PeterRS

Living in South East Asia I remain mystified how this part of the world which is so close to China and depended to a huge degree on tourism from China has got off so lightly in the pandemic. As of yesterday Taiwan had had 1,030 cases and 10 deaths. Vietnam 2,803 cases and 35 deaths. Thailand 28,863 cases and 94 deaths. I know that all three countries adopted preventative measures extremely quickly after the virus was discovered. Everyone here remembers the effects of SARS in 2003 and government medical departments were far better prepared for future virus infections. I believe test and tracing was also extremely good. The result is that internally Taiwan has never closed down. Schools, restaurants, coffee shops, bars etc. have never closed. The only requirement has been mask wearing from the outset and use of hand sanitiser. Even visiting central Vietnam in early March, despite the virtual collapse of tourism, I noted there were no restrictions on dining and entertainment. Even the old ladies selling street food were wearing masks. Here in Thailand, there was a very strict one month lockdown in April. Since then, with a hiccup near the end of last year when a large cluster of cases was found in a fish market outside Bangkok and the reimposition of some restrictions, life has been more or less normal. Of course, the tourism industries have been hammered and economies suffered badly. But we look at what is happening in Europe and the Americas and wonder - how did we escape all that carnage and those continuing restrictions to daily life?

No need. My fault for jumping in. I know that to renew the one year retirement visa there are two payments - one for the extension and one for the re-entry permit. I had wrongly assumed the 1,900 baht was the reentry permit. It is not. That costs about 3,900 baht.

You were indeed lucky. I suspect more did not do like you because the Immigration requirements for the retirement visa were relatively simple at that time. Over the years Immigration has gradually tightened the requirements and who knows how many more changes are in the works in the coming years. In fact, who knows for how long the 20 year Elite membership will remain at 1 million baht? The 5-year was recently increased by 20%. The Immigration Department has made it quite clear it is going after those who cheat the system. The stupidity of that approach is that if there were no crook Immigration officers happy to receive under the table payments, there would be no need to tighten anything. The government has also stated its longer term strategy is to go after the more wealthy tourist - and I think it is not unreasonable to assume the more wealthy retiree. If that is the case, when will the 65,000/month inward pension payment be acceptable for the retirement visa? I believe the amount has remained the same for quite some years. If it is raised by, say, 20% how many existing retirees are going to find themselves in difficulties? Thailand remains a relatively inexpensive destination for retirement. But costs have been rising significantly and again who knows when these will stabilise - if ever?

I read many pundits claiming that Hong Kong wold become the model for Taiwan returning to the embrace of the mainland. Deng Xiao-ping's one-country-two-systems model that is enshrined in law and registered at the United Nations promised Hong Kong a large degree of autonomy for 50 years - i.e. until 2047. It was believed by most that by then China would be more capitalist than Hong Kong and with a more democratic system of governance in place. Once again events have proven how wrong that prognostication was! With all the panic around the world over covid19, Xi Jin-ping has totally blown that international agreement between Britain and China to bits. I do think, though, that the protestors who all but closed the central business district for months in 2014 and the excesses of some the protests in 2019 gave the mandarins in Beijing the excuse they needed to clamp down hard. Go back in time and it is clear to me that Britain is at the root cause of the problem. It had many decades to introduce a form of true democracy in Hong Kong. It did virtually nothing. What Hong Kong had got by the early 1990s was a sham form of very weak democracy that was democratic in name only. But it had the promise of both governments of much greater democracy by 2017. Then the last Hong Kong Governor, Christopher Patten, went behind everyone's back, including the British Prime Minister who appointed him, broke the provisions of the Basic Law which mandated in an international treaty that any changes prior to 1997 had to be be discussed and agreed by both sides, and announced that he would unilaterally introduce greater democracy. China was furious and the British government was far from pleased. At a stroke Patten ensured that China was never going to trust Britain and that it would have its way in Hong Kong sooner rather than later. So the Taiwan question is now front and centre once again. Legally, its status depends on which international Treaty legal scholars believe is the more valid. In 1943 there was a Conference in Cairo between the Roosevelt, Churchill and their Asian ally, the ruler of China Chiang Kai-shek, to reach an agreement on the fate of Japanese occupied colonies after the end of the War. It was formally agreed all were to be returned to the countries from which Japan had annexed them. By then, China had ruled Taiwan for more than 200 years. When Chiang lost the revolutionary war with the communists and fled to Taiwan, the west was horrified. Two large communist powers was at least one too many. So another Conference was arranged in San Francisco in 1951 at which Japan renounced sovereignty over Taiwan. Crucially no agreement was reached over who should become the new sovereign power. Hence all the war games around Taiwan for decades thereafter. If China takes it back by force which it is perfectly capable of doing very quickly, will the US and other countries now fight on the island's behalf? I cannot see it. And how would that scenario affect the progress of the fledgling LGBT movement on the mainland? How would it affect the situation re gay marriage which Taiwan has legally adopted? Over the last few years Xi Jin-ping has solidified his power by getting rid of most of his opponents. He is now the most powerful leader China has ever had. Can we hope that the remains of the anti-Xi movement may eventually be able to topple him?

