Moaning about Hua Hin/Thailand

[Name Taken]

A few points about if the old guys went home

Due to a lack in sales beer prices would go down to try and attract clients(That would be terrible)
Bars girls in turn have to drop their prices(Again terrible)
Bars would close and never reopen and issan girls would head north(No more sexy man)

There must be more...

[Name Taken]

^lol, if all the bars closed H.H really would be paradise

and Hua Hin would lose 90% of it's 'tourist' revenue.

[moe]

You imply that 'farangs' are racist

No, I really didn't. That generalization is fully in your own head.

What I wrote was that the lazy generalizations of "This is Thailand", "the Thais this and that", "typical Thai so-and-so" etc, seen again and again from a significant number of the most prolific posters and incessant moaners in this forum are sometimes -- too often -- borderline racist in the context it's written.

That doesn't mean all us farangs are racist, but a minority seem to be very happen to flaunt it in the forums, and they rarely if ever gets called out on it.

but Thais are very racist

Wow, way to generalize. All of them, or what?

But, yeah, taken on average, pretty much any human group on the planet is racist to a certain degree. We're naturally born tribalistic creatures, so that follows. Looks to me like Thais on average are way, way better than most populations, though, notwithstanding the occasional "Africa man not welcome in this bar", or whatever.

How often do you truly feel unwelcome here?

What I find especially disgusting about the underhanded racism on this forum is the context it's done in: we're effing guests in this country, and if the other people have even remotely similar experiences to me, I see Thais go out of their way to be helpful and friendly on a daily basis, much, much more so than I have seen in any other country I've visited for any length of time, and I've been travelling excessively for most of my life as professional consultant in the oil and gas and IT businesses, all around the world.

I'm sure you'll live here one day and I'm also sure you will change your tune.

Why are you making assumptions about what I will do and think? Weird.

Anyway, I've been here with my family for almost a half year stretch now, and my feelings and attitudes about Thailand and its population hasn't been turning more negative -- on the contrary, I see more and more reasons to be respectful and grateful for the opportunity to spend significant time here.

Perhaps it is partly because I've put in some effort to learn some Thai, including the alphabet and how to read the language (my vocabulary is still pretty crap, but getting better by the day), and asking around a lot to figure out some of the codes and cultural peculiarities, but whatever it is, I'm seeing more and more to be impressed and/or happy about here.

Just because we criticise the shortfalls of this country, doesn't mean we don't want to be here.

Criticism is fine, I have no problem with that. It's more that threads sometimes turns into competitions where the regulars are one-upping each other in who can say the most ridiculously negative things about Thailand / the Thais.

And over the most inane things... I mean, scooter boys, really? Show me any country outside Asia with less juvenile delinquency where the society is as liberal as here, please.

The locals are too unfriendly in traffic? Oh, is that so -- have you tried the traffic in France, Italy, Spain, Greece, ...? Even my sleepy, small Scandi home town has way more aggression in traffic than here. I've been driving in Hua Hin and some in Bangkok for about a year all together, and basically the only time I hear a car horn it's to say "careful, I'm about to pass you" or some such, and people generally let me cut into the queue 4 out of 5 times or so, compared to what, perhaps 1 out of 5 cars back home, at best.

The climate is bad, really? Out of the probably several hundred people I've talked with here and home that have visited Thailand, I think I've met two who didn't like the weather here -- one person was so ginger to be almost translucent, and the other was grossly obese.

Their English is terrible? Ok, sure, how is your Thai? And you do know that English may not even be the most sensible "tourist-friendly" language they should learn here, given the vast, and increasing, numbers of Japanese and Chinese tourists?

This just off the top of my head of whinging I've seen recently, but the list could go on and on and on...

[Ralfredo]

The locals are too unfriendly in traffic? Oh, is that so -- have you tried the traffic in France, Italy, Spain, Greece, ...? Even my sleepy, small Scandi home town has way more aggression in traffic than here. I've been driving in Hua Hin and some in Bangkok for about a year all together, and basically the only time I hear a car horn it's to say "careful, I'm about to pass you" or some such, and people generally let me cut into the queue 4 out of 5 times or so, compared to what, perhaps 1 out of 5 cars back home, at best.

I really agree to this. I can think the traffic sometimes is crazy. I mean four or more persons on a small scooter and such things... Often people seem occupied by using their phone and don't seem to care about the traffic around them. I have to admit that I'm glad every time I arrive home in one piece.

But that people are unfriendly, very seldom in my experience. In for example Greece I often feel like the locals do what they can to scare the shit out of tourists. In Thailand I often feel that people try to help me when for example crossing a busy intersection.

