PeterRS

It's been splashed over all the newspapers. China is in a mess - certainly economically and almost certainly politically as well. Local governments are mired in debt. The two largest property developers are quickly drowning in monstrous debts, they cannot sell much of their inventory and have been unable to complete many that Chinese citizens have already paid for. This has led to at least one riot. Almost 12% of recent graduates cannot find jobs. With youth unemployment already at 20.4% in April this year, so many are out of work that the state has now ceased publishing statistics. President Xi's admonition that, as during Mao's Cultural Revolution, these young people should go and work in the countryside has met with derision. In an age of social media, China cannot clamp down on all dissent despite the huge numbers it employs to censor it. Just a year ago Xi was elected to an unprecendented third 5-year term in office. Before then he made sure he was surrounded by his own cronies. Many top government and other officials had been jailed for corruption beforehand, although corruption remains virtually endemic. Now, though, even those he placed in top leadership posts are disappearing. Recently, two of Xi's hand-picked five state councillors - five who enjoy a higher rank in the cabinet than ordinary ministers - have disappeared. Some weeks ago Foreign Minister Qin Gang was ousted after vanishing for more than a month. Three weeks ago Defense MInister Li Shangfu sudenly disappeared, despite having been promoted to his position only in March. Next, the removal of two top generals has shocked the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force, the elite unit set up by Xi to modernize the country's armed forces. The lack of transparency in these disappearances and forced resignations is not new in China. The high level of all four coming at one time is of particular concern, though, given that Xi himself has also chosen not to attend international gatherings where once he was lauded. Some analysts point to Xi's own power being diminished and his leadership abilities questioned within the Party. Is he now afraid of what might happen to his position if he were to leave China? All this at a time when China is playing a much tougher game overseas with its alliances with Russia and North Korea and its increased sabre-rattling over Taiwan. Rahm Emanuel, the US Ambassador to Japan, has compared what is going on internally to an Agatha Christie novel "And Then There Were None". How much he actually knows about what is happening in China is clearly open to question, but he himself has asked another question, "Who's going to win this unemployment race? 'China's youth or Xi's cabinet?'" Perhaps a question aimed more at a US audience, but it is one being increasingly discussed in other parts of the world. And all this still baffles those who recall that Xi's father, a participant in the Long March and a pal of Mao who made him Vice Premier, was a man lauded for his moderation. He was an early proponent of the easing of control over Xinjiang and Tibet, even having the Dalai Lama to stay at his home when he visited Beiiing. What has turned the younger Xi into a self-styled Mao? Is it because his father was purged, jailed and spent long periods in confinement during the Cultural Revolution? How iong can the younger Xi last? Will he make a bid for internal harmony by going to war with Taiwan as a means of taking attention away from the severe jobs and other crises he faces? My own view is that within China there are enough citizens who would baulk at Chinese fighting Chinese and the massive death toll that would result. But that's already the subject of another thread. Based on this article on the CNN website - https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/19/china/china-top-ranks-turbulence-questions-xi-intl-hnk/index.html

And he tried his hand at midget submarines which did not work. When told they were an idiotic idea during the Thai cave boys rescue, he called the one man who knew of the cave and did as much as anyone to free those boys and their coach a "pedo". He was taken to court in Los Angeles but successfully argued that "pedo" does not mean pedophile (which we all know is precisely what he meant); rather it is a slang term in his native South Africa meaning "a creepy old man who does not have sex with children." And to think the judge bought that! I wonder who bought the judge!

Goodness! So many memories! I stayed at the Royal Orchid Sheraton several times soon after it opened in the early 1980s and had the hots for one of the pool boys He came from Khon Kaen and one day I took him on his first plane trip to and from his home town. Got to know him well and he was such a lovely young man in more ways than one! One of those beautiful elegant buildings next to the hotel was and remains the residence of the Portuguese Ambassador where I once attended a reception. Portugal was the first European nation to come into contact with what was then the Kingdom of Ayutthaya. When the nation became Siam and the capital moved to Bangkok, it was granted the land where the then new colonial-style Embassy was to be located by the river. The present building remains the oldest diplomatic building and residence in the country. Some years ago it leased part of its land so the Royal Orchid could expand its always small pool area. Never went to Noriega's in Silom Soi 4. Looks as though it was next to the Sphinx restaurant and bar which was popular mostly with expats and visitors. Above either Noriega's or Sphinx was a karaoke bar for several years. A long time before then that karoke was I believe Apollo, one of the original gogo bars where, as in Twilight, after a certain hour - around 10:00 pm or so - the mamasan would instruct all the boys to start dancing nude. Unlike Twilight where many of the many dozens of boys seemed a bit embarassed being nude up on its tiny stage, the boys in Apollo seemed really to enjoy prancing up and down the catwalk with no pants on. I really loved that bar! He mentions Lumphini Stadium. Next to it bordering Witthayu was the old Night Market. I visited often, partly to buy small gifts if I was travelling, often to dine at one of the eateries but also to take visiting friends to one of the great Bangkok entertainments, the Joe Louis Thai Puppet Theatre, so named because the owner was a fan of the great boxer. The theatre had large half size puppets with the manipulators visible and dressed in black. Mostly the 'plays' were based on Hindu and Buddhist legends. But the performances were of a very high standard and all the guests I took absolutely loved it. When the Night Market closed, the Puppet Theatre moved to Pattaya for a while. It eventually moved to Asiatique. It seems to be closed but if not and if you have not seen the shows, I recommend them most highly. And the flooding! In the small sub-soi outside my apartment, the floods would come almost over my wellington boots (gumboots) and remain long after the heavy rain had stopped. It was soon after the disastrous floods of 2011 that the city government finally raised the level of our soi and installed much larger underground piping. Since then flooding has been a thing of the past, thankfully. Many thanks @fedssocr for posting. Now if only we could find some similar video of the early 1980s.

