Thailand. Opposite sex students cannot live together. Thai government department law.

As I reported just the other day the government department called the Social Development and Human Security announced they were going to start cracking down on “illegal dormitories” that allows opposite sex students aged under 25 studying for a bachelors degree or lower live in the same room. According to the very outdated 1964 Dormitory Act, it requires student dormitories to provide separate living sections for males and females.

The police swung into action now that the 31st of December deadline has passed. They were accompanied by Outgoing Deputy Social Development and Human Security Minister Poldej Pinprateep led the raid by police and ministry officials.

So the Minister, police and his officials raided three student dormitories near Ramkhamhaeng University's Bang Na campus yesterday in Bangkok and the managers charged with operating the premises illegally.

Here are the terrible things they found going on. (My comments are in green).
In one apartment, two male students and a girl under 20 were found sharing the same room. Okay, if the girl is under 16 and not related to the males I agree that it isn’t an ideal situation, but if the girl is over 18 then she is a young adult and can choose who she wants to live with. Any law that doesn’t allow consenting adults to do this is draconian and needs to be changed and the people enforcing it need to seriously get out of government and let some younger people are living in the 20th century.

In another room, a young couple was found living with their baby. Oh, my god! This is terrible and is so immoral. How could a young couple live in such sin? Imagine falling in love and having a baby with the person you love.

Pinyo Kaewnim, 19, a resident of a dormitory, said he had been living with his 20-year-old girlfriend in the apartment for two years. When he moved in there was no rule prohibiting him from sharing the room with his girlfriend. He knew nothing about the Dormitory Act.

''I've never heard about the law. If we can't stay together, I will have to talk with my girlfriend about it and plan what we're going to do next,'' he said. How could two young people of the opposite sex who are boyfriend and girlfriend possibly want to live together? Nowhere in the “real” world would this happen between young consenting couples.

Parinya Thewanaruemitkul, vice-rector of Thammasat University and chairman of the Student Dormitories Regulating Committee said ''We had warned the operator of an apartment three times before, but they didn't heed our warning. It's time to take action now,'' See! They are actually good guys and tried to help the “illegal operators” as in them not providing rooms for mass orgies and drug parties to students of the opposite sex, well I am not sure if this is the reason as I cannot work out why they are doing this.

Mr Parinya urged other operators of illegal dorms to register them immediately. Authorities would then be lenient and give them until the next semester, in May, to make the needed changes to the buildings.

Now, police filed charges against the three managers and said they will pursue the cases in court. The managers could face the following punishment for being operators of illegal dorms; a maximum six-month jail term and a fine of up to 2,000 baht. Wow, the six month jail term is stiff but the 2,000 baht fine is a drop in the ocean. If they fined you 2,000 baht then this is nothing but up to six months in a Thai jail would be hell.

This is what some of the student dormitory owners have said. They thought most dormitories in his area had not yet registered because they did not believe the authorities would take any serious action against them. (They know this is not the case now).

One dormitory owner said she had about 300 rooms and 80% of the residents were university students. At least 30 rooms were being shared by male and female students living as couples.

She also said after being ordered by police to separate the male and female tenants, she was worried about losing customers. Many may decide to leave for other illegal dorms.

What about the many students in Thailand who are gay? There are a lot of same sex couples in Thailand. So two guys or two girls living together in the one room is perfectly fine but for opposite sex couples this is forbidden. I think a very good human rights lawyer needs to be contacted here.

For me personally, this law is something from a day and age that has well and truly passed. I can see all of these old grey haired (if they have hair, and if its grey as old Thai guys like to dye their hair black for some reason) guys talking around a big table about “Back in our day in 1957 we never did ………..” and that sort of shite.

This is a worry for me and just shows how out of touch Thailand can be with some of its ideas. There are so many laws that we being foreigners cannot understand like not being able to purchase land or a business in our own names. It cannot be done. Is this a form of discrimination, I believe so as a Thai person can go to Australia after being granted all the correct paperwork as in visa, work permit and such and can then live as any Australian being a property or business owner.

Also owning a car, motorbike in your own name or having the internet, telephone, cable TV and other such stuff in your name can be a real pain in the ass but can be done. It takes time and a lot of frustrating paperwork and trying to get your head around ‘Thai ways’.

I have to tell you that I love Thailand and it is a great country and has amazing people. I love living here but the laws that the government at times make you think twice about investing here as in a business, purchasing a home and such. I have been looking at setting up a business and the paperwork and requirements are insane. It has put me off doing this as I want my name as the business owner not as a partner. This again is another entire blog though.

