Ask KJS what's not so great about living in Thailand - Page 3

xxThe_Lebowskixx · #21 09-30-2006, 07:09 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So you love social inequity and sexism? Corruption do much for you?

KJS

[/ QUOTE ]

You are American right? I guess you love the fact that your country causes war.

[/ QUOTE ]

cmon dude. He is saying things he doesn't like about Thailand....your feelings about America have little to do with his complaints about Thailand.

[/ QUOTE ]

You guys are pretty slow, huh?

I live in Thailand. I like to live in Thailand.

This doesnt mean that I think social problems like racism and sexism and corrupt are good things.

I cant believe I just had to explain that...

junglewarfare · #22 09-30-2006, 07:12 PM

worst thread ever

KJS · #23 09-30-2006, 07:22 PM

When I was there, for instance, there was a war on drugs where poor people in rural areas who may or may not have been involved in the trade were murdered by police without any substantial outcry from the leaders of the country. The PM went on record as saying drug dealers don't deserve to live. All major international human rights groups criticized the police and government's role as judge, jury and executioner but not a single police officer was disciplined despite nearly 2,500 deaths.

In a separate incident 5 Burmese migrant workers were brutally murdered and their dead bodies thrown on a pile of tires and burned in the jungle outside Mae Sot. Mulitiple eyewitnesses placed a prominent village headman and his men at the scene of the crime. There people risked their lives to come forward with this information. No one every did time for these murders.

This disrpespect for life in general was bothersome to me. The fact that one's value diminished so rapidly when you moved down the socioeconomic scale made it worse. The powerless there have no rights whatsoever in reality. The protections that we are accustomed to are not there.

Other things:

Most, but not all, of the other farang you meet are interested only in boozing, [censored] whores, talking about how cheap everything is, having servants they could never afford at home and otherwise acting like they own the place despite having no interest in the culture, interest in learning the language, interest in doing much more than throwing money around and thinking they are doing a great service.

There is also a social aspect to living there that is akin to living in a resort area anywhere. Namely, a pretty strong hierarchy based around accumulated knowledge of the local area and not much else. So you end up having endless conversations like "how long have you been here, what do you do, have you been to Nana Plaza (yes many times), isn't it insane how cheap everything is, do you have 4 girlfriends, etc.. And people go way out of there way to practice this kind of juvenile form of one upsmanship based around not really contributing anything worthwhile to the place but moreso on drinking more, [censored] more whores, going more places, having a bigger apartment, whatever. Personally I got bored of talking about the same [censored] all the time. Imagine living in Telluride and just talking about shreadding and how drunk you were last night and you get the idea.

More later.

KJS

KJS · #24 09-30-2006, 07:27 PM

I am American. I don't like that we started war in Iraq. Not one bit.

I do like that we have made advances to protect human rights, protect the rights of labor, control corruption in politics and the police, protect the rights of women and that we value women as more than sex objects. These values are important to me, so I chose to move back to somewhere that did better in these areas.

KJS

KJS · #25 09-30-2006, 07:32 PM

I am sure there is a limit, but corruption is rife. I never paid for more than getting out of a ticket for riding my motorbike without a helmet. 100 baht in the guy's ticket book.

I knew a guy who's wife was a cop. She said that she could make a month's wages taking 100 baht of people without helmets in an afternoon.

KJS

xxThe_Lebowskixx · #26 09-30-2006, 07:37 PM

KJS,

i dont socialize with other westerners in thailand, so i cant comment on those things.

as for the other things you mentioned, i dont like to see those types of things happening, but i do not feel that my prensense here causes them to happen more frequently. i hope thailand "grows up" in the future, as my gf would say.

KJS · #27 09-30-2006, 07:37 PM

I think that places where a person with access to the wealth of foreigners, such as people in the service industry in tourist areas, can make as much as a rural doctor there is a problem.

Go to Isaan and see how few young men and women live there. Their need to go to the city for employment is making the situation their worse for those who stay behind, IMO.

KJS

CatfishKing · #28 09-30-2006, 07:40 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I am American. I don't like that we started war in Iraq. Not one bit.

I do like that we have made advances to protect human rights, protect the rights of labor, control corruption in politics and the police, protect the rights of women and that we value women as more than sex objects. These values are important to me, so I chose to move back to somewhere that did better in these areas.

KJS

[/ QUOTE ]

yet those "advances" are taking away our right to play poker online. bullsh!t

xxThe_Lebowskixx · #29 09-30-2006, 07:41 PM

those who stay behind are being supported by the young ones in the city. there are no jobs there for they younger people.

KJS · #30 09-30-2006, 07:41 PM

I don't think you are culpable either. Nor do I think that you, along with several lifelong friends of mine, are foolish or wrongheaded in any way for living there. It is a beautiful country filled with many wonderful people.

It just wasn't all for me and thought others should see why before they packed up and went over thinking it was some kind of paradise without any problems.

KJS