[J.J.B.]

The locals are too unfriendly in traffic? Oh, is that so -- have you tried the traffic in France, Italy, Spain, Greece, ...? Even my sleepy, small Scandi home town has way more aggression in traffic than here. I've been driving in Hua Hin and some in Bangkok for about a year all together, and basically the only time I hear a car horn it's to say "careful, I'm about to pass you" or some such, and people generally let me cut into the queue 4 out of 5 times or so, compared to what, perhaps 1 out of 5 cars back home, at best.

I find the urban traffic in Thailand quite soothing, compared with driving in Milan or London as I frequently do. It's not too fast, few people seem in a real rush to get anywhere and there is an attitude of "I don't want to crash into you any more than you want to be crashed into" among drivers. If you respect another's right to be on a neighbouring piece of the planet, you'll largely be fine and here you can find an interesting paper on how removing 'street furniture' and mixing traffic with pedestrians can improve overall road safety.

I'm not saying there aren't careless, ill-trained or reckless road users out there and the stats show that Thailand has a road safety record in need of improvement but this is based on many factors...but there are plenty of other moans about those!

[centermid7]

"Thailand has a road safety record in need of improvement"

My Gawd, what an understatement! 555

[HHTel]

Some of these latest posts beggar belief and make me think that I must have moved to another planet.

'Road safety record in need of improvement' - Needs a lot of improvement to get off the bottom of the ladder in the worst and most dangerous driving/roads in the world!

Racism! Not even worth responding to. Talk to the population here.

I give up. Going to bed

[caller]

PC is alive and well and has arrived in Hua Hin. Enjoy.

[dtaai-maai]

The predictable PC slur, usually reserved for the use of bigots and racists.

[TingTongJohn]

I always found Thailand to have a certain racist mind set against most non Thai/Foreigner and a Thai first mindset. But how does that differ from any other country and their rules, laws and populus?

[caller]

And that response is typical of the righteous and mighty.

Seriously, that's quite a generalisation and in my opinion a rather foolish one.

I think moe is equally guilty of some of the generalisations he claims to be offended by. Am I included in his 'list' of 'significant numbers of the most prolific posters'? I demand to be told! Actually, I don't really care.

This is by nature a forum for expats and visitors with an association to Hua Hin. It's a broad Church and inclusive of folk from many different geographical, cultural and social backgrounds, all with equally differing values and mores. It also contains a lot of banter and (sometimes) humour. Many things are said in jest, some with irony, sometimes half-seriously (my PC post) and sometimes full-on. Not everyone's 1st language is English. Some will even be unfamiliar with the term 'PC'!

Whilst I might be judgemental on comments made on a UK based forum (one I use just had a 7-page debate about Clarksons use of the term 'slope' on TG). Here, I might be equally judgemental, but accept that I'm away from the norms that govern life in the UK (sometimes) and possibly other Countries as well - I don't know?

But just as I would never dream of saying to a Thai what is or isn't acceptable for them to say whilst in Thailand, even if it's by definition elsewhere, racist (I have in the UK, by telling them such comments are unacceptable here), nor would I be seeking to impose what is or isn't acceptable on others that use a forum.

That's the owners and mods job and I sure they would step in if and when they thought a line had been crossed. It may well be they think it has? It might well be others think it has? It could well be it's covered by the T&C's? That's not something I have to concern myself with. There is, after all, the facility to report a post if someone finds something that has been said offensive.

[margaretcarnes]

Good post Dtaii Maii (I'll take the 'reliably informed he has a brain' part as a compliment )

Living in Thailand takes an incredible amount of tolerance... working in Thailand even more so. It's a country that is going backwards. A country whose people think they know better, on any topic, than the most streetwise and educated of foreigners that arrive on its shores. A country that doesn't allow foreigners a voice (we should only be seen and not heard - saying that, not being seen would make most Thais happy). A country that lacks education but thrives in corruption. A country with the 2nd worst roads in the world with drivers who still haven't figured out that the seat belts in cars are for their safety and the helmets in their baskets are for their head. A country that has one of the highest underage pregnancy rates in Asia. A country where the richer adults bicker like children over contractual agreements that could help the country (3G internet service comes to mind - am I right in saying Laos already has 4G) due to their own greed. A country where the foreigner is in the workplace mainly for photo opportunities and not for his/her expertise (look, look - have you seen our new farang!). A country where its people can't admit they were wrong after making a mistake due to loss of face. A country that still employs slave labour while the rich get even filthier from it. A country where the police are underpaid and incompetent...

