Living In Thailand Blog
Sunday 15th February 2009
I mentioned recently how the BBC likes to scaremonger. They did this with Bird Flu and had a field day when the 'Credit Crunch' crisis broke.
One of their other favourite scaremongering topics is climate change. The headline story on their front page today is: Global warming 'underestimated'
The world has thousands of scientists, some who don't agree with this theory at all, yet the BBC have based their biggest story of the day on one man's opinion who thinks, "... warming is likely to cause more environmental damage than forecast."
He's not even sure because he can't possibly be sure. He says it is likely.
This is irresponsible journalism at its worst and I have written to complain again.
Saturday 14th February 2009
It has turned horribly hot this week in southern Thailand. I stand by my claim that I prefer 'very hot' to 'very cold' but this heat can be quite oppressive and prohibitive. I want to spend more time outside but when the weather is like this it gets uncomfortable very quickly.
The peak of the hot season is still another two months away so there is a long time to go yet before any respite. The only relief is that the rising temperature and humidity will generate summers storms soon.
After quoting Gandhi recently, he has been in the news this week as a result of some of his (limited) personal possessions being auctioned off. As an ascetic, he had very few possessions during his lifetime so these are rare items.
I looked at Wikipedia to find out more about him. At an early age he vowed to abstain from meat, alcohol and promiscuity. He became celibate in his mid-30's and began sleeping with naked girls to test his self-control.
I've been testing my self-control for years but it still isn't working. I guess I just need to keep trying.
This week was the week I finally conceded defeat in the battle with my students. Ever since I started teaching at the new place there has been a battle raging. I thought I was there to improve their English but that isn't how most of the students saw it.
Some students in the youngest class were quite confrontational about telling me what they wanted to do and what they didn't want to do, which is quite unusual for Thais. The older students were a lot more subtle in getting their own way but eventually they achieved their aim.
One student admitted this week what I had suspected for a while. They are quite serious with their Thai teachers but my lessons are just about having fun and relaxing.
With me, they just want to watch movies, listen to songs and play games. Arguably there is educational value in these activities but actually that's not the case. As soon as I try to add some teaching to any of these activities, that is when the fun stops and the gloomy faces appear. Most - not all - just aren't interested.
In such a situation there are two choices. You can be strict and insist on teaching, or you can let them have their own way.
If you are strict they just switch off. When that happens they don't learn anything so there is no point. It also makes them unhappy, as well as making their teachers, their parents and my boss unhappy. Such a situation will lead to lots of negative feedback and a change of teacher.
If you let them have their own way they don't learn anything but they are happy. In Thailand it doesn't matter that people study for years and don't learn anything as long as they are happy. Therefore, although I said there was a choice; there isn't really.
My students today got through half their lesson but looked rather resentful. During their break I found out why. It is Valentine's Day today and they wanted to make Valentine's cards; they didn't want to learn English. Once again, I didn't fight their decision.
For the second half of the lesson they made Valentine's cards while I did nothing. Was anyone concerned that I was being paid for doing nothing, or that students paying to learn English weren't being taught anything?
Of course not. This is Thailand.
At my old workplace everything used to stop at certain times of the year. At Loy Gratong time everyone would stop their usual activities and spend days making gratongs to float.
Back in the UK, if staff spent days putting up Christmas decorations instead of working there would be hell to play, but as I have said on numerous occasions, the value system here is completely different to the Western world.
You can't fight it or change it because the culture is too powerful. When in Rome ...
You'd think that the longer you lived in Thailand, and the more you understood about the language and culture, the more you would fit in. I've actually found the exact opposite to be true. The longer I live here, and the more I understand, the more I realise how different I am to the locals.
It's not a problem. You can still have a good life here, and still have healthy and respectful relationships with the Thais but if you think that as a farang you will 'fit in' after a while (as I did for the first few years) I think you are deceiving yourself.
As I have said elsewhere on this site, even if you take many years to learn to speak Thai like a native and learn all there is to know about Thailand, to the locals you will only ever be a farang - an outsider.
For anyone interested, I have added another learning to read Thai tutorial: Learn to read Thai - Tutorial 22
For several years at this time of year it has become known that I have an admirer or two in Thailand. Good Thai girls are shy beyond belief and generally don't show their feelings, but still waters run deep.
One girl at my new workplace isn't shy and has made it quite clear that she likes me. A couple of weeks ago, she told me there are lots of other girls who like me. Really? I had no idea.
