David006

I am no red shirt supporter, but I dont understand the general incredulity with the fact that red supporters are receiving compensation for their time.  Certainly this is true of other political groups most other countries around the world, including so called 1st world countries in America and Europe.  Political action Groups, Labor Unions, Churches  all receive funding either from business interests, or personal contributors and that funding is used to fund rallies, transportation, food and yes pay for the core members and managers.  These groups of course tell their members how to vote.  It seems petty to claim this is a Thai only political phenomenon.

This type of activity has no correlation with the fact that many red shirts are poor.  Poor farmers, poor urbanites, working class, middle class, as well as hi so lawers, media people, developers etc all play the same exact game, all around the world.  In this case it just so happens that the consituency of the red shirts is poor.  So what?

None of us western people would swap our material standard or way of living with the rural pour thais.

There is so many social problems to take care of in the rural areas that nobody see any ending of it.

The most lucky ones is the families that have a good looking daughter to offer a "handsome" farrang.

They are the winners in the village.

There is one good thing with it. The farrangs, me included brings a set of living and material standard to the village that make some of the peasants wake up.

I wish the rural thai people a better life.

Anyway I have to admire them for not showing any kind of mistrust or envy. The smiles look real.

I am not the only farrang building a western style house in the village, but it is very funny to see that after I start building,- lot of the peasants nearby start building new or refurbish existing house.

My experience when it comes to find workers to do some work for me is that they are not confident with western standards.

And believe me. I am following my country's standard which can cause real headache for most people.

But in the end - everything's looks good and proper without me understand the reason.

The rural people seem to be doing okay...





I actually see more poverty around the cities.

When I go into the country (which I do often on fishing trips around Thailand) all I see are the happy faces of hard workers.

A rural Thai owned resort...



A craftsman building a river boat entirely by hand (no electric power)



Neatly tended farms far up mountain valleys



And a hand made waterwheel pounding rice into flour.



Women gathering shrimp from the river...



And young folk having fun dancing between the clapping bamboo poles

Some interesting reading....

The Down-Trodden Rural Poor of Thailand


It's not quite what you think
                                                                                  



Here's what you need to know about the rural have-nots of Thailand. They are the richest poor people in the Third World. And they owe none of their affluence to Thaksin Shinawatra.


Fugitive former Prime Minster Thaksin, a billionaire wanted in connection with corruption and tax-evasion on a staggeringly egregious scale, has done a remarkable job of convincing the world that he is the champion of the rural poor in Thailand, and that such prosperity as the farmer enjoys is in some way due to him. Yet all of "his" programs have been in place for decades. His well-financed public-relations machine merely invented catchy new terms for them.


In Europe and North America, farmers tend to be affluent. A comparison is therefore not at all meaningful. But take a village carpenter in Thailand's northeast and compare him with a wood-worker in a small town in Iowa. To the American, the Thai seems impoverished, his house appalling basic, his expectations in life distressingly limited. But the Thai carpenter probably lives on family land rent-free, pays nothing to moderate the climate, produces his own vegetables, chickens, eggs and pork, and rides his own motor-cycle to his jobs. He's seen the American lifestyle on TV, and it's so far beyond the range of his experience, he doesn't feel deprived or envious.


Every village in Thailand was on the electricity grid long before Thaksin came on the scene, and virtually every village family has a refrigerator, electric rice-cooker, TV, radio and a couple of oscillating fans. Almost all rural households have a motorcycle, though it may be old and battered. In every village several families own pickup trucks. Animals are no longer used for farm work except in extremely remote corners of the kingdom. If farmers don't have a mini-tractor of their own, they rent or borrow one from a neighbor.


The "landless peasant" class exists, but is very small when compared with the Philippines, India and much of South America. The rich absentee farm landlord is almost unknown. Most farming families tend a small plot of land they own outright, mortgage-free (due to unscrupulous practices in the past, an outdated, paternalistic law prevents them putting up land as security with money-lenders, though they may borrow on anticipated harvests.) They sell a small cash crop through a co-operative. Their grown-up or adolescent children supplement the family income from jobs they hold in the cities.


