Louis Theroux and the Thai introduction agencies

gonzo says:

It always amazs me people need introfucktion services when all they have to do is head to the nearest bar. Or are these people dreaming a Thai girl is going to be some sort of American/European girl with sweet skin?

If 8 days seems a short marriage, well then, pay her for 10. The barfine isn't that much...Geeeesh !!!

dingdongrb says:

Wow! I really got to know, are the guys from the UK really that desperate?

G says:

Absolutely brilliant stuff. Recently started dating a lovely Thai girl and this sure helps put things in perspective.

duangping says:

i saw ronnie in the honey hotel in 1999/2000 with some thai bird and another bloke.he was wearing his flatcap and cravat have not seen him since.A friend of mine also reckons he shagged one of the girls featured in the programme he picked her up in the thermae one night and she was really filthy.

Mr Thaksin, BKKchat.org says:

Mobile phones killed the chase, then came internet.

Fux me even meeting whores know days by looking at loius vids is a very civil matter.

Thaxo

Mr Lucky says:

Hilarious. And painful. Caught my reflection in the computer screen and couldn't tell if I was grinning or gritting my teeth.

bulb says:

After having watched this material I start to think I am a great guy .

Prufrock says:

dingding: Trolling for friends. Have you no shame?

Landmark Larry says:

I used to be a bit naive about women but Lake is unbelievable. Women must see him as a complete walkover, the poor sod. I feel sorry for him. He should next time get down to Pattaya and shag a few hoes, cos he's always gonna be disappointed and hurt if he thinks a woman will be reliable.

daznlover says:

3 hours to fall in love with Ronnie?
Hilarious videos! :)

Is this legal in Thailand? Marriage agencies?

Paul says:

And we wonder why so many people look down on Thai-Farang relationships.

Hell, after watching this video, I started to look down on them..... and I live here, damn it!

Anonymous says:

Greg Garcia to Ronnie Conrad with the oleaginous Lawrence Lynch as a transition figure.
Plus que ca change . . . .

Krikey, David. Jap's-eye and all.
Didja photoshop Ronnie to make him look like a talking penis?
Or is that his real look.
It's rather eerie.

Faber and Faber says:

The most amusing aspect of the video was the poster of Prufrock in the foyer of the office. The caption read: "Under no circumstances should you approach this pervert."

........................

Priceless.

MK

Oh no! says:

A flower without water... ROFL!! The candle!!

Haha this was some good watching! Excellent stuff!

I dont feel bad for either the men or the wimmen. This is Looser camp. Enjoy your week. I wonder how many of these "relationships" lasts more than 1 year? The real winners are the punters running these agencies. Hands down!

Oh no - An idea says:

I dont know about you others, but this is how I would interview these girls:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=mkj4Wm6INFY

tingtawng says:

10,000GBP paid to an introduction agency?

You could shag 500-700 bar girls for the same price.

NotAnyBangkokRelated Website.com says:

Lawrence Lynch fans can view more recent footage here:
http://video.google.com/
videoplay?docid=-3057817163797537073

kwai mai sabai says:

Have I found the girl for Dicer!
http://www.bangkokpost.com/Outlook/
22Mar2007_out58.php
Khun Mukhom is his soul-mate (if not his sister).

Wombat says:

Every time I look at Ronnie's picture one word comes to mind. Rodent.

Derukugi says:

Lake Palmer, my hero! Will he be on "The Man Tour" next?

Stick Kettle On says:

Just to clarify -he didnt spunk 10,000 quid down the agency, that is what this bitch cost him over time. He paid the agency just shy of £1300 which is bad enough when you consider my second point;

They are not marraige agencys.

It works like this - Thai chicks turn up, get photographed and checked out (Yeh right) After being checked out (literaly at Ronnies agency) the photo is then placed in one of two books - 'Book A' for lookers and 'Book B' for mingers. The ferang, after paying his 100,000 baht excluding flights and hotels, turns up at the agency and 'picks a few' for interview. Should he decide on one, off he goes with the chick, and apart from casual guidance should you need it, that is the service in full.

Marraige, no marraige - up to him. If you want to marry the chick, you are on your own and have to arrange/pay for the marraige process yourself. This is a scary thought, considering you are unleashing some clueless unstable doe eyed ferang on a 5 day expensive marraige party in Udon Thani, surrounded by family and friends who are going to dive for your wallet.

The agency simply charges 100,000 Baht to plonk you on a moddy plastic sofa, throw a book filled with photos of birds atyou - and thats fucking it.

Beggers belief. When you think that half the birds who arive at the 'agency' are fresh from a threesome at the Grace Hotel with Yousif and Mohamed, you would be forgiven for thinking that you could shave the 100,000 Baht expense down to... well, what is the going short time rate for a Nana Disco bird these days?

100,000 Baht to meet a bird you could pick up at the Beer Garden for 1000 Baht? Beer garden bird will 'marry' you, pretend to apply for a visa and keep her boyfriend in copius amounts of yabba while you are down the Scunthorpe Western Union office every week just as quick as an agency bird would.

Mr Thaksin, BKKchat.org says:

They had these agencies 20 yrs ago.
Whats all the fuss about ?????
A dumb fuxxer is a dumb fuxxer, its part of the foundations BKK has been build on since the early eighties.

These wonkers have the stamp loser clearly slapped over their bounces from the day they left the UK after there big whale of a wife took half of everything the poor sods owned and worked for in their lives.

Makes no difference, just different time zone, same dumb wonkers.

Thaxo.

PS. thank buddha for wonkers, otherwise l wouldnt loom so good.

Telemachus says:

There is a wrong way to do things and there is a really wrong way. Paying someone to take responsibility for you is a recipe for disaster. Let no one do anything for you that way they can't mess it up on you. These guys (people who offer to "make things easier") always have their own agenda and really nobody else factors into it.

don't believe the hype says:

The women who go to introduction agencies, or look for foreignors in general, all, in my eyes, tend to be of the undesirable sort to Thai men. They say Thai man no good, or something like that, but in actuality, they probably say that because Thai men don't want them, and they thus put the blame on the men for their undesirability. Its the old, its not me, its them scenario. They are usually undesirable because they have been married before, and have kids, or got knocked up at a young age by a guy who isn't around anymore, or were a hooker for a while, if not currently. Thai men don't want these women, and for good reasons! These women have to revert to foreignors because they think foreignors will be ok with their past, if they decide to let them know. Most won't tell you they have kids, or were a ho. Thats in the past they will say, and thus its ok. They know for sure they won't be able to keep their ex pay for play days away from a Thai guy, and foreignors are gullible, as we have seen, and some don't even care that their sweetheart used to get used by random dudes for money. I know I dont want to marry a ho, or a girl who has had kids by some other guy. Thats garbage.

So believe it or not, it is not your good looks that gets you women. Most Thai girls would never want to go with a foreignor. They do it, because you are their last chance. So don't believe it when they say Thai men are bad. It is they who are all washed up.

Oh no, not my girl you'll say. Yes, your girl.

lets be fair says:

The ladies seemed sweet and sincere.
The gentlemen might be gullible losers. So what?

Louis is the real creep in these videos.

name witheld says:

I wonder if a search at these introduction agencies would turn up a video for Keith Summers?
Now, that would be entertaining.

daznlover says:

don't believe the hype:

Some thai girls say they don't like thai men because, using that excuse, western guys think that they have the upper hand: 'She only likes white guys'. It's another way of buttering a naive white guy, who thinks that she is not interested in thai men, so it's ok to have her as girlfriend and return 2 or 3 times a year, having her waiting for him.

Truth is, most of the times it's just an excuse and, of course, those thai girls jus can't help it having a thai boyfriend in the background. All too often.

Khunying Juwanna Umphmeenao says:

When will you folks realise that the only Thai girls that want to associate with foreigners are those that have been discarded or rejected from previous relationships.

They are the bottom of the barrel, the dregs of our society, lower in the food chain than stray dogs.

Now, where's my latte...

