Article Pattaya Plus The Dark Side

Intelligence and Opinionation Defending the Status Quo
Wherever I’ve been I have always disliked intelligence and opinionation defending the status quo when the status quo needs criticising. It has been irksome to listen to intelligent teachers and political pundits going at it, not to mention those super rock-stars who become philosophers and anti-philosophers. In other words, people with privileges telling the underprivileged why their privilege-less s**t is okay, why it exists, and directly or indirectly what not to do about it.
Why?
Because it often becomes impossible to articulate an ill, debate it, address it, and just possibly start to redress it.
Recently, I mentioned on the Facebook forums ‘Isaan Farang’, ‘I Love Bang Saray’ and ‘Expats in Thailand’, a number of unsavoury things (I won’t use the words ‘facts’ or ‘statistics’) and noticed people belittling me for writing about the underlying causes of prostitution, road accidents and neglect. One or two comments explained why Thailand can’t help its people. To explain the reasons behind a social ill is one thing but beware of making your explanation a defence of the status quo. You can tell me why Thailand embraced masks during Covid-19. Fine. Tell me why it is so difficult to get young Thais to wear crash helmets if masks were broadly embraced by all and sundry a few years back. Fine. Tell me the reasons why 7 kids die every day, drowning or bleeding out on the hot, super routes of Thailand but please don’t use those argued and perhaps arguable reasons for justifying the status quo of casualties perpetrated against the ‘innocent’ or crippling debt leading to 68,000,000 Thais embracing semi-poverty. Or lack of education and benefits leading to temporary or permanent prostitution.
And last but not least, for the trolls out there, why not refrain from destroying debate?

Shut Your Mouth! You’re A Guest.
We all rely on clichés and prefabricated thoughts to help us get through the day, and though used to the standard expat responses, the one going like this - “How dare you criticise Thailand! You’re a guest!” still rubs me up a teeny-weeny bit.
Fancy being born and the first thing you hear is the world telling you to shut your mouth because you’re temporary, misplaced or an alien. Fancy listening to “Imagine” and telling Lennon and Ono to shut their mouths because he’s English and she’s Japanese, composing a song in America with radical roots which don’t meet standard US thinking. Fancy going to a rough school and being told not to complain about bullying because you’re highly privileged to be getting the kicking you’re getting.
And so it is with me here in Thailand. I just don’t get the cliché: “You’re a guest” just as I don’t get the prefabricated thought: “Leave if you don’t like it”. The guys and gals who come out with this stuff are belittling me, of course, and though Thailand does not rely solely on tourism-revenue to exist as some indignant expats would have us believe (that’s another type of cliché – in our favour), I just can’t help thinking that I would prefer the status of intelligent adult or global traveller rather than guest, and of course I would prefer to be able to think my thoughts in Thailand AND articulate them without feeling I am shocking grateful foreigners.
So, down with these censors, n’est pas? Down with terms like “alien”, n’est pas? Don’t call me “farang” either, mate. “Gringo” in Mexico. “”Farang” in Thailand.
Or, put another way, I go out and within ten minutes of shopping for one meal I have collected between 7 to 10 plastic bags. Am I not entitled to say I won’t be back, shopping at that street-stall, and that plastic bags are just one of Thailand’s curses? Do I really have to concentrate on the UK where I was born or Italy where I reside? Must I shut up or explain that of course I know western Europe pollutes far more than Asia and because I am a guest I really should shut my rice-hole up about plastic?
Give me a break.
Is there anything I can say that is polemical without being told I am a guest?
And all you guests who are temporary here on this pendant, border-shackled globe, please shut up about everything or the weary world will put a sock in yours.

In Defense of Criticising / In Defense of Complaining
Whenever I complain about something in Thailand, I notice some are extra quick to tell me to go elsewhere.
Here, in Pattaya, I know plenty who have no money to go elsewhere, but should they stop complaining?
Here, in Thailand, I know plenty who have taken a child under their wing and are ever so worried the child will drown or be killed in a road accident. Should they stop complaining and go home wherever home is?
The assumption we can just up and go home is based on the premise we have funds and absolutely no reason for staying in Thailand. However, because “No man is an island…” it is nigh on impossible to follow the advice of those stalwarts who want us on the next flight home. We have emotional attachments here but though not feeling free to leave, surely someone can grant us the liberty to complain?
Now, wherever we are, whether old or young, I believe a human right is to complain, and that right - exercised intelligently - can lead to change for the better. It is surly and easy to tell a critic to go away but is it wise? After all, surely some criticism and some complaints are not without merit?
And so, when you readers read something you don’t like, just refrain for a moment from telling the person to leave Thailand. Maybe they can’t. Maybe the money has dried up. Maybe there is no place to go. Maybe they are attached to a vulnerable person. And just maybe everyone has the right to moan, criticise and complain without being told on every and on all occasions to swallow their dislike and take the next flight “home”.
I wanted to explore the inherent “racism” in telling anyone who says anything negative about a country he or she is visiting or residing in to get out but I won’t. However, isn’t it also worth noting that many expats here were “there” complaining without being told to get lost till they decided to come here, probably live in denial, and detest anyone saying anything about this paradise that surrounds us, killing children and adults alike, 2 an hour on a daily basis, leaving women to pr******te themselves, letting Thais work 10 hours a day for 300 – 400 baht, and asking pensioners to accept 500 baht per month to sustain body and soul? (And, yes, I know the Thai family is supportive and strong, blah, blah, blah, but, of course, maybe it isn’t! and maybe one or two oldies with 500 baht a month haven’t got a family!)
Come on, guys and gals, who are quick to complain about complaints, please, listen just a bit. And do stop asking me to ship myself to another country or to fly “home”.

