Mango Sauce 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004)

TANAI KWAI says:

Rut-row!

(Scooby Doobie Doo!)

nick adams says:

this obsession with farang women - i don't get it.

i bet you could find a lot more about the weight your honkey cousins are throwing around if you were home. but i'm baffled as to why you care, if you are here.

nick adams says:

your average honkey girl isn't going to really understand why i enjoy the company of coarse uneducated peasants who, ahem, put out. so why discuss it? neither is a your average isaan bar chicky going to enjoy a discussion of hermeneutics. so, why bring it up?

seems pretty simple to me. compartmentalize, i say.

whydoesdaviddoit says:

he does it because he is safe to do it in his anonymous internet ivory tower. like many of the contributors here, david would never have the nerve to say anything like what he writes about to a western womans face. he is, in his attitude to western women, doing exactly what he loathes about them - attitude, piss taking, putting them down - again just like the band of guys who regularly comment here. he can't even spell the woman he is talking abouts name consistently (in this article).

in short he is like so many people over the globe who have felt empowerment in their dull lives, by way of the web. they have a voice, and they are safe to use it to say what they want, so long as they dont actually have to be responsible for their actions.

but of course it is his site, his voice and his safety, so noone can really tell him what to do. it would be very interesting if anyone ever found out his real identity though. i enjoy (most) of the articles here but just lately there seems to be a penchant for predictability and re-occurance of theme. i thinkn someone recently said that this website was following the path of some guy being in bangkok for his first year - how true. starts off great, but ends up cliched.

keep it up, you all make my morning read much more fun!

Dicky says:

Come on down to my local where the beers are 50 baht (until 7p.m.), you can request music on an excellent system and the ladies can speak English, play pool and otherwise leave you alone (Det5 Sexynight, soi Zero).

We'll happily tell it to your face everything mentioned herein on this site! No problem there.

The reason this site works is because it encapsulates what a variety of different people have found to be true. We're all feeling different parts of the same...

whydoesdaviddoit says:

what i was suggesting is that if david had a second name and details of where he lived, he would be a lot less vocal about things. he is very safe. and safety brings a level of vocality because you know there is no comeback.

as an example, dicky, why don't you put your real name and address here and invite people around to hear you? although it wouldnt really be the same. as david is the who writes the articles. he is if you like the ring leader.

i think the original question, from nick adams was why the constant obsession with farang women - which is a fair enough question. if you all dislike them so much, and have all been badly treated so often, why do you keep going on about them? do't you have anything better to talk about? or is it a form of back slappig - "we all feel the same and we all vindicate ourselves with constant reminders of that fact". like a club.

at least i think that is what he meant.

Jules - The Real One says:

Hermeneutics ????

Since when your average farang lady been interested in literature and the Bible?

The only high brow conversation you would get is what is in the shops and what can she cram into her gob, apart from what you would want to cram in after a couple of hours.

Seriously though, the conversation with most ladies in bars in LOS is quite limited unless you can speak Thai and watch Thai soap operas to have something in common.

Isabel II says:

Well, I know I'm going to get shit for saying this, but I think the article was well done. At least David has the balls to explain or own up to some of the inconsistencies in the way farang/western women have been portrayed. You can't blame David only for being obsessed with farang women: The "why farang women hate Thailand" thread recevived over 300 hits. I guess a lot of men love to hate farang women.

But I want to ask you one thing: How does an intelligent person not have an opinion?

Well, good try anyway.

Thanks for the nod.

mr peter says:

I like to see bars given a plug mr Dicky and lets face it the ones in zero need it more than most, have not been down there in years. Is this Det5 sexynight (strange name) bar willing to play a bit of luktung and morlam, or are we talking about the eagles, or god forbid, hip hop music?-peter

John U says:

Dicky, It's fucking horrible under that road.

They'd have to have cheaper beer than that to drag me into that stuffy cavern.

Jules - The Real One says:

The bars are not so bad under that road. Sexy Nights however play extremely loud music which puts me off my beer. They were also on Ch 11 last night.

David says:

Hi Isabel II

Check your dictionary. Having an opinion is not the same as being opinionated.

No one wants to be described as opinionated (It means dogmatic, bigoted, cocksure, doctrinaire, overbearing, pig-headed and prejudiced) but to have an opinion is merely to have ideas or beliefs about a particular subject.

I didn't criticise farang girls for having opinions - or even for expressing them. In fact, I reckon that communication is the most important element in a relationship. It's the arguments that bugger everything up. However, if we treat each other kindly, they can usually be avoided.

That's all I'm trying to say.

fugazi says:

quote
"what i was suggesting is that if david had a second name and details of where he lived, he would be a lot less vocal about things."

Posted by whydoesdaviddoit | August 4, 2004 04:15 PM

The anonimity the inet provides is imho the very backbone of sites, discussion boards like this. I agree it has its downside too, but the fact that all remain somewhat unknown ensures an open discussion. People will be more likely to tell how they realy feel. This goes for David as well as its readers posting comments.

fu

Dicky says:

Yes, it's a bit shabby, but more desperate/friendly than Nana. Also I'm married, so my (Thai) wife knows where I am if I go there. Sometimes she phones whilst I'm nursing a beer. It's a large open club in black, second on the right.

They play Thai music from time to time to get the girls going. The BGS also get free whiskey and are regularly tested. Basically if they don't submit an "all-clear" doctor's exam slip every month they're fired.

I started going there because I could read my book under decent light without being disturbed. They have thousands of songs in a songbook, all varieties (really). You can write the numbers down and the dj will play as many as you want. It's a bit of a plug but they do ring the bell a lot. I met the owners who've since become my friends. They're very nice people. Although they are a few decent ones, most of the the girls are a bit chunky.

Why slag farang girls? Because they've been slagging us ever since the playground. I think any farang women reading this should come clean and say:

yes farang women can be and have been routinely coarse and rude to interested men down the pub/disco. I don't think you have any idea how demoralizing that becomes, year after year. Perhaps because you saw it so often it still doesn't register that there was anything "wrong" with it.

yes feminism got a bit out of hand (no need to elaborate)

yes farang women are now on average in worse physical shape than farang men

in fact, Marks and Spencer a couple of years ago announced that it was having to modify its female fashion line to "reflect the pear-shaped figure of the modern English woman." Check the sobering facts at:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9829-1100246,00.html

heading: "Obesity"

...and yes when men come here obviously they'll be gobsmacked by the difference, and won't be able to stop raving about it. Can you blame us?

Jules - The Real One says:

David,

You are quite right about kindness being at the root of good communication and harmony with a long term partner.

Language is not important. When I first met my darling we could barely understand each other. Kindness and consideration overcame language barriers and we communicated perfectly.

Then some bastard taught her colloquial English at the British Council. Now I get slapped if I even mutter the words "bugger off".

tonychang says:

Ever miss stumbling home in London at the crack of dawn, then after a particularly heavy night on the chang and sangsom take a diversion home via soi zero at lunchtime before the bars re-open.

mr peter says:

Jules the crime of playing music so loud that you cannot hold a conversation seems to be all too common. I normally do not go in a place, or walk out if this happens. I once asked why they played the music so loudly in a PP bar and was told it's what customer want, but on looking around I could not see another customer-so out I went. Mind you bars are minows in the decibel wars compared to the Hollywood Disco in Rachada, jeez what a fucking racket and the cheeky sods charge the earth to get in as well. I sat there looking like a twat (not difficult) for 40 minutes with my hands over my ears until the GF got fed up enough to leave. Also too many bars employ cocky dickheads as DJ's who seem to think the job description is to play only what they want to listen too all night.-peter

Anonymous says:

Personally I like Isabel II's comments.
Fair play to her, she can hold her own.

Dana says:

To return to the theme of overweight western woman: I'll use the US as an example--women are overweight and getting bigger. Much bigger. Men may find it unappealing but there has been no measurable change in the woman's life. They still have jobs, family, friends, cell phones, attention, and they are getting all of the sex (and marriage proposals) of their slimmer sisters. Why should they lose weight?

mr peter says:

well hows about because being fat pigs can lead to so many health problems costing the health service millions every year including:

gallbladder disease
liver disease
joint problems
gout
breathing problems
hypertension

Oh yes and I just thought of another reason, because they look a like sacks of spuds waddling around the place.-peter

Isabel II says:

Dare I say that I do understand you guys a bit better now. And I am working on losing my extra 5-10 kgs. Not nearly enough to qualify me as overweight, but I have definitely gotten the point about being up on the game.

I can't blame some of you about the anger, but were women really tha mean to you at the pub? I've never been mean in my rejections to male overtures. I do think it is petty if a woman is unnecessarily snooty to a man that is only paying her attention. It's flattering.

And David, point well taken about opinions/opinionated. But I think there may be a cultural difference, because in the states many people use opinionated to describe someone with opinions. I'm opinionated, but I don't equate that with dogmatic. I guess we can always improve, though.

TANAI KWAI says:

"And I am working on losing my extra 5-10 kgs. Not nearly enough to qualify me as overweight..."

20 pounds of fat is actually significant.

20 pounds of muscle on a man is similarly significant.

I have begun work on a fitness book with an amazing trainer and nutrition guru. If you contact me I can give you some information that would make the process barely seem like "work" at all.

(besos)

Isabel II says:

wait, is 10 kgs/20 pounds? I always mess this calculation up. I'm like, one dress size away from my ideal, or 10 pounds. I think that is more like 5 kgs or something.

ok, maybe I'll contact you.

TANAI KWAI says:

10 kgs = 22 lbs

So long as your "ideal" is really ideal, 10 lbs will be easy.

(...)

Cog says:

At the risk of pouring salt on old wounds, I would like to clear the air.

I infer from this blog section that the cyber-association between Isabel II and the Isabel/Kevin individuals is no longer valid. This seems like a complete reversal of thought, since it was Isabel II's "siphon off" comment that was the catalyst for the hail of misdirected backlash against the now defunct Whatisshape.com.

I genuinely feel a bad karma vibe about the entire Isabel/Isabel II misunderstanding (unlike the karma seal of approval I've received to do a roundhouse on Dana's neck as a way of expediting his guaranteed reincarnation into a canine). For this...
1) I apologize to Isabel II for accusing her of bluffing (perhaps the gorgeous-assed latina will also stop labeling me as a Tanai Kwai minion); and,
2) Although Kevin/Isabel did irrationally threatened to shut down Mango Sauce, I feel the invectives that were personally directed at them and their site was over-the-top and unjustified. I hope they'll consider getting a new blog/site.

Peace out.

KDub says:

Farang women...I could write on this all day. I think about this subject a lot.

Ever since I discovered Thai women I have found the western ones difficult to take.

On weight: Why is it that some educated farang women can not figure out how to eat properly? A Thai woman with limited education can tell you...how difficult is this? Men too, but my eyes say women are worse off. Men can get away with a little excess but women, imo, can not. No complaints from the women though. Men don't get away with having zero bank balances as well as women do. Dana has a good point. Men keep marrying these women? Why? Because these are the men that do not know any different.

Politeness: Here is where the Thai ones really seperate themselves. I have found I can walk up to any Thai woman and say hello and I will get a nice, positive, polite response. It's true with even the most drop-dead gorgeous ones. With farang women you never know what to expect. Getting "blown off" rudely is the norm in my city. Then I hear women ask why men are so shy here. Gun shy!

Loyalty: Here in the US we have a 50% divorce rate, 90% of all divorces are initiated by women. If an American man marries a foreign woman the divorce rate is 20%....enough said.

"Men are intimidated by succesfull women": I'm sick of this one. The reason so many career women are single is because they won't "marry down". Face it, the more women that go up the ladder, the less men above them.

I need to get back to work....I could go on and on.

KW

Greg says:

I'd love to hear some back up to your stats.

""Men are intimidated by succesfull women": I'm sick of this one. The reason so many career women are single is because they won't "marry down". Face it, the more women that go up the ladder, the less men above them."

You've hit the nail on the head with this one. I had many conversations with women about this.

On the other hand, I've been told that some asian men are intimidated by a working woman. It undermines his authority. I'm not sure if that is a problem with western men - I'd think what you point out is more the issue.

Isabel II says:

Cog: no worries. I also apologize to you for not believing you were a real person. I did like your first poem though, if you do in fact exist, and did in fact write it. I got distracted for being accused of having poor taste in art, but that is not true, because Georgia O'Keefe does more than paint pussy flowers. Anyway, old wounds, as you say, leave them behind.

KDUB: I know how to eat, but I think I need to learn how to weight train/excercise better. Right now I do minor stuff on my own, which keeps me firm, but doesn't help me lose. That's all. I don't think I deserve a backhanded comment about it.

And also, before this all comes down to just me and my presumed "weight problems" let me explain something to you: Not all men want very thin woman.

Anyway, I cannot win this one, because in Thailand I feel like I need to lose 10 pounds, and then when I go home (to New York) everyone tells me that I'm tripping, I shouldn't lose anything. And by the way, this weight issue is cultural, because a lot of the men from my ethnic group would not even look at me when I weighed 20 pounds less 2 years ago. They thought I was too skinny. So please, reserve your judgements for someone else, ok?

Another thing, I don't judge men by their wallets, and once stopped dating a rich guy for a guy from more humble means. If you prefer a beautiful girl that looks like a Thai porn star, then by all means. But if you don't like women that are more along the lines of Jennifer Lopez or Beyouce then fine, but just leave me the fuck alone, ok? I'm not going to ask you for your back statement. I may not be your type, but I'm someone's type.

Greg says:

"I may not be your type, but I'm someone's type."

The essence of many of my own thoughts. There is always a niche market.

Cog says:

^I like my women like I like my steaks - big, thick and juicy.

"I...like big butts and I cannot lie...
Baby got back!"

Isabel II says:

Greg, no offense, but I don't want to be anyone's "niche" market either.

Isabel II says:

Look, I'm not "thick" either ok, and I'm not a steak.

Man, I knew a moment of honesty on this site was gonna be a big problem.

Emil says:

Is it wrong for me to infer from these posts that money is the key issue here?

As a westerner, isn't the fact that one's socio-economic status(which is important to women of any background IMO) increases exponentially in Thailand a major factor in how 'friendly' a woman is?

Could it be that Western women aren't overly superficial and stuck-up(at least anymore so than any other women)?