That’s my rant for today.

Brunty

Thailand. Idiotic laws for student dormitories.

Here in Thailand the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security (isn’t that a ripper of a title) has come up with an idiotic decision that is really hard to fathom in this day and age. They announced last October that dormitory owners, that means establishments providing accommodation for five or more students under 25 educated to bachelor's degree level or lower must register as a student dormitory by the end of December 2007.

Places that are registered then have to Under the Dormitory Act, must provide separate living sections for male and female tenants. HELLO! They are talking about people up to the age of 25 years of age. They are adults not minors. How can you tell two people that they cannot live together when they are 18-25 years of age?

There are plenty of kids as young as 12-16 living together off school grounds in rooms rented by their parents. There are brothers and sisters and I know of places where 4-6 people live in one largish room and pay 1,800-2,500 baht a month rent between them. They are boy and girl co-inhabited.

Here are the reasons for this decision.
Parinya Thewanaruemitkul, vice rector of Thammasat University and chairman of the Student Dormitories Regulating Committee said, ''We need to take serious action now, as premature sex has become a serious problem. We've given our children freedom without teaching them about responsibility.”

''Since they are not mature enough, regulating the dorms by separating males from females is necessary,'' he said.

Sorry, is this guy on the planet. What does he mean by premature sex? Is this sex before people are the legal age of consent being 16 years old or what I think he is saying is that the sex before marriage myth needs to be adhered too. I mean come on these kids are having sex at very young ages. I see girls under the age of 16 in the village pregnant and they live at home with their family.

The giving them freedom without teaching them about responsibility is a great line. Thais do not want to discuss safe sex. I sat Noot’s sister Ben down a long time ago and told her that she has to be very smart and very careful regarding boys and sex and told her that is and when she does have sex she has to make sure that the guy uses a condom. No ifs or buts about it. She absolutely hated me talking about it but I needed her to know.

Also Thai girls live in fear of being pregnant out of wedlock as it is just something that cannot be allowed. It is a huge loss of face to the family and such an embarrassment for them and this is why a lot of teenagers run away when pregnant to give birth and then return to their parents at a later date. Yesterday there was a story in a Thai paper about a new born baby being wrapped in a garbage bag and left at a dump site. This happens too many times here in Thailand and also the illegal or backyard abortion clinics are busy with girls who fall pregnant and then terminate. I have nothing against abortion and I am for legalizing it. If someone wants to abort a baby it is their decision not some bible basher or out of their mind fools pushing their ideas on someone else’s life.

So these old fogies in this government department who were probably born in the ice age need to get a little bit of reality into their lives. If it was dormitories at schools only, I agree 100 % but places that are like one bedroom units and have 14-30 rooms on their complexes should not be considered to have to adhere to these regulations.

At the time, only 10,677 of the estimated 50,000 student dormitories nationwide were registered. This can be the penalty for any establishment that doesn’t registar.

Pol Maj-Gen Wimol Pao-in said police stations across the country would assist in the crackdown. ''All those arrested will go to court immediately. The maximum penalty includes a six-month jail term,'' he said.
Dormitories which register before the deadline will be given three more months, until the beginning of the new semester in May, to comply with the law.

So that is a hell of a lot of places especially here in Isaan where we have a lot of student accommodation. Also many places in Bangkok are in the same boat.

There are so many other things that need to be looked at other than separating consenting adults or adults of legal age making decisions for themselves on where and how they should live.

Maybe it is just me who thinks this is pretty ridiculous and that it could be a good thing for teenagers but I cannot see how it could be at all. I think it is just another money grab from a government department.

Brunty

Thailand. Australia Day Isaan Style.

Last Saturday was Australia Day and being an Australian I had some friends over for a BBQ. Well this is a little true but also my mate Keith is heading to Hong Kong for 4-6 weeks to help his mother prepare for the Chinese New Year.

I had to teach until 6.30pm so when I arrived home things were already underway. The BBQ was set-up this morning and all Noot had to do was light the coals. They look like a happy bunch, don’t they?

This is Noot and her best friend Keith’s daughter Chelsea. Noot can play for hours on end with her. I just hope she isn’t getting clucky!


Now, Australia Day wouldn’t be Australia Day without plenty of ice cold beer. And being a true Aussie hillbilly I used our very clean bin to store the beer on ice.


This is John’s wife Da on the left and Keith’s wife Sarah on the right. They were very happy. Food and drinks a plenty and good conversation.


