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#36
08-03-2006, 18:23
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That's the whole point; you are in someone elses country and must respect their way of doing things in some situations, regardless of how you deal with these things at home.
It's not about not having the balls, it's about understanding the situation you are in.
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#37
08-03-2006, 18:31
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Yeah as to the 'blame the farang' issue you also have to understand.. Theres a road accident, someone cuased it.. If theres a farang within sight rather than lose face then blame him !!!
I drink in the Offshore on the Nanai 2 and Nanai Road T junction.. Being a T junction, on a road everyone races along, with crap drivers and a hill start it has maybe 1 bike crash a day in front of it and a near miss every hour or so.. Sitting having a beer.. One girl pulls out of Nanai 2 without looking turning left.. Connects with another Thai bird on a scooter and they both go down.. Minor scapes and damaged bikes.. A farang on a scooter arrives after they have both crashed.. Slows down and stops.. Asks if everyones OK and picks up one girls bike.. They are both still too shocked to be angry at each other yet and we told him from the bar to just keep on moving.. 2 mins later a police man turns up and as there is obvious bike bits around and a crowd asks whats going on.. While I didnt get every word of what was said I clearly understood the gist which is that girl A starts to tell a cop it was a farangs fault.. Girl B picks up on this and starts to chime in that it was this bad farang on a bike that they innocently swerved to avoid and he caused the crash through his bad driving foriegner and then rode off.. Face saved for both of them and lucky the good samaritan had left the scene instead of continueing to help. Theres not a doubt in my mind that if he had stuck around to assist once they both worked out they could both lie and blame him and he would pay for all thier repairs (and that the police would help extort it from him for 10% of the take) it would have played out that way.. I could explain 10+ situations like this.. If your a farang here and theres other people to deal with it at all.. Let them deal with it !!! The one or two possible exceptions are if you really do see a woman being attacked and is totally alone without others around etc..
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Men have only 2 emotional states, hungry and horny.. So ladies, if you see me without an erection, make me a sandwich. Last edited by LivinLOS : 08-03-2006 at 18:34.
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#38
08-03-2006, 18:38
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your best bet if witnessing an accident or altercation is to call the police and let them deal with it.
Jimholio's notions are honourable of course but he sees it in Black & White when living here it becomes many shades of grey. I don't see how the Tsunami has any relevance to this discussion whatsoever though? Of course you help in disaster situations.
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#39
08-03-2006, 19:19
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Well i got to see how thai people handled the biggest catastrophy of modern times. And at that time it didnt matter if someone was black, white, green or yellow.
I think the difference here may be that the guilty party in the tsunami was nature itself. The Thais where hardly in a position to pass blame for the waves onto the black, white or green foreigner. The tsunami was nature-verses-humanity, and not a man-verses-man accident or dispute. I would be very wary of voluntarily involving myself in a contentious situation in Thailand. Thais are often more concerned with saving face than doing the right thing. In such a setting, as much as one may have good intentions, the potential for your actions backfiring is huge, and so inaction can often appear as the best option Still, each circumstance is different and whether on not I would help out would have to be judged at the time. If I get into trouble here, I would hope someone would step in and help me, if they did not, well I guess I would be disappointed, but I could not hold it against them... I think people are morally obliged to help others who are in trouble; however they are not obliged to place themselves at great risk in doing so. I think we may all agree on that? What the disagreement seems to be on this thread is the degree of those risks in everyday Thailand?