In the Western world, most of us are just a bunch of Dana's - insecure, bitter, and poor. In other words, not very marketable. In Thailand, we are kings. I wonder then why it is such a mystery that Thai girls are so 'nice' and 'loyal' to western men when compared to western women.

If farangs were known to be immigrants from a poor 3rd world country, I dont think we would receive as much love here. This is not a statement against Thai women but a statement against blind and love-hungry men.

Emil

Cog says:

"Look, I'm not "thick" either ok, and I'm not a steak".
That leaves big and juicy; two outa four ain't bad. Would you happen to be a puffy taco? mmmm...delish.

"Junk in di trunk, wine up yuh rump...
Shake dat ass...y'all lookin' fine".

TANAI KWAI says:

"Why is it that some educated farang women can not figure out how to eat properly? A Thai woman with limited education can tell you...how difficult is this?"

Actually, I think this is not such an easy nut to crack. Thai women tend to have genetics on their side, and a diet that is lower in fattening foods. Many don't work out at all and eat all they want. Bully for them but it's not a fair comparison.

Farang people have a fast-food palate and are bombarded by slick Madison Avenue commercials for junk food in the late evening -- deadly. And there is so much misinformation out there even the educated, elite of farang society don't know what the hell they are doing.

Bottom line: I fear that in 10 years Asia will be a much, much, MUCH fatter place due to the perncious influence of convenience foods and crap advertising.

Unfortunately, fat doesn't look or feel any better on an Asian than it does on a farang.

(...)

Greg says:

Not much to discuss, but why don't you want to be a niche commodity? Prefer to be a mainstream one? Prefer not to be a commodity?

Personally, I examine the trends, work on my weaknesses, and market myself according to my strengths. I don't pretend that the essence of Me is supposed to be appealing.

Greg says:

I didn't mean that emotional, intellectual and spiritual realities were not valid - just that any dimension is not entirely nebulous. My essence depends on stuff. Physically or otherwise. Yada yada. I have a girl in my bed and I'm bored and lonely. 4 hours of sex is good fun, but I'm bored and lonely.

TANAI KWAI says:

Re: niches

Maybe means she does not care to be fetishized or pursued on the basis of her physical appearance alone, by the kind of man who only dates women of her type.

I certainly know a lot of Asian women who find "yellow fever" to be creepy as hell.

(...)

Isabel II says:

Yes, something along the lines of what TK said. I don't think of myself as a commodity, or putting myself out on the market.

And I generally try to avoid racialized attractions. Although, with me, those that racialized "niche" markets would be disappointed, because I'm mixed ancestry, and look white to most people, but not everyone.

I don't know, I'm just of the weird, complicated, slightly-fucked up, but fun niche. I'm just not a freak. I don't know. I'm going to bed.

Gimpy1 says:

Tania, I hope your amazing trainer and nutrition guru is a little more on the ball than the person recommending that sexy Krispy Creme. I'm still waiting for my gay bashing comments.

TANAI KWAI says:

I wasn't joking. It's got to be congenital, or perhaps brain damage.

(...)

Cog says:

Hey...for the record, I was the one that originally mentioned Krispy Kreme, Inc. It's a good thing I don't pick 'em.

GEORGE S says:

Isabel II > I think you have done quite well and have made some salient points.

Okay, I'm game. How about a look at that fine ass then. Come on. Don't be shy, just a peek.

David > I do think you took some on the chin today. But that's ok. Nothing wrong with getting beat up a little over the posting. - By the way, well done yesterday with Mot and photo.

george

TANAI KWAI says:

Cog, yes, well, needless to say, nobody here picked, recommended or otherwise praised Krispy Kreme, which would be a little like posting in praise of female circumcision.

Dana, where are you when the piteously-inbred-canine-tirelessly-yanking-on-a-rag-until-its-foamy-jowls-bleed-and-its-yellowed-teeth-litter-the-lawn metaphor is so a propos?

(does ANYBODY, anybody at all, speak Idiot?)

Dana says:

TK--I have to pace myself. I am the godhead.

usvirgin says:

It might be apropos to point out, at this juncture, that golfer John Daly is sponsored by both Krispy Kreme and Slim-Fast.

And, yes, I speak idiot.

Gimpy1 says:

Tania,

"yes, well, needless to say, nobody here picked, recommended or otherwise praised Krispy Kreme,"

I think you forgot that you yourself refered to Krispy Kreme as being a "Sexy stock."

JULES-THE REAL ONE says:

The last farang woman I made love to was so fat and ugly I still get the shivers thinking of her.

Ladyboy's are the only way to go.Pre-Op of course.

TANAI KWAI says:

USVirgin:

"It might be apropos to point out, at this juncture, that golfer John Daly is sponsored by both Krispy Kreme and Slim-Fast."

Hilarious. Did you see him play last weekend? The slob was smoking a cigarette almost up to the time he would swing his club. Really funny.

"And, yes, I speak idiot."

Thank God. I may need to call on you. Here is my gosling effort to speak in this difficult tongue:

SEXY STOCK NO NO NO NO NO MEAN GOOOOOOD!!!!!!!!

SEXY STOCK NO NO NO NO NO MEAN BAAAAAAAD!!!!!!!!

SEXY STOCK YES YES YES YES MEAN EVERYBODY KNOW NAME!!!!!!!

(znort!)

Eructatius says:

While farang women are being slagged on your website, white men are being gutted back home. I got shanghai'd into seeing Catwoman the other day (which I don't recommend). If you are to believe this film, all white men are evil. It is not subtle. Not only are the wicked all white men but the dialogue comes out with insulting comments about men directly. The screenwriter and director are both female...yet I hear no one complaining. Where is our Isabelle?

Jules - The Real One says:

As everyone will by now know there is a little boy on this site posting in my name.

His works can be recognised by poor grammar, syntax, spelling, punctuation and a fascination with gay sex.

I am not offended but I feel very sorry for this person.

The adolescent schoolyard jibes about ladyboy's (his punctuation) suggest retarded development, a very basic education, maybe dyslexia, and a confused sexual identity.

Feng Bao says:

Well, there's the consolation that Catwoman didn't land on her feet. The audience voted with theirs and stayed away in droves.

The movie, despite having the heavenly Halle Berry, in the lead role was a flop at the box-office.

I'm annoyed by all the American TV ads that portray husbands and fathers as twits, but their wives and kids as all wise and all knowing.

Which, if you've andy interactions with your typical "soccer mom" you know about as far from the truth as one can get.

Don't know any Thai gals, but Japanese and Chinese gals are great. Beat the future whiny, fat-assed, soccer-moms in training any given day ;-)

usvirgin says:

TK:
Re: John Daly's sponsors, and his smoking habit.

I'd like to correct my earlier post. I just flipped on the Golf Channel and it appears he is sponsored by Dunkin' Donuts and Trimspa. Same same, but different. Both logos are on his shirt though, along with so many others that they say he looks like a NASCAR guy. It's appropriate that his clothing line is called Redneck.

I saw only some of the Buick on the weekend, but lots of the fourball event in San Diego on Monday night. Don't know about the Buick, but saw a ciggie dangling from his mouth throughout most the the Monday affair. I think that the US networks try to keep that stuff off the air, as much as possible, but it's nearly impossible to do in a four man competition, especially when a chain smoker is involved.

Still, I like him, and if he had a beer and a bad swing to go along with that cigarette, he'd remind me even more of myself.

Reminds me of a conversation my cigar smoking golf buddy had with a comlete stranger, on the course, recently:

Stranger: You know, you remind me of a movie star, with that cigar in your mouth.
CSGB: Oh, yeah? Who?
Stranger: Lassie, taking a shit.

CGSB has a low handicap and is a former golden gloves champ who, fortunately, has a sense of humor.

kelake says:

To return to the theme of overweight western woman: I'll use the US as an example--women are overweight and getting bigger. Much bigger. Men may find it unappealing but there has been no measurable change in the woman's life. They still have jobs, family, friends, cell phones, attention, and they are getting all of the sex (and marriage proposals) of their slimmer sisters. Why should they lose weight?

Well, it's not just the women who are getting bigger. People back in the states and Canada are just plain huge.

kelake says:

"Anyway, I cannot win this one, because in Thailand I feel like I need to lose 10 pounds, and then when I go home (to New York) everyone tells me that I'm tripping, I shouldn't lose anything. And by the way, this weight issue is cultural, because a lot of the men from my ethnic group would not even look at me when I weighed 20 pounds less 2 years ago. They thought I was too skinny. So please, reserve your judgements for someone else, ok?"

Where I currently live all the local men I know favour women who I consider to be unbelievably skinny. I like women with nice form and I agree that a great deal of us from the west (men and women) are unhealthily overweight but what good is a woman who is so thin she can hardly walk up a couple flights of stairs. God, I worked with a woman who took the morning off after having to run to catch the bus. I'll take a little extra meat on the bone if they can actually participate in an active lifestyle.

John U says:

US Virgin,

I like the Lassies Taking a shit story :<)).

Tow teams wwere playing cricket a couple of years ago in the UK. (It's a strange game with a bat and ball, but very popular in some parts of the world)

The bowler - who was an Aussie - couldn't bowl out the guy with the bat, who was English. The English guy was pretty fat, so as the Aussie came close to him he tried to psych him out saying "You're so fucking fat. Why are you so fucking fat".

The English guy said, "Because every time I fuck your wife she gives me a biscuit" (Cookie in yank speak)

Everybody in earshot fell about laughing.

Gimpy1 says:

Kelake,

Of course they are not going to tell you to lose the weight. If you do, they will just look fatter when they are around you. If you think you need to lose weight, you probably do. There is the old saying, you can never be too thin or too rich. Unless of course you are Karen Carpenter.

Isabel II says:

"While farang women are being slagged on your website, white men are being gutted back home. I got shanghai'd into seeing Catwoman the other day (which I don't recommend). If you are to believe this film, all white men are evil. It is not subtle. Not only are the wicked all white men but the dialogue comes out with insulting comments about men directly. The screenwriter and director are both female...yet I hear no one complaining. Where is our Isabelle?"

Eructatius: I do understand this point of view a lot better now. I really do. Some of you got through to me. I have been more sensitive these last few days to images of western men on western television, and I get it now. I will go back and tell my tribe.

The racial issue is alsosensitive, but still in the process of being transformed. A little balance is in order, but please bear in mind that it is only until recently that almost allcriminals and evil characters in themedia are not swarthy or black.

I think women in the west have reached a point of security in our civil rights that we don't have to grind the same point out over and over again in the media. Being equal does not mean emasculating men. That being said, I would never return alive to my mother's generation.

"I'll take a little extra meat on the bone if they can actually participate in an active lifestyle."

Thanks Kelake. A lot of men feel that way. But I still want to lose 10 pounds/5kgs.

Combover says:

Isabel II - what's your Body Mass Index (height in metres divided by weight in kg squared)? This site will also compare you to your fellow Americans.

http://www.halls.md/body-mass-index/bmi.htm

Ideal range should be 20-25. Intrestingly, I think the scale should be lower for Asian frames. I know plenty of women below the 20 BMI figure who yould would not consider underweight at all, just small framed.

In addition, why don't the boys out there have a bash. Let's see if it's the fat bastards in glass houses throwing the stones!

tonychang says:

who ate all the pies?
not me =22.6

mr peter says:

Me neither = 25 just on the line. Come on our isabel tell us what yours comes out out at, then we'll tell you if it's 10lb or 100lb of nasty fat you should be shedding, where were you last night?-peter

Isabel II says:

Great site Combover!

My BMI = 22

According to them, I am only 3 pounds away from my ideal weight, but I disagree.

I have been scolded here for allegedly posting too much personal or physical information, so if someone comes after me for this you guys are taking the fall.

mr peter says:

Isabel I love the personal info, what are you like in the tit dept?, if it's not a too personal a question-peter

Cog says:

"According to them, I am only 3 pounds away from my ideal weight, but I disagree."

Are the poundage tucked away in your ass? Nothing wrong with an extra jiggle...

"Uhhhh...I like it like that, she workin' that back, I don't know how to act,
Slow motion for me, slow motion for me, slow motion for me..."

According to the BMI calculations, I have man-boobies the size of Montana. Fortunately, I gazed fruther down the website and read this: "It will, however, overestimate fatness in people who are muscular or atheletic." Thus, I will attribute my obesity to my weight-training+Muay Thai regimen(novice).

Isabel II says:

Wait a minute, I misread the ideal weight thing. Apparently, I am not 3 pounds away from my ideal weight, but 10 pounds/5 kgs, just as I suspected. I am at the top of the recommended weight for small frame.

TANAI KWAI says:

USVirgin:

The Lassie line was priceless.

John U:

Heard the biscuit/cookie one before but laughed like hell the first time.

Combover:

As you could predict, the BMI is being abused by insurance actuaries these days. As noted elsewhere, its results are skewed (Arnold Schwarzeneggar is obese by this standard). My BMI is 24.4, but my stomach is all but flat and my goal is for it to be "worse" in the next six weeks as I pack on a bit more mass.

Cog:

I am surprised you didn't quote "My anaconda don't want none unless you got buns hon'!"

(cheers)

Combover says:

24

Healthy enough. But then man breasts and pot bellies are merely unsightly, not unhealthy.

TANAI KWAI says:

Combover,

"But then man breasts and pot bellies are merely unsightly, not unhealthy."

Indeed, some would find such features downright comely...

http://www.handbag.com/gossip/hotoffthepress/?Content=story&StoryID=436376

(...)

Combover says:

And is the moral of the story that if lucky Heidi hadn't kept herself in shape (if I remember correctly there was more meat on a vegan shish kebab) she wouldn't have got the best shag of her life?

Nice parable TK.

Isabel II says:

8 hours at 400 lbs. and 73 years-old? The man was a sex god. Of course, we only know that he came 8 times, and not how many times she did, so maybe she's the sex god. Or maybe she's just advertising.

Dana says:

Isabel II has us men pondering weight charts and responding to her ruminations about her appearance. What's next--talk about hair and makeup and relationships? Real men don't talk about this stuff. Real men bludgeon their enemies and have slashing vicious internal monoloques full of bitterness and anger and self pity and thoughts of revenge.

Greg says:

Do real men eat tuna sandwiches?

tonychang says:

They certainly dont eat saveloys.