I wondered about that. But Golden Week is the following week starting on National Day on October 1, several days after my planned return. It is also exclusively a holiday within China when almost all businesses and factories close down for the entire week and so travel at the start would be out of China. Basically it's the opposite of Chinese New Year. There are no public holidays in Thailand during Golden Week. So I think it's unikely that many Thai-Chinese would be travelling, especially at the start of the week prior to Golden Week. I could be wrong - but it still doesn't really explain why prices suddenly went up so quickly by so much. My outward flight was supposed to be Tuesday 26. Looking at the seating availability, it's the outward flights to HKG that are almost full. Flights HKG/BKK on my planned return date of Friday 29 are mostly less than a third full. Not sure if there are major holidays in other parts of the world.

I agree with the first sentence. For some, a boyfriend is in effect a long-term partner where the two share a life, live together, perhaps are married but have certainly been together for many years. For others, like me, a committed relationship may be over a shorter period of time where we do not live together but spend one or two days/nights a week together. In our case, this is basically because my boyfriend's work is very far from my condo. This will change as he is about to fulfil his dream of a masters degree at a European University and then a good job somewhere on the continent. Such is a problem sometimes faced by those with much younger boyfriends. Then there are those in a committed relationship but who live in different countries. And so on. But I disagree with @TotallyOz when he suggests that 95% of "boyfriends" are "whores". That may be true of some or even many, but it is certainly not true of even 95%. When I met my boyfriend chatting through an app suggested to him by a gay friend, he had never been to any gay venue and never met another man for sex. Since we met, we have never been to any bar or spa or whatever. He does sometimes go out with gay Thai friends, but the furthest he gets is drinks at Balcony bar. On the other hand, if by "whore" @TotallyOz means one party pays cash to the other, then this has to be partly true when one party comes from a relatively wealthy background - relative to the background of the other. It is ridiculous to suggest that each pay his own way when dining out, going to iMax movies, travelling both in Thailand and overseas. But in my view that is not and can not be equated to "whoring". Besides there are some partnerships I know of where the Thai may be 40 years younger than the farang but is considerably more wealthy. Does that make the farang a whore? So to carp over the meaning of the word "boyfriend" is, I think, totally unnecessary and pointless.

Fair point.

It seems I was wrong in my thoughts re CX. In just three days the prices for travel to HKG any day next week on CX have doubled! Mind you, other carriers are in the same boat. I was supposed to go to HKG next week but have postponed to the second week of October when flights and hotels are much more reasonable. And biz class flights on QR from BKK to the UK in March have also started to jump up. I just changed my trip from March to May at a very considerable saving.

I am sure they are. But it is also surely rather offputting for less well off retirees not to mention that there are in fact other options. This is precisely the point I was making in reply to @Mavica's post and the suggestion that many expats are skirting the regulations.

No! VN Express got its figures rather screwed up. As has been stated in this forum many times, the rules for one-year retirement visas available after age 50 are monthly income 65K baht (making annual income remittance of US$21,800) or annual amount in an account of 800K (US$22,400) for 5 months reducing for 7 months to US$11,200). The Golden Visa is a completely separate programme somewhat similar to the expensive Thailand Elite programmes. The benefit of the latter is they offer multi-year visas. The basic retirement visa is one-year renewable.

As a glass 'half full' guy, @vinapu is never sad!

More surprises! 🤣🤣🤣

Should it be slightly less surpising given that this is the first pageant since the death of the founder and the purchase of the Mister International franchise by a Thai company with a Thai President?

