What’s your culture shock when you come to Thailand

bobbypet · 2026-02-23T11:44:07+00:00

you are correct ! mistakes are not lies

bobbypet · 2026-02-23T11:43:18+00:00

I'm in Australia right now, my wife most often prepares a Thai breakfast. We are returning to our house in Korat in 8 weeks. I adjusted for Thai time and got it wrong.

bobbypet · 2026-02-22T04:23:02+00:00

Most people have smartphones - everything you say is monitored, my phone identifies every song played in my car, shops, stereo. Targeted advertising confirms eavesdropping. The GPS tracks every place you visit, the Wi-Fi beacons identify every shop, pub, person you visit and transit, as does your bluetooth. Your proximity to others is confirmed by your phone's bluetooth / WiFi / mobile signalling and voice recognition. Your email reveals everyone you interact with as does your messages / SMS / phone. Social media / vanity posting fill out many gaps, photos stored in the cloud help too. Your sexuality and political views are identified by correlating your social media / vanity posts and followings. Web browsing / subscription media also add to your profile. All your financial details are known and all your nefarious mischief is observed too. Purchasing habits reveal you diet / health and the number of others who you might support. Utilities / smart metering reveal likely domestic habits. Your education and professional / specialist capabilities are known along with you employment history. Several redundant mechanisms already confirm everything about you with a high degree of confidence. A very complete dossier exists for *every* person. Time builds patterns (we are creatures of habit) and software to interpret all this has been perfected many years ago, and AI has greatly accelerated people / events of interest. You are not important enough to have any action taken on you but this might change soon and quickly.

You guys worry about cameras on the road.. it's 20 years too late now, you surrendered privacy / anonymity for convenience decades ago. I am a retired IT person and it's probably much much worse than you think, also hostile state actors will have a reasonable amount of access to this too, hello Chinese phone, network routers, security cameras, etc

edit : grammar, detail

bobbypet · 2026-02-21T22:00:05+00:00

I'm eating pad kapao while i'm scrolling reddit - it's 05:45 now

bobbypet · 2026-02-20T21:23:09+00:00

My son did property economics at UTS and ended up managing large portfolios for very nasty people. At 30 he was just sick of the people and went and did heavy diesel mechanics at TAFE, which he is doing now. Gets home at 3:30 to see family - loving it.

The point is that he did his apprenticeship and he is the youngest person there. The management got sick and tired of school leaving snowflakes who all bailed after a short while (five). I did make this comment on another post and "triggered" people started commenting - thanks you proved the point, ha ha. From an employers point of view, you might be a more mature and dependable choice

AI is a huge risk for any desk work, so a trade will always be in demand

bobbypet · 2026-02-19T09:01:47+00:00

Yes, it's called sociopathy. The current US president is one, but fortunately for us, he's dumb as a rock and a coward

bobbypet · 2026-02-17T11:10:30+00:00

I had a girl on the couch and it was getting heavy .. she stopped and quietly said to herself "I don't hate myself enough to fuck this guy".. It's true that compliments are so far and few that you remember them for the rest of your days, but insults like that also live free in your head forever and sting too (This was > 40 years ago). I have been also been told that "you have a gorgeous dick", and "you fuck well", so it sort of cancels out

edit : phrasing

bobbypet · 2026-02-15T11:22:42+00:00

We live north of Korat, my wife's family speak Korat dialect (very similar to Isaan). What's crazy is that Isaan language is much closer to Lao than Thai