Greg says:

Random machine gun sprayings of ideas below. Unedited, undirected. Some thoughts are placeholders that will be fleshed out if I become sober.

A few generalities about Thai/Falang relationships, from this man's view:

Pro Thai:

Size and age

Guys don't like talk as much as women.

Guys like to feel in charge of their domain. Give and take, but not be bossed around.

Guys don't want too many demands or expecations. No one wants to be nagged.

Pro Falang:
Educated falang women have better training in expressing emotions, and in dialogue about personal issues from a more detached and rational stance. They can often talk things through. This can also work against them, because women can never have too much talking, and can want to talk every little thing through the instant there is some feeling of emotional discomfort. Instead of having a relationship based on doing stuff together you wind up talking about having a relationship. Guys have a lower threshold for that activity, so too much of it can be counter productive. This skill still goes in the pro falang category though, as in theory it should be possible to have some sort of balance between being able to talk and being able to shut up.

I received a few email responses to my last Stickman submission. Some in agreement, and some saying I should learn to lighten up and go with the flow.

I used to spend a lot of time meditating and studying philosophy. In forest retreats, in meditation centers, in a monastery. I never picked up from any of that that I was supposed to abdicate my intellect to the greatness of the now and just go along with whatever happened to be in front of me. I have nasty adjectives for those who advocate lightening up. Flow fascist. Nihilist. Multiculturalist.

We all approach life through our ideas - even if our idea is that it is best not to think too much. Choicelessly we are philosophers. Some philosophies are simplistic and incoherent, some are nihilistic, some are coherent but paranoid, etc. It matters. Go with what flow? A paranoid schizophrenic flow? A heroin/coke/alcohol enabled flow? Is the life of a happy flowing sun basking pig as in focus and penetrating and meaningful as that of a philosopher/meditator/lover/dancer/professional/socially engaged person? If your answer is yes, then read no further.

Really, just stop reading, altogether. Pour yourself another drink, and get back to your mantra. Mai pen rai. Mai pen rai. All is good, even if it is bad. My brain is confusion, so I will pretend I don't have one. Only what goes on around me is good, so I will accept, and attune. The more I accept, the more I will be in the flow, and happy.
Politics? No worries. Infidelity and lies? Whatever. Incest in my family? Pass the bong. Flow, flow, flow, I am one and complete. Flow balding and flow sagging tits. My boundaries have dissolved into the bliss of perfect acceptance, and I have found perfection in noticing no problems. It's all good. No, really. No, really, really.

We live in an age where any understanding of anything is regularly updated. Some of the interesting updates on what it means to be embodied in this weird world relate to how we all go through developmental stages that always occur in the same sequence across all cultures. There are developmental stages for all sorts of lines of development, such as mathematical, musical, cognitive, moral, aesthetic, kinesthetic, emotive, and more.

Piaget seems to have started the ball rolling with his studies of one line of development. His research has been repeated many times in different cultures, and is widely accepted. His line of cognitive development:

Trusting, good communication.

Which do you expect the man to choose?
21 year old slim waisted multi orgasmic girl (not woman, girl). No education but likes to laugh and massage my feet.
39 year old PHD aspiring sister of the all women womynhood with ìaverageî weight, likes to tell me how I'm not exactly her ìtypeî but how I could do if I became a different person.
I know, apples and oranges. Is the PHD multi orgasmic? Does the waif understand irony? That's just it. Thai women often have the basics. They have the initial steps on the hierarchy of needs covered. Emotion, sex, family, and tribe. Thais have those based fully covered.

---
Any co-writers or editors for this piece are welcome. This is about 1/6th of the remaining spew.

Mr White says:

"They certainly dont eat saveloys."

Well my BMI is 26 and as a youngster I enjoyed the battered savs (saveloys) that my mum would whip up for my sister and I on a good weekend.

Does that make me any less of a man?

Greg says:

No, that food passes as straight. There is a website dedicated to what actions and foods make you masculine or feminine. www.dana-is-alpha-hetero.com

Greg says:

Bowling, writing, fucking, socializing.

Which do you do better drunk?

Isabel II says:

Greg:

Just find a slim-waisted, multi-orgasmic PHd that is your type and you're all set.

I liked your musings though. Hilarious.

Greg says:

Had one of those once. Unfortunately she had the brain disease known as schizophrenia. At first I was impressed by her vivid dreams, and sensitivity to her inner voice. When her voice turned out not to be a metaphor and she started believing that I was the same person in a different body as other people, things got weirder.

mr peter says:

Go on then ask her out for fucks sake, she's obviously interested:
'I liked your musings though. Hilarious'
You know what they say, if you can get them laughing you can...... Go on-peter

Cog says:

I'd feel my thong chafing up my butt-crack every time I read one of Khun Greg's protracted intimate philosophizings (especially when it relates to Thais). Now, I just laugh. Not surprisingly, my ass/arse also feels a heckuva lot better.

Unbeknownst to Khun Greg (and perhaps everyone else), he's Mango Sauce's latent comic genius. Years of genetic isolation drinking beer while conversing with moose gave Canucks the gift of gab.

Note: Dana has secretly informed me that "real men" wear thongs.

TANAI KWAI says:

For those of you who couldn't slog through Greg's last post, here is the good part:

"Educated falang women have better training in expressing emotions, and in dialogue about personal issues from a more detached and rational stance. They can often talk things through. This can also work against them, because women can never have too much talking, and can want to talk every little thing through the instant there is some feeling of emotional discomfort. Instead of having a relationship based on doing stuff together you wind up talking about having a relationship. Guys have a lower threshold for that activity, so too much of it can be counter productive. This skill still goes in the pro falang category though, as in theory it should be possible to have some sort of balance between being able to talk and being able to shut up."

I shall continue performing this service as appropriate and would expect the same in return.

Yours in the faith,
TK

Pat Paulsen says:

Greg,

Mmnnn!

"First I was impressed by her vivid dreams, and sensitivity to her inner voice. When her voice turned out not to be a metaphor and she started believing that I was the same person in a different body..."

Greg, you don't always need an extreme relationship with a woman to know your boundaries, right?

It can't hurt. I had a plus-sized girl once; the experience taught me they are nice, just not very Pat. Once dated an educated girl who dovetailed neatly into the "Big Picture." She wasn't extreme, quite the opposite; she embraced many familiar sounding "values," some which I find myself, frankly, running away from at times. I missed that "edge;" the attraction, the thrill of having a lover in a multi-culti subcontext. "Dovetails" leanings made me contemptous; it seemed she was racing down the mountain, towards a modern world, while I was climbing, to escape one.

As you say, most Thai women have the basics, but I save the subtle, nuanced(even emotional) conversations for western women. The ones who accept me as I am. There are a few of those.

Pat

Dicer says:

Greg writes

"Piaget seems to have started the ball rolling with his studies of one line of development. His research has been repeated many times in different cultures, and is widely accepted. His line of cognitive development:"

You clever mother****er you're getting close to it.

If you've read your Piaget then you know your NLP from Grinder and Bandler.

Now these guys did their research in the States. There are a lot of people who have done research on cognition levels in several countries Thailand included. They used modality, cognition and history and some surveys. The result was that unlike the US the cognition level in Thailand did not go above level 3 which means that most are either auditory or kinesthetic, but not visual (level 4); according to Piaget visual is age 13+ stuff: logic, sequence and conceptualisation (and hypotactic shifts). Level 3 stuff is mostly functional, and small talk (paratactic ), memorization and block recall (like reading Thai).... and not a lot of extended comversation with direct answers, comparisons, synthesis and hypothesis (the unexpected)..... its after all part culture part education.

Greg says:

Hi Pat,

"As you say, most Thai women have the basics, but I save the subtle, nuanced(even emotional) conversations for western women. The ones who accept me as I am. There are a few of those."

Yes, that's why for marriage I'll most likely hold out for that rare woman. It is too easy to get all the lovin and sex outside of marriage for me to consider taking that big a step unless it was with a peer.

"Greg, you don't always need an extreme relationship with a woman to know your boundaries, right?"

Nice comment! Well, they have hardened me up a bit, and I did need hardening. At age 20 I interviewed a massage therapist regarding her profession. She told me not to go into it, because I was so empathetic that I would loose my sense of boundaries. Well, I'm a right prick now. No longer over empathetic. Thanks to dating nutso people. Some good in that.

"it seemed she was racing down the mountain, towards a modern world, while I was climbing, to escape one."

Interesting that in your metophor you chose up as the direction of escape. Do you have any sense of what is up in the direction away from the civilation that binds?

Greg says:

Thanks for that post Dicer.

Do you know offhand where I can learn more about these studies?

TANAI KWAI says:

Greg,

Lots online about NLP, Grinder, Bender, and their lesser-know assistant, Flipperover, but I can't find the specific info re: cognition levels in Thailand.

(...)

Cog says:

Dicer wrote:
".... its after all part culture part education."

Bingo! The abstention of haughty judgements is appreciated.

Here's a relevant paper written from the perspective of a Thai academic (Soraj Hongladarom):

http://pioneer.netserv.chula.ac.th/~hsoraj/web/APPEND.html (Warning: Philosophical highbrow reading)

...just don't ask me to dissect the paper; I'm Thai, so I'm cognitively somewhere between mastication and hibernation.

Dana says:

If I factually posted about cognition levels in Thailand I would get killed. Someone else does it and you are falling all over yourselves to start another lengthy thread that will end with chatter about Irish music. I quess the source is more important than the facts.

Pat Paulsen says:

"Do you have any sense of what is up in the direction away from the civilation that binds?"

Less is more, sometimes? It comes down to knowing/trusting yourself; which influences to keep, which to jettison. Like consciously choosing what to watch on tv, and what to avoid, or not. It happens at a certain point in most peoples lives as well; choosing who your close friends are. Who gets the handwritten card with a colorfull stamp on it, who just gets a wave.

Since early July my water heater corroded-and burst. I could still get water everywhere, but no hot shower. I had to fill two barrels, and shower in a way reminiscent of two weeks in Hua-Hin countryside(w/ an "Our Place" TGF). I hated it there, but now I long for those days. Hot water heater here's been fixed also, but in a funny way showering under the night sky brought some of my memories, and the simple pleasures taken for granted, back to life.

"As for marriage I'll most likely hold out for that rare woman."

I've missed a few rare ones, just didn't know it, that's all. Should've, Could've, Would've (ask me how today went - tommorow). And I hate the feeling of letting another good one go when my vision is blurred. But married this year would entail making the neccessary compromises in next year, and I know better; everybody gets older. It's about finding somebody you can accept compromises with, whether she's someone at level 3, 4 (thanks Dicer!), or someone at a higher "level," perhaps an articulate western type?

Phew! Being scared of failure is one reason I chose never to get married in the first place.

But continued good "flow" to you all (in every respect).

Pat

Greg says:

Dana: "I quess the source is more important than the facts."

What are you talking about? I'm more disrespected here than you are.

Greg says:

"...just don't ask me to dissect the paper; I'm Thai, so I'm cognitively somewhere between mastication and hibernation."

I thought you were US educated? That means you are not Thai.

Greg says:

If you think you are Thai, you must be some sort of racist, right?

Cog says:

"I quess the source is more important than the facts."

That's a blatant distortion - what cognitive level was that reasoning derived from?

One shouldn't disregard verbal presentation for the sake of expediency. If the intention is to initiate amicable discussion, then *how* one says something is just as important as what one says. Truth doesn't need to be heavy-handed.

That's my homily for the day.

Greg says:

"Less is more, sometimes?"

I sure hear you there.

Greg says:

"Truth doesn't need to be heavy-handed."

Both fortunately and unfortunately, us guys seem to have an innate drive to play king of the hill. Being heavy handed is just one way to climb up and push someone down.

A friend of mine once warned me against being an intellectual bully. Tough advice to remember, as there is some satisfaction in spitting on people.

Cog says:

"I thought you were US educated? That means you are not Thai."

You define 'Thainess' in such restrictive terms. Are you insinuating that because I am "white-washed", I am therefore no longer Thai?

"If you think you are Thai, you must be some sort of racist, right?"

1. I don't *think* I am Thai...I *know* I am Thai; and
2. How does merely *thinking* one is Thai make one racist?

The essence of your question eludes me...

Greg says:

It is straightforward. I think you had mentioned that you considered there to be no genetic differences between the races. You are largely culturally western, if my understanding is correct. So what is left that is Thai?

Greg says:

Interesting article by that Thai philospher, COG. One point he mentions is:

"On the other hand, the underdeterminist would argue that such a picture of each cultural entity racing along the same path smells too much of teleology and "God's design" to be tenable. Instead of so viewing, each culture should be regarded as having its own path not necessarily shared with others."

The strange smell of God's design would stink less put in the context of developmental theory. In that context, it is not organizing systems of thought into categories which is smelly. Clearly, the data has conclusively shown that development does occur along a set pattern of restructured and more organized perceptions. God needn't enter the picture, and there is a direction. It isn't a flat equal world we live in.

Greg says:

In his conclusions, Soraj Hongladarom said:

"Consequently, Asian cultures and critical thinking are divergent only if the former opt not to amend their decisions."

In other words, at this time he finds the culture and critical thinking to be incompatible.

"Besides, to argue that critical thinking is actually a good thing to have is difficult, because it may run counter to the deeply entrenched belief that critical thinking is just a label for the confrontational and disputatious mode of life which the culture finds unpalatable."

In other words, the very notion of thinking critically is often discarded on emotional grounds in this country.

TANAI KWAI says:

"In other words, at this time he finds the culture and critical thinking to be incompatible."

No Greg, what he concludes is:

"It is, as we have seen, an argument that Asian philosophy and Asian thought in general do not necessarily conflict with critical thinking and its presuppositions. Furthermore, it is the contingent making of decisions throughout the history of each culture itself, which, I believe, is flexible and adaptive enough to effect substantial changes for the future."

And Cog is Thai.

(...)

Pat Paulsen says:

"I'm Thai, so I'm cognitively somewhere between mastication and hibernation."

Sure about that?

You speak like an educated westerner; like someone who's confrontative and problem solving, like an American. Appearance can still betray, but your "Thai-ness" is less evident than most.

I know a lovely Thai girl who got a work visa, only to spend the last 1 1/2 years here working in a Thai restaurant, hanging on to a small circle of friends. She's definitely still "Thai", but becoming less so every day.