A country I can proudly call my home.

Great post GLC - and really you make the LOS sound very much like the UK these days! The rich get richer - slave labour etc etc. How true. But as you say it's your home - and it's nice to hear that. Truth is we can all moan about something wherever we live, and yes, as we get older we do moan more. But we remember more and we have seen more change.
Not all change is bad. It's just that we struggle more to get our heads round it as the little grey cells deteriorate! I do think that HH has tidied itself up considerably over the years, particularly in the centre of town. It looks much more presentable than it did 15 years ago - and more attractive to tourists. Lets face it - they bring the cash in. The downside has been the loss of many original Thai houses, but that happens in any town over the years.
Hopefully HH has got it's development right - at least in the centre. I wouldn't want to see it make the same awful architectural blunders which Hull has made in the past that's for sure, but only time will tell. And as for racism - if people can't handle mixed race communties they shouldn't be in the LOS anyway.
So I do bemoan the whole concept of the new gated farang communities. Living in a foreign country means mixing with local people. Otherwise they might just as well move to Benidorm and open a chippy.

[dtaai-maai]

PC is alive and well and has arrived in Hua Hin. Enjoy.

The predictable PC slur, usually reserved for the use of bigots and racists.

And that response is typical of the righteous and mighty.
Seriously, that's quite a generalisation and in my opinion a rather foolish one.

I don't know about foolish, but it was certainly rather late in the day by my standards!
Maybe we should start a thread about "how to disagree with someone on a forum without causing anger or offense".
Though I have to say I do get a bit tired of looking for the most appropriate smiley after every sentence.

PC is a tired and meaningless cliche. Political Correctness means (to me, anyway) saying something you don't really believe because you think it will be more acceptable to your peers. I don't see any examples of that in this thread - I have no reason to believe anyone is giving anything less than an honest opinion. If it has any relevance today, PC should be levelled at politicians (and wannabe politicians) alone. Who uses it and who is it aimed at? Well, it's not something the National Front is often accused of. And yes, that's a generalisation. Of course it is.


This is the paragraph I agreed with, and apart from the TIT bit, I stand by that, particularly the last sentence. I've said the same thing myself.

Quite often also with some thinly veiled racism about "TIT" and whatever generalizations about how "the Thais" are uneducated, unfriendly, short-sighted, and well, just plain low-IQ creatures. That's the general impression one gets from reading the forums, sadly. I wonder how many here would be comfortable showing a Thai friend what gets written about them?

Yep.

You imply that 'farangs' are racist

No, I really didn't. That generalization is fully in your own head.

What I wrote was that the lazy generalizations of "This is Thailand", "the Thais this and that", "typical Thai so-and-so" etc, seen again and again from a significant number of the most prolific posters and incessant moaners in this forum are sometimes -- too often -- borderline racist in the context it's written.

That doesn't mean all us farangs are racist, but a minority seem to be very happen to flaunt it in the forums, and they rarely if ever gets called out on it.

[...]

How often do you truly feel unwelcome here?

What I find especially disgusting about the underhanded racism on this forum is the context it's done in: we're effing guests in this country, and if the other people have even remotely similar experiences to me, I see Thais go out of their way to be helpful and friendly on a daily basis, much, much more so than I have seen in any other country I've visited for any length of time, and I've been travelling excessively for most of my life as professional consultant in the oil and gas and IT businesses, all around the world.

Just because we criticise the shortfalls of this country, doesn't mean we don't want to be here.

Criticism is fine, I have no problem with that. It's more that threads sometimes turns into competitions where the regulars are one-upping each other in who can say the most ridiculously negative things about Thailand / the Thais.

It's unfortunate that moe uses the term "this forum", because what he says is undoubtedly true of most forums, bars, cafes - anywhere that a few people get together to 'discuss' anything. It certainly isn't specific to this forum.

Normally when the words 'racism', 'immigration', 'discrimination' (a much more accurate term to use than racism), etc. crop up I switch off and start thinking about sport, sex or the meaning of life. I'll make an exception now because, for some reason, I'm in the mood.

Any argument about any of the above is a complete waste of time, as positions are entrenched and most of the opinions are so ingrained as to be unshiftable.

I was born and spent my childhood in Clapham Junction (Sth London to the uninitiated) in the late 50s and 60s. Half of my schoolmates and half of my friends were from the West Indies. That didn't mean anything to me, other than their houses were more colourful, their mothers more cheerful (and quicker to anger!) and their food infinitely better (all generalisations, BTW). From age 19 I spent 20 years working as an immigration officer, a job in which our 'clients' were lumped into categories according to nationality.