I can thoroughly recommend Le Du (just a minute from Chongnonsi BTS station). Chef Ton worked at several Michelin starred restaurants in New York before returning to Bangkok to open Le Du. It set a very high standard when it opened a few years ago and that continues. Menu is a tasting menu with four or six courses. Now getting pricey. Expect around 4,500 baht for the four course menu and 5,200 baht for the six course menu each with a cocktail and a glass of wine. Advance booking definitely recommended. http://www.ledubkk.com

Sorry I confused the issue. I believe the following is correct. Annual renewal. With an Elite Card, you only have to make a renewal if you remain in Thailand for a full year without at least once having departed for another country. So if you do leave, every time you reenter you automatically get another 12 months from that date. Leave at least once each year and, provided you time the arrivals back accurately, it is likely you will never need to go for an annual renewal. If, as with many Card holders this last year, you have not been able to leave Thailand, the Elite staff assist with the preparation of all the paperwork for an annual renewal. You then call Elite and make an appointment to go to the Immigration Department at Chaengwattana a week or so (depending on demand) before you have to do the renewal. Once at Immigration, you are met by an Elite staff member who takes you through a special fast track. The renewal process with multi-reentry permit takes only about 30 minutes or less. For the first renewal you pay only for the reentry permit - 1,900 baht. No need for bank books, accommodation proof etc. 90-Day Reports. You still have to make 90 day reports provided you are in the country for 90 consecutive days without departing for another country. So if you do travel, every time you reenter the 90 day clock is reset. If you do require to make a 90-day report and it can not be done on line (I understand the app has recently been down!), you don't have the hassle of going out to Immigration. About 10 days in advance of the date you can take your passport to the Thailand Elite office (next to the W Hotel on Sathorn - Chongnonsi Skytrain station). They do all the work for you. You then pick up the passport from their office a few days later.

Thanks for the corrections @anddy. There is one other item re the medical insurance requirements that are increasingly being demanded for some retirement visas/permissions to stay. This is the 40,000 baht requirement for outpatient treatment. This to me is absolutely nuts! Almost all insurance policies for those 50 and above have deductibles. If your policy has a deductible of 50,000 baht, what is the point of 40,000 baht for outpatient treatment when it can never be claimed due to the deductible.

I agree keeping a year's living expenses is not at all unreasonable. But keeping 800,000/400,000 in an account each year that you cannot touch for any reason and therefore seemingly until you die is surely a totally different matter.