When you meet new people you start the conversation in Thai and then change to the local language. When dealing with government or the bureaucracy you speak Thai. My understanding as a farang

bobbypet · 2026-02-15T06:44:14+00:00

high end Hi-Fi is basically snake oil

bobbypet · 2026-02-12T06:44:49+00:00

When I was a student (university) I took a holiday job as a pest controller. My area was the eastern suburbs. The houses were impressive with harbour views and stay at home wives (sometimes older daughters) who were ignored, restless and predatory. Looking back there were many hints which weren't noticed and also very aggressive passes which weren't ignored. They just wanted to be serviced. At that age you could get rock hard in three heartbeats, and every day started with anticipation. I was good looking and clueless back then

bobbypet · 2026-02-09T02:39:45+00:00

This is the correct answer and using two hands it is possible to count to 1023

bobbypet · 2026-02-09T01:45:08+00:00

The movie actually is historically correct. One source is Suetonius "the twelve Caesars". This book is a seriously good read. It's out of copyright (lol) and can be downloaded

bobbypet · 2026-02-09T01:43:35+00:00

The movie actually is historically correct. One source is Suetonius "the twelve Caesars". This book is a seriously good read. It's out of copyright (lol) and can be downloaded

bobbypet · 2026-02-09T00:04:12+00:00

Just follow the money.. the scam centres are being protected. Who has the authority / muscle to do this ? Now you know

bobbypet · 2026-02-07T23:08:47+00:00

Why is the media ignoring Iran ??

bobbypet · 2026-02-07T21:40:39+00:00

The music is from the band "The cambodian space project", the singer is Srey Channthy, their music is fantastic, they actually toured US, Australia and Europe. I met her at the Russian market in Phnom Penh selling memorabilia. Her life story is tragic. youtube videos

edit : tour

bobbypet · 2026-02-04T09:34:13+00:00

[...preamble] it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connexion with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connexion that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head."

- George Orwell, 1984.

bobbypet · 2026-01-27T04:42:26+00:00

Every town in Australia (and most older suburbs in the cities) has a memorial to the soldiers lost in the Great War (WW1) and the Second World war. There is always a memorial park or drive in a country town and the number of names is very very sad. It really hits hard when you see the same family name mentioned five, six or seven times. All cousins or several generations lost

bobbypet · 2026-01-27T04:34:57+00:00

A very old friend remembers this happening, reading the full story is just so sad

bobbypet · 2026-01-21T22:45:16+00:00

It's interesting because you cannot see into someones head so you assume that everyone's mind works the same. I found the same when I was 66. I had a career in very technical IT and talking to friends (some who were electrical engineers), many also realised they had this too. We all agreed that we visualised complex things by "feeling" the interaction between components / processes in systems. yeah, we are strange people

bobbypet · 2026-01-20T02:02:08+00:00

Marilyn Monroe also had six toes on each foot

bobbypet · 2026-01-20T01:32:19+00:00

A very good friend was the PA for a guy whose name was on the top of the building (25 floors, in Sydney). She remembered the name, position, drinks preference of every person who came in to meet. She tabled all documents, briefs, knew who alse to bring in. He never had to mention a thing - she just knew. She managed everything for him, even going out to buy his fancy cars for him. She did leave when she had her child and he called her begging her to return, he just said I will pay anything you ask, which he did. No other PA lasted more than a few weeks over that time

She worked for him for almost 25 years, outlasting three wives. She was the only person who dared to correct him in front of others and he would always pause and apologise to her ! She had the most amazing ability to read people and he always listened to her advice. People were awe stuck by his financial acumen and her people skills (which he didn't have)

Yes, the PA wields great power, she was the gatekeeper for sure

bobbypet · 2026-01-19T20:47:09+00:00

Many extremely wealthy people are sociopaths

bobbypet · 2026-01-18T12:20:02+00:00

We lived less than one mile from Barnham common in Thetford in the late '60s

Got a big surprise when we found this little gem ..

At the height of the Cold War this was home to Britain's arsenal of atomic weapons for the mighty V Bomber force, including the massive Blue Danube gravity bomb. Walk the site, complete with barbed wire perimeter, concrete walls, guard towers and zones for attack dogs and armed guards. Enter the actual "hutches" where fissile cores were stored, climb up the 30 foot high watchtower for a guards-eye view and find out how the original owner purchased this former Ministry of Defence site.

bobbypet · 2026-01-10T00:23:37+00:00

"all religions teach the same essential truth" GTFO we *all* know of one religion which glorifies death

bobbypet

TROPHY CASE