PeterRS

With respect, I think it is not an overreaction. A Bhutanese is the national of a country. A German owning a restaurant is similarly the national of a country. Being Jewish is basically a religious identity. Would you say the Catholic who ran the Museum? Somehow I doubt it.

But did it actually mention and list the various gay bars/lounges which existed on the level above Screwboys and which were quite popular certainly in the 1980s and perhaps into the early 1990s? In my earlier post i had forgotten that the fetish ladies bar was located very near the Silom end of Patpong 2 almost opposite the luggage seller.

I would add "massively simplistic". I have repeatedly said you cannot regard the present/recent ghastly war without looking back at history, a position I know some other posters do not agree with. The treatment Israel, especially under its ultra right wing governments, has meted out to the mass of the Palestinians has been largely disgraceful. It continues to annex Arab lands to build their largely orthodox settlements despite this being against several UN resolutions. And who made the decision to prop up Hamas over more than a decade? Israel! Since its inception in 2006, the UNHCR has adopted virtually as many resolutions against Israel's actions on issues regarding the Palestinians as in the rest of the world combined. Israel has been no saint! The civilised world sees a two-state solution. Israel's politicians have stated this time and time again; yet their actions have proved the opposite. Yasser Arafat could have been a party to peace which seemed very close at the Camp David Accords, but pulled out because those present all agree that his aim was in fact a one-state solution. Now with other actors taking part in the conflict, notably the US and Iran, with Netanyahu's position finally extremely vulnerable and much of the world against what israel is doing in Gaza, Israel is in arguably the most difficult situation it has faced for decades. That is not to condone in any way the terror and outright murder of Israeli men, women and children by Palestinian terrorists. It is merely facing facts. It's really hard to see how Israel gets out of this mess without the war extending beyond the borders of Israel and Gaza.

China and Hong Kong have been guilty of kidnapping journalists and booksellers (among others) from countries like Thailand and countries/provinces like Taiwan. I believe the numbers are small but legal actions against such action seem to have failed. From The Bangkok Post 23 April 2023 Chinese tourist gets abducted at RCA, two suspects flee Thailand Another abduction case of a Chinese national has taken place in Bangkok, with police admitting the two suspects have fled Thailand. Deputy Metropolitan Pol Col Noppasin Poonsawat said the abduction took place on April 17. The victim, 28, is a Chinese solo tourist who went to an entertainment venue in Bangkok's Royal City Avenue (RCA). There she met a Chinese man who later invited her to an apartment he rented in the Rama 9 area. Another man was hiding in the unit. The suspects tied her with rope before seizing her mobile phone, cash and other belongings worth 427,000 baht. In the early hours of April 18, the suspects left the apartment for Suvarnabhumi airport and fled Thailand, said Pol Col Noppasin. https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2555026/chinese-tourist-gets-abducted-at-rca-two-suspects-flee-thailand

Did it ever even mention Patpong 2 even though it was located there? I was only there once and all I seem to recall is bits of history and people related to the original Patpong, although there was some information about a ladyboy bar. Certainly nothing about the early gogo bars of the 1980s on the second level of Patpong 2.

Does membership guarantee to keep hotel prices down?

Fortunately it rained quite hard a couple of hours ago in Bangkok. It seems as though the summer monsoon period is not quite over yet. Hopefully it will continue for a few days and reduce the particulate matter in the air.