Yesterday, I received some chocolates from another girl as a Valentine's gift. When I say girl, this one is about 27. I use the term for any female under about 40, in case anyone gets the wrong impression.
At my old workplace, one girl pursued me relentlessly for years but she wasn't my type at all. She kept buying things for me and it started to get a bit embarrassing.
I don't like to say anything about this kind of thing because they are all very nice, very sincere people and it's better to have people around who like me rather than those who don't. Also, I have been on the other side of unrequited love and it isn't much fun when the feelings aren't returned so I have empathy with them.
A lot of good Thai girls devote their lives to study and work from a young age. After all, this is what society and their parents demand of them.
By their late 20's the biological clock starts to go into overdrive and suddenly they start to worry. They feel lonely and a Thai girl feels left on the shelf if she isn't married by 30. However, these girls can have big problems finding men.
They want a good man but good Thai men are usually taken or are interested in girls younger than them. Thais also have lots of prejudices.
A male PhD ex-student of mine told me his 'spec' for a woman. The first - and most important - thing on his list was white skin colour. The girl who gave me the chocolates is very sweet and very pretty but she is dark-skinned.
She is very conscious of this - as most dark-skinned Thai girls are - and knows that many Thai men won't be interested in her because of her skin colour. This is a prejudice farangs don't generally have. In fact, as all Thais are only too aware, farang chawp dum-dum.
Many Thais are also prejudiced regarding status and wealth. You just know that you don't stand a chance with certain girls if you don't drive a car or aren't perceived to have much money. Some Thai men are the same.
There is also prejudice against age. Job adverts for girls normally give an age range with the upper limit being about 26. When Iss wanted to change jobs a few years ago she told me she was too old to get work with a big company at the grand old age of 30.
Thai men (Asian men actually) have a big preference for young girls which is another reason why 30 year-old Thai women feel left on the shelf.
This country is full of great single women in their late 20's to early 30's. They've led good lives and, if popular opinion can be believed, they are at their sexual peak at that age.
The only problem is that they can be quite elusive to find. They don't present themselves to farangs in beach resort beer bars and they tend to be very shy. Unless you are formally introduced or can find another way into the inner circle, it can be difficult to meet them.
This is another advantage of working in Thailand for foreign males. With bad exchange rates these days, not only is a salary in Thailand worth a lot more than it used to be but it is an easy way to expand your social circle and meet some good people.
A Thai girl I know here has a farang boyfriend and recently they bought a second-hand car together. He had a driving licence but she didn't so she went off to get one.
A few weeks (and a couple of thousand Baht) later she has one. Her driving 'lessons' were carried out in a car park. You go forward, go backward, park the car, and that's just about it. You never meet another car or get any real experience.
I have seen places advertising driving lessons but what you never see is learner drivers with driving instructors on the road in dual-control cars getting experience of real traffic conditions, as you do in Western countries.
They give you a licence and you are free to drive anywhere on Thai roads - something I am still reluctant to do with 31 years driving experience. She told me that you don't even need to do what she did. You can simply pay for a licence without any kind of instruction.
She can see the craziness with this and told me, with a smile on her face, "Amazing Thailand."
Thais 'learn' to drive by following the example of other Thai drivers. It's easy to see then why things will never get any better on Thai roads.
Amazing Thailand.
Wednesday 11th February 2009
Today is a sad day. As I was leaving for work this morning I saw the cleaning staff dismantling our plastic Christmas tree.
Christmas has ended early in Thailand this year. I'd previously expected the tree to last until at least August - with maybe a chance of it surviving until next Christmas. It has been taken down to make way for Valentine's Day decorations.
The tree may be gone but I can rest assured that Jingle Bells ring tones will still be heard on mobile phones throughout Thailand all year round.
Thais are completely tolerant of other religions and cultures, and love any excuse for a celebration. They have therefore adopted Christmas and Valentine's as their own, and will happily adopt other days to celebrate.
With their love of fireworks and distrust of government, I'm quite surprised they haven't adopted Guy Fawkes night. Falling as it does on the 5th of November it would be a perfect prelude to Loy Gratong.
There's another idea I need to work on ...
Tuesday 10th February 2009
The questions I receive about Thailand have started to change recently. This is not surprising really, given that Thailand (and the world at large) have changed enormously in the last couple of years.
A few years ago, foreigners didn't really need to think much about moving to Thailand. With the ability to make endless 30-day border runs, visas weren't a problem; and money wasn't a big issue either.