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#40
08-03-2006, 19:31
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Steve i am not always right and i didnt say that. But every person is responsible for himself. I respect the opinion of others of course and if i am wrong i apologise and learn. But here are some points of view or better say your rules of live that you cant break. Lets say humanity has a special meaning for me and i cant get away from it, even if it means something different in other cultures. Maybe i can experess it better with an example. There are the united nations. An organisation also ruling and judging other countries and what is going on there. So if i accept that everything is upon a countries culture so why we have something like the UNO, or am i wrong? Then you can argue everything is their own cup of tea. I accept thinks like for example the doīs and not doīs in a country, because this is a kind of behavior. I dont enter a thai house with shoes stuff like this. So kinds of tradition or behavior is imho something different. So to let someone die canīt be part of culture in any country and isnt. Because a thai person will help a thai person, so you cant say its tradition or a habit to pass an accident victim. What i dont accept is the point to make a difference in treating someone because of his race or religion. What i meant with the sentence, "a man has to do.... " , is i have to live with the consequences of my acting, i am responsible for what i do or not. I dont say i have to get involved in everything and everywhere but you cant look at the side if some sh1t happens. For sure i would not jump in a situation if it is still harmless. A guy yelling at his girl is not something to jump just in. But if it would get worse, slapping , boxing etc.. ) i would. One point imho is that some of the BMīs , living in LOS, sometimes try to get more acting "like a Thai" or make their own idea of what they think its "the Thai Way". We say : To be more like the pope as the pope himself ! Dont know how to translate this, but i think you have an idea what it means. Maybe "to be the better Thai" would fit. So i think i wont throw all my values, i have gone through my live, away. Its like a big street, i can go sometimes more left , sometime in the middle or more right, but i cant leave it. Living in an other country means to me to accept the traditions and the habits, but not to accept everything which seems completly wrong to me. So i know there will now come the answer , than i should live or stay at home but thats not the thing. My question has been in what case you would react? when comes the point you cant look away? it cant always be the thai thing or farang thing. I accept any other opinion, i just told you how i think about it. 
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Never to old to make yourself a fool  Especially in LOS
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#41
08-03-2006, 19:51
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Thats the point.. Steve was going to stop and thais told him not to and to keep on moving.. Personally I would stop at a major traffic accident.. But would hope that I can let others take charge wheras in the west I would immediately assess the situation and dive in..
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Men have only 2 emotional states, hungry and horny.. So ladies, if you see me without an erection, make me a sandwich.
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#42
08-03-2006, 19:54
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Ohh and as for stepping in to defend..
I stepped into a fight to defend before and recieved a knife in between the shoulder blades.. Luckily he was holding the blade vertically and it glanced off my verterbrea sideways instead of holding it horizontally where it had a high chance of slipping between 2 vertebrea and leaving me a quadrepleagic.. When I went down I got enough of a shoeing to compound fracture my forearm !!!
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Men have only 2 emotional states, hungry and horny.. So ladies, if you see me without an erection, make me a sandwich.
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#43
08-03-2006, 19:55
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think self preservation
i support the part about SteveM s wife saying drive on, only with 3/4 thai males would she stop, she is thinking smart not selfish.
a farang and his wife stop at an accident, out of the bushes comes some thais with weapons or unarmed just with intent of robbery, i think a very possible situation anywhere in los. at one time of course and most of the time in my home city i would stop and offer assistance to a woman with a broken down car, and definately at an accident. in thailand, i would not stop unless the thais with me said it was ok, they know the situation better than farangs. in the outback of oz so many stories, of the broken down car/accident being a setup for rape or robbery i would not stop, unless i could judge that situation to my satisfaction.
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#44
08-03-2006, 19:58
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This isnt about trying to be Thai.. Its not about trying to assimilate.. Its about not getting a knife in the ribs or getting an iron bar over the head.. Thais dont 'fight fair' and they dont stop once someone has been knocked down.. When they do fight they totally lose control of thier emotions and over react.. If you get attacked or in a brawl with a Thai in Thailand you can expect to have a serious beating if you lose and other Thais join in if you win..
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Men have only 2 emotional states, hungry and horny.. So ladies, if you see me without an erection, make me a sandwich.
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#45
08-03-2006, 20:02
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ROLL ON OCTOBER........
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#46
08-03-2006, 20:11
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Dr Livingstone ?
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lucky man to walk away from that LIL. i would never intervene in a fight in los, as LIL stated farangs are not aware of the reasons behind it. saw about 8 or 10 thais fighting near the gfs village, i was in the car with her father a policeman, i thought he would stop the car and the fight. i asked the gf later, why her father did not stop, apparently this trouble between the 2 groups had been brewing for a while, and it needed to be brought to a head to end the dispute. in papua new guinea, two clan groups employed by the company i worked for started the preliminarys for a full clan fight. i walked in between them like DR Livingstone hoping my white skin would protect me, it worked. (sent the 2 groups to opposite areas of the company grounds to work for the next 3 days) a couple of the long term employee expats, told me later over a beer, that i was crazy for going anywhere near two groups. and that i was lucky it was still all at the "face" saving stage.