I believe you are correct in writing our climate does change over the centuries. And there have been periods of global warming along with something like 5 separate ice ages. The geology of every continent on our planet is marked by the last ice age and its retreat, rather as present-day glaciers are not pure white but marked by trails of black and brown being the rocks underneath them being ground up like powder as the ice makes its slow journey downwards. But I find it very hard to believe that there are still people who deny the earth is presently undergoing some very major changes. Call it evolution if you will; most call it climate change. According to a recent Report - The climate crisis has pushed the planet’s stores of ice to a widespread collapse that was “unthinkable just a decade ago”, with Arctic sea ice certain to vanish in summers and ruinous sea level rise from melting glaciers now already in motion, a major new report has warned . . . The “terminal” loss of sea ice from the Arctic during summers could arrive within a decade and now cannot be avoided, it adds . . . “There’s nothing we can do about that now. We’ve just screwed up and let the system warm too much already,” said Julie Brigham-Grette, a scientist at University of Massachusetts Amherst and report co-author, about the sea ice. “That milestone has now passed so the next thing we need to avoid is ice shelf collapses in Antarctica and the further breakdown of the ice systems in Greenland. We can’t stuff the genie back into the bottle once they are gone.” . . . Greenland’s ice loss has already committed around 30cm to sea level rise. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/07/melting-arctic-sea-ice-summer-report Meanwhile, governments appear to be doing very little, if anything. Yet it is clear that places like Florida, London, Bangladesh, Bangkok, Jakarta, the Nile Delta and a whole host of other parts of the planet will become uninhabitable unless governments spend massively like Holland on sea defences. That country spent US$5 billion prior to 1997 and now adds €1 billion per year to keep the sea from its land. Apart from much of tha land being either just above or even below sea level, Holland's defences have held firm against not only rising sea levels but storm surges driving water down the North Sea towards the English Channel. As the Guardian article ends - “Rapid decarbonization is absolutely essential, it’s a moral obligation to the future . . . If we don’t accept that moral responsibility . . . it will be a human tragedy.”

A very good point. I recall on my first NYC visit going to The Gaiety Burlesque (think that was the name) and thought I'd gone to an early form of heaven (before I discovered Asia)! Little anecdote. In the 1970s one of the Metropolitan Opera's regular sopranos was the Mexican Gilda Cruz-Romo. After rehearsal one morning, she popped into the office of the company's language coach to ask if he'd like to join her as she wanted to see a movie. He was too busy so she said she'd ask someone else. Half an hour later he was looking out of one of the Met's front windows and saw three divas sashaying down Broadway in their fur coats on their way to the movies. The film they wanted to see - Deep Throat!

For decades there has been an old joke about Queen Elizabeth, the late Queen's mother. Widowed in 1952, she went on to live for another 50 years, mostly at the elegant Clarence House not far from Buckingham Palace where she had her own staff. Once after waking up from her afternoon nap, she was pissed off that her early evening tipple had not been brought upstairs. She went to the balcony and shouted down, "I'm not sure about you old queens down there, but this old queen is dying for a gin and tonic!" Given the dear lady's liking for gin, it is probably true. Even more so given that gay men made up quite a number of her staff. One in particular, William Tallon, had entered royal service as a pageboy at the age of 15. He was to serve the Queen Mother for 50 years being called for most of that time "Backstage Billy". Billy was gay, out and unashemdly so. He eventually formed a long time relationship with another member of the household. But he would also have rent boys back at his small house at the entrance to Clarence House. Once one was discovered and it was thought he was finally in for the axe. But the Queen Mother defended him and he continued as the most senior member of the staff almost to her death. Now showing in London is a play about this odd relationship - the former Queen born into a noble Scottish household and the working class lad. With the wonderful actor Penelope Wilton (remember her as Maggie Smith's foil in Downton Abbey?) playing the Queen, Backstage Billy is at the Duke of York's Theatre until 27 January. Set in 1979, just before Margaret Thatcher’s election victory, Marcelo Dos Santos’s script draws soft, safe comedy from rumours that while William “Billy” Tallon worked for “ma’am”, he brought back rent boys. The Queen Mother is a widow, no longer at the coalface of royal duties, now at Clarence House where she is barely visited by the rest of the Firm. Billy is “page of the backstairs” and enjoying life as a queer man, inviting a pick-up, Ian (Eloka Ivo, slowly but satisfyingly socialist), to his royal digs. According to reviews, there is not much depth here but an amusing evening of irreverent humour. Photo: Johan Persson https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/nov/07/backstairs-billy-review-the-queen-mother

So I take it that's your usual accommodation in the Big Apple whenever and if ever you visit. 🤣

Indeed it is just another Chinese city that is beginning to suffer as Shanghai takes over. The "difference" is that many believe China is at fault for having broken the "50 year" promise. As always seems to happen with secrets and lies, it was in fact broken 38 years ago by the British

And by this do you mean there is no climate change emergency today? Or perhaps you refer back to the last ice age as an example of climate change?

Please don't get me on to this! When I stay at a New York hotel I seem to recall there are four different taxes/charges added to the basic room cost and these can add up to 25% or more!