A couple of years ago a new Director of Immigration decided that those retired in Thailand would have to cough up more cash for renewal of their annual retirement visa. Retirement in this case means anyone 50 or over. Prior to the change, there were two cash requirements for renewal. The first was to have a pension of a minimum of 65,000 baht remitted monthly with some sort of proof from an Embassy that you had this level of income, or you parked 800,000 baht into a savings account for three months prior to the renewal date. Thereafter you spent it but had to top the account back up to 800,000 before the next renewal. The main change affected the lump sum payment. The new arrangement was that you have to have 800.000 baht in the account for 2 months prior to renewal. This must then stay in the account unspent for a full 3 months after renewal. Thereafter the absolute minimum unspent balance had to be 400,000 baht for the next 7 months. The result of the new arrangement was that you had to keep those minima in the account or your visa would not be renewed. And I am not sure if you stood any chance of accessing those funds unless you left the country or died! If this has changed, I hope someone will correct me. It was claimed that this new ridiculous lump sum arrangement was to get rid of those who scammed the system by using crook agents and crook Immigration officers. Another claim was that it was to force retirees to make use of the Thailand Elite card. Originally brought in about 20 years ago with the aim of making it easier for regular - and rich - visitors to come to Thailand, it has now been expanded and has become popular with quite a number of those wishing to retire here. I insert the website below. There are various types of membership, but the ones that may be of most interest to potential retirees are likely to be the 5 year and 20 year visas. The cost of the 5 year one has recently gone up by 20% to 600,000 baht. But the 20 year one has been reduced to just 1 million baht. These are fees and so there is no money back. But for those fees you get a number of additional services like easy 90-day reporting and easy annual renewal (yes, that is still required of Elite holders). You also do not need to keep any minimum amount in bank accounts. I know a couple of people who recently upped their 5 year Elite visa to 20 years by paying the extra 500,000 baht (they had purchased their original cards a year ago when the price was 500,000 baht - the extension cost for more recent members is 400,000 baht). They find the service excellent. If the 800,000/400,000 baht arrangement has not in fact changed, and I was thinking of retiring here, I would certainly look much more closely at the Elite Card. https://www.thailandelite.com

From what I hear from others, the site seems to go down with some regularity. TIT (this is Thailand for newcomers to the board!)

I started computing life with a Toshiba laptop, because that model was what everyone in the company used. When I changed companies, I had to switch to Apple and found them much easier. But the constant need for new models really pissed me off. So I gave up the updating to see how long my machines would work. My desktop has been on the go for 9 years and still works perfectly well. Yes, I copy everything important on to a hard drive - I gave up on the Cloud when suddenly my iPhone and iPad suddenly ended up with almost a thousand work email addresses(!) - and upgrade the operating systems etc. when advised by Apple. It's the batteries that piss me off. I bought one of the original iPod Touch gadgets, uploaded all my photos and a ton of music on to it. The photos have recently been uploaded to the iPad but the smaller gadget is perfect for plane journeys and travelling. I never saw any reason to change it - until I tried to get the battery replaced. "Don't make them any more!" I had the same response when I went to Sony about 6 years ago for a couple of new batteries for my 2007 camera. I was told I could find them in Singapore. When there a few weeks later I got the same response. Eventually in another country I found clones which work perfectly well. As for the iPod Touch, a small battery pack is I suppose only a minor inconvenience.

This is not a news story as it first appeared last November. But it was highlighted today in a CNN website article. It was just a private kiss in an elevator in October 2019. The two men worked for state owned China Southern Airlines, China's largest, based in Guangzhou. One was a handsome 29 year old flight attendant who had worked for the airline for five years, Chai Cheng. The other was an unnamed pilot. Somehow that kiss found its way onto social media and went viral. Soon Chai was referred to as the China Southern cabin boy. Although homosexuality is not illegal in China, the current President Xi has been tightening up on homosexuality in recent years. By all accounts Chai had been a model employee receiving several quick promotions. As he points out, quite a number of flight attendants are gay but they do everything possible to hide this from co-workers. Now that he has been outed, they go to even greater lengths to appear straight. Initially his bosses told him just to keep quiet about the incident and put him on unpaid leave. Then in April last year he was informed his contract would not be renewed "for obvious reasons". In August Chai decided to sue China Southern for the six months salary he was denied. Although the case is not about discrimination, should Chai win it it is likely that a discrimination case will follow. Although Chai was fired, the pilot was not. This was because airlines invest a great deal of money training pilots. No doubt China Southern did not want to waste that investment. The case was heard in Court last November and the verdict is awaited. How the Court interprets the law is keenly awaited for a 2008 national law prohibits discrimination based on gender. It appears this has not yet been tested in any court. Since the incident, Chai has become an unlikely hero and activist for the LGBT community. Chai in an undated photo provided by him to CNN Chai and his lawyer in a photo released by the LGBT Rights Advocacy China https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/26/china/china-southern-flight-attendant-trial-lgbtq-intl-dst-hnk/index.html