Pat

Greg says:

TK, he concludes that the ONLY reason that critical thinking and asian culture are not incompatible is because the culture can choose to change from it's current status to a new one. His historical references are admitted to be no longer relevent outside of historical contexts.

Greg says:

And if you think that COG is Thai, TK, then you also are a racist. Genes make one a part of a particular group?

Dana says:

Here we go again. I predict a long thread with Isabel getting on board late and a final predictive tumble into name calling and juvenile behavior. I'll just fast forward to the Irish music posts a week from now.

TANAI KWAI says:

"...the ONLY reason that critical thinking and asian culture are not incompatible is because the culture can choose to change from it's current status to a new one."

Aren't you backtracking? His essay is a sanguine ode to the adaptability of Asian culture NOT to its incompatibility with critical thinking.

"Since the philosophy of a culture is but an abstract and theoretical expression and justification of the culture's decision to choose one set of priorities over another, Asian philosophy and critical thinking are neither necessarily divergent nor necessarily convergent."

You smear shit on the lily (as opposed to gilding it), overstating the "incompatibility" angle because this idea has formed such a well-worn neural pathway in your brain (you are frustrated with the Thais and have an axe to grind).

(...)

Greg says:

" His essay is a sanguine ode to the adaptability of Asian culture NOT to its incompatibility with critical thinking."

Both are true. He mentions that Asian culture has to adapt in order to be able to be compatible with critical thinking.

Therefore...??? get it? It is not currently compatible.

TANAI KWAI says:

"It is not currently compatible."

Oh, I see -- now Asian culture and critical thinking are not "currently" compatible -- not just incompatible. If you back up another step you'll plunge into the Andaman.

Your assertion, run from it though you may, is that Professor whatshisname is positing a zero-sum battle between Asian culture and critical thinking -- locked in a deathgrip, only one can emerge. In your view, oil and water can't be "compatible" no matter how furiously you mix them. And that is NOT what he is saying. He is saying there can be synthesis and confluence. This is not a manifesto to eradicate blocks of Asian culture to permit more critical thinking, as you would have him conclude (your subsequent shadings of your position notwithstanding).

(get it?)

TANAI KWAI says:

"And if you think that COG is Thai, TK, then you also are a racist."

I'm off to the Klan rally.

(toodles)

Dana says:

synthesis, confluence, and manifesto within ten words of each other--lets just pronounce TK the winner and move on. . .

Greg says:

TK, it seems that we don't disagree at all, and that you do understand his paper.

The prof says that currently critical thinking is not culturally accepted, but that it could easily be.

Right?

Greg says:

"I'm off to the Klan rally."

Poof - you are invisible!

Pat Paulsen(hic..!) says:

Dana,

Sorry about the name calling;
"Southie irish," and all that.

You are still a useless prick!

Pat

TANAI KWAI says:

"Poof - you are invisible!"

Christ, Greg, can't a brother eat some dinner? Your responses aren't quite as daunting as you might think.

"TK, it seems that we don't disagree at all, and that you do understand his paper."

Okay, then I guess we'll just have to agree to agree.

(...)

Greg says:

"Your responses aren't quite as daunting as you might think."

You hid behind irony again instead of addressing an issue. Up2u. I would have thought that since you made so many posts about race, the subject would have interested you. My mistake. As long as there is no pot shot in it for you, you put on your invisibility cloak of irony, saying nothing, meaning nothing.

Dicer says:

Greg and TK, interesting exchange... you're both somewhat right about what Soraj's conclusion about Asian critical thinking. It is a good article but given Greg's question lets back up a bit.

Greg Asks:-

"Do you know offhand where I can learn more about these studies?"

Well, as TK said NLP is on the net. About cognitive studies in non-western cultures there is very little published material; If you have access to a huge library of academic journals then there is some stuff but most tend to be turgid and its all as if the researchers are trying to keep all the good stuff secret by making it soberly incomprehensible. Another problem is similar to the "racist" accusation you're hurling around on Cog and TK.

Now about cognition in Thailand.

Piaget got one thing wrong by saying that all people gradually reach level 4 and it was assumed that as children grow up wherever they are they all become visual. But neuro-linguistic research showed that not to be the case. Now the whole point of NLP is to activate one's neural capacity, to make it easier to learn and really think, irrespective of race and culture. Now Thai people are generally intelligent but their educators do not appreciate this nor do they motivate them to think or expect the unexpected. Thais generally reach stasis at age 11-13 with the level 3 stuff.

Caveat emptor= In any society you have a mix of different cognition types but level 3 in Thailand is the majority.

How do we know that? Language is key: A good example of which is learning to speak a second language. Thai students go to college after learning English for over 10 years. They have the grammar and vocab but not the thinking and using English is forever hard; They slog it out for a long time but can still not handle emphatic sounds, idiomatic speech, context and other stuff. This corresponds to the same level of learning a foreign language in Europe and the States. But it would not stretch for 10 years! Thais have structured their own way of teaching English that suits them, which is level 3, "weather talk" but seldom gets into logic, sequence and hypothesis, Q/A dialectic.... add to this the unwillingness to teach their students the cultures that English comes from and the students are lost.... pick up most English books written by a Thai academic and it's shocking. The bottom line is that there is no mind training.

Now lets get back to the Thai language itself(as Soraj, who wrote the critical thinking article and his colleagues used to say to us in Chula) evaluate Thai thinking in its own terms. Idealism and relativism aside lets look at Thai cognition briefly.

Take this example:-

The conversation between two people, a Thai-Chinese(TC) businessman and a long time foreign resident(FR).

TC: Do you like Thailand?
FR: Of course, I like it.
Tc: yes everything Thai is good.
FR: So you like everything Thai. Will you marry a Thai woman?
TC: Cannot.
FR: And why is that?
Tc: I Chinese, family want me not marry Thai.
FR; Why is that?
TC: Thai lazy, drink, no trust.
FR: erm...thats a paradox, you say everything Thai is good but now you tell me they are no good.
TC: Oh? errrr...
FR: You see, you are contradicting yourself.
TC: Asks "sabaai dii....Gin Khaaw lW yaang"?

TC can not synthesize the elements of the contradiction and thinks that something is not OK with FR and makes a hypotactic shift to another subject.

This example may seem spurious but the import is real. Extended follow ups in Thai discourse are not common and if one presses for an extended conversation the result is confusion. This may be partly to do with show and presentation and willingness to aviod confrontation, but in fact it is much deeper than that. Kinesthetic people (emotional, feelers) do not like general long conversation about one topic and find any form of dialectical Q & A stuff unpleasant. But once faced with a problem they have a good capacity for problem solving and are good organisers.

Some more examples of commonly observed cognitive traits in Thai thinking.

A very common error in Thai conversation and thinking is the reductio mistake (that is, taking a permise to absurd consequences, like for example: I hate drugs, they should kill all drug users or foreigners have more money, let all foreigners pay more that us, or even "He insulted me so I better kill him than lose face") which is mostly caused by non-sequence paratactic thinking which is all non sequitor (jumping from one unordered thought to another or just a me first kind of talk) and hence meaningful only to them...actually it is just guessing...

Understanding the distinction between a conclusion reached at by sequential thinking and a conclusion reached at by guessing is a major hurdle. If we dream up a conjecture we know it and we are prepared to modify it with future evidence, they don't...whatever creeps into the mind is fact... as a result stereotypes are rarely challenged, actually they are promoted.

If you, by employing ad hominem (discredit your opponent by disputation claim) easily end an argument, it works, except that an average Thai person, an kinesthetic feeler, would be angry at you. But for a Thai interlocutor who has one foot in the door of logic its a good practice. Or perhaps you can try "Post hoc" stuff (after this therefore because of this) kind of talk but this is pure visual thinking and you may get blank looks.

Another auditory behaviour; a common thing in Thai conversation is, assumptions are used as premise at the beginning of talk, especially in group situations where the person thinks they have the group on his/her side. And if you pick on it and stop it on its track from the beginning its fun to watch... I think the general term is "begging the question".

Yet another example: the Thai language does not have the hypothetical 'if'. The word they have for 'if we do this', 'sommut wa' is a future-cause-and-effect (e.g. suppose we go on holiday and have a good time); It's not a subjunctive-conditional hypothesis like the English word 'if'. So Thais say 'if possible' using the word 'thaa' but do not have any linguistic faculty to say 'if impossible', as in a contrafactual hypothesis. A long time ago when I enquired why this is so a common response was, if something is impossible why bother, which fitted exactly into auditory thinking of everyday reality which never delves into fantasy oriented futuristic visual thinking...

Yet it is interesting that Harry Potter kind of visual stuff is popular in Thai, but say, if you compare the primary age group of Harry Potter fans in the US and Thailand there is a huge gap, its all in cognition....and no hypothetical future thinking. Visual thinkers are better at order and concept as they can imagine very quickly, and hence the area of hypothesis.

More auditory Thai behaviour: Thai students, seminar attendants, officials abhor taking notes.... its amazing how something in Western schools that is taught from a young age, yes something that requires active thinking, is not practiced here at all... everyone expects that the teacher, the lecturer, the speaker will distribute a handout and note taking is virtually unknown. I think I've only witnessed this in Thailand and not other Asian countries. Comparatively speaking the inability to synthesize information is the real hurdle.

Another example: I used to ask my psychology students in class to describe in detail what the place looks like from the outside gate to the classroom; It was amazing that none were able to remember the color of the gate or distance from gate to building, the plants in the garden and so on and so forth. It was equally amazing that once they were guided to to do so they would come back with great amounts of detail; The auditory mind accustomed to rote learning when combined with active thinking can be very productive.

NLP was initially aimed at rapport but the clear distinction between cognitive levels means that it is nowadays used for many other fields, essentially in integrating audition, kinestheic and vision in learning. All three cognitions are needed because for example most merchants and musicians tend to be auditory, builders and engineers kinesthetic/visual and generals and policy makers visual.

I think Asian education -- Confucian instruction (in Thailand it came from reciting Theravda sutras) -- combined with cognitive teaching methods have great results, which in a way brings out the best out of both East and West.

Some of this stuff has been tried on economists, historians, journalists, writers, educators and the result is amazing. So critical/analytical/creative thinking is very easy to teach; People go from no thinking and no opinions to solving conundrums in a short time. So if you want to try out a a stimulating game next time try a "cognitive conversation" with your girlfriend and see what you get back....say using any conceptual topic like democracy, diet or group sex. The results are educational and entertaining. If you take raw NLP and experiment with it any country you live in you will get some interesting results.

Two books I'd recommend:

1. Inside Thai Society by Niels Mulder (esp the chapters on achievement and modernity)
2. Can Asians Think? by Kishore Mhubabani (not directly related but interesting)

Greg says:

Thanks for taking the time to craft the excellent post Dicer.

"Another problem is similar to the "racist" accusation you're hurling around on Cog and TK."

I hurl that accusation with a purpose - to get these two to flesh out their vague notions of race and racism. They are like feminists who want all the benefits but none of the downsides of both chivalry and equal rights. If someone of Thai parentage were to be adopted by Germans and raised in Germany, would that person be Thai, or German? If Thai AT ALL, then identity is at least partly racial, which is racist. Racist in that sense is not negative, it is simply a way to group, based on parentage. If such grouping is meaningful at all, then comments about such groups may also be meaningful.

Personally I believe that such groupings and comments are obviously valid and meaningul. The term racist leads to sloppy thinking because the term has most of its meaning in simply being a slur, and very little in defining what it is that is worthy of slur. This is easily pointed out by calling someone who uses the racist argument to define themselves positively. Same rule to create a group, but it can't be racist, because there is no slur involved.

Similar slur words are Paki, Niger, Fascist. They connote a negative meaning more than point out anything negative.

Needless to say I do not condone any negative actions towards any groups and fully support positive treatment of anybody.

Greg says:

"which is mostly caused by non-sequence paratactic thinking which is all non sequitor (jumping from one unordered thought to another or just a me first kind of talk)"

I've come across many examples of this. A friend of mine sometimes asks me to help her with her coursework. She studies western literature. I have indeed found her to be incable of understanding the logic of cause and effect. Her papers are just a jumbling of barely associated ideas. Trying to guide her through understanding metaphorical meanings such as the theme of a fairy tale alluded to by visual images is fruitless. She is not capable of understanding an image such as a 15 year old girl standing in for the concept of a virgin girl coming of sexual age and entering the realm of a new sexual identity. After a while of trying to understand she just gives up and asks me to write her paper for her.

Talking across the barriers of cognitive development leaves much that can not be translated.

Do you know of any books that might help her learn how to think so that she can grasp logical cause and effect, and synthesise meanings from symbols such that she can abstract the theme of a story?

Dana says:

Dicer--A real pleasure to read your post. I have been saying things like this for years and getting just murdered for it. Apparently, I did not present the material in a winning way.

Greg--The notion that the word is racism can have both negative and positive meanings is extremely useful for intelligent discourse. This is not a new idea but in the States since the start of the politically correct late 60's the notion of the word racism having legitimate positive connotations has been completely lost. Again I have been pointing out the instinctive and emotional needs of people to flock with those of their own kind (positive racism) and just getting killed for it.

Greg says:

Hi Dana,

What makes matters trying is that a large percentage of westerners (I think 30 or 40%? I'll look up the studies later) also do not fully think rationally, and are incapable of thinking about their own cognitive flaws. People choose their beliefs first, and ignore arguments that are against their beliefs. I deal with this by simply not having conversations with people for whom the rules of logic have no import.

mr peter says:

'People choose their beliefs first, and ignore arguments that are against their beliefs'

Very true of those with religious beliefs. I sometimes look on amazon to read the book reviews and rather than engage with the authors ideas, which may go against their own beliefs, instead of reasonable argument the believers go straight for personal attack. I recommend viewing books that question the validity of islam as a good example-peter

Greg says:

Yes, and Islamic society also does not value critical thinking, and so perpetuates its closed system quite nicely. The now retired dictator of Malaysia has earned my respect in urging his fellow muslims to take up science. He was right not to bring in democracy and to reign as dictator. Democracy requires at minimum critical thinking abilities among the voters to have benefit over a benign dictator.

TANAI KWAI says:

"You hid behind irony again instead of addressing an issue."

"I hurl that accusation with a purpose - to get these two to flesh out their vague notions of race and racism. They are like feminists who want all the benefits but none of the downsides of both chivalry and equal rights."