I have to add to my earlier post a fact that came to light just before the 1997 handover. I quote from a radio programme aired in Australia with direct quotes from people who were directly involved and moderated by an Australian journalist with a great deal of background information on the complicated Hong Kong situation. I quote - Sally Neighbour: The people of Hong Kong had good reason to believe that democracy was guaranteed. The 1984 Joint Declaration said the legislature - until then appointed - would be constituted by elections and would have the power to hold the government accountable. What it didn't say was that the wording had been left vague deliberately because Britain and China could never agree on definitions for these terms. The Chinese had refused to allow any reference to democracy. Over the coming years, Britain would adopt a policy of deliberate deceit - secretly accepting China's position while publicly holding out the promise of democracy to the people of Hong Kong. That promise of democracy was broken barely a year after it was made. After agreeing to the handover, Britain and China set up a Joint Liaison Group to oversee the transition to Chinese rule. At only its second meeting, in November 1985, Britain and China reached a secret agreement that would stop any move towards democracy in Hong Kong. Under the deal made by the Joint Liaison Group, Britain agreed not to make any political changes until after China had completed its own political blueprint, the Basic Law - a task that would take five years. In short, Britain handed to China control of Hong Kong's political fate. For the British Government, the desire for smooth relations with China had outweighed the need to honour its promise to the people of Hong Kong. To keep China happy, democratic elections had to be stalled. John Walden, Hong Kong Director of Home Affairs, 1976-1981: The whole thing was done in secret and a pretense was made that Britain hadn't departed from its undertakings on political reform. But if you look at what came out of the Basic Law at the end [in 1990] you can see it wasn't what was promised, wasn't what was promised in Parliament in 1984, so there had been a back down, a change of policy, a big cover up. Patten would certainly have been fully briefed on that 1985 secret agreement. He therefore was perfectly well aware that his announced reforms in the mid-1990s were not only a deliberate violation of that agreement, he and his advisors would have been equally aware that China would just throw them out on July 1 1997. And that is precisely what happened. Patten assumed he had some sort of super power that would alter the myth perpetuated when Britain sold Hong Kong down the river in 1985! He didn't. He just made it worse.

In my experience, almost every country requires Immigration checks at the first port of entry. Customs checks, though, are sometimes left to the final destination. I have also experienced your second point above. Flying on CX from HKG to JFK via Vancouver, every passenger had to deplane in Vancouver for an hour even though many passengers were continuing to JFK and there were no Immigration checks. We were just herded into a lounge to wait. I just thought it was something to do with refuelling!

It's happened again. The "Just Stop Oil" activists have taken their grievances out on a painting in London's National Gallery, this time a work by Velazquez, the Rokeby Venus. Instead of spraying paint or another less damaging activity, this time the two youths took hammers and smashed the glass in front of the painting. It has now been taken down while conservators estimate the damage and try to repair it. The activists have in the meantime been arrested and will be charged with criminal damage. Photo: Kristian Buus/In Pictures/Getty Images https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/06/style/just-stop-oil-rokeby-venus-intl-scli-gbr/index.html Celebrated artworks have become a favourite means of activism for these protestors. van Gogh's Sunflowers, da Vinci's The Last Supper and Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring have all been damaged. Sports and entertainment events are also increasingly being targeted. At a concert at the famous Lucerne Festival two months ago, the conductor decided to let the climate activists make their protest to the audience before continuing with the concert. Video with English subtitles in the full-screen version of this CNN site. https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/vladimir-jurowski-protesters-climate-scli-intl/index.html But is deliberately damaging artworks or interrupting performances which audiences and spectators have paid for an effective means of protest? I suspect not. Surely it is merely a form of vandalism which does their cause little good apart from media attention? There has to be another way of drawing attention to very legitimate concerns like climate change. Our leaders are doing little about it. The UK Prime Minister has even gone back on his word (typical politician) and has promsed to issue more North Sea oil exploration licences. Denying climate change is now a useless exercise. It is here and threatens a good many more disasters than we have recently witnessed. Yet how to make the mass of people around the world and their leaders accept this and actually do something about it?