As usual in Thailand, the devil is in the details. The opening up policy has still not passed through the Thai cabinet. There have been many earlier schemes assumed to gain approval which never happened. Also in this case, there is the major assumption that at least 70% of the local population will have been vaccinated with two doses before July 1st to result in herd immunity. That's almost 500,000 people. But where are the vaccines? Very few have so far arrived in Thailand, I understand. Another problem will be fake vaccination certificates. The IATA Travel Pass is still in its infancy. So let's just hope for the time being.

Thanks for correcting the title. If you plan a trip to take in the Courtauld Gallery, make sure in advance that the painting has not been lent out to an exhibition somewhere. This does happen occasionally.

This surely has to be the oddest photo from this week's news, one of the attempts by operators of the Suez Canal to dig out the mega Taiwanese container ship which was blown across the canal by a sandstorm. Any thought for a funny caption? I'll start. Anyone seen my shovel?

On April 16, Amazon will air a new historical drama, Leonardo, about the life of the great painter. It is now well known and documented that Leonardo was gay. Giorgio Vasari's famous 1550 volume "Lives of the Artists" makes clear that Leonardo was besotted with his male assistant Salai. Salai even appears as a beautiful angel in one of his best known paintings. It is also known he surrounded himself with good-looking assistants and pupils. Documents discovered around 1900 show that Leonardo was accused of sodomy before Florentine magistrates in 1476. Yet Amazon's portrait of Leonardo "drags Caterina da Cremona out of the shadows". The show's writer claims this was the most important relationship in his life. "But Caterina is a figment, a fantasy, a complete piece of tosh, invented by a 19th-century Romantic" who believed that Leonardo could not have painted female nudes without having slept with a woman!! Yet he was 57 when he met Caterina and she was a prostitute. Tosh indeed! https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/mar/26/leonardo-aidan-turner-amazon-prime-video-series-gay

i can beat even that. I was in a twin bed room standing between the beds and could still touch the walls - albeit at a bit of a stretch LOL Just to stay off topic for a moment, the price of rooms in many Japanese hotels other perhaps than those belonging to western brand chains is very largely determined by the nett area. So if you think you are getting a great deal, chances are you will be in little more than a broom cupboard. So do check very carefully. There are modest priced hotels with bigger rooms but you have to search to find them.

I'm also with you on the late night shows. I am constantly amazed that all have virtually identical formats - a host whose main job is a boring monologue and to crack jokes, an in house band, an audience of sycophants and a bunch of celebs promoting something, usually themselves. We do get some of these in Thailand and occasionally one will be partly interesting. I sometimes compare this frivolous candy floss with one of the terrestrial channels in Britain showing Queer as Folk in the same time slot two decades ago.

I have never understood the American love affair with daytime chat shows involving a celebrity host and a panoply of guests most of whom are promoting movies or books or something else. Perhaps living in Asia there are local language programmes of a similar nature. Thankfully I just do not know. What irritates me about these shows is they are so incredibly boringly predictable. An audience that seems made up of near brainless trained monkeys. Don't those watching realise that a studio manager spends a lot of time rehearsing these women before taping to get them into 'character' by teaching them to scream and jump up and down at even the most inane comments? When a free CD or book is given to all there seems to be a collective orgasm that is so fake. The games that are sometimes played are virtually senseless and the shows where lots of freebies are given out just one long commercial for the companies which donate the prizes. So, yes, I have seen her show but very rarely - maybe about ten of them over the years whenever i am in the US or a country where it is syndicated. I suppose everything is loosely based on Oprah's show which I did watch more often as it was screened in Thailand. But at least she sometimes had serious, meaningful conversations. Ellen seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Just my take!

