This is like the female equivalent of the men that go to Thailand, I guess.

Pretty good video. Specific things:

Too many prostitutes: Most of the non-Thai people that complain about this went to the wrong places in Thailand. Pattaya was a tiny fishing village before the Vietnam war. Then, soldiers started getting shipped into the country for R&R. The Thai government didn't really know what to do with them, so they sorta passed the buck and decided to send them to Pattaya to relax. Bunch of stressed out dudes there, nothing to do, high demand for alternate activities ... the market answered.

Fast forward to today, and Pattaya knows exactly what put it on the map. I hate that place -- it is like what would happen if you took the worst/sleaziest elements of Vegas and Tijuana, and then built a "city" around it. Shittiest beach in Thailand, chock full of sleaze, disgusting. However, it is one of the most major tourist destinations. Gee, why could that be? Is it in spite of the nature of the place, or because of it? No false advertising here, you know what you're getting when you book a trip there. And if that is your thing, more power to ya.

Now, I don't want to act like prostitution exists in Pattaya and Soi Cowboy / Patpong in Bangkok, and is absent elsewhere. Far from it. Every town, down on to tiny ones, likely has a red-light district and brothels. The ones you hear about are sex tourism pits like those major ones, but the trade is alive and well pretty much everywhere -- and mostly caters to local Thais.

I've honestly never been to such an establishment or sought those services (in 11 years of being here), but I don't care that they are available. The most significant negative is that they are NOT well-regulated like, say, what I've heard about Amsterdam. Prostitution is technically illegal in Thailand. So the de-facto situation is that brothels have to pay protection money to police in order to avoid getting shut down or "inspected", etc.

Corruption is a major problem -- much worse than prostitution, in my opinion.


Too many ladyboys: It is certainly true that there are more trans people per capita here than pretty much anywhere else that I know of. It took me a while, being a country kid from Kansas, but I see that in pretty much the same light as the German narrator in the video at this point. Acceptance is good. You do you, man.

As a stereotype on the flip side of the coin, I think the ladyboys tend to be great in custom interaction kinds of jobs. Cashiers at 7-11, waitpeople at restaurants, etc. Polite, attentive, helpful. And often the most willing to attempt to use English. A lot of the best students that I've taught English to have been ladyboy leaning.


Freedom: I'm with @Mordhaus here. When your personal liberty is mainly due to the apathy / incompetence of the governing authority, and they may choose to get off their asses and revoke that at any time ... perhaps it isn't something to brag about. Very basic stuff like dissenting speech and protesting is met with being carted off for little re-education chats, etc. Pretty scary shit, actually.


Basically I tend to think that just like anywhere on Earth, there's a lot of good here and plenty of bad too. There's plenty of legitimate gripes with cultural elements and stuff in Thailand, but the most common ones (that the video pretty accurately listed) are pretty insignificant in my opinion.

I visited Thailand for a month a few years back. It is a wonderful country.

Freedom.

I'll just leave this here.

"Since May 2014 Thailand has been ruled by a military junta, the National Council for Peace and Order, which has partially repealed the 2007 constitution, declared martial law and nationwide curfew, banned political gatherings, arrested and detained politicians and anti-coup activists, imposed internet censorship and taken control of the media."

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It'd only really be an average day of driving in Thailand if there was a few motorbikes or a pickup or two driving the wrong way against the flow of traffic in the far left lane there...

Never had a python inside my house here in Thailand, but have had a couple of ~1m tree snakes (non-venomous) sneak out from behind dressers, etc.

But I am kind of known as the crazy snake-loving foreigner in my area, so I got called in to a neighbors kitchen one time and discovered a young monocled cobra (also about 1m). I really wanted to try to hold it by hand, but decided it was probably better to use a broom handle and guide it into a box. Then released it into an empty lot. Later, I realized that I probably should have opted for some eye protection -- some of the local cobras are spitters.

Generally, Thais kill snakes and then fire up the grill. Nice to see they kept this one alive, for the time being -- although the older fella yanking on the head probably didn't do it any favors. Snakes are quite tough though. Also fun to hear the chatter in Thai.

If Gina Haspel truly takes over as the Director of the CIA, watch out for the reactions to her nomination. There will be celebration about the first female Director of the CIA, but will they mention that she ran a black site (aka torture camp) in Thailand and was the agent who led the destruction of the CIA's torture tapes?

https://theintercept.com/2017/02/02/trumps-cia-chief-selects-major-torture-operative-to-be-agencys-deputy-director/

I think I can remember seeing a few ties, but mostly back in the pre-Ken Jennings era when it was capped at 5 wins as you say.

I've been in Thailand for over a decade, pretty hard to get my Jeopardy fix here. YouTube has full episodes sometimes, but I haven't found a torrent source for reliable dailies. So, I haven't watched very much in the past 10+ years.

*ban

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I've found that Mexicans (especially outside of major tourist areas, but even there) LOVE it if visitors attempt to speak Spanish with them, even just a few words.

Thailand is pretty similar. I've lived here for ~10 years and can speak Thai fairly well. So, many locals know me and aren't surprised when I speak Thai with them, but if I travel I get a lot of smiles just like this video.

I guess French people are stereotypically less patient/pleased to deal with visitors trying to use the local language, but I don't know if that's true. Never been there, unless Quebec counts (where it didn't seem true).

Lucky she wasn't in Thailand.

Yeah, sure, Thailand. Fuck me up.

"They know" was savage, awesome!

Have you seen mapfight.appspot.com? Apparently 10 Delawares is 9.26% of a Texas. That site comes in handy teaching in Thailand (.74 Texases).