Greg, you can be really tedious. I don't feel inclined to respond to your feeble attempts to be provocative (if you want to learn how to make a potent Molotov cocktail confer with Dana the Menace). How many other ways are there to introduce the question other than to call me a "racist"? There must be dozens.

And now I must live my life, if ever so briefly, so don't accuse me of disappearing, tail between my legs, in the face of your withering rebuke.

Thanks Dicer -- look forward to savoring your post a bit later.

(...)

TANAI KWAI says:

Greg:

If an ethnically Thai person is raised entirely in the West by Westerners, his "Thainess" amounts to little more than a connection to a certain gene pool concentrated in a particular location. But if that person, as W.E.B. Dubois put it, "sees through two sets of eyes" -- Thai and Western -- because he retains ties to his culture, history, politics, mythology, cuisine, etc., while also internalizing those same aspects of the West, I would not emphasize that this attentuates his Thainess, as you do. Rather, it gives him the ability to transcend his Thainess, or his Westerness.

To a certain kind of person in the latter circumstance, I think it is offensive to suggest he is no longer Thai -- especially if that person enjoys communion with on an emotional level with his family, his King, and his compatriots. But go ahead with your trailblazing psychosocial theories. If it offends someone, your comment must certainly be innovative, true and have a real point.

Dicer et al.:

I wonder whether some of this cultural and psychological disconnect might not stem from a less-than-nuanced linguistic understanding being imparted between the Westerner and the Thai?

I must say that I have not experienced the same kinds of frustrations as some others here, so I am biased in the other direction. In other words, among educated Thais who speak English I have found quite adequate levels of critical thinking. Lastly, can you direct me to a more complete explanation of Level 3 versus Level 4 thinking? I find this interesting but inchoately explained here.

(...)

Greg says:

TK, as I already fully explained, my accusation of racism was meant as a provocation. I already stated that I think it is valid to group oneself according to parentage, regardless of culture. You mention grouping oneself with others of a culture that you feel kinship with. Similar to religious and social affiliations.

The point of my provocation, in case I hadn't already made it clear, was that the notion of racism is more of a slur than a delineation of improper thinking. A person might make perfectly sound racial judgments and be labelled a racist. Due to some previous posts on this forum about eugenics where the name of Hitler was brought up, I took the opportunity to point this out.

Pat Paulsen says:

That lovely Thai girl I know, who never leaves the family or her peers at work, is "racist" in a way. She's in survival mode because she is young, pretty and "married"(for the visa) to another Thai whose family also owns and runs the Thai restaurant where she works, in the US. To get her to visit would require making a break from the ethnic group, all of them Thai, which would undoubtedly be considered a huge and foolish risk by every one of them.

I consider their treatment of her racist as well, meant as a way to instill and keep in her the values they all retain from a common Thai heritage. This racism doesn't only reinforce their "Thai-ness," or ease a myriad of work issues they often confront, it could also save her the isolation from being typecast as a young single woman in this country, with a western man.

As a person who can see(and has lived) both sides of that picture, I am sensitive about her need to keep her standing, save face amongst her racial grouping, especially in this country. I don't think of this racism as inherently bad, just a survival tecnique common among many 1st generation immigrants.

Additionally I thought I knew the meaning of the word in the west, had experienced it even; then I went to SE Asia. There's no comparision to how deeply woven racism is in LOS(I'm sure most already know)

Pat

Dicer says:

TK writes:-

"I wonder whether some of this cultural and psychological disconnect might not stem from a less-than-nuanced linguistic understanding being imparted between the Westerner and the Thai? ..... I must say that I have not experienced the same kinds of frustrations as some others here, so I am biased in the other direction. In other words, among educated Thais who speak English I have found quite adequate levels of critical thinking"

Well that is good TK. I wouldn't try to disabuse you of that bias either. I'm not particularly saying that they can not do "critical thinking". There are many cultivated minds (writers, critics, intellectuals and scientists) in Thailand.

What I am saying rather is that the traits I described before are common among educated Thais (now we may mean different things by this). What I am referring to is those Thais who have gone to Chula, Thammasat or received a degree overseas, which makes them the cream of the educated population. And a lot of the experiments done were initiated either in Thammasat or Chula. And I'm not necessarily talking about the capacity to speak English alone. A lot of my observation is actually about how Thais communicate in their own language. As for the MA from a foreign university type of education I'll share with you one anecdote to illustrate further. Once I was having dinner with a bunch of friends in a leafy London suburb. Among the guests were academics of different nationalities and two Thai guests. One was a Phd, a rather chatty woman who was there with her husband, who is a Scandanavian businessman in bkk. The talk around the table was about EU politics and in the middle of the talk she would pop with statements like "I like chocolate muffins" and leave everyoone astonished. I'm sure in her thinking she had made a legitimate contribution; conversation that shifts quickly. I see the same thing in universities and offices. Everybody is happy with small talk situation but many have problems with more involved conceptual or theoretical talk... some quickly get bored (even in subject matters they are supposed to be experts) others just sulk and pout. Now this woman in London was educated and I've read some paper she wrote, but what I call "educated" here is rote and slow recall. Now I dont mean to say that all are like this, but that this is very common, thats all. John Hinds, who was a top linguist at Thammasat has written a lot about Thai conversation patterns. He says that it generally shifts from idea to idea over a kind of reality surface and is not accustomed to making conclusions. Choose a polite to semi polite, middle of the road, short, positive, paint by the number, non-conclusive topic and you'll do just fine.

TK writes:-

"Lastly, can you direct me to a more complete explanation of Level 3 versus Level 4 thinking? I find this interesting but inchoately explained here."

sure,if you google Jean Piaget or Mary Driscoll there should be plenty there. Anyway I have attempted a brief explanation of what I mean by level 3 level 4 and cognitive education.

Piaget studied mental growth in European children and arrived at four levels of cognition: 1.sensorimotor period (upto age 2); 2.preoperational, from 2 to 6/7 yrs old; 3. concrete operational 6/7 to 11/12; and lastly 4. formal operational 12/13+. We are talking about the last two. Concrete operational (level 3) children can understand problems but they can not contemplate or solve abstract problems, and they are not yet able to consider all of the logically possible outcomes. So level 3 can do numerical, classification, seriation and spatial reasoning, rules and limited conceptualisation, really black and white thinking, with no shades of gray. Abstract thinking and reasoning theoretically is reserved for level 4 cognition. He felt that cognitive development was driven by equilibriation (assimilation and accomodation). In other words, you find a bio-potential for reaching stasis and then a challenge to staying there, which psychologists call punctured equilibrium. When kids become aware of the shortcomings of their thinking they experience cognitive conflict, and attempt to reach a more suitable mode of thought and reach the next level of equilibriation.

Piaget assumed that all children pass through all the stages of development, but that is not really the case. In the US for instance around 30% of kids reach stasis. between the age of 7 and 11 and stay there. In Asia, and particularly Thailand this goes up to more than 70%, which obviously creates obstacle to higher education and high level thinking. This is where the NLP guys come in to help things. When I say auditory, kinesthetic or visual. it interfaces somewhat with the last two levels of cognition. But people have primary cognition and secondary cognition and so on, that is you can have a primarily auditory cognition and a secondary visual capacity depending on what the task you're doing is.

Psychologists now believe that learning environment should support active self-discovery; children's interactivity with their peers is an important part of cognitive development; and children should be made aware of conflicts and inconsistencies in their thinking i.e. conflict teaching and Socratic dialogue which requires thinking beyond memorised dialogues.

I said in a previous post that this kind of teaching method has been tried on economists historians etc etc. University courses like history and economics lend themselves to dialectics. There is always some conflict or controversy. Before going deep into a topic you make the students aware of conflicts in thinking and then you get into the detail, later you get the students to discover their opinions and thoughts on the subject and this works like a charm; introduce something, practice it and have closure. For economics students for instance, the most important one is hypothesis; But I can safely say that the entire process of hypothesis and synthesis and integration is lacking in Asian education. This is nothing new, most East Asian educators from Thailand to Japan say it themselves. But sadly even in the West education is no longer about thinking, but imposing others idea on people. If you go back to the Socratic roots of education, it is about thinking, about living an examined life.

As Greg rightly pointed out there is enormous amount of human thinking that is faith/religion based; these people sidestep logic and go directly to the heavenly realms for verification, or just emotionally follow concepts that do not stand up to query. Lets not forget that since the advent of dogmas people are willing to die for beliefs that later in history seem puzzling and irrational. So wherever you are in the globe it is difficult to have an effective discourse with a faith-based opponent; why? Because the discourse will not stimulate either or both parties to thinking, to examine and perhaps reexamine their views. Thais mostly are conditioned into believing this dogma or that stereotype and all too often when that falls apart the recurring cognitive dissonance causes a lot of problems. But they somehow manage by suppresing it.

In Thai society you will find that people have two belief systems: the first is consensus opinion that majority believes or have been told by parents, teachers, government; the second is real opinion that is kept secret or revealed only to closest confidents. In public people give the consensus opinion. But it is visible that they are keen to bring out their real opinions and analyse them. You may ask, what's so special about this, people everywhere have this? Yes, precisely; we all have opinions and it is gratifying to have someone actually play the role of Socrates and listen to and help explore our thinking. And thats the reason why Plato's exploratory dialectic is preferred to Aristotle's eristic form. You let the ego, the persona bloom by having your thoughts out. And what's more, you achieve full cognitive development. But in a "face" and fear envirnoment this can not happen.

Greg says:

Another quick way to think about the difference between level 3 and 4 is to label level 3 the rule role mind, or alternatively the mythic mind. It can understand logical rules, such as god created this so that that would happen, or if you take cookies from the cookie jar you will get a spanking. Level 4 can be called rational mind. In this case rational is used to mean thinking about thinking. Ruling the rules. But why should I get a spanking just for eating good food? You said before that cookies were good!

Then there are several levels that Piaget did not discuss, but have been found since then. There is vision logic, where you not only rule the rules, but can see many different perspectives at the same time. Less than 2 percent of people are stably capable of this most of the time. All of us can have peak experiences though. After that there are various subtle and transrational states, such as where you see the thinking process itself without identifying with it.

The clearest and most in depth explications of the various states and stages within the 4 different realms from which knowledge can be approached (subjective singular, subjective plural, objective singular and objective plural) is by Ken Wilber. His writing is very readable - entertaining even.

Dicer says:

Greg writes:-

"If Thai AT ALL, then identity is at least partly racial, which is racist. Racist in that sense is not negative, it is simply a way to group, based on parentage. If such grouping is meaningful at all, then comments about such groups may also be meaningful."

Perhaps the word "racialist" or "racialised" would be better suited? For instance, in the sense that Isabel II used it above: "generally try to avoid racialized attractions", to mean categorised. Mind you, that does not make it benign. Now, the OED says "racist" and "racialist" are the same; Without questioning the knowledge of its' editors I would have thought that the "categorisation" meaning would have been closer to "racialist". Anyway semantics aside I understand what you're saying.

Greg also writes:-

"Do you know of any books that might help her learn how to think so that she can grasp logical cause and effect, and synthesise meanings from symbols such that she can abstract the theme of a story?"

There are so many De Bono type DIY books on logic this and thinking that and given the popularity of Teach Yourself books in Thailand you would think that there would be some good ones available. But most are translated wholesale and besides, the problem of learning to think is essentially a catch-22 situation; She needs guidance on how to synthesize information before she can make use of it. A direct answer to your question: the only way she can do it is if she practices logical thinking. And how can she do that? She needs a guide, someone who can show her; If you know this girl well and are used to having long chats with her then you can help her a bit.

You see, the problem is that these kids grow up with set questions. Everyone can ask how many, or where and what but rarely do people ask each other "what do you think?" So when they are confronted with that question the first quandary that hits them is the wrong answer; Thai society (actually most Asian societies) is harsh on those who dont have the precise answers. Something is either correct or not. A student asks a Thai teacher "what do you think?" and it's insolence (it is really to do with face and fear). Now this inability to deal with VARIATION is what Piaget called "concrete operational" (that is, for kids between 7 and 11). On top of that students have the paradox of hearing but not listening (ritual sitters) and hence unable to take notes. So in effect, your friend has gone direct from a fill-in-the-blank education (where thinking is anathema) to literary analysis which requires a great deal! So when asked to write about the fiary tale story, she typically tries to do a slow sequential recall by searching what she read from her memory (as opposed to quick visual recall of ideas), but she cant just remember it all. I know it's strange but even literature students in Thai universities are taught to memorise information about a particular period, such as Victorian and they never bother to understand or analyse what was read. They memorize large tracts of information, use it for the exam and then dump it. So say after reading a Jane Austin novel the question "what does it mean?" presupposes a fixed answer and second guessing the teacher; It never means "what does it mean to you?"

You can do a few things which will set her on the right track.

- Catch her and stop her when she's jumping everyday topics. And teach her follow ups. This is really the key to teaching someone active thinking. Its not just saying follow a topic, but follow a structure that is logical, sequential from general to specific and ends with a conclusion, without her continually adding only her point of view but back and forth with you. Any topic will do. In Thai, random conversational shifts are accepted so initially she will have a problem. Also there is the problem of not being a good listener, as I said they are ritual sitters. Again people most of the time choose topics because they are "easy" or "positive". So when you talk about something like your debt problem she may do a wrong follow up with "ahaaan aloy" kind of talk. Maybe thats how she strings the different ideas that come to her mind into an essay. I would use the dialectic for inductive thinking with SHORT questions and answers which uses sequence and priority..... this way you can show her how to do brainstorming on a real problem which requires real insight, but this should be HER thinking, HER ideas. e.g. Where is a good place to eat? and you follow up with questions.

Another example: She says to you I saw Spiderman II, its really good. (Y)You say, yeah, I saw it 2 times. (S) She says I want to have a haircut (this is called jumping) and catch her at it and encourage her to make a closure with the first topic. Say continue. Y: So why did you like Spiderman II. S: Because it has Toby Mcguire in it. Y:How about the story. S:yeah I liked that too, he finally gets the girl. etc etc If you want to show her how to understand hypothesis. Q: "If we look at Spiderman and his relationship with the girl, WHICH IS MORE IMPORTANT?" This would encourage her to answer with 'if'. Or perhaps to show her the negative: "It's NOT the relationship, but the actor that makes you like the movie? which would encourage her to make a generalisation, something like "I love all Toby McGuire movies."..... I'm just suggesting some stuff here but the main point is the short Q&A stuff.