Jones says:

Anyone that is so crass as to dismiss an entire people as "dregs of socety"...."bottom of the barrel" or garbage because they fancy someone of an alternate race is probably suffering from penis-envy.

Jing jing.

I have personally (and purposely) dated outside of my race, my entire life, due to the fact that a chick from my own race...or country, is really less than entertaining. I lose interest very fast as they are quite boring.

Why is this not a possible motive for women as well?

I am caucasian and my wife Thai. She is young, attractive, educated and her family owns a generous portion of Hua Hin. I would definitely describe her as "from good stock".

Anyone that professes "only bad Thai girls date farang men" are obviously victims of their own short-comings.

Khunying Juwanna Umphmeenao says:

It's nice to pull the blood from the penis of farang living under rosy disillusions of grandeur. Just goes to demonstrate how far the wool has been pulled over - almost stretching up to your neck.

Tip for other farangs - Next time you date your dreamgirl, rest assured if her family owns generous portions of land up some Thai shit creek.

Dicer says:

Another illustration of the jagged mismatch between the cozy-sticky sexual relationships and the underlying emotional alienation that is the true reality of most foreign Thai couplings. The barrenness of the emotional terrain in such couplings is there for all to see as are the comic bleatings of men who say something like "it is a thousand times better than living with a woman in the US or Europe." What else... yes, the inability to adjust to foreign ways...inability to understand the territorial imperative of the little people with fascistic tendencies. And a simplistic approach to foreign behaviour. It's really about men who are driven by compulsions they poorly understand.

Louis Theroux is watchable pretending as he does his innocent act, boyish grinning gaze and tactful questioning that withholds any form of value judgment. It does not always work but I remember him on one interview with the vile Eugene Terreblanche where huge dogs were barking at him and the bearded leader of the AWB sprayed spittle as he - following the dogs - also barked answers at Louis. The fact that Louis made it out of the farm was an achievement enough. Here in BKK though Louis is playful and funny. I would have personally preferred Borat and a "sexy time" view of Ronnie and Lake Palmer but no matter. Louis is really like Woody Allen in Zelig. The problem is that he finally ran out of subcultures to toy with. (Would you really describe catalogue marriages as a "subculture?) Anyway...

Despite some excruciatingly painful moments with Lake "I tend to go erratic...I destroy you verbally" Palmer there are so many nuggets in the whole thing. Louis starts off with this quip about a tart doing a video for prospective candidates: "It's a bit like a hostage video tape," which made me laugh out loud. A Thai Matchmaker video service as technically assisted by the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

BUBBLE BUBBLE HERE I COME

The problem with these sad characters is an addiction to rationalisation over reality interface. Thais have up a defensive alienation wall but people like Lake Palmer and Ronnie and others get up the denial thing...floating in the commonality of denial and occasionally fishing out to attach themselves to some desperate "smooth as silk" rationalisation. The whole structure is mounted on the I CAN SUPERIMPOSE MY PLAN which is a yank and here a crazed Saxon - thing. The idea you can will over time, space and mutants and choose a bargain wife from a catalogue is a post mod craze, just as the ladyboy is a post mod physical wonder that sticks the middle finger at evolution. The plan is in concrete to quickly correct an angst ridden miserable life by finding an off-the-shelf wife in BKK so things would be OK instantly. When there are too many clues it is NOT OK. Then denial pops up and we get the ostrich thing which stops the brain and any move towards conclusion and action. So you stick up a few observations in the tut tut category that by golly Thais are a strange bunch but this is not fine printed on the wife catalogue nor is it expanded beyond the mirth factor. Every new case is a surprise. Gee, they do that? Misses the big point every single time. The guy could be on his tenth eight day marriage but denial still postpones reality and the big point...what if...what if they just hate your guts, which means this is the wrong place. Ah, the conclusion obviously reached and then the action is the trip to Panama or the local morgue when on one occasion some local thug sorts you out or you are stalked by a passel of alcoholic locals or even the "smooth as silk" Man serves you her grandmas well tried recipe of ammonia and papaya juice for breakfast.

Then later on another great line: "I wondered what would motivate a woman like Man to marry a man like Ronnie." You can picture all those awful scummy Saxons sitting in their Essex hamlets screwing their faces at the TV and thinking: Is Louis being funny? A woman called Man? No f****** way.

It becomes a lot of fumbles and stumbles and shocks...but golly I thought... Eventually it creeps in that these guys are not on a regular playing field. In fact, hey, the mutants are sneering at you. Like one idiot replied to me when I said "sneer": "yes, but some smile." Oh, so this makes up for it? Sure. Then he gets run out of his house and says 'she hates farang'. But can we widen the picture? Nope. Because every time a mutant smiles, he knows he is in the right place at the right time.

STRUCTURE AND MOVABLE WALLS

The theme is whereas the Japs and some alpha characters give structure to these one-dimensional farm tarts, there is still work to be done. Give them Jap structure and they're off like ants. If it's personal relationships forget it. Ok let's say that some are clever and are in a two dimension structure. A peasant girl meets a Thai version of Lake Palmer means she becomes a mia noi in a cheap box apartment. The same girl finding Lake Palmer will have the whole family poop on him. No rank and no respect. In fact as Lake Palmer goes on and on about his three bedroom house and a car that's paid for and loving and cherishing her she's steely faced thinking about something else. Let's say she is mulling over the wonderful stories from her 18 year old tart hooker friend who has been to a dreary Cornwall village. Let's say the same tart hooker friend advised her to go for the short marriage with plenty cash at beginning and end of it. Now she is having dinner with Lake Palmer. What is she thinking?

The cash mythos of course. Pretty soon we have thousands of idiot farm girls and psychotic "erratic" Lake Palmers hovering around in mythos madness. The tart in her mythos has money raining on her. The geezer in his wintry old age mythos has found a cozy little box that will forever grip his prick tightly.
Girl goes from no money to a five bedroom Issan villa. Lake Palmer abandons all hope of a romantic ideal and becomes a celebrated geriatric heap. This of course ruins life for the other buggers hovering around Bangkok because as the idiot sao take a look at the next man they think, ah, maybe, and then the mythos and the agenda click in and the idea becomes a dream and they see the family camped out in a nice bungalow with you, the tua yai maak si daa six feet under. When they pose a few careful thoughts to you over dinner to gauge how much you wear your psychosis like a garb it is a hint of course. Lake Palmer is ready to show her saving account statements and title deeds and whatnot. The irony here is that the retarded is examining the psychotic. The stark naked reality is much closer to a situation where most of the tarts want the illusion of stability or a comfortable equilibrium and this means no or minimal questions as we are talking about a mental age that is between 7 and 11. They just want the cash.

If you have psychosis, dementia, post traumatic stress disorder, impermeable bubble, and other untold mental conditions why on earth would anyone expect village tarts with a mental age of 7 to understand this let alone deal with it? Your farm tart in the farang marriage catalogue is silly and insecure, a woman-child who is fully aware of her sexuality, yet she reacts to the dawdling old geezer as a spoiled child would. “I want maaanniee," she would say. Paradoxically though most of these crazy love-me-love-you man idiots are craven in their complete disregard for her ways. So to be fair her childish behaviour can be interpreted as a response to the way he treats her as one. A match organised by a Penis Ronnie - yes he does look like a penis with a moustache and a hat on doesn't he? - and endorsed by a twisted cupid. When the real problems begin, their inability to collaborate on a solution becomes downright comical, until it shifts to something sinister.

Louis asks if she's been told of his post traumatic stress disorder. He is assured that she knows. What she knows is Farang kon baa and she probably thinks, hehe kon baa gin yaa and him ok and when she wants to tweak with him maybe she hides his medication. Mental illness could be an advantage in a shop-coupling of this sort after all.

Even when they have real issues the child-like natives are thought and perceived of as just that. Children who do adult things and say adult things but are not taken seriously. In this respect every foreigner I meet in Thailand is totally cock-sure of his mental superiority over the tart where as in actual fact it is never always the case.