Western currencies were strong against the Baht, and it was relatively easy to make money on the stock markets or with high-interest rate savings accounts.
In (I think) 2006 there were some fairly significant changes regarding immigration and suddenly it began getting more difficult to stay permanently in Thailand. For those foreigners without visas, Thai immigration only allowed them to stay 90 days in any six month period.
The latest change to be brought to my attention is that people are only being given two weeks if they enter Thailand by road. If they arrive by air, I am told they will still get 30 days.
This is something else that will affect those staying in Thailand for longer than a holiday who make border runs to increase their length of stay. This is all about making it difficult for people staying in the country long term while living 'under the radar'.
Part of the visa process is to ensure that the applicant is doing the 90 day reporting thing. This involves declaring an address (which needs to be confirmed by the owner of the residence) and therefore the Thai authorities know where foreign residents are living.
In the old days when people were living here permanently on 30 day stamps no one knew where they were living but that is no longer the case. There is definitely a push now to get everyone staying long-term on proper visas and to get them into the system.
With money being more of an issue for many people these days, the number of queries I have received about the cost of living in Thailand has also gone up.
This is always a tough question to answer because no two people are the same, and therefore one person can't tell another person how much money they need.
As an example, my brother and his Singapore banking buddies enjoy the high life. He only stays in Phuket when he visits Thailand, and eats at places such as Keith Floyd's restaurant where he drinks good imported wine with his meal.
Living this way means you can easily spend several thousand Baht per person just on food each day. I eat cheap Thai food most of the time - which I'm quite happy to do - and drink the free water that the restaurants provide. Eating this way means I often spend less than Bt100 on food a day.
I'm very happy living the way I do but it wouldn't suit a lot of people, including my brother and his friends.
A couple of years ago my brother rented a villa in Phuket for a family holiday. The villa cost the same amount to rent for four days as my apartment costs for a year! What's more, is that my apartment is regarded by the locals as being quite expensive.
It's possible to live very cheaply in Thailand, or you can spend as much as you like. However, you need to be very honest with yourself about the level of comfort you need. It's no good budgeting for Bt25,000 a month if the level of lifestyle that amount allows for will make you unhappy.
Many foreign men - even those of an advanced age - seem very naive about Thai girls. They arrive for a short holiday, spend a fortune, have a great time with the girls, but somehow fail to make the connection between the girls and the amount of money they were freely spending.
If you can live in Thailand permanently and spend as freely as you did when you came for a short holiday you are lucky but I suspect that most people living here permanently need to watch their spending a little. If you think you can have as much fun with the bar girls while watching your money, think again. What does that T-shirt say? You know the one, "No Money, No Honey."
If I really needed to, I think I could get by on Bt20,000 a month in the provinces but it would be painful and life would be very boring. Bt30,000 would be better and ideally upwards of Bt40,000. Bear in mind, that is just for day-to-day living and not for any additional expenses that may be incurred.
From the apartment prices I have seen advertised, I reckon you need to add another Bt10,000 to those figures for Bangkok, Phuket and maybe Chiang Mai. Wherever there are lots of foreigners, then prices tend to go up.
Thailand is a great place if you have money but not much fun if you don't. As I said above, be honest with yourself. Understand the things you can live with and the things you can live without. Budget accordingly and allow some more for emergencies or unexpected expenses.
If you have a great vacation while spending Bt30,000 a week and then plan to live in Thailand on a budget of Bt30,000 a month, understand that life will be a little different.
One observation is that the longer you are here, the easier it is to spend less money. As the novelty wears off - and as you get more accustomed to local prices - your spending goes down. It is also a lot cheaper renting an apartment than staying at hotels.
On vacation each day you can spend Bt2,000 on a hotel, Bt1,500 on a day trip, Bt1,000 on a meal, and then get a big bar bill (and bar fine) in the evening plus the money for night time entertainment. It's really easy to get through Bt10,000 in a couple of days.
Even when I first came to live in Thailand I was getting through Bt10,000 every three or four days. Last month I spent just under Bt24,000 and this month it will probably be less because I am trying to save a little at the moment. I can live without a lot of stuff that others might consider essential, but can you?
I don't know so don't ask me; just be brutally honest with yourself about your own needs and requirements.
Monday 9th February 2009
Today, the full moon day of the third lunar month, marks an important Buddhist holiday. It's maa-kuh-boo-chaa day or wun maa-kuh-boo-chaa in Thai.
