, logic and reason. Read my posts again, before I refused to take certain comments seriously.

But to give an example of what you ask:

A Thai man may still purchase land after he married a foreign national, Thai women may not. This is the law.

Many Thai fathers who do not live with their children do not pay maintainance. This is not the law, but it is a fact.

This in response to your question, but to understand issues of inequality, one needs to look further than the law and its application.

I am glad you acknowledge that some folks disabuse others. What I believe we discuss in this thread is more specific than this, for example how privileges might be used to disabuse, how the social structure and culture in a country contributes to make it vulnerable to forms of abuse such as sextourism or childpornography. (I know farangs didn't invent prostitution in LoL, but they do use it)

Even more specific, how you getting your rocks off in a Thai brothel may not be the very best contribution to our host country.

(Please excuse me, I do not speak about you personally, Walker, neither am I innocent))

My question to you:

Why do you think it is that Thai men get away with not paying?

Laws are in place, and they can't be all without money.

If you have a point about men enjoying legal prerogatives which women do not enjoy (in the LOS, Australia, the US, the UK or any non muslim nation) then either make your point, with examples or proof, or admit that it is merely an opinion, without basis.

How does one prove that it hurts when one gets stabbed? How does one prove when one feels hungry? Do we have to prove it's white when we see something white? How? There are things that cannot easily be proved. You just have to feel its existence.

For those who would go as far as to say that women enjoy their jobs as prostitutes, I wouldn't be surprised to hear them say they didn't know that gunshot wounds hurt.

Just a simple example: You have some bread, and a man comes to you and tell you he hasn't eaten for days and is starving. You ask him to prove that he is hungry before you would give him the bread. Is that how it works?

WE do not need ???.....WE do not need ???...in Thailand! Who the fxxx is this WE, Dr Y? Is this the WE same as the WE in the case where culprits killing people and say “ WE do not need no fxxking police here!”? Dr Y shamelessly said

About the *biased poll*: I put the YES clearly in the first line..... 3 votes....and the clear NO made 14 votes......

May I ask, how do you call the 3 voters for YES?

maybe *woman-freedom-fighters* or what?

May I ask, how do you call the 14 voters for NO?

I am sure if the headman puts up a poll asking the rest of the culprits if we need police here, the votes would all be NOs. Go and set your poll in a “pooying’s forum”FGS! I guess your next poll is to ask if we need tampons in Thailand!

BTW, be more fxxking honest to take away the words “in Thailand” rather than leaving it there to make it look Thailand related! I know what you want! Don’t be such a hypocrite!

What you meant ain't no Thailand related!

Speechless.....

samran,

You have performed a miracle right in front of my eyes to have made Dr Y speechless. Anyway, I am going to try to do what Jesus did, make the speechless speak again.

I have also about 30 years living in Asia experience, but I do not have Axel's remarkable patience......I tell you straight, what I am thinking.....

And it seems, you have NO experience at all.....except how to play Primary School Radical Feminist...

I have 35! And was brought up here! So don't xxxx with me on that!

I raised my son; my ex-wife paid zip. Does that make america an anti-male society? Boys are abused in Thailand as well as women. Why do you insist on making it a feminist issue? It's not; it's a human issue. Your notion that Thai men don't pay maintenence is no truer than the notion that american women deny ex-husbands visitation....and it has NOTHING to do with gender, it has to do with (typically) vindictiveness, which, the last time I checked, wasn't a solely male trait. We can agree that exploitation is wrong....what we apparently cannot agree on is that men are to blame. Have you ever seen european women in Thailand/Kenya/Jamaica acting exactly like the men you so vociferously decry? If so, how do you feel about that? I believe the forum would like to hear an answer to this question, but I doubt that you'll hear a lot of strident ranting about the terrible lot of the abused men and how they are used and discarded.

MsNina,

Welcome to Thailand!

I am very confident, with your capability of understanding of matters, you will see and learn what exactly the situation is, in Thailand. You WILL understand the Thais. You WILL gain respect from them.(of course not all)

Thank you very much for being who you are, trying to make it a better world each day for the less fortunate people. I don't think what you do has even the slightest affects on me, for I am a lucky person enjoying my life already. But it does make me feel better psychologically by knowing that there are people in this world who do care about others.

Best regards,

MMT

Raging M: How to "prove" one is hungry? In other words, one only has to "feel" something to make it so. I "feel" that I don't have enough money and that you ought to give me most of yours. I "feel" that it's ok to rob, murder, rape, whatever, and my "feelings" are valid???? I feel that you need to grow up (as soon as you send me the money that I feel I need).

Speechless.....

samran,

You have performed a miracle right in front of my eyes to have made Dr Y speechless. Anyway, I am going to try to do what Jesus did, make the speechless speak again.

nah, don't think it was me...I think he just took his Meds. Give him a could of hours and he'll come around. You won't have to do a thing!

Oh, and for Chuckd, sorry, didn't mean to be misleading, I am a bloke, just so you know. So you can go hard on me if you didn't like anything I said.

As for my Pattaya comment, I'll rephrase that: "sections of Pattaya (the bars near the beach and other "night life") should be blown up if I had access to nuclear weapons". Reasons remain the same though.

I'll benevolently allow the rest of Pattaya city to remain as is (especially the golf courses). Plus, my aunty would kill me if I destroyed her condo

Lord spare us from all these do-gooder wannabies...

I can't believe this thing has gone on as long as it has. Hasn't enough been said already. Khun Boon Mee, you need to whip out that A$$ Clown award thing for these people. I must honestly say I hate it, but at this moment they are greatly deserving and quick yo!