How Do You Handle Living Here?

[Korkenzieher]

Perhaps the Robin Hood character should be Spoonerised for Thailand. Triar ....
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I believe in being frank and earnest with women. In Chicago, I'm Frank. And in New York I'm Ernest. (Samuel L. Jackson, in the Long Kiss Goodnight).

[Korkenzieher]

MODS:

Is HTML switched off permanently? I tried setting it in my profile, and it seems to have not had any effect in the above post.
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I believe in being frank and earnest with women. In Chicago, I'm Frank. And in New York I'm Ernest. (Samuel L. Jackson, in the Long Kiss Goodnight).

[KelpieKiss]

[Takiap]

OP, I know exactly how you feel and I'm sure all of us on here feel the same way at times but as many have stated, Thailand is a great place to live Why would anyone want Thailand to change and become the same as Britain, Denmark or any other of our home countries? Afterall, thats the whole reason we have decided to live here.......because it is so different. I am from South Africa and yes, it is certainly one of the most beautiful countries I have seen and Cape Town from where I come is without a doubt the best looking city I have seen but who wants to live a life where there is every chance of being mugged, raped or killed everyday. After leaving South Afica to travel, I ended up staying in the UK for ten years and so I can say, adjusting to UK life was also trying for me but I had to fit in or leave (when in Rome....)
Having come to Thailand on holiday, I knew straight away that this was the place for me and I have never looked back, perhaps because I have never sought to change anything. Remember, living in a country is vastly different to visiting a country.

Just so many great things about this place........look, listen and learn.
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Don't try to impress me with your manner of dress cos a monkey himself is a monkey no less - cold fact

[buksida]

[Korkenzieher]

OK. Have never used it before. More used to straight out of the can HTML. But it worked...
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I believe in being frank and earnest with women. In Chicago, I'm Frank. And in New York I'm Ernest. (Samuel L. Jackson, in the Long Kiss Goodnight).

[huahinsimon]

The BKK Post joins Edanish in deep thinking and calls for authorities to get off their collective ass and do something about human trafficking.

Buck up, Edanish, your naysayers have been effectively silenced and or embarrassed by the BKK Post. To the authorities: Don't just sit there, do something.

The Post did some deep thinking in pulling up Thai pride in the memory of Chulalongkorn the Great, who eliminated slavery in Thailand, as a catalyst for taking action against this modern form of slavery.

Politicians will do nothing unless THE PEOPLE LEAD them. Politicians are followers. They look to see which way the wind is blowing, which way the majority is heading and they try to position themselves out front to APPEAR to be leading. That means, as Ed said, COMPLAIN, BITCH, MOAN, ETC. Do something, write letters to newspapers, the mayor, the governor, etc. That means you, me, and all the people who believe "mai pen rai" while it may be the Thai way, is not the correct way in this case. Rama the Great certainly didnt by into mai pen rai vis a vis slavery.

Keep the faith, Ed! It's not incumbent on each of us to change the world but it is incumbent on each of us to do our part for change, or turn in our membership card in the human race.

HHS

EDITORIAL Monday 14 April

Put an end to trafficking

As terrible as the deaths in the Ranong people-smuggling case were, this terrible event provided only a brief glimpse of the obscene and shocking horror of human trafficking. Let there be no euphemisms in this case and thousands of others, either. What occurred along the Ranong-Phuket road late last Wednesday night has a number of root causes. But the deaths of 54 Burmese occurred because the lives of disadvantaged people are essentially bought and sold. Authorities have a turned a blind eye to the problem for too long, and action is badly needed or the death toll will mount.

According to those same authorities, they could start almost immediately, both to fight human trafficking and punish those behind the 54 murders of Burmese workers. Police in Ranong province bragged to the media last week that they know of six people deeply involved in the dirty business. Police said three men and three women in Ranong control all facets of a highly organised sale of people for labour.


One could fairly say these six people supposedly in police cross-hairs are involved in a slave trade. They organise groups of men, women and even children - a girl was among the 54 people killed - and transport them to a work site. There, they receive money from a business operator who pays the workers less than the minimum wage. Every facet of the workers' lives is controlled.


Last week, something went wrong with this well organised and lucrative human trade. It appears the ventilation system in the container used to ship the human cargo from Ranong to Phuket broke. By the time the desperate Burmese locked in the back of the truck managed to alert the driver, the shipping container had effectively become a grim charnel house. The owner of the truck is under arrest. A reward has been offered for apprehension of the driver. Clearly, they are not the kingpins or senior figures behind this trade in human beings for profit.