"When will you folks realise that...they are the bottom of the barrel, the dregs...discarded lower in the food chain than stray dogs." - Khunying Juwanna Umphmeenao

The poor Khunying would be much advised to read Lao Tsu and change "stray dogs" to "straw dogs." He said "Heaven and earth are not benevolent, They treat the ten thousand things equally, in the same way that the straw dogs are treated. Neither is the sage benevolent, treating every one equally as if treating straw dogs....." The straw dog was used as an offering when people would pray to Heaven. After the prayers were finished they would burn it. Lao Tzu uses straw dogs as an example for how the sage should feel toward all people. If you owned one thousand straw dogs, if the Thai hooker slept with ten thosand foreigners by grim repetition, if the farang rented ten thosand hookers how would each one of these straw days and you, the lofty menopausal Khunying deal with each other?

Here is another straw dogs issue. Or simply another inspired Louis Theroux wisecrack after shuffling through the beginning of the marriage catalogue: "We should choose one from the B section just to be nice.... oh yes, how about this?" And Penis Ronnie discerningly says, "Naa she's 59 kilos, about 9 kilos too much.". "Then" Louis quips again, "the B's are sort of purgatory?" The whole Thai marriage thing can be purgatory Louis.

" 'Book A' for lookers and 'Book B' for mingers." - Stick Kettle

So Book B is cheaper? Really who gives a f**** We are operating at a much lower level here, Simmering Kettle.

MELTING MAN AND HIS PSYCHOSIS

You have people who can’t handle basic logic (tarts) on one side and people who don't want any or just very little of it (geezers) on the other. With the old geezers throw in incoherence, cross talk and memory loss. And a cantankerous reaction too. A while back I was telling a diabetic man whose feet are melting - who could easily be Lake Palmer's younger brother - how crazy this country is after he told me that he bought a brand new laptop for a Korat girl he met in a chat room so that she could chat with him. He actually paid money into the account of a girl he's never met before. He later visited her and she demands 10,000 baht for some hospital visit. Although in idiot class he still has a basic structure in his view of things and this request for 10,000 baht breached his plan so he said to her he couldn't give her any money now. She disappeared and stopped chatting of course. When I examined his story he got upset. Another time I wanted to illustrate the story - poking around as usual- but he said, no no no don’t tell me that story again. It means he has heard it once on its own and doesn’t want to go through it again. The story is not an illustration to a bigger concept, an idea, and a notion which you can go back to and look at again and again. How about examine it from a different point of view? Nope. For Melting Man, it's just there to probably be repeated if it's a sweet or amusing disconnected little anecdote. No memory is invested, no deeper analysis....motives etc. We are talking about someone who can’t even consider a story, and once considered connect it to another story or a bigger notion. Even if you say out loud these people are like this and then give story1, story2, story 3...naa it won’t work, he'd look at you like you're crazy or simply nod to be polite and then continue about how the waitress serving you would be a nice shag: sidestep or override the whole thing. If you persist then he'd start to writhe, foam or simply flee the scene. That’s basically stress on his mental bubble structure. Cracks appear in the walls and pipes. The more moody or emotionally unstable the farangs are the more desperate they are - just like Lake Palmer - to maintain a calm life. Anything that throws them off balance equally drives them into turmoil. They become unglued. Hence as they stumble from one disaster to the next or from one marriage to the next they invest more in keeping that "lovely Thai girls who are as smooth as silk" bubble going. It seems their limited interface with reality is backed up by an avoidance of people who threaten their bubble security.

DIALECTICS LOUIS THEROUX STYLE

A philosophical discussion ensues. Louis Theroux: what is it that makes Thai women so attractive?
Lake: errr errr they are so regal.... they are...is it emancipated or unemancipated?

All this is really a sort of thematic simplicity that the men fall into. Even when the couplings last for some time there is nothing affirmative or endearing about these relationships. They are mostly cold and calculative - yes yes please no lectures about how western relationships can be MORE cold and manipulative... a simple relativist view as that is. There is however a sense that the foreign idiots need to take a stand.

Thailand is a nation of crafty people who smile all the time and appear very helpful. The myth of hospitality comes out in the end as excruciatingly antagonistic and exploitative. When we see the smiling and charming tarts we mix up emotions which we would like to keep separate and as a result we end up off balance. What brought you here? Conditions of alienation and a feeling of unease. What kind of females did you find? Hookers, semi-hookers, pretend hookers and proto hookers. Are they real people? Nien they are prereal and the personalities are fragmented, badly integrated people with a fractured sense of self.

Anyway there follows another weed of a man - Lawrence Lynch - making observations to Louis such as: who says in Thailand picking one's nose is a big thing (I paraphrase of course)...you mustn't touch people but you can pick your nose or scratch your arse if you like. The farce meanders into Louis and Lake exchanging this: You touched her hand a lot....no I did not.... you pressured her into it...no I did not, I asked her and I did not get any complaints or was not told to push off.

MYTHOS DANCE ANYONE?

"Marraige, no marraige - up to him. If you want to marry the chick, you are on your own and have to arrange/pay for the marraige process yourself. This is a scary thought, considering you are unleashing some clueless unstable doe eyed ferang on a 5 day expensive marraige party in Udon Thani, surrounded by family and friends who are going to dive for your wallet." - Stick Kettle

Which is good. Some learn from experience. Others get burnt. When you work against nature some call it survival of the fittest, others call it plain old stupidity.

"The agency simply charges 100,000 Baht to plonk you on a moddy plastic sofa, throw a book filled with photos of birds atyou - and thats fucking it...you would be forgiven for thinking that you could shave the 100,000 Baht expense down to... well, what is the going short time rate for a Nana Disco bird these days?" - Stck Kettle

More folk wisdom. This is not really about renting a hooker for the night though is it? Everything about Lake Palmer is chasing the illusion of romance that has eluded him all his life. The hookers are after that illusion of wealth and comfort. It's a mythos dance. Queuing up at the Nana disco to rent a box for the night is a different issue and does not cure these individuals. Funny how people mix up these issues and take one to be a substitute for the other.

For the most part though one does not know whether to gag and puke or just grin and bear the idiocy of it all. Does such stuff eventually distance us from the people, intruding in our initial excitement at having found a place like Thailand?

INSANE DOCTORS, DOXYCYCLINE AND MY NEVER ENDING SERMON

I deliver my sermon from a safe distance so I carry on. And this is saying nothing of people who are tossed down in the rabbit hole... a confused and pathetic universe. The same Melting Man continues about how great the hospitals are. In actual fact he had so many problems with doctors who did not know how to deal with his acute diabetes. So I told him a little story of a farang in Korat who gets a medical checkup for his next visa. The korat doctor was in the lobby doing karaoke. The nurse brought the 30 baht form over for him to sign while he sang. He caught a glimpse of the farang out of the corner of his eye before signing on top of a magazine and went back to the tune. So I hit Melting Man with a hidden assumption: why do farangs expect a guy like this who skipped med classes cheated and paid to get a degree and who is a nutcase to perform regular surgery or come up with a diagnosis?

When I first came to Thailand I had some sort of kidney infection and they sent me to the best kidney specialist in Bangkok and I was confronted by a giggling Chinese nutter who said, "you see prostitute?" I said excuse me. "You see prostitute"...giggle giggle..... and then "ok I write you doxycycline...you take doxycycline two months." Prostitute? Doxycycline? Two Months? I'd be dead if I popped doxy for two months. I thanked him and assured him I did not need to buy doxy from the hospital as I have 6 months supply at home and walked out. He was not happy of course. He wanted me to buy lots of doxy from the hospital pharmacy. Which medical journal suggested the link from a possible kidney infection to a prostitute? From my first day in the country I would never ever do anything these guys would tell me...look at them...look at the country...and people expect expert medical advice? And I added a caveat: of course they can handle straightforward textbook cases where they have to follow a prescribed procedure or decision table. It does not matter if all of this is right, but at least it is an opportunity for Melting Man to examine his assumptions. As he reeled I added another case. Chinese BKK family...17 year old skinny and tall son is studying in Singapore and on the rowing team. Suddenly last month he was faint. They test him in BKK and he has 210 cholesterol. Pretty strange. So you'd think to ask right away about his diet and/or give him a liver test. Instead the parents want him taken off the rowing team as he is not well. Somehow in cartoon reasoning the high cholesterol must have something to do with rowing. Most doctors would have suggested more exercise. I wonder how they end with this?