But from this step to learning how to construct an argument takes some time.... and I think you said you're just friends with this girl so unless you want to dedicate a lot of time you're not going to see a miracle. On the other hand, better to teach her something than do her homeworks for her.

Now speaking and writing are two diffrent things. Writing is a very visual activity and for people who live in an ambiguous non-descript world with no detail it is very difficult. You can get her to write say a page on her favourite topic, you know, the kind of compositions we did as kids. Another thing that works like a charm, if you get her to walk around somewhere with a friend, one of them speaks what they see and the other writes and they go back and produce a paper....level 3 people (esp older ones) mostly learn from doing rather than speaking and listening so you add an activity so that they wont get bored quickly.

Anyway its not a quick thing....but in a class situation where you can have a whole group of Thai students and a structured course you can make a huge leap in a short time and turn them all into noisy little philosophers.

TANAI KWAI says:

Greg writes,

"TK, as I already fully explained, my accusation of racism was meant as a provocation."

Dicer stole my thunder, making the point more politely above, but there is no reason to use a loaded word like "racist," with its explosive connotations. But you and I both get our jollies from slaying sacred cows so you just couldn't resist, could you?

Moreover, the fuzzy concept of "race" tends to sweep up such discussions in a wave of ambiguity. It is for this very reason that I cast the topic as relating to "a certain gene pool concentrated in a particular location."

(...)

TANAI KWAI says:

Two particularly useful bits from the cognition discussion above:

"Level 4 can be called rational mind. In this case rational is used to mean thinking about thinking." [Dicer]

"Then there are several levels that Piaget did not discuss, but have been found since then. There is vision logic, where you not only rule the rules, but can see many different perspectives at the same time. Less than 2 percent of people are stably capable of this most of the time." [Greg]

My problem is an inherent resistance to the concept of an educational system that is so poorly conceived. I am also resistant to the idea that I cannot coax a person to think using the processes I want them to through Socratic midwifery, cross-examination and the like.

While not entirely relevant, my attitude stems partly from my experience as a litigator. I used to to depose people -- all kinds of people of different levels of education, intelligence and sophistication. They had usually been laboriously coached by their lawyers to give up as little information as possible. Over the course of hours, sometimes days, I would attempt to break them down, often deploying the same kind of NLP patterning mentioned above, along with other fairly devious friendship cues, as a subtext to the actual Q & A dialogue taking place. Obviously, my goal was to get these folks to provide all the useful information they had. This sometimes involved convincing them, or showing them, how to use some of the same thinking processes I was using, often through hypotheticals or even by engaging them in conversations about themselves to loosen them up.

Enter Thailand. I am at a severe disadvantage in not speaking the language and in being a farang, of sorts. But I am also at a strong advantage when my TGF brings up a difficult or tiresome topic. I can usually, as Dicer describes, distract her to jump to another topic with relative ease. But in no small part, this is also because she is sharp enough to avoid nagging too much (lest I think myself all that clever). (Admittedly, it is not always easy to drill down to the reasons she feels the ways she does about certain issues, but over the years I have been amazed at what I've learned from her about the "secret" world of Thais and their opinions. In a way, I had to prove myself "worthy" of learning about her family's dirty laundry, her feelings about TRT, what the Thai people REALLY think about themselves and their society. For whatever reason, she was always excruciatingly private about things we would more freely discuss in the West. This experience is partly why I am so hopeful that there is a "there" there, unlike what some of you guys have concluded.)

But I don't experience any kind of "jumping" advantage when I deal with Thai lawyers, judges or professors, for example. I could easily have my ass handed to me if I am not on my toes. But these people are not products of only the Thai educational system, either.

Thus, as to Chula types and academics I think this requires more personal exploration. I know Greg cited some studies a while back that bear out Dicer's material but I just need to experience this myself. You are describing automatons with practically useless educations. It strikes me as impossible that the universities are churning out pure nitwits with only a passing familiarity with level 4 thinking. If Dicer's "chocolate muffins" syndrome is widespread I would be stunned. The Thai academics I have met are "not silly" as my TGF would say.

Maybe it is just my lack of language acumen but I perceive areas of sophistication in Thai business and culture that could not exist without a critical mass of level 4 thinkers. While things in Bangkok don't always run like a Swiss watch they do seem to run. And it's not only farangs at the wheel.

(...)

Dana says:

There is no "there" there. Hoping won't make it so. Learn to embrace despair and leave your hopeless yearning behind. Useless unappealing unproductive expats are repositories of wisdom the short term farang can't understand. They have learned there is no "there" there. They have looked in the face of ennui and recieved a yawn back. Now they are trying to adjust. The best way to stay stable in Thailand is to once a week pull your return tickets out of their hiding place. Hold them. Look at them. Read them. Now put them back in their hiding place. Don't you feel better?

Greg says:

TK, regarding the fact that things run in Thailand, as long as you have a workable set of rules in place, level 3 thinking is all you need. Electronic repair, some non-creative engineering tasks, a legal system, anything where logical rules can dictate the course of action can be carried out with the mental faculties of level 3.

As Dicer said, people are not strictly limited to one level. He said that there is primary and secondary cognitive frameworks. Wilber talks about one's average mode. For instance some people might be able to jump up to level 4 rational mind and think about thinking when the situation is explicitily demanding it, such as for schoolwork, but then jump down to level 3 again for an argument with the spouse.

Rational thinking where it is a habit to critisize one's own thoughts in the name of finding the truth is highly skilled thinking and is rare. Emotional needs usually mix with the pure ability to think clearly to create justifications and rationalizations.

Dicer - I have a few deBono (Debono?) books. He's been around forever. I read some of my Dad's deBono books when I was a teen. He is one of my heros. Him, Chomsky (for the clear rational thinking as much as for the content of it), Wilber, and a few others. The Debono books I've come across are mostly theoretical, but I understand he has a small library of published books. I'll keep an eye out.

Yes, the classroom is a great place to make a cognitive shift. I dated a professor of anthropology who told me her students were able to shift from rational to aperspective over the course of one semester. Aperspective is also called vision logic, or a multicultural stance, where you can see another person's or cultures viewpoint from the other persons framework, not merely from your own. The ability to hold two or more perspectives, at least one at a time. The next step is to hold two views simultanously, and the next is to do so simultaneously and then be able to make instant comparisons.

I begged her to write a textbook on her coursework, but she left teaching due to her schizophrenia.

Dicer says:

TK writes:-

"If Dicer's "chocolate muffins" syndrome is widespread I would be stunned....I am so hopeful that there is a "there" there"

TK this sounds like a good example of cognitive dissonance.

TK also writes:-

"I am also resistant to the idea that I cannot coax a person to think using the processes I want them to through Socratic midwifery....my attitude stems partly from my experience as a litigator."

coaxing works well; When you try to teach Thai students (college seniors or even professionals) they become like juniour high kids with their tantrums, silly little tricks to subvert your lesson or simply sulk, they will not challenge you directly like "why do we have to do this lesson Ms. Smith?" kind of talk but they'll do everything to undermine you, esp. if you are a foreigner. For starters, there is a problem of "we know because we are THai" and huge resistance to new learning. So you have to play constant childish games but eventually if they like you, maybe even trust you a bit, there may be progress. But if you take the same "I dont give a shit" attitude as them then all falls apart. Also remember, there is very little ego development, challenges are not welcome and if you use cross-examination it is considered to be hostility.

But really why is this?

Ok. lets go back a bit. The perception of knowledge for the Thais came from a curriculum for Buddhist learning. Sutras were memorised and people were given complete lists of proverbs and sayings, but the deeper sense of Buddhist thinking is never explained. So one can posses an understanding of what is taught without delving into Buddhism. Thai traditional learning became this way just a collection of rules and recipes, level three all the way. You are asked to use rules or formulas at work and if there is no local formula you go and consult foreign books. Or you sit it out. There is a word for following and sitting out a problem: duty. You have duty minded people who come to the office in the morning and leave at night but not much happens in between save dishing out worn out prescriptions to everyday problems. Whether you are a teacher or a bureaucrat no one expects you to have great diagnostic insight, but you go by precedent. In other words, you use analogy, and everyone expects you to know what the analogies are, no analysis.

So called experts are not used to asking for advice because everyone thinks that they know. Of course they have PHds. This is very pervasive up and down the system. The most important thing is that as long as you do not fuck up your little area or become conflict prone and annoy the bigwigs what you do is tolerated. That is why foreigners find it difficult. When for instance, the IMF (not a bastion of good learning, mind) demanded that they reform their education in 97 as a precondition to giving out some dough, they made some noise for a while and printed some stuff, opened some schools and all went back to the way it was. The perception is that we're going to do it the Thai way. If you ask what this Thai way is nobody knows. We all know, people are very self-conscious about their Thainess but there is little discussion on what it is. It is as if Thainess is accepted without being defined. The key word here is ambiguity.

But if you look at Thai culture in general it is amazing how they have the capacity to continually adopt foreign elements without distabilising their overall cultural perception. Yes, as I said there is cognitive dissonance left and right but the foundation is not rocked. For a long time they have borrowed foreign ideas and adopted them as they see fit, as long as it gives them continuity, which to say the least is very pragmatic. They have a very mixed interest in other cultures that seem superior. Think of it as an animistic peasant culture which had pulled some Indian forms of state and Bhuddism, some Brahmanical stuff from the Khmers some universities and bureaucacy from the west and so on. Of course they do not examine the deeper meanings of each because there is the perception that what they already have is good and animistic belief primarily considers the ritual group as a stabilising force. Granted they are not first class innovators and philosophers. But this mish mash of adaptability and stubborn peasant attitude means that on the face of it they like modernity, being up to date, ('saamay may' as they say). You know they like ATMs and good roads and improvement, and what with being good organisers they show results. And this eclecticism and adaptability is one of the reasons why so many of us, tourists, teachers, "unproductive expats", disembodied kii noks, inveterate whoremongers or discerning pederasts find the place such a joy; they tolerate us and if you want to be left alone they leave you alone. Thailand is not one of those tinpot despotic places where you get nothing done.

Greg says:

TK writes:-

"If Dicer's "chocolate muffins" syndrome is widespread I would be stunned....I am so hopeful that there is a "there" there"

Dicer writes:TK this sounds like a good example of cognitive dissonance.

Greg: TK. you're often on my case for talking at you as if I'm privy to some non-PC way of thinking that you are not. For some reason I've typecast you as a mean-green-meme multiculturalist who is a champion for the underdog at the expense of ranking different viewpoints. Cognitive dissonance in the face of evidence against cultural equality is one reason for me to typecast you in this way, and subject you to my provocations to dialogue.

TANAI KWAI says:

Greg (who else?) writes,

"Rational thinking where it is a habit to critisize one's own thoughts in the name of finding the truth is highly skilled thinking and is rare. Emotional needs usually mix with the pure ability to think clearly to create justifications and rationalizations."

We laypeople call this Devil's advocacy.* And no, not many seem can do it with any real incisiveness. And those who think they do are usually bullshitting themselves. Just as I am skeptical of those proclaiming great humility or piety, I view those who take pride in believing themselves to be dispassionate and objective beyond the abilities of others to be equally full of crap -- or at least deluded.

"TK this sounds like a good example of cognitive dissonance. "

Or ego-dystonia, anyway. I am highly uncomfortable when I find myself sympathizing with the idea that people are intellectually doomed, in a Calvinistic sense, by their genes or culture.

Re: the "Thai Way," I knew a farang who used to get angry with me when I would make special requests to the Thai chefs in a restaurant. He would predict, often correctly, that I would send the kitchen into chaos and disarray by seeking "extra this" or "none of that." "These Thai guys have done it this way for thousands of years and they will do it this way for thousands of years to come! Don't try to waltz in and change the recipe!"

Funny thing is, he would get sullen when the kitchen would get it right. He wasn't comfortable with the idea that the Thais would ever increase their competencies and threaten what he perceived to be certain farang hegemonies. "If it weren't for farangs," he would crow, "Phuket would be a joke... They would have no good restaurants, no fine wines... We farangs built this place." I suspect there are some folks lurking 'round here who would not be entirely comfortable dealing with a Thai or some other dusky person outclassing them in one of their perceived domains.

Anyway.

(...)

*The term "Devil's Advocate" has an interesting genesis. Whenever someone is up for sainthood, (which is supposedly awarded not only on the basis of good works, but also on the candidate's notoriety and staying power in the collective mind of the believing public) one of the cardinals is chosen to research and expound upon reason why sainthood is not merited -- i.e., the D.A.

Greg says:

"I view those who take pride in believing themselves to be dispassionate and objective beyond the abilities of others to be equally full of crap -- or at least deluded."

Joseph Geller could write a book about you.

"I am highly uncomfortable when I find myself sympathizing with the idea that people are intellectually doomed, in a Calvinistic sense, by their genes or culture."

Doomed? Individuals can be doomed to stupidity through birth, but cultures are not individuals. They can't be doomed.

We agree on most stuff. The juice is in the disagreement. I'm most fond of discussing issues, and find such discussions meaningful and fruitful.

TANAI KWAI says:

"Cognitive dissonance in the face of evidence against cultural equality is one reason for me to typecast you in this way, and subject you to my provocations to dialogue."

I am not ashamed that I am wary of making sweeping judgments about foreign people whom I will never fully understand, not being one of them.

Keep trying to typecast me and you will continue in your frustration. That you would perceive my comments as evidence of my belief in "cultural equality" is really off the mark. If anything, my position is merely that it is far more difficult to know that which you purport to know about Thais with such conviction and confidence. And I suspect that anyone who is bi-cultural would agree -- and not just out of misplaced, primitive tribal pride.

(...)

Greg says:

""I am highly uncomfortable when I find myself sympathizing with the idea that people are intellectually doomed, in a Calvinistic sense, by their genes or culture.""

I took a closer reading.

I understand that you are uncomfortable even with the notion that some people are for their lifetime much smarter than average and some people are for their lifetime much less capable at some intellectual tasks than others.

I suspect that you are a fan of double blind studies to measure the acuracy of our knowledge. How do deal with the cognitive dissonance between your view and the science you respect?