Keith got in on the act with the girls. He is only holding the soda water bottle to make it look like he wasn’t drinking. It was a lie as he actually had his first beer at 1pm. He isn’t a drinker like me and only has a beer once in awhile.

Big John was on the BBQ cooking away. He was doing a great job. He said he wants to order a BBQ the same as mine.


Here the boys are together. John and Keith the English (pommy) men and Barry the Aussie.


There was a truck load of food as everybody brought something along and I had already bought a heap of food. We had marinated pork spare ribs, grilled fish stuffed with herbs, marinated chicken, prawns, fillet steak, deep fried chicken plus a range of Thai food as well. The real winner was John’s home made garlic bread that was fought over when unwrapped, Delicious.

Here the boys and I are at the BBQ. See, Keith has a beer now.


More pictures of the food slowly cooking away.


The girls were very happy as there was plenty of food on offer. If there is food Thai girls are very happy.


This is Dum Keith’s house keeper, but she is more like a family member as she has lived with them for so long now and is considered family, and Christa Keith’s eldest daughter.


Now, Australia Day wouldn’t be complete without hamburgers. I made the hamburger mix earlier in the day, I had to explain that these burgers were way too small and needed to be doubled in size.

This is a really delicious but spicy homemade dipping sauce. It goes really well with the beef and pork.


Miss Noot then had her turn on the BBQ and posed for a picture with the tongs in her hand.


Here the crew is very full of food but the liquids are still flowing well. The BBQ lasted 3 and a half hours and then us boys were off down the road to watch the football on the large projector TV.


It was a great night and we all enjoyed. I actually had 7 or 8 glasses of beer and woke up the next day feeling a little worse for wear.

So that was Australia Day in Thailand with good friends and done the Aussie way.

Brunty.

Thailand. New Restaraunt Reveiw is Ubon Racthathani.

We went to a new restaurant that was opened by Jack’s brother. It’s an opened style place 300 metres from my home. They set it up in around three weeks. They concreted the floor and put a roof over the tables that came free as the last people left them after they didn’t succeed in their little venture.

These are 4 of the local lads, the guy with long hair in the black sweater is Tong. He is the guy who was very drunk the other week after losing too much money on football. They were here for the opening night.

This is Jack, Joom and Noot. Noot has her Newcastle United shirt on, her favourite team. They had ordered some food and were now waiting. See the football on in the background.

The projector TV is a very nice addition. It is good way to enjoy the football. This was Liverpool and Aston Villa playing. Liverpool stole a late draw.



Our first plate of food was a pork dish called Peat Moo. It was very delicious the sauce was excellent.








This is what the Thais call Jal Horn. There is beef, liver and tripe. There are two dipping sauces accompanying the dish. One is horrible salty and bitter. The other is sweet and very delicious. Of course the Thais don’t like the sweet dipping sauce as much. I mean they dip juicy sweet pineapple in salt and chili before eating.

This is the Jal Horn pot on its stand on top of some red hot coals. A very simple set up indeed.

Jack’s brother Jorg the owner. He has a few different business ventures going on and is a busy man.

This was a lovely plate of prawn fried rice. Again this was a very nice dish.









Here is Jack and Joom and Jack’s sister, whose nickname I don’t know how to spell and have a lot of trouble pronouncing.




This was some raw beef in an incredibly salty and bitter sauce. I didn’t like this one bit. They actually brought another plate out about ten minutes later and this was much sweeter but still I wasn’t impressed.





This dish is called Peat Gop. In English this is spicy frog. It is the same as the first dish but instead of pork it has frog in it. I have eaten frog many times and am big fan as the meat is very delicious and sweet. This was a really good dish.

We had another fried rice dish arrive at the table; there were only three of us there but enough food to feed ten. I was so full and was on the edge of exploding. Noot was happily trying a little of this and that and kept on polishing off the Jal Horn.

We washed all this down with a large bottle of water and a bottle of coke and the bill was a massive 340 baht. It was very cheap for the service and food that was presented. I will be back again in the near future but I am still keeping to cooking more than eating out, well that’s the plan anyway.

Brunty.

Thailand. Home cooked spicy squid and vegetables.

Well Miss Noot was in the kitchen again cooking a feast the other night.









This is a vegetable called Ka Pow in Thai and when fried up gives a spicy taste to the dish. It is used in a lot of dishes in Thailand.

These are some baby squid after being washed.