THE FARANG MUMBLE: BRAVO OLE

With or without the likes of Louis Theroux showing us how insane this country is we can still observe the wallpaper and cartoon moments daily. One weekend afternoon a few years back while living in a condo on the Chao Praya river bank I went down to the pool for a swim. Lots of Koreans who aren't good at English overwhelmed this BKK condo. Actually the condo and the surrounding Rama 3 was a hive labyrinth and proved to me then all the points about BKK and its people: These guys being insectoid and from another planet. It's like living in a termite nest. Winding pathways, stairs, side passages, towers and more towers...superimposed...partly poor to rich. Anyway I took up a chair by the baby pool as it was getting the last ray of sunlight. A little Thai kid in the pool. Did my laps, came back and zoned out in the breeze. First a Korean chick appeared out of nowhere and started doing laps. I looked at her and thought, perfect. After a couple of minutes I started to wander what law of nature was keeping me from trying to reproduce her on a pool bench and then I remembered the story that my new yank neighbour had told me about Koreans screwing before sundown at the pool. The chick finished her laps and disappeared into the condo.

Suddenly the Thai kid yells and I turn and look. Two Thai tarts are in Pool 2 feet away from my chair. Must be the kid's family in the pool with him I thought. So I turn back and close my eyes and one says Farang..blah blah blah...and I turned around and said Farang tam alai? And one said alai? I repeated Farang tam alai? And she said alai again and I said mai pen rai and back to my dreams. The girl then said to the other, "he's been here a long time" and immediately they were out of the pool and gone. At the time I thought, yes I have been meaning to do that since the first day I arrived in Thailand. Now looking back it was me interacting with the wallpaper people; a one dimension exchange that cannot go beyond a stretch, a wrinkle, a splatter. No depth, no perspective, just a bunch of "alai waas."

THAI WOMEN ARE LIKE TAFFY

Thailand rediscovered: Chewing gum for the eyes. What about handing out free salt water taffy to all the Lake Palmers arriving at Suvanaphum.

None would balk at being given something as American as taffy. Now if marrying a Thai hooker through an agency is salt water taffy then by metaphorical extension - and recipe - here are the components: the vat of sugar is her box, the corn syrup her manipulative mother and family that scrounges off you, the water is the marriage , the cornstarch is the illusion of love and romance, the butter is your ATM card and the salt is her local boyfriend. How to make a good taffy? Lots of sugar and butter and very little salt, a sure recipe that works as taffy for the eyes...

Lick away at Taffy McBride!

And shag the straw dog!!

Mr Thaksin, BKKchat.org says:

Mr Jones,

have you got any naked photos of your good gal ????

if answer is no, give me a buzz l'll see what l can pull up from my extensive archive.

Thaxo.

dingdongrb says:

Damn Dicer are your postings getting longer or are the shrooms just kicking in?

Telemachus says:

Jones has got a point. There is good society and bad society everywhere. Hang in the wrong circles anywhere and you are asking for trouble and lets not forget our object lesson Chris and Ning from Nong Khai!

therapeutic Intervention says:

Dicer...you need to get laid son.

Anyone who spends that much time and effort on a posting is in dire straits.

Jeeez!

Dicer says:

"Have I found the girl for Dicer!
http://www.bangkokpost.com/Outlook/
22Mar2007_out58.php
Khun Mukhom is his soul-mate (if not his sister)." - kwai mai sabai

A good find KMS. One more person to the few I know. I'd heard about her father Sujit Wongthes btw. If only she was younger, slimmer and cuter I'd sell my marbles for her. This reminds me a line from the film American Psycho.

Character1: If [girls] have a good personality and they are not great looking, then who fucking cares ?
Character 2: Let's just say hypothetically, okay ? What if they have a good personality ? ....I know. I know.
All in unison: There are no girls with good personalities.
Character 3: A good personality consists of a chick with a little hard body... who will satisfy all sexual demands without being too slutty about things and who will essentially keep her dumb fucking mouth shut.
Character 1:The only girls with good personalities who are smart or maybe funny or halfway intelligent or talented-- though God knows what the fuck that means-- are ugly chicks.
Character 2: Absolutely. And this is because they have to make up for how fucking unattractive they are.

Actually I am being v v unfair to Khun Mukhon here. I just felt like quoting American Psycho. I have to say though the article on Post is terrible. And that allusion to Swiftian England is poop poop. Thai journalists don't have any interviewing skills - no shit - nor do they have a bigger picture of the subject matter before they start writing it. Any second rate journalist from India could have done a job twice as good as this half-arsed attempt at a personality depiction. But still we are in Borat land and Khun Mukhon makes a great point or two. Actually I'd say I'm partial to her because she talks of two forms of written language: The essay, which is my most favoured one and the long historical Tolstoy like novel which takes a life time. Well does one have anything better to do?

Anyway the article goes....

"Mukhom never attempts to conceal her distaste for the conservative attitudes and traditional practices, such as ...the entrenched seniority system, the rigid discipline and uniforms, that are held dear in Thai universities. Some of these conventions she has criticised and ridiculed in her writing."

mindless pack mentality. woof woof or is it Chihuahua nip nip.

"Thai society, is narrow-mindedly, right-wing conservative with no peaceful debate permitted, or when questioning something can be regarded as offensive. Many issues cannot be spoken about in public [here] or you risk putting yourself in peril."

Phibun-esque political correctness (in fact this fascistic stance of Thainess is seen as the norm) that directs school kids to blow bugles and march up and down the school ground chanting royal songs early in the morning and end up exhausted in the class room rather than sit first thing fresh and eager to learn something new.

"The Westerners are serious with their study so they make use of a huge body of knowledge. There are massive research collections and open discussions so there's an environment that encourages learning."

It's all about cognitive development. There is nothing in this world other than cognitive development that makes a Westerner better equipped to a neural process than a Thai or anyone for that matter.

"Instead, I should ask why many others don't feel annoyed by what's going like I do. Is everything in this society settled and all are fine?" she asked, softly but firmly."

She gets 100% for this. Great.... it is called cartoon people happy to live in a noodle utopia...and glide over simmering sewers.

"Most Thais prefer to read positive-thinking, angst-free books that seek to boost the will to live rather than exposes of the pretence and hypocrisy of Thai society."

Another 100%...amazing and to the point. It comes back to cognition and dialectics. Teach the children dialectics and they open up. Simple

"if you're going to live in this pathetic society without joining the monkhood and cutting yourself off entirely from worldly affairs then you need humour to handle it. I use dharma together with humour."

Absolutely pitch perfect. Thailand is an awful horrible insane place without something to hold on to. Humour alone won’t cut it. But Dhamma and humour? Maybe.

Now now... Dhamma for the foreigner sounds like gobbledygook or thereabouts. You see, Buddhism is great if you decide to cut off from everything, in fact superb. But if you want to carry on living with people it falls short. I actually had enough of bkk and left for Chiang Mai primarily not because the northerners or their smoky BBQ habitat is a better place but to experiment with some finer things this country has to offer. But I realised later that these are things you should seriously not want to do until you want to really let go. This is an ingenious program to restructure your neural pathways. For example - I'm as ever cryptic here - as you are breathing you imagine piti and consider something that is satisfactory.. good ... next you go to sukhah which is really nice, sixteen steps and by the end the mind starts to get the program because you end with Upadana and then bliss out for a few hours. The reason I tried this is Buddhadasa - I think Mukhom has studied him - said in a nuclear attack an arahan would laugh because if you accumulate enough dhamma you will laugh and I thought, well that is jolly good. Now what he meant by Dhamma was enough Anapanasati practice and he states Buddha was enlightened by this program not by Vipassana.