That is shocking!. Usually if there is more than a handful of passengers coming in on a delayed flight and transiting to a new flight, it is common airline practice to hold the outgoing flight to enable the transit passengers to board, even for different airlines in different alliances. This is especially true at hub airports like Narita. Luggage is a different issue and understandable if it does not make the next flight. I assume @vinapu was one of just a few making that BKK transit. I once made the mistake of assuming that US gateway airports had international transit facilities. I learned the hard way! To maximise mileage on American, I booked Tokyo to Dallas and then Dallas to Vancouver, even though there are much shorter non-stop flights. No one warned me that I'd have to go through immigration in Dallas and enter the USA before then leaving it again minutes later. It so happened quite a number of international flights had arrived in Dallas at more or less the same time. My nice long transit time during which I expected to enjoy at least 2 drinks in the lounge had me panicking that I would miss the Vancouver flight, so long were the queues. I do not know if the situation has changed, but it seems crazy that the USA required passengers on an incoming international flight connecting with an outgoing international flight actually to enter the country first! I didn't know then of any other countries who did the same. Now I understand a completed online ESTA form is also required. I totally fail to understand why!

I have a friend in central Vietnam who was so horny with his girlfriend that they got married when he was 16. Not sure the reason - perhaps availability of other girls - they divorced at 18! Should have been gay like his brother LOL

From the BBC website For Chinese tourists in Bangkok, 76 Garage, an open-air restaurant on the northern outskirts of the Thai capital, has long been near the top of the list of places to visit. And they go there not for the food, but the waiters. In the middle of the restaurant is a swimming pool. The evening reaches its highlight when the waiters, all fit young men, strip down to their shorts and wade into the pool, offering to carry the diners for a photo op and a tip. There was a time when 76 Garage was so popular you needed to book a month in advance to get a table. These days half the tables are empty. Thailand's lauded tourist industry is missing its biggest customers: the Chinese. When China finally lifted zero-Covid restrictions in January, allowing its citizens to travel overseas, Thailand had high hopes. It expected an upsurge in business that would help its tourist industry recover much of the ground it lost during the Covid pandemic. The government predicted as many as five million Chinese tourist arrivals by the end of the year - still less than half the nearly 11 million who came in 2019. But a big improvement on last year, when there were only 250,000. That rosy scenario has turned out to be far too optimistic. Fewer than 2.5 million came in the first nine months of 2023. "Our tourism ministry said visitor numbers would recover quickly after the pandemic," said Anucha Liangruangreongkit, a Chinese-speaking tour guide at the Grand Palace in Bangkok who has been working there for 42 years. "But they're dreaming. I'm a guide - I should know. If it was normal, like in the past, it would be packed, right? Look at it now. Are there a lot of people here? No." Part of the problem is a shortage of low-cost flights post-Covid, and a slowing Chinese economy. The new Thai government hoped its announcement of a five-month visa waiver would entice more tourists. But a shooting at Bangkok's most famous shopping mall on 3 October, in which a Chinese mother of two children was killed, compounded an image problem confronting Thailand and other South East Asian countries. They are now considered unsafe by many Chinese people. More at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-67305693

One thing that really pisses me off about social networking sites like Grindr and Blued (but probably true also of the others), is that few respondents bother to look at profies. I use the sites mostly outside of Thailand but just keep them open when back in Bangkok. I suspect that of those who send messages, at least 90% if not more take absolutely no notice of a profile. They act purely on the photos. One reason, I guess, why those using them should take more trouble to ensure they have attractive photos My profile is pretty detailed re myself and what I am looking for. Of those who do read, a second point that pisses me off is when a guy from India or Europe, for example, responds "Why don't you like Indians/Europeans? I fit all your other criteria." Byeeee!

A timely warning! But the Health Department conveniently forgets its lengthy Paper endorsed by the Cabinet in 2017. Titled Thailand National Strategy to End AIDS 2017-2030, it illustrates that some at least of its aims have been forgotten during the period up to 2022. For example, it states that in 2015 there were 6,900 new infections of HIV. That has now actually increased to the estimated 9,230. How on earth is this to be interpreted? The 2017 Report states that 6.8% of males had their first experience of intercourse before the age of 15! When does a horny young teen decide that he is "ready"? It's nonsense! Another point raised in the 2017 Report makes clear that there was then considerable resistance to HIV infected persons. "The National Health Examination Survey conducted on households in 2014 found that 76% of respondents agreed that people were hesitant to receive an HIV test due to fear of positive reaction while 58.4% had discriminatory attitude toward HIV either uncomfortable to buy fresh or prepared food from HIV-infected vendors or felt that HIV or AIDS-infected children should not be allowed to attend class with other children." Nothing in the OP media report suggests how these concerns are gong to be alleviated. And until that is done, there is in my view zero chance of any anti-HIV campaign being effective. And as with the OP above, the 2017 Report makes only very little mention of MSM. https://hivhub.ddc.moph.go.th/Download/Strategy/EN_3Thailand National Strategy to End AIDS.pdf