Greg says:

"And I suspect that anyone who is bi-cultural would agree '

A lot of Thai culture commentators quote directly from Thais.

Thais put forward face, they have less respect for truth. Thais will tell you this.

Dicer pointed to some cognitive studies that are meaningful independent of being Thai. It is possible to make meaningful distinctions that are CROSS CULTURAL. I understand that you are not able to admit this.

Greg says:

Inside is inherently different from outside. Chomsky pointed out that such linguitic understanding are not cultural. This is a very simple example of a cross cultural truth.

From this one example you can extrapolate that truth is not entirely culturally dependent.

TANAI KWAI says:

"I understand that you are uncomfortable even with the notion that some people are for their lifetime much smarter than average and some people are for their lifetime much less capable at some intellectual tasks than others."

What I am uncomfortable with are the excesses of people who don't appreciate that speaking in gratuitously inflammatory ways is unhelpful.

"Dicer pointed to some cognitive studies that are meaningful independent of being Thai. It is possible to make meaningful distinctions that are CROSS CULTURAL. I understand that you are not able to admit this."

"I understand" is at the beginning of many flawed statements you might make. If you really want to understand me, understand that over-reliance on someone's "scientifically proven triple-blind" cultural model can be offensive if not dangerous. I can find Thais who will tell you virtually anything you want to hear.

You earlier responded, non-responsively, that "cultures are not individuals" or the like. Nor are cultures precise, immutable elements to be tabled in a neat chart and dissected with even greater precision at the subatomic level.

I'm sorry Greg, but I will always know more about being a Mexican, and my TGF about being a Thai, than you will.

(kinda like our ages -- I will always be two years younger than you)

(...)

Gimpy1 says:

Tania, I've asked nicely (several times now) for the gay bashing/homophobe comments that you claim I've made. Since you haven't responded, one can conclude that; I've never made them, and secondly that you are wrong and too much of a pussy to admit it. Just admit it, will you? Better yet, just shut the fuck up occaisionally when you don't know what you are talking about.

Greg says:

"What I am uncomfortable with are the excesses of people who don't appreciate that speaking in gratuitously inflammatory ways is unhelpful."

""I understand..........."

"Nor are cultures precise......"

Muffins.

Staying on topic for a few more moments:

"always know more about being a Mexican, and my TGF about being a Thai, than you will."

Yes, I agree. You do need to be inside a culture or belief system to be able to fully understand it.

But it doesn't end there. That is not the end of the story.

Stories can be compared.

TANAI KWAI says:

"Stories can be compared."

Okay.

Perhaps much of this, as I have suggested, is attitudinal. In your enthusiasm to be heard over the din of wooly liberal P.C. bleating I have chided you for your appetite for the provocative.

(muffins)

TANAI KWAI says:

"woolly," that is.

(...)

Dicer says:

Why cognitive dissonance? I'll make my meaning clear here. What prompted me to write the above explication about Thai education and culture, although we started of with cognition is the following good question from TK:

"I wonder whether some of this cultural and psychological disconnect might not stem from a less-than-nuanced linguistic understanding being imparted between the Westerner and the Thai?"

To which my answer was that the observations are made mostly by Thais and foreigners alike. And if you read my stuff above how Thais have an uncanny ability to pick stuff up once neurally active, and how Thai culture has an amazing capacity to borrow, adapt, temporize and be very pragmatic about continuity I thought I was giving Thai culture its due, not merely affecting to be dispassionate. Your restaurant example about Thainess does not add much to what I said about it; it only tells me about the "sullen foreigner". I can tell you a lot about "sullen" kinesthetic natives, not that it would help.

I said they are very self-conscious about being Thai... a lot of people will tell you that it means "nation, religion and king" but that is something they were told by the government a long time ago...in fact, people are not sure what it is, and they think it's some sort of vague notion of being and doing.

Also, who said that "people are intellectually doomed" TK? The whole idea of cognition and teaching and all other stuff said above IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE. I for one only said that they are wrongly educated.

So the question about cognitive dissonance: Is it most likely that critical-Thai-thinkers vs. muffins discrepancy be solved by an attitude change on TK's part to accommodate the behavior? Well why because attitude change will not reinforce whatever was said. Besides it does not have any incentive for you to say, "ok I think they suffer muffins". Your belief is expressed thus:"...among educated Thais who speak English I have found quite adequate levels of critical thinking."

And you started your statement with "If Dicer's "chocolate muffins" "... which is neither confirmation nor refutation but a hypothetical statement, which means that you are considering the case: That if there is a possibility that IF what is being said is true "I would be stunned.... [but] I am so hopeful that there is a "there" there".

Call this dystonia or Latvia, several people pointed it out as dissonance. But the good thing is that you've made up your mind: "I must say that I have not experienced the same kinds of frustrations as some others here, so I am biased in the other direction." Fair play. The only way to seek consistency in your beliefs and opinions about Thai people is to experience it first hand! What we are sharing here are only observations and if we dig our heels deeper it would only veer towards an idealism vs. relativism kind of intellectual flatulence: Is the privileged position of someone/some culture the right view or are there no right ones just a whole bunch of them. Hence why I initially started with "idealism and relativism aside".

Greg writes:-

"Cognitive dissonance in the face of evidence against cultural equality is one reason for me to typecast you in this way, and subject you to my provocations to dialogue."

Well if you are trying to drive a wedge between TK's current belief and what is the "reality" out there then there are better avenues than the typecasting ordeal. Besides we are not talking about cargo cults or some diva do. But as for the potent and IMO very useful topic of cognition you touched upon pointing out someone's dissonance and engaging them is fair play; After all that's what we're talking about.

This is how I see cognitive dissonance (or going to Estonia as TK calls it): I fly first class on holiday but discover that it is not comfortable or worth the money. Dissonance exists between my belief that flying first class is better than others and that it should be very comfortable. Dissonance could be eliminated by deciding that it does not matter since I'm only going to fly one time (reducing the importance of the dissonant belief) or examining the service and facilities and enquiring what entertainment they have available (adding more consonant beliefs). The dissonance could also be eliminated by never flying first class again, or telling oneself not to do it or even getting sympathy from the other passengers or having a bitching session in-flight, but this behavior is a lot harder to achieve than changing beliefs. If I decide to change beliefs then I find another airline or maybe following Dana's advice next time, buy the ticket and just look at it now and again so as to feel reassured that I have not parted with the belief that there is nothing like first class, but somehow detach myself from having to engage it.

TANAI KWAI says:

Dicer,

I'm afraid you have chanced to step into a buzzsaw of arguments Greg and I have been sharing for some time. To the extent the comments you've fixed upon were aimed at anyone, it would be him. I'll try to be less oblique so that you don't misperceive the spatter as a direct challenge. Your fairly detached and helpful explanations, notwithstanding your frolic through the former Soviet socialist republics, leave little room for argument, as such.

"Call this dystonia or Latvia, several people pointed it out as dissonance."

With all due respect, several people here could kiss my ass. That several here have said anything is hardly the imprimatur of legitimacy.

"But the good thing is that you've made up your mind: 'I must say that I have not experienced the same kinds of frustrations as some others here, so I am biased in the other direction.' Fair play. The only way to seek consistency in your beliefs and opinions about Thai people is to experience it first hand!"

Maybe I misunderstand, but the thrust of all of my comments to your presentation is to state my belief that I need more information before forming an opinion in the face of (a) my own experiences as belied by (b) your (and Greg's) information regarding cognition levels. I am struggling, above all, to assert that I have not made up my mind, and that perhaps others should not make up their minds yet either.

And by ego-dystonic, of course, I basically mean something that doesn't feel good. As opposed to some kind of cognitive dissonance based on, as "several others" have suggested, being piteously blocked in by the walls of my conflicting ideas, like the guy from The Cask of Amontillado. That makes me sound an awful lot like some of the poor Level 3 saps who could never aspire to Greg's "Level 8 Turbo Vision Quest Double-Blind" thinking. Just as it is hard to describe a place as "provincial" without sounding like a bit of a snob, one should probably dial back observations of a person's "cognitive dissonance" unless you just want to tweak them.

I can handle solid conclusions. I am not a crazed Humeian ripe for a Hegelian dialectic. I just feel that the jury is still out on some of this stuff.

(fair play?)

Dicer says:

That's fine. I'm fully aware that you and Greg have a tiff going on regarding who would be appointed diva by the elfin folk here. But no challenge perceived. My interest here is cognition and I'll keep to that as far as this thread is concerned lest we muffins it.

"dial back observations of a person's "cognitive dissonance" unless you just want to tweak them."

If the chop logic or semantics of dissonance is unpalatable to you then I wonder why that is; I did two things, found some inconsistency you pointed out yourself and used it as an example, so which part do you want me to undial? Or you reckon that I'm playing some level X game? Not quite sure what you mean by this?

Dana says:

TK says, "I am not a crazed Humeian ripe for a Hegelian dialectic." I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief. Who wants to talk about Irish music?

TANAI KWAI says:

"I'm fully aware that you and Greg have a tiff going on regarding who would be appointed diva by the elfin folk here."

No, I'm afraid Greg and I have resigned ourselves to always being bridesmaids in this regard. Perhaps you are better suited for the role, what with your easy manner and ability to stay so far above the fray.

"If the chop logic or semantics of dissonance is unpalatable to you then I wonder why that is..."

No quarrel here. Just suggesting that folks in general might not want it to be pointed out when they are less than self-aware. Seems to me that self-awareness (and the capacity for Level 4-think, while we're at it) decreases the likelihood for one to fall into the benighted state of cognitive dissonance.

By the way, I feel a brutal, and richly deserved enfillade of flames coming on from those patiently indulging this discussion thus far.

(cheers)

TANAI KWAI says:

Dana,

Hume = the ultimate skeptic; believed there was no reason to trust even that the sun would rise in the morning.

Hegel = used his clever dialectic to show that Hume, in fact, did trust in physical reality because every time the Ultimate Skeptic sat his fat Scottish ass down to dinner he obviously believed that the chair would be there to meet his cheeks, else he would be too chary of sitting ever to get anything to eat.

(whatever)

Dana says:

Thanks for the lesson TK--now I know why I didn't become an attorney. When I went into the Law Library in 1972 to get an application for Law school I noticed that ALL of the bookbindings were brown. I decided I could find a more interesting world.

Re: Hegel's dialectic--Plato did it first and better.

TANAI KWAI says:

Law school sucked.

At least one other momentous thing happened in 1972 other than your decision to forgo law school to pursue human taxidermy:

http://www.miamidolphins.com/home/home_index.asp

(...)

Dana says:

Hegel Shmegel--There is no God, Life has no Meaning--Follow Me--Sayeth Dana!

nick adams says:

follow you where, dana, where? should i take out some travel insurance first?

Dicer says:

TK writes:-

"Perhaps you are better suited for the role, what with your easy manner and ability to stay so far above the fray."

Would that I could garner enough milage for effortless petulance or caprice I think the role even more suited; Such muggle class skills as these are, I lack the inclination in both regards.

As for being "far above the fray" I reconsidered your restaurant anecdote which hits the nail on the head.

"Thais would ever increase their competencies and threaten what he perceived to be certain farang hegemonies.....If it weren't for farangs," he would crow, "Phuket would be a joke... They would have no good restaurants, no fine wines... We farangs built this place.""

True. Colonial control, or at least the desire of conquest, usually finds a need for childlike natives; something a lot of people tend to suffer from...and all this talk can be hijacked to that purpose. The only conquest that occurs in Thailand though, it seems, is that we knob their girls. Now conquest this certainly is, because, like some here say, it is their only foray into the ìlittle peopleî - but even this dalliance with the exotic birds is short lived and often turns on itself once the pleasant prurience loses impact. The "sullen" foreigner starts finding faults with the local girl, and through her with the place or the people. What foreign men profess not to like about Thailand often comes out as criticism of the women as strange, a bit childish and always untrustworthy. And the reverse is true too. If we think about it at all, we cannot but realise that we are regarded as unreal, as cyphers by muffins. And we endlessly pitch our innocuous mockeries at each other, we zero weight nonentities to their picturesque mindless "little people" (I used to think 'natives' was a compromised term until I heard this one used).

Which one to be then? The sullen foreigner? The muffin lover?

The muffin lover thinks along these lines:

No more than I might expect the mamasan to say after services rendered by one of her bints, ìbye and good riddanceî would anyone exclaim, stepping from the culture just surveyed as one might shed a pair of dirty pants, ìhow shitty their lives are!î Because, even if the Thais were impoverished, afflicted with this illness or that ignorance, even if they were speedily dying off; still any tourist could observe how they smiled, or how they are hospitable, what nice tits the girls have or how good shags they are. We can envy them their peaceful ways and their food; The point is all of us can be mollified, having found that there was some functional point to a wai, the taboo that is talking Royalty or their peripatetic education; and if we still felt morally squeamish about the number of ladyboys in the country or insect eating or overflowing sewers it is clear we were still squeezed into a narrow Western point of view, and had no sympathy at all, and did not ócould notóunderstand. We are just some insensitive Hyperboreans who try to beat out the truth, could but never get it.

What does the sullen foreigner respond, if at all:

These muffin lovers! Not only do they think Thai culture or any culture unique unto itself, but Thai thoughts, feelings and motivations are radically Thai and different from any other culture. So any attempt to generalise about Thai culture by a foreigner must be false or trivial unless it is confined to comments made by Thais about Thais in Thailand. Dont they know that consanguinity forbids Thais their candour? It is a quackery, "sullen" man says, that in muffin-loving world Thai peoples' minds vary so much from farangs. In this perspective, a person from Thailand remains the ìOther,î forever incomprehensible.

Now am I above this? Hardly. I'm just agog with contemplatation. One thing obvious is that both are revealing in emotions that exclaim, profess and turn away. Before my interest palls and become listless and sink into the ennui like others (the gangly young rube that I am) I wonder again if the sullen expat or his mate the turnover tourist are right? Its heads you lose, tails you dont win. And, indeed the jury is out...

Dean says:

Great article, Dicer! Keep up the good work!
I like your style!

Tanai Kwai, this Dicer may be the new wind-up artist of mangosauce.dom.