Then I learnt Pranayama, very Indian sort of meditation. I have been getting lazy with the Anapanasati and found it was much better concentrating on breath...ana breath pana prana. Same thing in Pali as Pranayama but the Thai version is a mind game. I said to many locals I recommend the Buddhahasa way. He has two books that tell in detail how to do each of 16 steps. So it takes over two weeks to really figure out. The good part is it works but it works too well. I don't recommend this until you are old and taking it easy because the Udapana will knock your socks off. You lose all motivation and get a thin smile on. This is really the top and finer points of what Thai culture has to offer any human being.

Does this help you score with the birds? Or make more money? Or make your dick look longer than it is? The answer is no.

It helps you deal with reality. Monks often meditate in morgues surrounded by dead bodies. The emphasis is that the pretty bird will rot later on and you wither away. Get in grip of that and it’s something. Now compared to what Christianity has to offer isn't this superior, learned and testing? The problem is it is not a DIY fixit system. And hence why Thai society has vast swathes of idiocy and an oasis of Buddhist learning. No place here for Greek or Christian morality. As they say it's fifty fifty baby. Evil co-exists side by side with idealism and goodness.

The alternative?

Zen of course. Plenty of Zen. And this works....

A dramatic example of Zen I once used was of the three postmen story that I experienced in three consecutive weeks. The mythos of three identical packages at a Thai Post Office. Three days and three different sequential ways to mail. All confusion. All mutant and no one knows anything!

So the analysis: THIS IS THE ZEN EXPERIENCE WHERE YOU GIVE UP AND WATCH THE FLOW.

I would buy Khun Mukhom a drink but only if she won’t start the way the Post article did....

On a lighter note: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkJdEFf_Qg4

Dicer says:

therapeutic Intervention,

Have you ever tried Udapana after an unrelenting bout with hill tarts. This is as mixed and confused a therapeutic Intervention gets, lets say the Buddhist version of it anyway. A very inspired moniker btw.

don't believe the hype says:

Khunying Juwanna Umphmeenao, I am glad to see you agree. Its very simple to see, once you get past the deceit. Go out to a club where westerners usually hang out. I know of a few down lower sukhumvit, and I am not just talking about beer bars and go go's. Then check out a strictly thai club. Chances are, you've probably never been. But if you have you'd realize that the women there are a thousand times hotter, and wouldn't bat an eye at you. Thai girls know that they are looked down upon for being with a foreignor. The ones who do go with foreignors, don't care, because they already are, and can't get any lower.

I am not going to say its always this way, but it is the large majority of the time.

DAZNLOVER, exactly right. It makes you feel good when they say they only like foreignors, but one must think of why they do.

meister says:

Bar tarts are far more fun than the bints in these videos and so are my sex pest mates. I'm actually glad I'm a rotter now!

Nick Stafford says:

I bet common or whatever the other ninja masters name is could have taken Pat Tilmen. Go tell Jeremy Statt what pussies football players are faggots. Tell me you at least posted your greatest knockouts faggots? No? I figured as much faggots. And pruf you are such a little cock sucking bitch. Please go hang yourself on the highest trailer in your park.

Nick Stafford says:

One last question for pruf? Whats it like to be the biggest cock sucker on mango sauce.com?

Grunt says:

Can anyone explain to me the logic behind spewing endless literary diarrhea describing, IN EXCRUCIATING DETAIL, how much Thai's do indeed suck...but choosing to stay in Thailand?

Not that I think for a moment little miss dicer has ever set foot in the LOS.

One would think little miss dicer was doing her level best to dissuade curious men from even visiting Thailand.

Hmmm...

Common Sense says:

Dicer,
"Phibun-esque political correctness (in fact this fascistic stance of Thainess is seen as the norm) that directs school kids to blow bugles and march up and down the school ground chanting royal songs early in the morning and end up exhausted in the class room rather than sit first thing fresh and eager to learn something new."

Being as well read as you are I am surprised you would say this. There are countless studies out there that show how physical activity early in the morning actually increase productivity and learning capability. Many Japanese companies even begin a shift with a workout routine. Getting the blood flowing a little early in the morning is good for the students.

Do you realise the military in almost any country uses far more drastic measures for military schools. You would be surprised what you can learn when extreme stress, sleep deprivation, and high volumes of new information are forcefully impressed upon you. I can't imagine a little bugle blowing and marching being responsible for destroying the education system of Thailand.

Maybe I'm just drunk and misinterpreted you.

Izzy Einstein says:

I second Grunt's poignant question:

"Can anyone explain to me the logic behind spewing endless literary diarrhea describing, IN EXCRUCIATING DETAIL, how much Thai's do indeed suck...but choosing to stay in Thailand?"

After having recently begun to read this site and found some of Dicer's contributions thought-provoking and interesting I have to bail out after having read his above lambast of Thais and all men who marry Thais.
It is fortunate that such sentiments are mostly aired online as I would truly hate meeting anyone who would espouse such views in person. I honestly think it is the views of someone who must hate humanity just by the way he always attributes the worst intentions and characters to everyone.
In Dicer-world everyone is either a pathetic scumbag or a conniving piece of human filth.
Let's all say a prayer tonight that Mr Dicer may wake up one morning and see things in a much brighter light . . . Maybe he could use his intellectualism on writing something more constructive then?

Dicer says:

CS,

Yes I am aware of the Jap method. The problem is with children you have to get them interested. Most matayom 2-3 kids (that’s like junior high here) who drop out of school simply say they are bored. There is no attempt to get the kids to be interested in anything. Many of the Pratom (primary school) kids I spoke to said exactly the same thing: they hated it. After the marches they enter the classroom to see the dour old lady holding a microphone in front of the class and speaking in a monotonous voice - yes tonal people can be monotonous. By this time the kids are mentally gone gone gone for the day. So while physical exercise is indeed good to get the synapses started here it actually contributes to boredom. Also they eat stuff like sticky rice which makes them tired.

They even make the uni first year students march up and down. If you ask them what they are doing they just shrug their shoulders and by the time they are in the lecture room they are day dreaming. They don't learn how to take notes - a process that is neurally engaging. They don't read at all. They wait for the handouts from the teacher and go home.

The problem with Thais is they never want to address underlying problems as that would mean upsetting the apple cart. The way forward should be to teach the children question and answer thinking and push them to form opinions. And get them interested in stuff. That would just be the beginning... The problem however comes back to the fact that this opinion and real thinking stuff is anathema to a culture that only allows presentation, easy chit-chat and preoccupation with beauty pageants.

So you won't find Thai students asking angst type questions like: "Why do we have to learn algebra Ms Smith?" And Ms Smith would try to convince the kids that one day algebra would become handy.

In fact funny I should write this here...earlier at lunch time I was talking about this with an ex-colleague from the education ministry after I read this article.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/
24Mar2007_news05.php

Every few months or once a year they talk about initiatives of all sorts of pretentious crap but there is no genuine desire to fix root causes.

Anyway I couldn't agree more that PE is necessary for good learning. With the bugle blowing and songs though what is happening is not exercise but the Thai Rao indoctrination.

Dicer says:

"After having recently begun to read this site and found some of Dicer's ...lambast of Thais and all men who marry Thais... In Dicer-world everyone is either a pathetic scumbag or a conniving piece of human filth. " - Izzy Einstein

Izzy,

Forget Grunt for a second, he's the neighbourhood bore. But can you point out EXACTLY which statements led you to believe "human filth." I ask this as your comment seems genuine.

I have a few resounding themes that won't go away. One is that most of the problems that we see and read about again and again and again occur mostly because we - I mean most of us and I don't exclude myself here - do not have a firm grip on others', and esp. foreign peoples reality. I am a product of three different countries and in fact am always humbled when I see cross cultural relationships that work against all the odds. However, when people superimpose their realities on other cultures then I point out the odds. It is about THE ODDS. Many don't like to hear it but this is not about likes and dislikes. If anything I am "lambasting" the farangs and not the Thais for..I repeat it for you here:

"the inability to adjust to foreign ways...inability to understand the territorial imperative of the little people with fascistic tendencies. And a simplistic approach to foreign behaviour. It's really about men who are driven by compulsions they poorly understand."