Can Contrasts Hurt?
I visited a luxury condo in Jomtien recently. I was amazed to be sitting in such a glamour-bubble in that gated community. When I left I stepped back into the real world of Jomtien bikes, jams, feckless pedestrians, polluted seas...BUT just for a moment I lived and sat in that 5 to 7 million luxury bubb.
These movers and shakers who live in their fabulous flats and houses, remember what happens when you step outside into that real and 3rd worldy world which waits and hates.

One Isaan swimming pool (but there are others) - to be compared to Spanish Place, Pattaya, swimming pool where the top pool - closed - has fish!

Infections, Diagnoses, Choices, & Charges in the Isaan
Remember being told back home not to get ill at Christmas and the new year, that even the summer brings skeleton staff to hospital duty (pun intended). Well, the same goes for Songkran here in Thailand. Don’t get ill.
The water was murky in the Nok Tha hotel pool where I swam and my partner had paired some hard skin just a bit too much (I suppose). Isaan bacteria, earthy and watery, are to be over-estimated, so when my toe enlarged and reddened I bolted to Loeng Nok Tha Hospital. The doc seemed good (an abscess) and recommended I recover in a ward there. I declined. I wanted out-patient. She advised 30 minutes of antibiotic drip per day and gave me an appointment in 7 days. I’d previously had an infection treated unsuccessfully at Sirikit Hospital (7 months of bother and 250,000 baht of private care – I had had to change hospitals) so was nervous.
My toe reddened and got more swollen so at about 2 a.m. the following day I decided no more messing.
“Where’s the best?” I asked my “mia farang”.
“Mukdahan International Hospital.”
“Not Yasothon Hospital?”
“No.”
We packed for a stay over in Mukdahan. We got there and I was assessed immediately and an infection or abscess was the assessment. Antibiotic drip twice a day for about 1 and a half hours each time. The anti was the strongest. Everything proceeded fine the first morning but the evening nursing staff had difficulty setting up the drip. Twice.
The second day was Songkran big time in Mukdahan so I had to abandon the car and get to the hospital on foot with arm in a plastic bag for my 8 p.m. appointment. The drip apparatus on my hand was still attached. My partner who had been furiously videoing the Songkran festivities for Facebook – she’s a digital creator - drove the car to the car park, breaking the law because she’s unlicensed and uninsured. The festivities effectively stopped the hospital working. Could the police have found a way to compromise, revelry but also a way through for anyone caring to use the hospital?
The following morning (we’d moved back to Sam Yaek so “mia” could be near family) my partner did not want to come, wanted to make merit but I said, “Please, help me.” We arrived punctually but monks arrived and so merit and alms took priority even there. I complained at the appointments desk and said I could have been told to arrive later. I linked the mix with the Songkran fiasco the previous night. Did the Thais lose face? Well, I said I was paying for a service that wasn’t happening. I suggested no payment. A two-hour appointment turned into four and a half hours. In all I paid 16,000 baht for two and a half days, and was cured. The Thais didn’t lose face because they made me wait and asked for full payment while I lay prostrate, with drip dripping.
Olé.
I went away with oral antibiotics. No infection has refestered.
Did I do right to pay privately? Had I not, would I still be in one of those other two public hospitals – Yasothon or Loeng Nok Tha?
I saw two doctors at Mukdahan International Hospital. The first seemed OK. The second diagnosed a skin infection and said I should become an in-patient for 3 days to get checked and treated. 20,000 baht a day?
I paid taxes in the UK and Italy so know the hospitals aren’t free there. I have not had good experiences with Thai government hospitals. The expertise and the listening ear are pricey in the private Thai hospitals I’ve used.
I seem cured so did I really have a skin infection, too? And did I have an abscess or “just” a toe infection which could have progressed to pussery?
Don’t get ill at Songkran.
Don’t get ill.
By taking the bull by the horns and changing hospitals fast, I think I got it right but the red flags are waving everywhere.
I drove back to Pattaya today to get my annual retirement visa renewed, and on my stay / way back was bitten by an insect, a mosq., I suppose. I have a reddening boil down below. That insect is working for the private sector.

How was your day, dear?

Ultra protection Vietnam.