All [insert nationality here] are lazy/liars/thieves/frauds/uneducated/spongers, etc.

Often true of those I dealt with, but obviously not true of an entire nation. The more I've travelled, for both work and pleasure, the more I've seen how ridiculous it is to stereotype nationalities in this way - but it's so easy to do!

But just as I would never dream of saying to a Thai what is or isn't acceptable for them to say whilst in Thailand, even if it's by definition elsewhere, racist (I have in the UK, by telling them such comments are unacceptable here), nor would I be seeking to impose what is or isn't acceptable on others that use a forum.

That's the owners and mods job and I sure they would step in if and when they thought a line had been crossed. It may well be they think it has? It might well be others think it has? It could well be it's covered by the T&C's? That's not something I have to concern myself with. There is, after all, the facility to report a post if someone finds something that has been said offensive.

I haven't seen any evidence of anyone trying to impose anything on others. On the very rare occasions that blatantly racist remarks have been made, they've been swiftly stamped on by the Mods. If moe feels that doesn't go far enough, he's entitled to say so, though I'd disagree.

This is another forum chestnut. Someone says something controversial on any topic, then someone else jumps in and disagrees. The OP cries foul play, this is a forum, I'm entitled to express my opinion. Of course he is, and so is someone else entitled to say that the opinion is wrong.

I'll go back to what I said in the OP:

One of the things you need to spend any length of time in Thailand is tolerance, and that seems to be a dwindling quality amongst both farang and Thai.

... and on the forum apparently! I enjoy a good argument, and I hope there'll be plenty more.

[Name Taken]

Good post Dtaii Maii (I'll take the 'reliably informed he has a brain' part as a compliment )

Living in Thailand takes an incredible amount of tolerance... working in Thailand even more so. It's a country that is going backwards. A country whose people think they know better, on any topic, than the most streetwise and educated of foreigners that arrive on its shores. A country that doesn't allow foreigners a voice (we should only be seen and not heard - saying that, not being seen would make most Thais happy). A country that lacks education but thrives in corruption. A country with the 2nd worst roads in the world with drivers who still haven't figured out that the seat belts in cars are for their safety and the helmets in their baskets are for their head. A country that has one of the highest underage pregnancy rates in Asia. A country where the richer adults bicker like children over contractual agreements that could help the country (3G internet service comes to mind - am I right in saying Laos already has 4G) due to their own greed. A country where the foreigner is in the workplace mainly for photo opportunities and not for his/her expertise (look, look - have you seen our new farang!). A country where its people can't admit they were wrong after making a mistake due to loss of face. A country that still employs slave labour while the rich get even filthier from it. A country where the police are underpaid and incompetent...

A country I can proudly call my home.

Great post GLC - and really you make the LOS sound very much like the UK these days! The rich get richer - slave labour etc etc. How true. But as you say it's your home - and it's nice to hear that. Truth is we can all moan about something wherever we live, and yes, as we get older we do moan more. But we remember more and we have seen more change.
Not all change is bad. It's just that we struggle more to get our heads round it as the little grey cells deteriorate! I do think that HH has tidied itself up considerably over the years, particularly in the centre of town. It looks much more presentable than it did 15 years ago - and more attractive to tourists. Lets face it - they bring the cash in. The downside has been the loss of many original Thai houses, but that happens in any town over the years.
Hopefully HH has got it's development right - at least in the centre. I wouldn't want to see it make the same awful architectural blunders which Hull has made in the past that's for sure, but only time will tell. And as for racism - if people can't handle mixed race communties they shouldn't be in the LOS anyway.
So I do bemoan the whole concept of the new gated farang communities. Living in a foreign country means mixing with local people. Otherwise they might just as well move to Benidorm and open a chippy.

[moe]

On the very rare occasions that blatantly racist remarks have been made, they've been swiftly stamped on by the Mods. If moe feels that doesn't go far enough, he's entitled to say so, though I'd disagree.

I absolutely do not wish for any censorship in the forums, just to make that clear. (I wouldn't mind if any blatant racism was left alone by the mods aswell, that shit is better out in open daylight anyway.)

I just wanted to explain why, for me as a newcomer, the forums give off a crappy vibe about most things Thailand & Thai. Not trying to be the judge of what is acceptable and not. To me, everything is acceptable (except pure threats, like free speech laws in any civilized society).

And in case my post came off like the forums are all bad, I don't think so at all -- lots and lots of helpful and kind advice here, from the old-timers.