By foreign here I mean mostly Europeans and Americans (and somewhat other foreigners too) who fail to grasp the real differences and understand local people. I also "lambast" the Thais for being insular and unthinking. Why "fascistic?" Well ok..this is an inflammatory term but so it should be. I use it to highlight people who hide behind nationalism and the "we are better" myth.

I also said:

"cozy-sticky sexual relationships and the underlying emotional alienation that is the true reality of most foreign Thai couplings. The barrenness of the emotional terrain in such couplings is there for all to see."

This is unfortunate but evident. The endless case studies here make it evident. If you do not agree with this fine and say so. But human filth? This is a tad too emotive. Now if you can respond without resorting to ad hominem I'd be most interested to know your line of reasoning.

fbuom says:

Izzy,

Dicer has all the earmarks of an idealist who's seen his ideals shattered at his feet. As a result, to quote you, "[E]veryone _is_ either a pathetic scumbag or a conniving piece of human filth." (emphasis added)

It's hell being an idealist in a pragmatic world.

In case you missed it, Dicer, "Opened the kimono" a bit over at BKKGF. http://www.bangkokgirlfriend.com/
?m=200702&paged=2

fbuom
Party on, Dr Earnshawe, BSc, PhD!

Prufrock says:

Common: From what I can gather, the problem here as it is in North America, is partially dietary. At least it's an explanation.
The combination of hot humid weather, a breakfast of kanom pan and sweetened condensed milk, or a glop of white rice (which turns to sugar the instant it combines with salivary amylase.
It drops these kids into a hypoglycemic stupor at around 9:30.
Lao kids from good farm families get steamed veg and namprik a a bit of kaow niew. Not so bad.
While in this relaxed hyper-agitated state young minds are indeed quite receptive to martial rock n'roll
But they soon plunge into that predictable insulin-induced doze to which Dicer refers.

Only more rice or more sweet stuff or whatever-over-rice gets them rolling again. Hard to get a meal without rice. A huge glop of it. More than anybody needs. But that "glop" passes for "well fed" and well-nurtured. And cheap. And Thai.
And this is a sugar producing country. The only thing that drives up its price is the cane whiskey industry. so saweet is cheap and saweet is Thai as well.

And then there's the cheap distilled alcohol.

Izzy Einstein says:

Dicer,

In your previous post you already said that you have an antipathy towards Farangs in relationships with Thais but you deny that you include any anti-Thai invective:

“Then he gets run out of his house and says 'she hates farang'. But can we widen the picture? Nope. Because every time a mutant smiles, he knows he is in the right place at the right time.”

Here, if I understand your right, you are calling some Thai women “mutants” and that Thai women will try to get all the money and dump the farang asap.

“one-dimensional farm tarts”

This is your description of what I suppose is a woman from Isarn.
“What is she thinking? The cash mythos of course. Pretty soon we have thousands of idiot farm girls and psychotic "erratic" Lake Palmers hovering around in mythos madness.”

I think I will stop listing your invectives here. I do not have the time to read your monumental entry again.

For your information I am married to a “one-dimensional idiot farming mutant tart”, and I couldn’t be more happy about my choice.
I hope you are (or one day can be) happy with all your choices in life as well.

Dicer says:

fboum, as the cliche goes I think you've got your knickers in a twist. Idealism does not shatter it is the people who are dropping before us: the deluded, the psychotics the bubblers. Get nipped and RIPed and run over by the Chihuahua pack. After all is said and done it's about being well heeled in reality. Idealism is a sort of internal MO. Why, I've never been one for cultural or moral relativism or subscribed to the anything goes and we're all the same school of thought. Anyway more illustrations are forthcoming. So easy on the gleeful isms fboum. It can trip you up.

INSANE DOCTORS, DOXYCYCLINE AND MY NEVER ENDING SERMON

PART TWO

SEXY NURSES, PITCH PERFECT DOCTORS AND A SHINY HYPODERMIC

Since some plonkers can only handle black and white thinking with no shades of grey and go bipolar - balance is too important to them - when you show them the negative as I did with my the kidney-prostitute-insane-Chinese- doctor case. Now this was followed by some good experiences. In fact many people who come over to Bumrungrad for surgeries or the "dental" tourists are astonished to hear that anything could go wrong at all. This is again about our assumptions and differing experiences. Anyway in all fairness to Thai medical services I'll put here for contrast a chat I had with a chum a while back. Let's call him Ed.

Ed: Dicer, do you remember your kidney story and the doctor who thought it was caused by a prostitute.
Dicer: Yeah.
Ed: What happened in the end?
Dicer: In the end I saw a doctor at Bumrungrad and he gave me the right med and later on I had to have another treatment. But really it was much much better than the first time.
Ed: So the doctors were better educated?
Dicer: It's not just that. I mean I did not say the first doctor was badly educated, but the way they think. When you think they are doing ok and working towards a diagnosis suddenly the crazy non-sequiturs appear. In this case though the guy resorted to a stereotyping...foreigner here, giggle giggle... farang must have got the clap or something because thats what farangs do; shag a hooker and get the clap. The crazy thing is he's a urologist but still he wanted to offload doxycycline on me and send me reeling. A mixture of stereotyping and stupidity. You know they do that with local patients: Send them off with green and red pills.
Ed: They don't like it when you ask questions too.
Dicer: Yep, that’s because they feel you are challenging their authority.
Ed: I usually self medicate
Dicer: Sure. What I'm concerned about is when I can’t self medicate or a major surgery is needed...otherwise any village clinic can do it. I'll grant them one thing they have cleaner and well equipped hospitals far better than any other in a south east Asian country saving perhaps Singapore.
Ed: I remember one Brit doctor in Africa was saying that it is better to be a dog in a vet clinic in the UK than a human in surgery in Africa. He wrote that what the West is spending by going crazy on open heart surgery that costs thousands on cats and gerbils is in contrast to how humans are treated in Africa... The point is the Thais run their hospitals like hotels and when I am sauntering around Africa and see the total lack of any decent service it makes me miss the Thai hotel-hospitals. Having said that though if I have any serious problem but can still walk I'll run for the airport. I have no confidence in this bunch.
Dicer: just my point