Thailand, like the U.S., has a fallen-through-the-cracks underclass. While statistics*, as everywhere, have to be taken with a large measure of skepticism, officially 10% of the population is below the poverty line (12% in the U.S., 14% in Britain, 36% in Bangladesh). Of course, that means the poverty line for Thailand and no international comparisons are invoked. Poverty doesn't necessarily mean doing without TV or not being able to lean a beat-up old 100 c.c. Honda Dream by the door.


Unemployment in Thailand is 1.4% -- among the lowest in the world. Here it has to be cautioned that employment statistics are notoriously unreliable. Even in advanced countries, economists cannot agree whether to include the under-employed and those not actively seeking work. But unskilled work, if not well-paid, is not hard to find. My Bangkok apartment building has had a "security guard wanted" sign out for weeks.


During the dry season, many farmers supplement their income with construction work in the cities. But some prefer to do without extra luxuries and live the slow-paced, well-fed rural life. Two or three years ago, I found it impossible for several weeks to find a plumber to put in a new bathroom. Many "peasants" have become self-employed entrepreneurs and done well for themselves. Thaksin's policies had no discernible impact on the labor force.


There is no population pressure in Thailand, since each female, on average, gives birth to 1.6 children in her lifetime. That is well below replacement level, so the population will in time shrink unless immigration is vigorously promoted. Reduction in family size was achieved through education and the perceived economic benefits of smaller families, the same way it was reduced in Europe and Japan. This got started in the 1960s.


Wealth distribution in Thailand is no more extreme than in most industrialised countries. The poorest 10% of the people of Thailand own 2.6% of the nation's wealth. The richest 10% own 33.7%. In the U.S., the comparable figures are 2% and 30%, in the U.K. 2.1% and 28.5%. These statistics may not be wholly reliable, but distribution of wealth is unquestionably much more equitable than in China, India, Brazil or South Africa. Even isolated Thai villages, especially in the central plains, would seem very prosperous to rural Pakistanis and positively utopian to most Nigerians. Thaksin's much-vaunted "village revolving development funds" financing local enterprise had their antecedents in the 1970s.  


All main roads in Thailand are paved (close to First-World standards), and most secondary roads are surfaced, as are a good many of the tracks that lead into remote villages, even in the poorer north and northeast parts of the country. It was like this when Thaksin was still a bankrupt ex-cop.


There are slums in Bangkok, but you have to go out of your way to find them. Since almost everyone is employed, squatters on state land in the cities often live there by choice because it is rent-free. You certainly do not have to go out of your way to see red-light districts. Incomes from the sex industry (obviously denied to those lacking looks and personally) exceed factory wages fivefold or more. The blind and maimed can apply for state aid, but street begging is often more lucrative. One sets one's own moral priorities.


There was care at government hospitals and health clinics long before Thaksin came along with his fancy $1 scheme. Treatment is not world-class but it is medical care nonetheless. People in need of operations get them for small fees, and if they have no money the charge is written off. No one is turned away from emergency rooms at government hospitals. Doctors who went through medical school on state scholarships owe as  many years of modestly paid service in rural hospitals as they had in tuition.


Almost no Thais are unable read & write. Girls on average get 14 years of schooling and boys 13 years (note that girls are ahead). About 1.75 million post-secondary students (over 20% of their age group) are enrolled in universities (ranging from world-class to barely respectable), two-year colleges or vocational schools. Bright kids from poor families get government scholarships, so up-by-the-bootstraps success stories are so common as to be unremarkable. This high rate of upward social mobility goes back at least half a century.


Infant deaths per 1,000 live births in Thailand tallies 17, compared with 180 in Angola, 153 in Afghanistan and 6 in the U.S. Life-expectancy at birth is 73.1 years (78.1 in the U.S., 66.1 in Russia). HIV-positive people make up 1.4% of Thailand's population (0.6% in the U.S.)


With a population of 66 million, Thailand has 62 million registered cellphones and 7 million landlines. Service is as reliable as it is in Europe. One-fourth of the people regularly use the Internet. Thaksin's own company, which prospered prodigiously while he was prime minister, had one-third of the nation's mobile-phone customers. He sold the firm to an investment arm of the Singapore government (and paid no income tax).