This has been the case in Europe for at least a decade and probably a lot more and involves more airines than just BA. I think it also applies in some cases to flights to Asia. Never fly from your usual departure city. Get a cheap flight to some nearby cities (but not all) and start the journey from there. 8 years ago I flew London to Chicago on BA but started in and returned to Berlin. The fare was much cheaper than LHR/ORD/LHR. I have never worked out the rationale for this! I understand all airlines now do this! Decades ago I would purchase round-trip tickets for Japanese clients who wanted to fly TYO/JFK return. A ticket with extra coupons to and from HKG was at least a third cheaper. In those days you could tear up the first and last sector coupons. But when actual tickets disappeared and computers took over everything, miss that first sector and the computer deleted all the remaining sectors. In fact miss any sector without informing the ticketing airline and the rest of your trip disappears. Another dodge in those days was flying BA from Macao before Macao got its own airport. BA had some sort of deal with Portugal whereby return tickets starting and ending with a jetfoil Macao to HKG and then BA from/to HKG to/from Lisbon via LHR had a massive discount. First class return on BA was actually less than business class HKG/LHR/HKG. On the few occasions I used this routing, the jetfoil tickets ended up in the trash!

Never created one. I'm sure it will have a box for 'others'. If there is no way to explain what 'others' stand for, psters can easily respond with a new post in the usual manner.

What happened to all the others? 😵 Or is this just another to add to the harem? 🙏 (couldn't resist!

Many thanks for that post @fedssocr. Sadly airlines based in North and South America seem generally to have much better deals for passengers into Asia than those based in Asia for travel to Europe and the Americas.

Allied to this topic, i find there is almost nothing worse when on a beach holiday than to go to the seating area and find all the loungers either occupied (usually just a few) and the others with unfurled towels, books and other paraphernalia to 'book' them for later use. If at a hotel I cannot count the number of times I have registered complaints and nothing is done. The same happens around swimming pools. Sometimes, the selfish idiots who have 'bagged' these chairs decide not even to use them. They return a few hours later just to retrieve their belongings. If seating/loungers are for use by all guests, personal items placed to 'bag' seats should be removed and placed in a location where they can be later retrieved.

On that we agree!

In that case, lobby your MP to change the national insurance rules. You are obeying them as they exist now. I obeyed them as advised when I started working - and yes, I started in the UK. Had I been informed of a change, I could have elected to cease paying annual national insurance contributions and put the cash into better savings funds instead.

UK pensions are not basically related to the UK economy or an individual's contribution to it through taxes. Pensions are a specific item under the national insurance scheme which has separate contributions unrelated to specific taxes payable by an individual - if any. If they wish to receive a pension, those working abroad must still pay the national insurance contributions annually. After 40 years of contributions, in the UK they qualify for the full basic state pension along with annal increases. Those living abroad, as noted, have the pension frozen. When I moved abroad to work, pensions for those living overseas were not frozen. It was the government of either Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair which applied the freeze. Yet, even as one working overseas and continuing to pay my national insurance contributions, I never received any information from any goverment departmant to tell me that my rights had been taken from me. Since then, I have written to various Secretaries of State with responsibility for pensions. Total waste of time! No lobbby group is going to get this through parliament. One of the above governments also stripped UK expats of the right to vote after being abroad for six years. Therefore there is absolutely zero incentive for any future government to pay any attention to that group's demands as lobby groups have zero effect on voting for or against members of parliament. We are in a government-mandated limbo.

I can understand that the leader of the opposition has to be sitting in parliament. But there are lots of cases around the world where the Chairmen of political parties do not sit as MPs.

The tumblr site seems dead. The other two look very interesting but are in Japanese. I'm hopeless at locating the boxes to change language. Anyone know if there is one on those two sites to switch to English?

No racist remarks here, please LOL 🙏

I can understand the reasoning, but it seems to show a lack of desire on his part to play the key role in the Party that many expected and wanted him to do. In a way it seems a little similar to neither him nor any of his close Party colleagues bothering to check his past history and discover the media company shares. Very sad for what we thought would be a positive move for democracy in this country. Could he not have considered becoming ex-government Chairman of the Party?

Thanks @10tazione. Fascinating interview. Using actors/singers born in other countries is not uncommon in Asia. Several popular Hong Kong and Taiwan singers were brought up and educated overseas. Interestingly, immediately following that interview with the two guys, you can click on one titled Catching Up: Tiger JK when the interviewer is one of the great looking Korean actors Eric Nam who was born to Korean parents and raised in Atlanta in the US. After studies at Boston College, aged 22 he gained some attention in Seoul as a result of youtube videos. He was then invited to visit Seoul to compete in a singing talent competition when he was placed in the top 5. He was then signed by a Korean entertainment company. In 2016 he was named GQ's Korea's Man of the Year. In addition to his fame in South Korea and Asia, he has undertaken three round-the-world tours. And like many Korean actors he's cute!