john_bkk919

LivinLOS, on 2010-08-29 14:21:52, said:

So ... now Chiang Mai University is "shady" or "fly-by-night"? Geeee and all this time I thought they were one of the most respected and oldest universities in Thailand!

wehugheog, on 2010-10-02 06:30:46, said:

Well thanks for the suggestion. I used a regular VISA card and just assumed that since the charge was 60+ days ago that it was too late to dispute. However, after digging around in my online statements I was able to submit a dispute for the charge online. We'll see what happens...

ha55ha, on 2010-09-30 13:16:53, said:

Go ahead, I have nothing against that school. Good school, you prefer that school so go there, but it would be stupid if you went there for personal reasons rather comparison reasons. If you think they will provide better service and teach you better than of course do it.  

Walen School of Thai - compare and chose what is best for you
www.thaiwalen.com

Khun Kawtot,

Just a quick remark. It is not just the price, also look at the ownership of the school. If you want to attend a school owned by a Thai person that can work perfectly well and there are great many great Thai schools owned by Thais, they however may not relate to you as much as another farang.

Not the most important, but still our teachers are generally younger and prettier than at other schools . I find that this is a very good combination when it comes to quick language acquisition. Don't be fooled by their youth, they know what they are doing. Of course we run open house so everybody can come and sit on a free lesson or even the whole day. Talking to other students also helps as you can get real opinions. Also we teach directly in Thai, no Romanization of Thai at all. Easier than people think.

Walen School of Thai - incredible value!
www.thaiwalen.com

Ps. All those who got upset by my posts, please forgive, no offense meant.

Austeyr, on 2010-09-30 10:50:11, said:

Man, I'm trying to help you! What is your problem? Some of you paid premium price of 30k and got screwed! Our price is only 24,960 Baht. You do not know me, I am rich as I am so some more students in Chiangmai will be welcome but will not make a huge difference to the performance of the whole school. I am a businessman, of course I will be promoting my business, I would be an idiot if I did not. You see all the banners on thaivisa.com? Do you see any from CMU or other schools in Chiangmai? Businesses like ours help to run this forum, otherwise you might have to talk privately about the situation with your friends. Please stop giving Walen hard time. I provide first class service and will continue to do so.

What happened at CMU is sad and I am not happy about it,  are you judging people by the way you would think in the same situation? When you say greedy - is it really? I offer prices lower than other schools and helped to drop the prices for the whole industry, not long time ago standard price was 28,000 Baht. I really don't know if that is greedy. Maybe you tell me. Also for your information I have not got my money back for the building of the Walen school in Chiangmai, have you ever visited? both floors? no expense spared.

Walen School - offering competitive prices!
www.thaiwalen.com

So I talked with Immigration today, and their story both supports and contradicts what Rien said to me.  Immigration did investigate the LICMU program because of irregularities.  They want LICMU to do a better job documenting, interviewing and tracking their students.  However, Immigration says that the reason students aren't getting visas is because the President of CMU and the Dir of LICMU aren't signing them.  All Immigration needs is letters from those two and a grade report.  Therefore, the people stopping visas are in CMU.

At this point I am very upset at CMU.  I also do not appreciate the fact that the program I signed up for is now divided into two arguing sides, while I'm left out in the cold with no money and no visa.  That's straight up bull****.  Matt made a program that won't pass muster at Immigration, and the President of CMU is not supporting us at all.  As far as I'm concerned, I don't care what the relationship between IUS and LICMU is.  CMU is responsible for this.  

As far as whether we are on overstay starting tomorrow, the Immigration guy told me that my visa, which ends in Oct, is good until then.  All this speculation is scaring me though.

I'm not involved but I have vested interests in the Thailand's approach to welcoming guests, I find this whole episode disgusting. Perhaps there are several mitigating factors and reasons behind the fallout, part mis-management, part-misunderstanding, part slipping attendance (violating visa rules), who knows but the reaction to all this of the two main parties says alot about Thailand;

1. On the one hand you have Matt Kay, who started this all up and turned it into a successful business that was benefitting lots of people, training them and providing CMU LI with a highly profitable usage of a failing department. He has run around trying to find solutions, and communicated properly with those involved and, crucially, committed to digging into his own pocket to refund and pay for expenses incurred from the sudden termination of the agreement.

2. On the other hand you have the president of CMU abruptly terminating the program, citing an implausible reason, giving unreasonable notice and not co-operating in helping find the students an alternative (which could quite easily be done if he wasn't spiteful), furthermore he has violated several hundred contracts by refusing to refund money to the students despite his university issuing the receipts for the money.

Not difficult to judge who the villian is here. I suggest the students collectively go to a lawyer with a class action lawsuit against CMU for refund and expenses incurred for visa runs and other costs incurred while waiting to resume their studies. They should show up en-masse at his office and demand an explanation. Of course being farang he can get them all 'unguested' from Thailand (to quote his own word), which would conveniently remove them all from the country and he can keep his money (amounting to about 10 million baht) and squash the lawsuit (since it's against a govt institution) and carry on with an empty language institute, as if nothing ever happened.

What's more the manner in which the Immigration department went along with everything then suddenly 'queried' their methods, is suspicious and I don't trust this man's explanations one bit. As a professional at an executive level of a prestigious university you would have expected him to give sufficient notice and have the forethought to realise that sudden termination will leave lots of people suddenly unable to renew visas. CMU are also trying to pass the buck by referring everyone to the administration of the program (Matt Kay et al) when in fact it is not a proper company and the whole program was organised under CMU LI which is a part of the university, so they are obliged to deal with disgruntled students and liable for refunds. It's fairly typical in a country that has such poor sense of accountability for an individual of this seniority in public education to conduct himself like this and get away with. It says a great deal about how this country runs, why it can't even get 3G going, and continually embarrasses itself with dysfunctional politics, law and order and half-baked business deals.