Ed: Actually for the elderly Thailand is a good place..esp BKK...unless at a traffic time 15 minutes to Sathorn and Convent and the BNH hospital... 20 mins to Bumrungrad...... which I don’t like but imagine this in another third world country. BNH has four heart care plans that would dazzle any hospital in the world...posh posh posh.. and great dentistry.
Dicer: My favourite hospital is Payathai 3
Ed: Why?
Dicer: at Phayathai 3...When I ran in the door in pain, the receptionist nurse said I know what's wrong with you, left her post, pulled me over to a doctor who gave an X-ray (no sign in papers etc) and then they said over to the other doctor who was waiting with a huge smile and his needle. He said what was wrong knowingly... wait until you get this shot..in seconds I was pain free and happy...spent the night in their VIP room and 5 VIP nurses rushed over to tell me jokes. One from Pitsanulok actually did pig calls. Now this is the life. When they drop the BS, the forms and run you straight to a doctor and I might add all the nurses were so proud of working there; they beamed. Looking at the tits and arses of the nurses you recover quickly anyway. Perfect. In a UK hospital I'd probably have to bleed to death before I get attention. So different scenarios different outcomes.
Ed: Interesting....So how do you square that with the karaoke doctor in Korat singing in the lobby or the kidney specialist who told you have seen a prostitute and should take a doxycycline for 2 months, or that guy we know who had a broken arm surgery that ended up being infected in the bone? Or how about the guy who had surgery at Bumrungrad and was marched out bleeding to the ATM to get cash... How about all that?
Dicer: Ok two things. First as I said, if it is something that is a straightforward textbook medical problem where they can apply prescribed rules or a decision table then its fine. Second thing is intent.
Ed: intent?
Dicer: It is all about intent...at BNH hospital the rns run up and really look at you, try to take care and are the sharp of the sharp. For doctors you have no idea but this guy did hit the whole thing on the head and out did my diagnosis. The main point is it LOOKS OK. Not filled with soi dogs like some places or lumpen running around with stitches all over. When I asked one nurse for a Tylenol...had a fever...she got me two, rushed me over to a private bed and some water and had me rest up between the idiot things of wait for this wait for that. VIP you see. Now when I am sick I want VIP.
Ed: VIP is good. but any Nana hooker can get you Tylenol. If the intent is to be impressed by a hospital that looks like a hotel then fine.... as for "sharp of the sharp" wait until the idiot diagnosis starts... over and above equipment and basic procedure a hospital is as good as the quality of the doctors....
Dicer: Funny you used to have a go at me for being negative but are outdoing me now.
Ed: Well you started off on the hotel-like service of hospitals. I find that a dressing.
Dicer: What I said was it's their intent. If they think they're cranked up to be NO.1 they will be fine. It's when at the govt places or Adventist Hospital or Maharaj Hospital that they don't give a shit and have hired dementia people to do ER... So when you ask where the doctor is they'll say, well he's having a nervous breakdown...you know, that kind of stuff.
Ed: So you go to the VIP of the most expensive hospital?
Dicer: No. I go to somewhere like Payathai 3 which is much better than Bumrungrad and not too crowded.
Ed: I guess for the cute nurses?
Dicer: You are right about the Nana hookers and Tylenol btw. So, next time I am under the weather I’ll just head over to Nana plaza and get some care. If we compare it, the doctor call, weight height blood pressure 4 packets of pills and comes to 2,000. What would the Tylenol hooker charge? Ah ...now we are beginning to see the light? But the Tylenol I got at the hospital was free.
Ed: Don't forget the sympathy fuck a Nana hooker might give you. None of that in the hospital.

--------------------------

So it went.... in the end what happens depends on context, intent and particular circumstances. Now what does all this has to do with Louis Theroux and Lake Palmer. It's always about your expectations. Lake Palmer came looking for a wife. The next geriatric would come looking for a cheap surgery and good treatment. The underlying issues are the same.

People who repeatedly pose the question why be critical of Thailand and why don't you shove off miss the point. This is not about Thailand. We could be having this discussion anywhere in the world as there are problems everywhere. What it is about is finding the road to resolution. How do you resolve the problems. No easy answers of course. What should Lake Palmer do? Go home and die? Spend all his money on Nana hookers? Go to the Philippines? Become gay? The possibilities are endless. What should you do when you are sick. Catch the plane home? Go to Bumrungrad and hope for the best? Etc etc etc.... These are real issues. What I find funny are those who foam at the mouth when a critical (or even hypercritical) stance is taken by someone else. They would rather just do the pretend-n-nice thing.

chris says:

mr thako u wonker i know u from england and u tall also some girls say u got small knob.but please stop giving us your crap insights on thai women u knob jockey.

Dicer says:

"you already said that you have an antipathy towards Farangs in relationships with Thais but you deny that you include any anti-Thai invective" - Izzy

I'm not in the denial business. Just curious to know your reading of it. However, "antipathy" is wrong, as is "invective." Do you see a vehement denunciation? A reproach perhaps. Any vituperative stance? Nope. Let's carry on...

"you are calling some Thai women “mutants...one-dimensional farm tarts” - Izzy

oh yes...yes... so then what about mutants, tarts, prototarts, wallpaper people? What about them Izzy?

"This is your description of what I suppose is a woman from Isarn." - Izzy Einstein

can't be arsed to go into the etymological significance of mutants or misfits or tarts or geriatrics. It's all about context. If you have a fluffy and fuzzy unexamined liberal framework that tells you I'm not being "nice" then its back to that framework. For our purposes here rest assured that they're not sinister words. Unless you want them to be of course.

"“What is she thinking? The cash mythos of course. Pretty soon we have thousands of idiot farm girls and psychotic "erratic" Lake Palmers hovering around in mythos madness.”

just reporting what I see. btw all these people can be fixed. But then again as you are the "do choice" variety you'd probably say we can let them carry on as they are...gives us something to talk about right?

"For your information I am married to a “one-dimensional idiot farming mutant tart”, and I couldn’t be more happy about my choice. I hope you are (or one day can be) happy with all your choices in life as well. "

Cheerio... the idea of doing choices 1 2 3 and willing life is an old one, but hey I'm fine with that. I wonder though: does the “one-dimensional idiot farming mutant tart” sneer at you from time to time? Or can you tell when she's sneering, or grinning or sulking.... actually ask her what a sulk is, thats an experiment for starters.

"I think I will stop listing your invectives here. I do not have the time to read your monumental entry again." - Izzy

Invictive you said again eh? He came. He took offence. He mumbled. He left. Well, sayonara Izzy.

fbuom says:

Dicer, Dicer, Dicer,

It's not ad hominem, I can't really recall the term for twisting words in a debate - I guess I don't really care. But for one as intelligent as you, I expected better. On the other hand, given your usual style, perhaps not.

I _never_ used any 'ism'. I said you were an idealist who'd seen his ideals shattered. Where in that is any 'ism'?

You are certainly well-read enough to recognize the allusion. As Prufrock might point out, it's certainly not original with me. Actually, 'shattered ideals' is quite trite - overused precisely because it's so true.

However, it was decent of you to admit the truth, "[I]t is the people who are dropping before us...."

A pretty good indicator of a disillusioned idealist.

Almost always, ideals are (figuratively, but you know that) shattered when confronted with the pragmatism of folks trying to live their lives. Or when real knowledge of our idols shows them to have clay feet (another trite analogy).

Your follow-on of the quote above, "[T]he deluded, the psychotics the bubblers." is a pretty good indication of how you have adapted. It's a pretty common defense mechanism. It's not you whose ideals may be wrong, but the others who don't see the correctness of those ideals. If they'd just understand the correctness of our proof!

As for knickers in a twist, where did you get that impression? I edited out the only part of that post that came even close to being written with my knickers in a twist. It wasn't relevant to anything else in the post.

No, the closest my knickers get to being twisted is when I read your posts knowing you're a published author and that your book editors - especially if they were western - hammered you any time you tried to use your online style in your books. You're a bright guy, so I have to conclude you are purposefully using your 'academian' style to intimidate - to make us feel the fault lies in ourselves, certainly not in one of our 'stars'.

Having said all that, don't pretend this is an ad hominem reply. It doesn't fit the definition. More often than not, I agree with your position on things, so why would I be trying to refute them by discrediting you?

BTW: Love your exchanges with Dr. Earnshawe, all that academian civility bristling with those razor sharp blades! Far more entertaining - and far more difficult to pull off - than simple obscene, profane, vulgar name-calling. Who said this wasn't a civil gentleman's club?;-)

fbuom
Party on, Dr Earnshawe, BSc, PhD!

ozricdan says:

chris said.....

mr thako u wonker i know u from england and u tall also some girls say u got small knob.but please stop giving us your crap insights on thai women u knob jockey.

well said chris, cant stand that prick talking shit all the time, hes even worse on bangkokchat.

Dicer says:

"It's not ad hominem" - fboum

The ad hominem remark was aimed at Izzy, not you.

"I _never_ used any 'ism'. I said you were an idealist who'd seen his ideals shattered. Where in that is any 'ism'?" - fboum

I meant ismos or the Brit "ism" ...not the yank "ism" that could mean a collective derisive noun. I'm merely pointing out that you have a tendency to quickly find statements you agree or disagree with and then form a simple noun of action from them. There is nothing wrong in this but it gets tired. Like when someone says something and you'd say "ooh that's so yesterday" or something. I say this from the long view where the merit of what was said overall weighs more than individual components.

Idealism is also an ism but I'm happy with idealism.

When you have visual idealism you have hope, paradigms, and future goodness. When you reduce idealism as when the armies with their structure skills take over, you kill not only idealism (god is dead) but civilisation itself. As I said in the past Rome and Peking both became suffocating places of the crafty buying their way to the top. They were then stomped by the Goths and Mongols.