This is all the healthy vegetables that were going into the dishes. Pumpkin, carrot, onion, chili, mushrooms, Chinese Kale, Ka pow, mint and the yellow stuff in the plastic tube is egg. The squid and some minced park for the soup. There was also garlic but that hadn’t been minced up yet.

The chili and garlic was fried first.







The squid was next to follow into the electric pan.









The onion was added and then some sauces went into the pan. There was Soya sauce, oyster sauce, salt and pepper, sugar and also a little water.

The Ka pow and pumpkin went into the pan next.

It smelt good and was not far from being ready.







The finished meals were squid with vegetables, a pork mince soup with vegetables and also some left over soup from the previous night reheated. I can tell you that the Ka pow Ba Mook (squid and vegetables) was a real winner.





Miss Noot and Ben sat down and tucked in and were not impressed about me taking a picture of them. I got dirty looks after the flash had gone off.

Now my other little mate our new rabbit Cola didn’t miss out on the fresh vegetables. He has fresh vegetables every two days and eats a small truck load for such a little guy. His sister Pepsi sadly passed away 3 or 4 days after we got them both. She had diarrhea and we took her to the vet and she was given an injection and he told us it was E-Coli virus. We brought her home and were nursing her and she really looked better and a lot perkier after a few hours. I had separated her from Cola for the next few days as she couldn’t eat solid food and had to be given medicine in her water.

I went to bed and got up about 4 hours later and went to check on her and she had passed away. My mate Keith has had the same thing happen to two of his rabbits just after Pepsi died. Pepsi and Cola’s mum Snow White died from the same thing and then their father Carrot died as well. I am actually praying that Cola lives a long and healthy life with us.

He is a funny little guy and I am getting video footage of him doing stupid things that I will cut together at a later date. He is really growing on our family and is so much like his brother Latte who we miss a lot but have many pictures about the house reminding us of him.

As you can see things are not too bad here in Isaan country Thailand.

Brunty

Thailand. Child Labour or slavery young maids abused.

This is so a common problem here in Thailand. Underage children being used by people who are well off as their slaves and trying to call them maids. The young people who are abused are usually girls and are sold by their parents to these horrible people or sold to scouts or ‘Thai job brokers’ as they are known who will place the girls in sweat shops or into the sex trade.

This story is about three girls Jib 10, Rud 15 and Pla 16. These girls were approached two years ago by a supposed Thai job broker, so Jib was only 8 when she left home to go to work. The girls had been offered jobs as maids at the Likhitwiwatkul house. However, Rud said she never received the 2,000 baht a month wage promised to her during the past two years. 2,000 baht a month is a small fortune to a Lao person.

It is alleged the girls have been treated as child slaves, in their houses in Samut Prakan's Bang Na area and it is also alleged the Thai employers tortured the girls regularly, beating them with a wooden baton or a sharp object and burned them with hot cooking pots when they were not happy with their work.

Following a tip-off, police yesterday raided two houses Jib, 10, and Rud, 15 _ were rescued from one house and a third worker, identified only as Pla, 16, from another house. Rud was found with bruises and burn marks on her body. Jib and Pla had also faced similar abuse. If the acusations are true the asshole Thai people who committed these acts are immature and disgraceful husband 61 and wife 54 year olds. Pla's employer Arjan Sae Chin, 47, Ajarn means teacher so if this guy is a teacher I hope he is stripped of any accreditation and gets all the bad karma he has been dishing out. Of course they have denied the charges and you never know they could be innocent but I know for a fact this is common here in Thailand with Burmese and Laos workers being treated as slaves.

The girl told police she had been tortured by the wife, who often used a wooden baton or a sharp object to hit her when she flew into a fit of rage when she was not satisfied with her work. They were forced to work from 3am until 10pm every day.

Before being rescued, the wife became angry with Rud for turning on the stove to warm food for Jib, saying she was wasting gas. She then scorched Rud's right arm with the hot pot used to warm the food. After being rescued, Rud broke into tears and said she would never return to Thailand after being sent home. A smart girl but again her parents need to be shot for letting her leave home to work at such a young age.

This isn’t only happening to immigrant workers but is very common to see young girls 10-16 working instead of going to school. The family is poor and have no money as dad loves a drink and mum loves to play cards so little Miss May is sent off into the land of big people to be ripped off and abused by most people.

This isn’t always the case. Some are treated very well and looked after like they are part of the people’s family but it is still wrong for these people to support child slavery by employing and paying underage kids.