One of the worst sights one could see on vacation is walking in front of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice and seeing an almighty monster sail slowly past on your right. They skirted around the Grand Canal to the cruise ship dock nearer the train station. Photograph: Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images Now these ghastly ships will be banned from entering the city at the sea end of the Grand Canal. They will be made to dock at the nearby industrial port instead. Most of the passengers on those mega ships only spent a day in the city buying cheap souvenirs causing people jams all over the place whilst dining on board the vessels rater than the city's eateries. Their value to the city was always questionable. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/25/cruise-ships-kept-away-st-marks-square-venice

I think you underestimate the Japanese porn industry. It is huge and represents a reasonable proportion of GDP. Visitors to Japan rarely see it, though, apart from the huge number of love hotels dotted around the country with the oddest themes both architecturally and in the rooms. You can tell that all the boys work at the site I posted if only because in another part of the site it states precisely when they are available. Some of the guys are students and so naturally are not available during the day. Other may have part-time jobs and also have limited availability. Some others may only be available at the week-end. Others will be taking part in porn movies and so might be off for a week or two. This screen shot lists some of the many dozens available today. But the example I cited is from one of two Tokyo host bars under the same management. There are quite several more which is perhaps not surprising given that greater Tokyo is the largest city in the world with 37 million inhabitants!

Singapore's founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew was a prodigious litigator. Criticise him and he would almost always fight you in the courts, whether you were an individual or a major corporation. Almost always he won substantial damages. At least two news media were banned from sale in the island state when they lost their cases. Now his son and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has again followed the example of his father. In November 2018 a Singapore blogger shared an online Facebook article crucial of Lee. The accused claimed he had merely shared the article from a Malaysian site which was replied to by 45 other Facebook members. The judge did not accept his claim of innocence. He agreed with Lee's lawyer that the article was defamatory. The blogger has been fined a whopping US$100,000. If you are planning a trip to SIngapore, don't express criticism in print or the internet of the Prime Minister or the government beforehand. You could find yourself a lot poorer or even in jail! https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/25/singapore-blogger-ordered-to-pay-nearly-us100000-damages-to-pm-for-facebook-post

I believe z909 is correct in highlighting the cultural issue. Most northern Asians have traditionally been perfectly happy to attend public baths and be totally naked in front of others before bathrooms in houses became more of the norm. Even today, though, there are remain some public bathhouses in some cities. Then there is the culture of going to a hot spring (onsen) and being fully naked whilst washing all of the body before entering the variety of hot and cool pools. Some patrons take a very small towel to cover their genitals, but most often these seem to cover their heads!! This is true today around Japan and South Korea. It was even more true in the economically less advanced China. When the Japanese colonised Taiwan in the first half of the last century, they created a highly developed series of onsen that are dotted around the island. As Taipei has become a more gay city, at least one of the hot springs has become a magnet for gay men ranging from late teens to infinity! Since military service is still essential in Taiwan, young Taiwanese tend to have great bodies. It's important to note, though, that such hot springs are not saunas. They are in some sense more like an ordinary bar without the booze! Basically they are places to enjoy the eye candy, perhaps to enter into a conversation with some - many young Taiwanese speak good English - and make arrangements to meet up for coffee or a drink at another time. Very occasionally there may be a bit of touching in the steam room, but that is the exception rather than the rule, at least until around 11:00pm. Never been to one overnight. Oddly, given that more Chinese migrated to Thailand than any other South East Asian nation and a century ago Thai ladies frequently were topless, the western concept of not appearing naked in front of others has since permeated the culture. Even just going to the toilet, a Thai guy will make every effort to cover his dick from others!

Before then, some wore a jock-stop, others were totally nude. Those who were nude got extra tips as customers not only saw but could feel the 'goods'!

I remember Adam's Apple having both shows with nudity and the boys walking on the catwalk totally nude. This still happened although to a slightly lesser extent after the change of ownership whenever that was (must have been after 2005). Yet I don't recall the boys there appearing nervous about it. Might that have been because many were Shan boys rather than Thais? Chiang Mai's My Way also had nudity, although it later became slightly less visible under some sort of netting. Even as far back as the 1980s quite a few of the boys in the Twilight bar were not entirely happy being nude and did their best to cover themselves, even though the elderly queens behind the counter would sometimes shout at them them to reveal all. In Barbiery on the other hand the boys seemed to have great fun being nude and showing off.