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#47
08-03-2006, 20:55
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this whole thread as quite depressing!
are thais THAT corrupt-violent psyco,s? reading all the posts on this thread, (and other boards too over the years),it comes across, that thai,s arn,t the smiling happy nice natured people that their made out to be and los isn,t the paridise that people think it is i always thought that i would retire to los, but over time ,and reading a lot of expat,s experiences, its going to have to be spain i think!
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#48
08-03-2006, 21:01
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Sorry but this is something i have to laugh about. If its going to a fight its just going to win. Its nothing like a gentlemanīs deal. If you are one who is going into that stuff, you must know that. If i go into i make sure he wont attack me a second time, but thats another thing. Those of the members who served in the army does know this. To come back to the topic i think its not easy for sure to give an all fitting advice as every situation is different. So everybody has to decide for his own what he will do and what risk he is willing to take. For me i just can say i would rather take a risk for my own then let somebody without help depending of how the situation is looks like to me. Some thai blokes boxing or anything is also nothing i would jump in. Only if there are more blokes going on one guy. Well i cant get out of my skin!! have to ask my daddy why he made me like this?  Stupid? Maybe
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Never to old to make yourself a fool Especially in LOS
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#49
08-03-2006, 21:31
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Easy for you to dissagree.. You dont live here and probably havent seen it.. Let me give you some examples.. If there was a fight back home and one person clearly beats the other person to submission and the floor does it usually end ?? Here its much more likely to continue until the person who lost is injured in a much more grievoius and permanent way.. The beating continues long after what would be normal back in the west.. You want to have permanent facial scarring ??? Brain damage ?? If a fight happens back home and two guys have a problem is it likely for groups of unrelated people to all join in for no reason other than to give the foriegner a kicking ?? Would they join in in a biased manner if one guy got the upper hand ?? I would say on average no.. Here you can pretty much guarantee that if it gets to fists then you are going to fight many people until you lose, not just one.. Thats how they fight.. They just dogpack the farang in most situations.. You can be cas confident as you like that "If i go into i make sure he wont attack me a second time" but beating one just brings them out the woodwork.. The only possible result is to totally deck him and clear the hell out of there instantly.. In a situation where your trying to assist in something how has that assisted ?? I am not saying I would never get involved.. I have myself had a few couple of altercations over the years once against a Thai (that turned into 10 or so all going at me.. Luckily I manged to break through the circle and sprint.. Only a couple foillowed and when far enough for the group they were suddenly a lot less brave).. Its the time spent here thats made me change to these views.. Crusty is ex services Sgt Mjr (forgive me if thats not your correct rank.. Think I heard that somewhere tho) who I am fairly sure isnt lacking in the guts and glory dept, yet his advise as a resident is 'if at all possible stay out'.. Even by interfereing in violence here your going to have issues you wouldnt have elsewhere like the loser has lost face and can regain some by making you out to be an asshole for stopping it when he was just about to make his comeback.. Theres just too many reasons why we as outsiders need to keep out of any altercations and issues..
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Men have only 2 emotional states, hungry and horny.. So ladies, if you see me without an erection, make me a sandwich.
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#50
08-03-2006, 21:36
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__________________
ROLL ON OCTOBER........
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#51
08-03-2006, 21:37
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The Thai smile is a mask, and the whole culture of bottling emotions until snapping creates quite volatile people.. We are used to people getting mildly agry often and getting angry as a pressure vavle.. Thais dont seem to do that.. They bottle it up until they snap and then when they snap they just go nuts, thats why you get 2 motorbike taxi drivers fatally stabbing each other over a 40 baht passenger (top of bangla mis last year).. Once loss of face is involved and the breaking point has happened they dont 'vent' minor anger... Doesnt take long to realize these things when off holiday mode.. Avoiding being in situations that will get you the worse for any of these things is important.. striding in like John Wayne to help in arguments you dont have any understanding off is a sure fire way to get in a world of hurt.
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Men have only 2 emotional states, hungry and horny.. So ladies, if you see me without an erection, make me a sandwich.
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#52
08-03-2006, 22:30
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Pleased to help a Man in Need
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Shark OK You are stupid. You are a fool. You don't understand! Anything else I can do for you today? Regards Drew PS John Wayne was always a bit of a 'Closet Racist' anyway- he wouldn't even have got off his horse- he'd have taken one look at the Thai's; seen there brown skin and shot them becasue he thought they were Indian's. Last edited by DREW : 08-03-2006 at 22:39.