Of course accolades must go to Mr. David. Mangosauce. The etymology probably is that Bangkok has been referred to as the big mango.
Mangosauce contains other ingredients besides mango, but like any recipe, these ingredients are inseperable from the final entity that is the sauce.
A lot of us (yours truly) may not be in Bangkok, as such but feel to be an ingredient of a mangosauce, not the stuff of mangoes to be sure, but something different, interesting, to be added to the recipe.
David always thinks of interesting stories to head the columns.
Thanks David, for mangosauce.com.

_________________________________________

Sympathy and empathy. I was staying with some Thais. I told them that I dread the visa run each time. A life changing 17 hour each way trip to Malaysia each month, Or else I had to content with the "guides" at the Poipet/Aranya Prathet border.
Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano with Albert Finney. Get drunk at night in any third world town and you may just think of that movie for a second.
I am a very timid traveller and was totally unsuccessful in my attempts to cross the Thai/Cambodian border without being fleeced by the gently persistent "tour guides" and I had to pay 'tea money' to the Cambodian border guard. 100 baht in the year 2001, and 200 baht in the year 2003. I dread going to Cambodia. I am not good at deflecting the mercantilist overtures of the entrepreneurial Khmers. (In a country a third of the size of B.C. with twice the population of Canada, the traffic would be there, and that is why you see so many Thais with their flyblown attempts at private enterprise that seem to spring out of the ground like mushrooms after a rainstorm.

Getting back to sympathy and empathy, my Thai friends did not have to do the visa run so to them, it was some big joke!

Every month or so, the immigration requirements are a bureaucratic choreography that makes St. Vitus' dance look like catatonia! I was sick and tired of having to think of hopping to the border every few weeks. Visa runs - what was an irrelevancy in Canada, is a central fact of reality living as an expatriate in Thailand.

I don't know about cognitive dissonance, (is that the same as an affective disorder?) but sympathy is the concern from someone who is not doing what you are doing. Empathy is the concern from someone who is doing EXACTLY what you are doing. Sympathy is obviously easier to find than empathy.

And because I did the Bangkok Thailand expatriate trip in my own amateurish, bumbling, stumbling, clumsy headlong way, I can truly empathize with the stories that the writers on mangosauce.com write about.

Yours as ever, Dean

Dean says:

Indeed, the visa run requirements serve as an external subsidy for the various transportation companies in Thailand providing work to an army of mini-bus drivers, VIP bus drivers, etc.
As well, as could be expected, it keeps out the riff-raff and discourages long-term emigration of tourists.

I would be less than honest if I did not say that the visa runs are a major disincentive against me ever returning to Thailand again.

I worked for a famous hotel in Dawson Creek BC and the manager was a very famous personality who was so politically and entrepreunerially animated that he would rehire people that he had fired months ago. Sometimes he would rehire someone that he had fired many times, or someone who had quit many times. It was that kind of Peace River Valley hippy utopia.

It was in Dawson Creek that I first came to know about Thailand. This was in 1990. Someone staying at the same hotel as me, the Alaska Hotel, was someone named Roderigo. Roderigo worked in
Chiang Mai as an English teacher. Total hippie.
He talked about jungle treks where he could score a quarter pound of pot, finely minced with a cleaver by a hilltribe woman for, pshaw... 50 baht!
And after teaching English he would go and score some opium and smoke it and listen to Kitaro tapes; or was it Chiang Rai that he stayed in?
Well anyway, I lived there for five months and every single day, every single time that I visited Roderigo, he would talk about Thailand, and I thought, "Thailand must be some kind of place if someone as worldly and educated as Roderigo would go on about it every day for five months.
How many other towns do people go on like that about?" I hope that Roderigo is still alive. Would it not be a trip if he were to read this?!

Thailand reminds me of that. I have fucked up many times with the Thais in Thailand. Not anything criminal or premeditated, just careless bursts of boisterousness, I was too cavalier at times.
But the Thais never, ever stopped smiling at me. Sometimes I would walk down the Soi and in the course of that walk at least half a dozen Thais would pass on their moto-scooters, walking around or whatever, and I would get that famous smile. The Thais smile with the most beautiful disarming smiles. The Thais smile with their eyes.

I often miss Thailand. And I think that I will probably wind up again there, someday; after months of equivocating.

Dean

Dean says:

I have written to Jake Needham, the Bangkok writer before, once, years ago. He is a very classy guy.

Christopher Moore is another writer living in Bangkok. I wrote him some emails but he never responded. Who cares?
I feel that I can not live up to the Darwinistic ideals that the characters in his books all seem to posess.

Yes, Needham is the older, seasoned writer. There is a distinguished accepting gentility in his writings.
One of his books is called 'The Big Mango'.
ie. Bangkok;Mangosauce.com.

Indeed, what with the professional jealousies which rear their head all too often in the teaching world of Thailand.

Ajarn.com is a great website for English teachers in Thailand.

Men who think about women too much are
pussy-whipped. This is the kind of guys that usually obsess about going to Thailand, including yours truly.

Sure I am vaccillating wondering whether or not I would really return to Thailand again, but then again, I will be the first one to admit that I am not perfect. Is perfection a prerequisite for visiting Thailand and being an English teacher? Is perfection a requisite for being a human being?!

Dean

Dean says:

My fourth email in a row. I have been to Thailand three times. Perhaps one day, it will be four.
Thailand 4 You.

Thailand, with its unenviably hot weather what with the impossibility of sleeping without being next to a fan, and the copious infestation of various vermin,
is dramatically offset by the totally enviable lusty stories of being saturated with Thai pussy.

Pussy whipped.

Some guys who have a girlfriend are just as, if not more tense and wrapped up about various things than single guys.

A rhetorical question: Does God love someone who is very successful with women more than someone who is not successful with women?

Somehow, I don't think so.

Dean

John U says:

Dean,

I would take issue with your definition of "pussy whipped".

My phrase for what you describe would be "cunt struck".

"Pussy whipped" is the guy who is beaten down by a pussy he is hitched to in some shape or form.

For fuck's sake come on man. We must have accurate descriptions or we'll all be mightily confused.

Greg says:

Which God? The internalized parent that we speak to when we want favors?

The univrsal love that shines through each of us that we can see with the faculty of the heart?

The latter one is revealed unequally, and theireign lies any difference.

YABS says:

if Emils comments are right hes saying
that the only reason asain girls are friendly to us is that we are more marketable. If thats true thats a very sad endicement on females in general.
If a girl talks to me rich or poor i'm not
going to tell her to fuck off as some falang women do!
I really do hope thats not the only reason women are nice to us here.
I'm not going to be so naive as to think the money doesn't help, of course it does but i think that
generally asian people are just brought up better.
Its possible to approach thai girls, attractive/unattractive rich or poor and get a polite response. I clearly remember trying it on with a falang bird at a full moon party a few years ago.
I was only 27 at the time and in good shape.
I tried to talk to one of two belgiam women only to have her completely ignore me. I thought at first
that she hadn't heard me introduce myslef so i tried again. Her friend then turned to me and
said very aggraessively "LOOK DON"T YOU GET THE MESSAGE SHES NOT INTERESTED"
Well stone me she could at least have the courtsey to tell me that. Very arrogant to assume i was trying to get in her knickers.
I may have just wanted to talk to them (of course i wasn't).
I've never hit a women in my life but this time a
thai guy had to drag me off before I laid one on them. if they want to act like and have the same rights as blokes then they will be treated like one!
It was a disgusting attitude from these girls but a typical one. These girls were good looking on holiday, so why such sour pussies.
They should have been happy but they were just stuck up their own asses. meanwhile
their poor asian sisters were smiling away.
The confrontation got me so het up I had to leave
which was shame as i was having a really good night up until then.

Isobel seems ok here. she doesn't seem to have an attitude and wants to listen to what we have to say.
Of course there are nice falang ladies but its increasingly hard to find.
It doesn't really matter that thew thai girls are poorer and therefore more polite to us richer wetserners. The best girlfriend i had in the west was a japanese law student. there was certainly no
attitude with this girl.
Falang women really need to change their attitude.
Its unfortunate as i automatically assume that
a falng girl is a stuck up cow until proven otherwise.
I have missed out on some nice falang girls because of this!
It does have to be said though that even the girls i thought were in good shape in enagland
now look fat in comaprison to thai ladies.
To sum up most falng girls have fat assses and they are up them. perhaps thats why their asses areso big as they need room foir their ever expending egos and attitudes.
No disrepect to isabel you seem like quite a good lass on this thread

Isabel II says:

Hello Lads:

I've been travelling and have not been able to comment on some of the discussions on this thread.

I just want to say that Dicer's comments have been enormously helpful. I've also followed TK's and Greg's discussion with interest, and felt the need to comment, but didn't really know where to start. I'm still synthesizing a lot of this stuff myself. This is because I found myself in the curious position of understanding both TK's and Greg's point of view simultaneously (regarding the whole Thai culture/Dicer discussion above). As a person of color/minority from the states, I know TK's concerns exactly; after living in Thailand, I understand a lot of what Greg is saying, and appreciate Dicer's informed and educated explanations. I have had to challenge a lot of my previously held beliefs about colonialism/responsiblilty/equality.

I mentioned on a previous thread that it is realistic and unavoidable to notice difference, but understanding the origins and cause of difference is the difference between an informed or supremacist viewpoint. I do reject the whole genetics explanation however, because this argument often ignores the privilege and generations of accumulated family wealth or education that contributes to the ancestral "genetics" of IQ.

This is a very late, rushed, and glib response. I'm sorry for that, but I am rushed. I just didn't want to leave this unsaid in what was a very interesting dialogue.

I don't know how often I will contribute here anymore, because I am now in Malaysia and on the move. I will most likely move here. It seems like the men love me here and I can have more of what I recognize as a "normal" social life. I'm sure I will get flamed for this, but so be it.

I just want to say that although I started out as a bomb thrower on this site, I'm glad I stayed around and listened to some of you. And in all honesty, I do feel a little sad for us western women. Some of you sound really intelligent and interesting, and good. I have to admit that all of this animosity is a little sad. It's not all your fault, and not all men in Thailand or Asia are losers. But anyway, let me stop with the sad stuff, because I'm sure that will reappear on this thread again to haunt me. I'll be back sometime to chat, maybe to flame, but in the meantime I'll just simply raise a tall cold one to clink glasses with all of you. As Rodney King said, "can't we all just get along?"

Cheers,

Isabel II

nam som baa maak maak says:

"It's impossible not to make comparisons - and most of them aren't very flattering - but, with a little effort on the part of the underperforming segment of the farang girl community, these faults can be fixed".

"Huge arses can be tamed by diet, rudeness can be set aside in favour of politeness and the corrosive effects of nagging can be eliminated by exercising a little restraint. It's all very simple really - but the message never seems to get though. Many farang women will admit to carrying a few extra pounds but I've never heard a single one confess to having a bad attitude. They seem to be in a state of denial" - David

How many grossly overweight farang men do you see escorting pretty and petite Thai girls? - Farang men who not only have "huge arses", but often are sporting huge beer guts to counterbalance them?

How many farang men are also "in a state of denial" about an basically "bad attitude" - particularly towards women in general? (Maybe you have already answered that question for us, David?)

And, arguably, the "corrosive affects of nagging" is most certainly not the exclusive realm of the farang female gender - except when men do it, it's called "whinging" (ie: "whinging Pom").

Maybe David is not merely describing farang women, but farang in general?

However if he were to engage the same critical comparisons between farang men and Thai men, he appears most likely the sort of inherently insecure 'bloke' who would find at least some comfort in the desperate belief that farang penises are moderately larger than Asian penises, coupled with an equally desperate belief that size really does matters.(if so, then he has failed dismally to fully appreciate the guaranteed orgasmic effectiveness of an exceptionally talented mouth.

Really, Dave, I think all the criticisms - or implied criticisms you've made against farang women can equally be applied to the male version of the race.

Who knows? Maybe farang men are even worse in these respects than the women?

The attitudes you have demonstrated towards probably any self-empowered woman, David, certainly tend to suggest this.

Common Sense says:

Self-empowered women - i.e. BITCH

nam som baaa maak maak says:

Thailand is essentially a feudal society, from the king down. Those below obviously have to kiss the arses of those above in order to survive. This subservience is expressed as 'courtesy' and decorum. Lower classes have to make their lords and masters love them. And, culturally, women in Thailand are traditionally at the bottom of the heap.

In supposedly more egalitarian and democratic societies (like back in farangland) women, after a very long struggle, finally gained some independence and freedom. Today they no longer have to constantly bow down and wai to their male 'superiors'.

For a lot of sexist farang men, this culturual development (or 'evolution') was not always welcomed. For many insecure (old school) blokes, it was even seen as a kind of threat to their masculinity.

I'm a heterosexual man, and the cultural self-empowerment of women never seemed to have that immasculating affect on me. On the contrary, having a female companion who is totally subservient, polite and kind-hearted eventually bores me shitless. After a few years when the sexual stimulus, through familiarity, has lost it's fiery impact - when the 'sword has outworn its scabbard'...then what's left of the relationship? Merely a good cook and housekeeper? (And the shere volume of those eternal Thai TV soap operas drives me fucking mad)

nam som baa maak maak says:

"Self-empowered men" - i.e. BASTARD

(They'd be many Thai women who would agree with this - the ones abandoned by their husbands or boyfriends after their tits went saggy (post childbirth) and left to fend for themselves back in Isaan.)

Grunt says:

"Really, Dave, I think all the criticisms - or implied criticisms you've made against farang women can equally be applied to the male version of the race." - nam som baa maak maak

Really? Then by all means show me some webpages catering to foreign men seeking farang females. Go ahead, I have time.

Till then Ill be surfing around at the hundreds upon hundreds of webpages espousing the virtues of all those lovely Russian, Ukrainian, South American, and Asian ladies...and thanking GOD I didnt marry a "self-empowered" shrew.

Bangkok Farang says:

If you hang around pat-pong rd. becareful where you eat !!!!The Madrid bar. has made six of my friends very sick with the food.Two of my friends had to go back to the states very fast after being food poison. Some days the food is o.k. but sometime the food is cooked one day early,and served the next day,,which is very dangerous.Drink the whiskey, but stay away from the food.All the medicine in Bangkok is bad copies,which will not help you if you are sick !!!Madrid has the worst food in Thailand.Many of the Frangs that hang out in Madrid are fat,old and almost dead from eating msg and they are dibetic's. So enjoy the shopping and don't eat from steam tables.