After the attempt of fitting ideals into society, you get retrogression. Suffocate the entire society and alienate it and then the emotional feeler types go wild. Nietzsche for example calls for a regress to Protagoras' animal kingdom where the stong survive not the good. Just the evil. We all know violence is part of nature but if you use the right thinking you get enlightenment, if not you get grim wars, My Lai, Abu Ghraib, ruthlessness, slavery. Finally a warrior society gives way to mafia. The dark ages sneaking back!

Yes there's a need for a primitive impulse of a survival spirit of which there is no trace today. I mean look at the people who cant even fit into airplane seats. Long time ago people thought the planet was considered to be a source of eternal riches and anything but tiny. Humanity has always persisted in its illusions of eternity and relativism whereas what is happening now is wanton consumption and destruction. So called pragmatism. Pragmatism used to be that primitive impulse to survive, coupled with a moral and ethical code to elevate it to a meaningful life. Now pragmatism has become capitalism, which btw cannot survive except in the absence of laws. It obeys no law except the fictitious ones that the system itself has created, like supply and demand. It is paradoxical that we believe in our liberty to reproduce but don't waste a word on the finite electricity and water avialiable out there. At the very least this is why we need idealism. We don't need idealism to pretend to be Socrates and his buddies. That's why the actions of an individual – though very important – must aim at institutional change. Wouldn't you say?

The difficult part is reorganising our lives: to renounce what gives us pleasure has never been part of our nature. Think of the millions of smokers in the world and the druggies, the hooker lovers, the sugar stuffers. Anyway change is in the air and if you start your revolution I will be happy to be your Trotsky.

"A pretty good indicator of a disillusioned idealist....Ideals are shattered when confronted with the pragmatism of folks trying to live their lives. ...is a pretty good indication of how you have adapted. It's a pretty common defense mechanism. It's not you whose ideals may be wrong, but the others who don't see the correctness of those ideals. If they'd just understand the correctness of our proof!" - fboum

As Gore Vidal said "There is not one human problem that could not be solved, if people would simply do as I advise."

It is not the answers but the journey that matters... Here is the depressed and hypochondriac Mickey Sachs in Hannah and Her Sisters.

WITH A CATHOLIC PRIEST

Why would you like to convert to Catholicism?
I have to believe in something or else life is just meaningless.
But why did you make the decision to choose the Catholic faith?
First of all, because it's a very beautiful religion. It's strong and well-structured. I'm talking about the against school prayer, pro-abortion wing.
So you don't believe in God?
No, and I want to. I'll do anything. I'll dye Easter eggs. I need some evidence. I gotta have proof. If I can't believe, life isn't worth living.
It's a very big leap.
Yes, well, can you help me?

WITH HIS JEWISH FATHER

I don't understand.
I thought you'd be happy.
How can we be happy?
Because I'm giving God serious thought.
Catholicism? Why not your own people?
I got off on the wrong foot there. I need a dramatic change.
You'll believe in Jesus Christ?
I'm gonna try.
We raised you as a Jew.
I was born that way. I'm older now.
But why Jesus Christ? Why not become a Buddhist?
That's totally alien to me. If there is God why is there so much evil in the world? On a simple level, why were there Nazis?
How the hell do I know? I don't know how the can opener works.

---a few months later

WITH A HARE KRISHNA

You'd like to become a Hare Krishna?
I'm not saying I wanna join...
...but you believe in reincarnation
I'm interested.
What's your religion?
I was born Jewish, but last winter I tried Catholicism. It didn't work for me. I studied and tried, but for me it was: "Die now, pay later."I just couldn't get with it.
You're afraid of dying?
Yeah, naturally. In reincarnation does my soul pass to another human? Or would I come back as an aardvark?
Take our literature, read it over, and think about it.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome. Hare Krishna.

THINKING ALONE IN THE PARK

Who are you kidding? You're gonna be a Krishna? You're gonna shave your head and dance around at airports? You'd look like Jerry Lewis. Millions of books written on every conceivable subject by all these great minds...but none of them knows anything more about the big questions of life than I do. I read Socrates. He used to knock off little Greek boys. What the hell's he got to teach me? And Nietzsche, with his theory of eternal recurrence. He said the life we live, we'll live over and over... the same way for eternity. Great. I'll have to sit through the Ice-Capades again. And Freud, another great pessimist. I was in analysis for years. Nothing happened. My poor analyst.. the guy finally put in a salad bar. Look at these people jogging ... trying to stave off the inevitable decay of the body. It's so sad what people go through ... with their stationary bike and their exercise ... Maybe the poets are right. Maybe love is the answer.

--------------------------

Finally here is something that was in the Nation a week ago. Now think about this. You wonder what happens to slum kids who play counter strike 3 hours a day?

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/03/12/
national/national_30029034.php

Bandersnatch says:

Remember when you were 13 years old and you invented a word and used it as much as possible in the hope that it would catch on with your 13-year-old peers, and this would somehow attest to your personal greatness, bringing you glory and affirming your puny, fragile ego in the big impersonal world in which you found yourself?

Thako bell, who apparently never got beyond the mental age of 13, has pushed his little 'wonker' non-word continuously in his mindless and repetitive posts. And now, his big moment has finally come, as someone else - chris - has finally used it, if only to describe the puerile Mr T himself.

He must be very gratified.

Dicer says:

This is what I mean. These mother....... dont get it. A moment of indigestion induces a great deal of oratory. Remember Orson Wells in The Third Man ... haha. At least he made the "cuckoo" speech.

Weather to blow North haze away today 18 Mar 2007
Kamol Sukin The Nation CHIANG MAI
The Chiang Mai mayor popped up with the incredible idea of starting the Songkran Festival two weeks early in the hope that water splashing could help solve the haze problem.

and then.....in the letter section today....

March 24. Public Health Minister Mongkol na Songkhla: “Normally, our body can discharge dust particles it has inadvertently taken in by sipping warm water often.”

Some poor chap in the letter section asks: Drinking warm water eliminates impurities that are already lodged in the lungs?

We choke but laugh .... maybe at ourselves too.

Mr Thaksin, BKKchat.org says:

wonkers all wonkers,

There's wonkers and then there's bandersnatches.

Thaxo x

fbuom says:

Dicer,

I did realize the ad hominem remark was directed at Izzy. But since my remarks were somewhat critical, I felt it best to defend against it before it was leveled.

I do believe Gore Vidal was being facetious - and in that spirit, oh so right!

I have nothing against ideals. One of mine - quite obviously - is that people express themselves using the fullest of their capabilities. Cheap, meaning readily availble, requiring no thought, insults are a particular peeve.

As an aside, expressing oneself to the fullest of one's capabilities also means - in the vernacular - dumbing it down to the level and attention span of the intended audience. Sometimes intelligent people don't have or won't take the time.

But idealists, to survive a pragmatic world, have to become a bit pragmatic themselves. Using Maslow's model as a reference, it's difficult to talk of ideals with folks struggling to find food and shelter.

There are relevant criticisms of capitalism. The impacts on the environment and society, and the economists' (not the capitalists') insistence that those costs should not be imputed to the cost of a particular good or service is one of them.

On the other hand, in my study of the various alternative political and economic models, I haven't found a more satisfactory solution that also fits with my democratic ideals.

I'd continue, but work calls. Perhaps more later.

fbuom

Aaron says:

Quote: Then check out a strictly thai club. Chances are, you've probably never been. But if you have you'd realize that the women there are a thousand times hotter, and wouldn't bat an eye at you. Thai girls know that they are looked down upon for being with a foreignor. The ones who do go with foreignors, don't care, because they already are, and can't get any lower.

I'm curious, where are these supposedly Non-western clubs located just so I can see examples of these "hotter" varieties. Also, if they're non western... then are westerners not allowed to enter (so how can we compare girls from the W to the NW clubs)

I've been to Japan an seen the "no foreigners allowed" signs on certain shops, hotels, & clubs (brothels) thou they didnt seem to mind this clean cut well mannered Canadian.