i have stated before on this forum that i regard 'social media' as 'unsocial media'. Have an argument in a pub and the vast majority of people have an open and frank discussion with differing views being aired without fists being used. It's not just TikTok. Most social media platforms allow for expression of views without any regard whatever for a discussion. Almost all of what can be written is rarely moderated or moderated too late. Of course in the right hands social media can be a very useful and productive tool. The problem as I see it is that more and more ordinary people - not just the bad actors - use it believing their views are gospel.

I undestand both points. But I do sincerly believe that back in 1984 when the Joint Declaration agreement on Hong Kong's future was signed, both countries actually believed what they said and which are included in the Agreement. I had two good friends who were civil servants on the UK/HKG negotiating team. As far as the UK was concerned - and indeed almost all of the expat business people in Hong Kong and their head offices around the world - China would never kill the goose that was laying its golden eggs. Besides, there was a frequently quoted comment that within the 50 year period following 1997, China would become a much freer economy with far greater grass roots democracy. In other words, it would be far more like Hong Kong. What killed the golden goose was Hong Kong's last governor Christopher Patten. In a post always previously given to a very senior civil servant, Patten was a politician who had lost his seat in the 1992 general election won by Prime Minister John Major. Offered a couple of senior government jobs, Patten said the only job he wanted was the last governorship of Hong Kong. Against the advice of the foreign office, Major caved in. Once in Hong Kong, Patten did everything he possibily could to undermine the terms of the Joint Agreement. Clouded in the strictest secrecy he allowed a British television channel to visit Hong Kong over the course of a year as he sought every tiny loophole that would enable him to assist the very young and then relatively unpopular HK Democratic Party. He then infuriated the Chinese by breaking the Joint Agreement in making a unilateral statement. In 1994 he announced increased democracy in Hong Kong prior to 1997. As many in Hong Kong were aghast at this announcement, there was considerable agreement that through Patten Britain was flushing Hong Kong down the toilet. After all, it had had many decades to introduce democracy but had never done so. Why, it was asked, leave it to the last minute, infuriate the Chinese by breaking a mutually agreed position and risk the consequences? These came quickly. As was their right, the Chinese announced that all political agreements would cease on July 1 1997 instead of as earlier agreed continuing through to the new administration. As Patten sailed away from Hong Kong with Prince Charles on the Royal Yacht, the Chinese then put their own people in place. It was entirely a result of Patten's stupidity, narcissism and idiocy. If anyone does not believe that, look at the disasters during his later term as Governor of the BBC, a post from which he had to resign. For around the first 15 years, it was clear the Chinese were sticking to the Agreement. But in 2014 the actions of the Beiing appointed Chief Executive angered a young group of students who had been inspired by Patten's ideas and wanted to have more say in the Hong Kong government. This resulted in 3 months of protests with students camping out on one of the city's main vehicular arteries. Named the 'Umbrella Protests' they massively disrupted the flow of traffic in the central district. They also pissed off quite a number of Hong Kong people. A petition signed by 1,800,000 residents called for the disuruption to end and the restoration of law and order. It worked. The rulers in Beijing were well aware of the power of students. It was not just 1989 in Tiananmen Square. Throughout Chinese history, students have ofen been at the forefront of demanding change. To finally get their back on Patten's "reforms", new laws were introduced in 2019-20 making such protests all but impossible in future. And so the so-called "love China" policy became law. The question that needs to be asked is: had those very long very disruptive protests in 2014 not occurred, would the 2019 laws have been necessary? Did the students overplay their hands? Did they not understand how Beijing might eventually react? Between 1984 and 2019 the long and highly complicated series of events relating to Hong Kong and its future cannot be encapsulated in just a sentence here or a phrase there. I'll give the last word in this post to Margaret Thatcher's leading civil servant when those 1983-1984 negotiations were taking place. Sir Percy Craddock despised the way Patten went out of his way to anger the Chinese. In a long article for Prospect Magazine in April 1997, he ends with this sentence - "All who look beyond the headlines will wonder why Britain, with its long and rich experience of China, should reserve its biggest mistake for the last act of the play."

Plenty of ways to avoid unwanted touching