There is a really lovely teacher at work. She is fantastic and so is her husband and they recently had their second addition to their family. At our school you only get 45 days maternity leave so that meant leaving just before giving birth and a month at home with the baby, then back to work. They started looking for a nanny. This has been a long struggle to find a good hardworking honest nanny with trial and error of at least 4-5 nannies in two years. There other baby is 4 years old.

They had a 16 year old girl who didn’t last a month before wanting to return to her village and her parents and friends. Now they have a 13 year old girl who is looking after their 4 month old baby. This girl had no experience whatsoever in looking after a small infant. The teacher had to show the young girl how to hold the baby and clean the baby in a one day crash course.

Now, I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t trust a 13 year old girl with such a small baby no matter how lovely and innocent she was. I don’t think any person with a little bit of common sense would do such a thing but when you need somebody fast and no older people are available then you take second best or what’s on offer. I am not saying she isn’t a good nanny as I have heard good things and I know that she is really well looked after and is treated like a family member more than a worker.

The question is, is it right to employ a girl and take her away from getting an education and also removing her from her parents and friends. Kids are meant to be kids they don’t have life experience us adults have. They aren’t meant to be responsible for young babies and make serious and very hard decisions that at times adults agonize over.

For me any person employing young people are only endorsing child labour which needs to be stamped out. I know that this pie in the sky dream and it is something that will probably never happen in my lifetime and my kids and their kid’s time but it is a nice dream to think that these lovely innocent kids can live a life of a kid and get an education that might change their life. What a dream, hey?

I will try and follow any updates in the papers but often not a lot of follow up happens but we will see.

This is the link if it is dead it’s because the Bangkok Post is hopeless and links are usually good for a few days at most.

Brunty

Thailand. The King's Committee come calling.

Today at school we had some special visitors so we had to put on some large shows to make them think our school is fantastically amazing and out of this world. The King’s Committee was coming to do the final inspection for or school and if we pass we receive the prestigious award. Anything involving the name of HM King Bhumibol Adulyadej is held in the highest degree.

Thai people adore and love their King. I really understood this when I was speaking to my good Thai friend, who is in his late 30’s around Father’s Day and he was referring to HM the King as if he was his father. When I asked him “why he spoke like this” he replied he is the father to all Thai people. You could feel and sense the passion in which he spoke about him. I can only tell any foreigner who travels here to Thailand never insult the King in anyway. Even if you are just fooling around as you could end up in a position you will regret for a long time.
The King’s elder sister Princess Galyani Vadhana died recently and e are currently in 100 days of mourning for her. This is the small shrine the school has set-up in her respect.






It is surrounded by black and white as these are the mourning colours we are told to wear for one hundred days.

I was in charge of teaching the little year 1 students and we played ‘Bingo’. The prizes for getting Bingo was lollipops, it is amazing how such a small treat can make students behave so well.

Inside our hall were many different things. Here the Tae Kwon Do team was doing some training. Mr. Pang is a black belt and their instructor.

The medals the students had won at competitions were on display for the King’s committee to see.

Now if anyone can, please tell me if this is a Knitting machine of sorts. I have seen them in use but what they are actually called I am not really sure.

Here the students are showing the art of candle decorating. This is a really impressive thing to see. The candles look really spectacular when finished.



Here the candle is melting and is then poured into moulds to set. A lot of the kids had their fingers coated in wax.








There was a display on rock painting.

Now the design weren’t anything as amazing as Aboriginal designs but they still looked good.

This was homemade health drinks. I tried two of them and one was a bitter interesting taste and the other was so sweet that the girls laughed a lot because I couldn’t help screwing my face up.

These girls were showing off painting stencils they had created. The finished ones looked really good.

And here were some very odd looking key rings.

Here is one of the students making the key rings.

A game called A-math. It is the same as scrabble but you make sums instead.

Here some students were playing checkers.







This is a homemade filter for a fish tank. I am actually going to get the students to make me one and I am going to install it in my larger fish tank. It’s a simple design and will hopefully delay my water changes by a few weeks maybe. I will let you know how it goes.


And any important guests we have visit the school must be entertained by Thai dancing girls. The school have a good dance troupe and they are often absent from classes as they are practicing for competitions or guests.

I will not say too much on the actual day other than it was way over the top with many smoke and mirror things being done. The school was made to look that it was perfect which is far from the truth.

In Australia and other countries they do the same as in some important people are coming, they scrub the school and drill the students for the special day and then everything is back to normal and the real school that they are.

Life as a teacher is always interesting.

Brunty.