วันมาฆบูชา
It was on this day during the Buddha's lifetime that 1,250 enlightened Buddhist monks gathered to pay homage to the Buddha. Nothing was arranged beforehand and this assembly was a purely spontaneous act.
Thai Buddhists mark the occasion by joining in a candlelit procession at temples throughout the country known as wien-tien.
เวียนเทียน
Holding a lotus flower, candles and incense, everyone in the procession circles the main temple building three times in a clockwise direction. There is also a lot of merit-making so poorer members of the community show up hoping to benefit from the generosity of others.
I'm afraid there is no hope for the world until we eradicate this madness: Nurse suspended for prayer offer
I'm not a Christian but if I was seriously ill and someone with Christian beliefs offered to pray for me, fine. If a Muslim wanted to pray for me, fine. If a Buddhist wanted to light a candle for me, fine.
I was asked again yesterday what religion I am and I always find it a difficult question to answer. Having been born in England, I was labelled C of E at birth but my thinking is much more along Buddhist lines.
One of the things I love about Buddhism is its tolerance for other religions. No Buddhist ever went to war over religion and Buddhists don't post signs around the place trying to convert people to other religions. There are loads of Christian missionaries here and you see signs written in Thai telling people that following Jesus is the only way to free themselves of sin.
As I told the person yesterday, the world is made up of good and bad people of all religious beliefs. I believe in good people, and their faith doesn't really matter to me.
Sunday 8th February 2009
Close by to me are two supermarkets: Tesco and Carrefour. They are both located on busy, dangerous roads. There is a pedestrian bridge over the road outside Tesco but the Thais don't like using it. They don't like walking anywhere, and walking up and over a bridge is more strenuous than just walking across the road.
It can be dangerous walking across the road but that doesn't seem to bother them. However, it seems to bother the local municipality.
The local municipality has just erected a barrier along the central reservation of the road to physically stop people crossing the road. They've even had a cop there recently to ensure that people don't climb over the barrier.
What this has done is to force people to use the pedestrian bridge. This is a good thing. It may be a little more inconvenient - and a bit more strenuous - but it is safer.
By contrast, there is no pedestrian bridge outside Carrefour. Carrefour has been open for about five years now but there is still no sign of a bridge. At certain times of day it is almost impossible to cross the road, and even when you manage to get across it is risky.
When the store was being planned, the relevant authorities should have planned a pedestrian bridge to be opened at the same time - or before - the store opened. That didn't happen, and five years after the store opened it still hasn't happened.
By not building a bridge the local authorities are forcing people to cross a dangerous road. Yet, a short distance away they are forcing people to use the bridge because crossing the road is dangerous. Where is the logic?
I hope you understand some of the things I have to put up with in the making of this web site.
Learning to read Thai is a multi-stage process. The initial stages normally rely on books but when you venture into the real world you discover that things aren't the same. Fonts used on signs in the real world bear little resemblance to fonts used in books.
This was a problem for me a few years ago, so with my tutorials I wanted to add photos of signs in the real world. I therefore went out yesterday to get some photos.
I was only planning to be out a short time because it was hot but I couldn't find what I was looking for so I was out quite a long time. Standing in the street taking photos of buses made me look a little too much like a 'bus spotter' for my liking. However, I can tolerate being ridiculed even though I wasn't wearing an anorak.
I ended up doing what I should have done in the first place and went to the bus station. I managed to get most of the photos I wanted there but even so it wasn't hassle free.
I saw one sign I thought might be useful so went to take a photo. It was simply a place name. As I did so, a woman starting screaming at me hysterically. From the commotion she was making you'd have thought I was robbing her shop instead of taking a harmless photo of a sign outside.
You can see some examples of the type of photos I was taking here: Tutorial 21. I don't think what I did was bad enough to justify someone running at me screaming, "No photo!"
โรคจิต
I don't know what her problem was but working at the bus station she will see a lot of farangs and Thais who deal with lots of farangs tend to get quite jaded and uptight.
In my normal life I never meet Thais who act that way but if I go travelling on the farang tourist trail I always meet Thais who don't act like normal Thais. I have also noticed a huge difference with Thais who have lived abroad for a while, compared to Thais who never leave the country. Farangs change the way Thais think and behave - and not always in a very good way.
Saturday 7th February 2009
Two Thai friends living in London (who don't know each other) sent me pictures of snowy scenes this week. Although they have lived in England for quite a long time, heavy snow is fairly rare in London so this is the first time they have experienced it.
Both tell me they have been acting like excited kids.