The first and important villain to blame for the 54 Burmese deaths is the Burmese dictatorship. This motley and vicious regime has both impoverished the country and encouraged the flight of a million Burmese to Thailand. The desperation of Burmese is evident from the fact they are willing to work for a fraction of the Thai minimum wage. The government is right to demand that Burma's despots address the conditions that put citizens in such dire straits.


But the government cannot get off the hook by shifting its own blame to Burma. Not only Burmese, but Lao and Cambodian illegal immigrants are also mistreated, and even bought and sold here. In all of history in Thailand, the authorities have prosecuted exactly one human trafficking case.

The shocking murders in Ranong have put Thailand firmly in the foreign headlines as a country with a serious problem of human trafficking. It is necessary that those behind the human bondage racket in the South be arrested and prosecuted. But the government must pursue this human rights problem aggressively. Every Thai knows with pride that King Chulalongkorn the Great put an end to slavery. It is necessary to turn that edict into actual practice.

additional story reads in part:

Human smugglers fingered


Post Reporters
The Je Ngor (elder sister Ngor) gang is one of the five most influential groups bringing illegal Burmese job seekers into Thailand, according to reliable sources in Ranong.

The Je Ngor gang is thought to have smuggled the 54 Burmese into the country who died of suffocation in the back of a sealed cold-store truck in Ranong last week.
These gangs are well-entrenched networks of Thai and Burmese job brokers who use bribes to avoid arrest on both sides of the border.
The Je Ngor gang mainly supplies cheap labour from Mawlamyine (Moulmein) in southern Burma to the coastal province of Ranong, the sources said.
Currently, there are at least five such groups of people in Ranong, a coastal province bordering Burma, bringing in illegal Burmese workers, the sources said.

Je Ngor and the other human trafficking gangs are scattered all over Ranong province, the source said.
The source said when the trucks are stopped for a check at roadblocks in Ranong no one is taken into custody. "All you have to do is show a 500 baht note and you are allowed to go," the source said.


Whenever any gang members are arrested, they get only light sentences and resume their illegal activities once they are out of jail.

"We could say that most of them are on a blacklist, but no officials stop them operating," the source said.
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Show me who your friends are, I'll tell you who you are.


Happy wife, Happy life!

[Wanderlust]

So what have you done then huahinsimon?

[buksida]

No idea what this has to do with the topic of this thread - we already have one on the Burmese situation in "News".

Additionally some people seem to forget that we are "aliens" and the day that any Thai politician listens to one of us will be the day I eat my shorts.
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Luctor et Emergo

[huahinsimon]

[buksida]

I'll still eat those shorts when it happens 100 years on (today), Thailand seems to have become more insular and xenophobic since the days of exploration and learning from other countries and it doesn't look like its about to improve anytime soon, however thats for another discussion/thread so ...


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Luctor et Emergo

[santa]

In my opinion, border/immigration controls are one of the world's biggest problems. We who are born the most fortunate are like giant gated communities - 'you poor bastards can't come here and damage our standrd of living, you can starve where you are". With the huge increase in food prices, and conversion of land to biofuel crops, things can and will get much worse, and more desperate people die and be exploited.
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santabanjo

[johnnyk]

I'm always amused by those who come to Thailand to solve its problems.
Dont their own countries have serious problems needing solutions?

[Takiap]

How do I handle living here???

1) Well, if I was unhappy with the place then I would not be living here.
2) Beer Chang (well any beer really)
3) Great weather
4) friendly laughing people
5) A feeling of freedom
6) A beautiful woman (wife)
7) A way of life that has me laughing everyday


.....and of course the list could go on and on but I won't bother as others have already mentioned.

You know, about a year ago I bought an angle grinder at tesco and the very next day it was buggered. To make it worse, I could not get the expensive cutting disk off which I had put on either. I took it back to tesco and yes, they were more than willing to replace the angle grinder for me. When I pointed out that I had put on a good quality disk and that I really did want it back they commenced trying to get it off. First it was the lady at the counter, then it was another sales person, then another and then another. In the end, one of the floor manages came up to me and handed me two doughnuts from mister doughnut as an apology for not being able to return my disk. Now, I could have got completely pissed off but instead I saw the funny side........never before in my life had I experienced such a down to earth approach as being refunded in the form of doughnuts. That that just made my day and yes I laughed about it. Just another of those great little memories.



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Don't try to impress me with your manner of dress cos a monkey himself is a monkey no less - cold fact

[chelsea]

Takiap, that is a great story and probably the most expensive dougnuts that you will ever eat in your life. But still I bet they taste good

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Always Borrow Money from a Pesimist. "They Never Expect it Back"