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#53
08-03-2006, 23:45
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[quote=LivinLOS]Yeah as to the 'blame the farang' issue you also have to understand.. Theres a road accident, someone cuased it.. If theres a farang within sight rather than lose face then blame him !!!
I drink in the Offshore on the Nanai 2 and Nanai Road T junction.. Being a T junction, on a road everyone races along, with crap drivers and a hill start it has maybe 1 bike crash a day in front of it and a near miss every hour or so.. QUOTE] LOL i hade my breakfest every day in the smal resturant (zaks place grate coffe) 10 m down in nanai2 from the T junction after a week i did not look up from the bangkok post when i heard the breaks and bangs
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Sting -"tears in waves minds on fire " ...'till in the end we didn't know right from wrong anymore. That's when the fun started....
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#54
08-03-2006, 23:58
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Just read this thread and do see the points being made from everyones side. However, as the expats here say you have to live in Thailand in order to understand.
I sure wouldn't step in and try to break up a fight in Thailand. That is way out of my league and the risk of getting seriously hurt is rather big. However, I do think that I would help at a traffic accident. Done that a couple of times both in Denmark and Germany but then again both countries are very different from Thailand. I remember one time a couple of years ago when I was out drinking with a friend of mine in Copenhagen. We were heading home down the big walking street in Copenhagen at around 4 in the morning. As we walk we see 3 guys have a pretty heated argument with a girl. We kinda slowed down and kept our eyes on them without them noticing.. All of the sudden this one guy huts the girl right in the face and the other guy starts kicking her. My friend and me both run over and shout at them to stop. Next thing that happens is that the third guy starts running away and the other two starts to pick a fight. Well no problem we think - if they want it they are going to get it. Things go the way those things go and after a couple of seconds we are fighting with these two guys. We kinda had the upper hand and just when we were "done" and had picked the girl up the third guy that ran away comes running back with 5 others. Well the fight continues although the odds were not in our favour anymore. Naturally we were in rather big trouble but actually managed to remaing standing and hold them at distance. Out of the blue this one guys pulls out a knife and I am just thinking f**k me that's it.. I'm gonna die today.. About at the same time the police come flying around the corner. Someone had (luckily for us) alerted them and the other guys ran off (and didnt get caught). What did it get me? Well not counting the numerous bruises and blue marks, I landed my self two broken ribs and a broken tooth. My friend broke a finger and had a major cut in his eyebrow as well as a very black eye. We got lucky - if the police hadn't shown up there is no telling what could have happend. Would I step in again? Sure I would (but not in Thailand)
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#55
09-03-2006, 00:32
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Ok Drew, maybe its difficult to express myself in this language, but i am sure as i really try to describe it. So read my posts correctly. 1.) I am not going into any trouble just for fun!I dont ask for any trouble. And my name is not Rambo! 2.) I try to get an impression of what is going on, as possible. 3.) I would not go into a guy to guy fight to avoid one injured, just to be the "peacemaker". Really stupid !!!!! So if someone is doing it, you get what you asked for ,right? 4.) I only said that i would help in a case of accident if nobody else is there. Doesnt matter if this is a thai or a farang. and i would rather take the risk to pay instead of running away and being responsible for someone died because i did not help. 5.) I would also take the risk to be injured (well stupid) if somebody is getting a victim of a crime ( lets say robbery with violence) . I would not run to catch the guy just to bring a wallet or a digicam back to old bloke!! Thats just money and if he is going with the big gold chain and winking with his dollars to impress the girls, so he asked for that. 6.) I pointed that there are values of humanity which i think are global! Human rights etc. And at this point i asked whats the difference then on the national level to get involved in countries breaking human rights if i accept it in front of me? 7.) I said i can follow your arguments , (risk, maybe an missunderstanding etc.) but i would live with the consequences. 8. and last) I have values which are a guideline for my life. this values have borders i cant cross, but still have a range i can go on. I tried to explain it with the example of the street, maybe not easy to understand. So if anybody got the impression i am a stupid bloke who is searching the trouble, you are far away. If you think i want to play the hero , far away. But i can take good care of myself, even when the shit hits the fan! And if there is a really serious situation when somebody needs my help, i will not just run away because he is not of my nationality or not of my relgion or not the same colour of the skin. So if you are still thinking i am stupid and a fool, so mai pen rai. I take the consequences even here in this forum for what i am writing.
__________________ Never to old to make yourself a fool |