Thailand routinely exports more than it imports. It is attractive for foreign direct investment. It therefore has enormous foreign reserves, and even though the country has few natural resources to sell abroad, its reserves, at $138 billion, are the 10th highest in the world. (Britain has $56 billion, Australia $45 billion). This means plenty of capital for employment-creating new manufacturing jobs, which entice rural folk seeking work in cities. The Thai currency is so strong that even recent political troubles have not budged it.


Contrary to a widespread perception, the country's main exports are not agricultural products, but cars & trucks, motorcycles & vehicle parts (made by foreign-owned subsidiary companies). Exported pick-up trucks, the biggest single-selling item, contain negligible imported parts. One Japanese manufacturer sources its world-wide production of one-ton pickups, including those sold in Japan, from its Thai factories. Machinery is another big export, as are components for computers and other electronic goods, textiles, garments & footwear, processed food and animal fodder. Way down the list of foreign-currency earners are rice, sugar and tourism.


Over the years the Thai government has routinely produced a trade surplus, a current-account surplus and (though not this year) a budget surplus.


Since 1960 (when Thaksin was 11) no "developing" country has exceeded Thailand in average annual per-capita GDP growth. The farmers are still poor by western standards, but they've had their share of this rising affluence, and they are better off than rural folk in any other nation on earth for which we reserve the term Third World.  ✹


* All statistics quoted in this article were independently cross-referenced from at least three of these sources: UNICEF, UNDP, World Bank, Asian Devt. Bank, IMF, CIA, WHO, Bank of Thailand, Thai National Statistics Office. In no case is a figure quoted from purely Thai sources. In addition, plausibility comparisons were made with the statistics of a number of other countries.

Buy gold, then tell me where you live.

Quote: "I have a hunch that a lot of members who are in long term successful relationships here in Thailand read the battle zone threads in amazement then move on, without participating." End quote.

Yup, that'll be me then, apart from this one-off observation:

The majority of future contributors to this thread will likely only be trolls and BS'itters. A topic like this is open season to some members. As Guesthouse has previously recommended (and I agree) the general forum is no fit place to discuss ones real personal relationship.

Just my opinion.

Ha

I think you got some words wrong....Now I'll have to go dig out the ol' blue eyes CD.

Saw Bert Weedon 40 odd years ago.

Great guitarist - I bought the book but even the best tuition books cannot help retards with fat fingers.



RIP

When people still insist in converting baht back to their own currency even after years here.

Pet hate: batts, for currency.

I get pissed off from time to time like most I suspect, I have a moan, groan, compare how things are different compared to the 50 years you have been programmed in another country.
Then I go visit the homeland and the things you thought you missed and very quickly realise just how great Thailand is and how relaxed things are and cant wait to get back.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papain
Sounds like pickled herring withdrawals, try papaya enzyme. Aids in digestion.
disclaimer: I'm not a doctor but have watched Scrubs as well as E.R.

next topic..........................when filling fuel do I pay attention to the DIESEL ONLY sticker? ;-)

She does my head in, i swear her eyes follow me around the room.

IanForbes, on 2012-04-01 03:37:54, said:

A bigger croc I have yet to read..

ThaiVisa members who sneer at all the members that have less money and smaller pensions than them.
ThaiVisa members who look down on Thais, the traditional Thai rural way of life, and the Thai education system.
ThaiVisa members who think their wife is better than other members wives because theirs is, educated, Chinese, wealthy, hi-so.
Young and good-looking ThaiVisa members who think their bar-girl purchase likes them more than they liked the fat, bald, old fart who purchased the same girl last/next week.

How convenient to suggest the forced relocation of the minorities, the largest minority being the indigenous Karen whose traditional agricultural practices are not the most environmentally destructive of the lot but who are the dominant population ranging from south of Mae Sot northwards up to Mae Hong Song and east towards Wat Chan and down to Mae Chaem.  That is a huge region of land where once off the main highways you will find few if any Thai villages. The Thais have always attempted to hide the dominance of the Karen in this region by renaming most of the geographical names to Thai from their Karen names.  With the building of the new Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Song highway and the building of the all-weather roads radiating out from Wat Chan, this entire region is becoming attractive to investment if it were not for the pesky indigenous folks having rights to the best farm lands which tend to be scattered in small valleys.  But I am sure the Thais can follow the example of the United States in this regard and find some desolate land in Isaan to serve as reservations for the Karen who can then have their own Wounded Knee incident.