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May 2014 Thailand has been ruled by a military junta, the National Council for Peace and Order, which has partially repealed the 2007 constitution, declared martial law and nationwide curfew, banned political gatherings, arrested and detained politicians and anti-coup activists,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

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

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.

@MilkmanDan

Having spent a great deal of time in Thailand over the last 20 years I agree with your comment. I would like to add that one would have to really be poking the hornets nest extremely hard to get carted off to a re-education camp or kicked out the country if you are an expat.

Mind you the last major use of those camps was due to bombs going off in central Bangkok back around 2008. I still have a hard time finding a public trash can when I visit.

Oh yeah -- non-Thais generally don't have to worry about the "attitude adjustment" camps etc. Deportations are a possibility, but like you said you have to be really pushing it.

Well i was in Thailand about 25 years ago and absolutely loved it. Spent a week in Bangkok and one in Chiang Mai (water festival), but my favorite time spent was the two to three weeks in Ko Pha-ngan and Ko Tao Islands. Absolutely lovely <3

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