The pictures are pretty but I have too many bad memories of snow. As a kid I remember getting excited when it snowed and enjoying playing in the snow at first. However, as my skin got wet it then started to feel cold, and soon after that the cold feeling turned to pain.
As an adult, snow was just a pain in the butt trying to get to work and it made driving - and even walking around - dangerous. The Brits are completely hopeless when dealing with snow and for many years people laughed at British Rail whose trains stopped working when the 'wrong type of snow' fell. Perhaps people still laugh?
The Thais in London can keep their snow. It's getting hot in Thailand now but if given a choice of extreme weather, I'll take heat any day.
Matt Johnson once sang, "The more I see, the less I know." As I get older and see more, the less I seem to understand. Stock markets completely baffle me.
Whenever there is some good news (or at least it sounds like good news to me), the markets go down, and vice-versa.
When I checked the business pages yesterday I saw that Toyota had tripled its estimate for losses this year to 450 billion Yen, the French trade deficit had hit a record, the US unemployment rate had reached 7.6%, and Sharp were cutting 1,500 jobs in Japan.
The markets must have liked this news because when I looked they were all up. I give up.
One of my oldest friends works in the London financial services sector and we used to meet for a beer after work occasionally when I worked in London. At one time I was quite a keen investor and tried to get some inside information from him.
He told me that the stock markets followed absolutely no logic and that you might as well put your money on a horse in the 3:15 at Chepstow. I wish I had followed his advice.
I don't think anyone is following these but I've added another tutorial - Learn to read Thai - Tutorial 21.
It isn't a complete waste of time doing these because I am learning quite a lot.
Friday 6th February 2009
The media organisations don't like reporting good news, and they like to make as much of an issue about bad news as possible.
My primary source of news is the BBC but the BBC is just as bad in this respect - despite its (undeserved) reputation for impartiality. News editors are always looking for the next great disaster.
A fews years ago the BBC latched on to Bird Flu and their reporting annoyed me so much that I wrote and complained. Every day in Thailand lots of people are killed on the roads but that went unreported. However, any single isolated case of Bird Flu was a BBC News Site front page headline story.
Statistically, even at the height of the problem, deaths from Bird Flu were insignificant and even diseases that we consider rare accounted for more deaths each year than Bird Flu. However, the BBC kept sensationalising Bird Flu deaths way out of proportion to the actual threat.
People actually started cancelling holidays to Asia when the chances of catching the disease were about the same as meeting a southern Thai who liked Thaksin, or meeting Elvis while shopping in Tesco Lotus.
The BBC replied to my complaint along the lines they had been informed by relevant medical bodies that this could be the next great pandemic to threaten humanity. My opinion was that it was tabloid sensationalism published just to attract more readers.
When their predictions for Bird Flu didn't appear to be working out they quietly dropped that story and looked for the next great disaster. When the 'credit crunch' came along their news editors could finally relax again. There was probably a huge party at Broadcasting House when the story broke.
No one can deny that the economic problems have been serious but once again the people at the BBC have made as much of a meal of them as they possibly can.
They ran one article about how share prices had fallen dramatically and left this in a prominent position on their business page for several days. It ran alongside stock market data and even when stock markets were rising, your eye was led straight to the BBC doom and gloom story.
I was quite pleased to see that the BBC are now feeling some heat over their reporting: I did not cause Rock run - Peston
When this crisis finally ends I think a lot of good will have come out of it. Common sense may have actually made a return to many areas of our lives, and news organisations might actually have made a return to responsible journalism - although I doubt it..
Football gossip is another example. Tabloid sports journalists will just make up stories which get printed because they are sensationalist and will sell newspapers. As they say, "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story."
Free speech and a free press is important but with that freedom comes responsibility. It's one thing running an opinionated blog that only gets read by a few people, but another when you are running a news channel with a massive readership.
Common sense is still having difficulties making a return to normal life as political correctness continues to go mad.
Does this mean I have the right to ask the Thai authorities to ban any dolls sold that vaguely resemble white Caucasians because they offend me? I don't think so because stupid political correctness never made it to the shores of Thailand - fortunately.
If it had have arrived in Thailand, every single Thai I know would be in serious trouble talking the way they do about skin colour. Political correctness is a serious Western disease; a malignant cancer that just won't go away.
And this economic crisis ... wasn't it caused by people borrowing what they couldn't afford and building up a huge mountain of debt? Why then, do interest rates continue to be reduced making it easier for those in debt and punishing those prudent enough to save?