Mai pen rai, there will always be a plane full of gullible flush foreigners touching down at Suvarnabhumi every 5 minutes, waiting to be fleeced by King Power, the Police or whoever, who cares about the reputation of the country.

In response to question about e-mail addresses. Suggest you do what I did, use Google search. I do not want to violate Forum rules - maybe the moderators can post email addresses but I can not. For the US Consul General, their general e-mail address works. This was verified by the Head of Consular Services when I talked to him on Saturday. I am not sure what results will come from complaining to the director of the Language Institute or President of CMU. I doubt if you will get any response but it may make you feel better. I did cc: the president of CMU and US Consul General on my concerns expressed to a US University with collaborative ties to CMU.

I think a question all non-Thais should ask of their home countries. "Why should our home nations be granting educational visas to CMU students who want to go study in our home countries when CMU has does this to citizens of our home country?"

Loaded, on 2010-09-23 11:33:40, said:

You might want to check your facts before making false claims. The old director retired and was not forced to resign at all. Stating such lies is offensive to her as a person as well as to her much applauded hard work at the institute. It is obvious from your postings that you have a personal vendetta agianst Dr Kay. Maybe it is you that do not like farang being successful in Thailand.  At the end of the day, Dr Kay was contracted by the president of the university to run programs at the University. If the university no longer required his services the correct way to go about it would have been to give decent notice as so all the students could be looked after accordingly and to work together as so a smooth transition could take place. Withdrawing support and closing down programs with out notice it no one elses fault except that of the institute.

Rumpole, on 2010-09-23 02:28:32, said:

I don't agree. CMU made a lot of money from these products, so if they only cared about farang's money, they wouldn't cancel them.

The Language Institute was set up primarily to serve CMU students. It wasn't set up to serve foreigners. The previous Thai director worked closely with Dr Matt to develop the 'farang' programs. These programs were very popular. This Thai director was then forced to resign just before Dr Matt was asked to relocate his programs. I feel the university felt the LI and it's brand were being misused and the time had come to make changes.

Unfortunately due to very poor communication and management (common nearly everywhere in Thailand) it has turned in to a major headache for them.

Sailfish1, on 2010-10-01 13:51:05, said:

I can't recall any foreignors (sic) demanding that the police should allow Thai-Chinese mafia to send armed thugs into the airport in support of them business claims.  Foreigners are actually more likely to avoid investing in the country or coming to spend their tourist dollars here when they read about armed gangs running around in the airport with the police standing idly by. Most Thai leaders couldn't care less what foreigners want which is why we have the most backward laws on foreign investment in Asia.  What have you been smoking?

Exactly what is the State of Emergency anyway. There can not be any meeting of more than 5 people, except if they take over an airport parking level with weapons.

I simply can not understand the logic of this place, I know that there is a logic, or set of rules that run the place, but I have not yet been able to identify the algorithm that describes it.

We had just returned from a week in Singapore to the airport last night, before this happened. Taking the airport link was a pain in the butt, no directions or any indication of which stop was where or any indication of express
train or local train. Getting off at the last stop, we needed to carry the suitcases down 4 levels, and walk out to the street and hail a cab. With no signs whatsoeveranyfuc_kingplaceatall.  Coming back from Singapore it sure was a shock, and I have been living here nearly 15 years now. I simply forgot how other places operate.

Cost of Singapore, Hotel 3X Bangkok, Food 1.5X, Cabs 2X, Shopping 1/2 price, Public Transportation less than Bangkok but it went everywhere. All in all after the cost of the hotel, Singapore was not much more expensive than Bangkok but the quality was outstanding.

Sightseeing was great, Geylang the "soi cowboy" area had many but not so attractive girls. No idea of price as I was with the GF so I couldn't ask.

People were well educated and actually could answer questions, I speak Thai and many Thais don't know much more than what is currently in front of them.

I wonder if Singapore could change so much in 40 years is there hope for Thailand in the next 400......  

Everywhere had free wifi and 3G, totally connected city.

Thailand has determined that not launching 3G will have no negative impact on the country, up-country who needs 3G to plow a field.

Sorry to wander off topic.

Thai people and the Thai government has no backbone.  They let anything happen no matter how dangerous it is, how badly it affects their economy, and how it negatively affects their people.  It  must be their "mai pen rai" mentality.  That is why Thailand is still a backward "third world" country" .   The Thai people are like sheep and will always follow the foreignors demands.  Maybe that is good for foreignors.  It is not good for the Thai people.

If I could find a place like Canada but with the lovely weather of Thailand I would leave this place in a heart beat.
Good luck OP, BTW do french women shave?

Agreed, Paris is ti France, as BKK is to Thailand. But its proximity to Reims, Epernay, Caan, Monaco, Cote D'Argent, Cote D'Azure are deffinately better.

From Paris you can take a train to the Alps and go Snow boarding, you can take a train or drive down to Caan for the film festival or even St Tropez for the beaches for of women (french women and other european women have very shapley and sizable breasts in their bikini! I've yet to see a stunning chesty french maiden paddling and playing on the beach in her jeans and long sleave tee shirt in the mid day sun.

I know many of you guys love thai ladies but I have a fondness for round pendulous breasts, naturally tanned skin, bottoms which don't look like they've been left in another pair of jeans etc...

I think Thailand is for specialists. My likes are broader and more varied so Euro-typical locations are attractive. Doesn't meant there isn't a place for thailand in my travels. But the west offers a richer diversity. I don't think thats up for dispute, is it?