Teacher head batted by bar owner!

[Neo]

suadum said:

I would side with the Thai given my experiences. I still would.

 

So basically you are saying when a bar bill is disputed, deadly force is the appropriate and justified way for the bar to settle it. Surely you are taking the piss here.

 

[Old Hippie]

O.k. I am partially responsible here for this, and am also in what is probably the minority opinion. This thread deteriorated because I basically said "...I don't know what happened, but in 100% of the cases I'VE SEEN! The farang did something to provoke it..." more less... o.k. one last time...the bar bill amount is maybe not the issue, the principle may well be the real issue.

 

The amount to us is small, but to someone makeing 3000bht a month, to have to pay 500+ or whatever amount out of their pocket, which is pretty standard for the bars I know (wait staff pays for wrong drink orders, dropped drinks, spilled drinks they drop etc, they also pay for dodged bills. This was I'll add, also the case in a restaurant I worked at in the USA, anything damaged, or short, you pay for, keeps you careful and honest.), Losing this amount of money is major. I gave a senario where someone could have easily been out 2+ weeks salary because a drunk was just being a jerk, o.k. who here wouldn't fight like hell to keep 2 weeks salary if someone was trying to steal it? I would! and if the person was bigger, I'd grab a bat, a stick, knife, gun etc to protect what is mine, the cops here where I live will not help you.

 

A lot of this, some one touched on before, stems from the "more ways" or "Norms" within a given realm of a given segment of a society. The people I deal with, in my world here in farang land are a lot quicker to go off over nothing, and start throwing punches, etc, then Thais are for the same offense.

 

Ever been around a bunch of Italian Americans or Irish Americans or Latino Americans? when they've been drinking? or even stone sober? cheat one of them, question their manhood with words, or insult their family, especially their mothers, and prepare to die! and no one within this realm of this reality, will feel sorry for you. It is how the rules in this "society" are enforced, and the order maintained.

 

In this respect, haveing dealt in the farang world with this element, handleing it's problems the way it does, I see nothing different between the way problems are solved here or in LOS. I will add that here, in "MY World" if the people around think it is wrong, they will usually intervene to stop it, if they feel it is just, then they will not step in. I have seen this in LOS as well.

 

Again, I don't see EVERYTHING that happens in Thailand, I can only go by what I have seen there, and with that said, I'll stand by my original statement. And with that, maybe since we are all repeating ourselves, and no one is going to change anyone's mind,maybe we can agree we disagree, and move on!

[FIGJAM]

NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!

 

The ONLY point here is NOT how the people you associate with would react, the ONLY point here is how the bulk of the American public opinion would react learning about this kind of incidents, how the American laws, the American police force and the American judicial system normally daily deal with them in America and how all of that compares with how the bulk of the Thai public opinion would react learning about this kind of incidents, how the Thai laws, the Thai police force and the Thai judicial system normally daily deal with them in Thailand.

 

Old Hippie, suadum and other self-delusional dreamers, stop beating around the bush.

 

N.B. NOTE the "normally"! You can save your weird, strange, odd exceptions for one of the countless associations (public and private, govt and non govt financed) which deal with citizens' rights' protection, abuse from the police, judicial system, foreigners' rights etc etc etc (which BTW DO NOT FUCKING EXIST in Thailand and the few powerless imititations that they have are mostly farang inspired/led/financed/manned)

[Guest]

Thailand is by any metric less dangerous and violent than my home country.

This is demonstrably untrue. Even using official Thai rates, the murder rate in Thailand is 36% higher than the U.S. (You are presumably comparing Thailand to the US (or is it the UK where we will get even lower rates?)) The latest statistics available for homicide and violent crime rates I could find in Thailand are for the year 2000 (Thai Police Stats) when there were 5135 reported homicides. In that year the population of Thailand was about 62,000,000 (Thailand in Figures published by Alpha Research Co., Ltd.). This works out to about 8.3 murders per 100,000 people.

 

By contrast, in the year 2000, the murder rate in the U.S. was 6.1 per 100,000 (US Dept of Justice Stats A homicide rate of 8.3 per 100,000 in Thailand makes its homicide rate 36% higher than the U.S. rate. I think that is a pretty clear metric where Thailand is more dangerous.

 

And quite frankly, given the differences in development, corruption and the infrastructure necessary to collect this sort of data, Thailand?s official figures are probably much lower than the real figures while US figures are closer to the mark. (See comments below on Khunying Pornthip's views on local forensics.) In other words, the 36% statistic probably understates the difference.

That is simply bullshit. As far as Pattaya goes, you get the dregs of humanity there, including farang organized crime. Every one of the guys you read about are either unemployed overstayers, or dubiously employed; most all are down to their last satang. I know the type -- they scam everybody trying to get enough money for their next beer (have a drink in Cathouse some time and you'll meet a few potential baclony jumpers that haven't made it to the Shitty-City-by-the-Sea yet). They have no sense that it is time to go home. Likely they have pissed off the wrong person. Likely it is farang-on-farang violence too. Or maybe they really did jump off that balcony?

Are you also including the guys that shoot themselves in the chest and then jump out off of balconies? Or what about the guy staying in a Nana hotel several years ago who handcuffed his hands behind and to a chair and then pulled a plastic bag over his head? The police concluded it was a suicide.

 

The most prominent name in crime forensics here, Khunying Pornthip (the Khunying title was conferred by the King for her work), is scathing in her criticism of police forensics here. She contends the police are constantly covering up murders and making police killings look like suicides. I guess you think she is taking a piss and the police have it right.

 

If so, you are not going to find very many educated Thais who share your views.

 

But now that we understand where you are coming from, let's go back to the English teacher in ICU because of a bar bill dispute. Neo sums it up well: ?So basically you are saying when a bar bill is disputed, deadly force is the appropriate and justified way for the bar to settle it. Surely you are taking the piss here.? Or, less charitably, you have totally lost touch with reality.

[jitagawn]

OH-

Perhaps my memory does not serve me well but have you NEVER been on the rotten end of a bad bar tab,lying cheating TGF physically abusive almost violent Mamsan or agenerally abusive Thai EVER? ::I rather emeber some post of your alluding to these very things ::Perhaps I am wrong. ::

 

Look alot of the Farangs that frequent these places are low class louts but unfortunately so are many of the Thai that work in the bars.Some are quite nice some but some are just the worst.Anything can happen really and does-like in this instance.Maybe the guy actually did pick off two bottles of booze maybe he did not. But whatever the circumstance he did not deserve to be in the hopital in intensive care. I would feel this way n o matter where in the world this happened. So to justify this behavior of violence because it could happen anywhere Italy . or Rio is indeed a moot /irrelevant point.

IMHO

I gotta get me apairt of those selective one eye only rose colored glasses somewhere.

:)

[jitagawn]

Thailand is by any metric less dangerous and violent than my home country.

 

BRO THEY ARE BOTH VIOLENT AS HELL.

 

I GOTTA get a pair of those SELECTIVE rose colored glasses.

Dam it I am going to call FLY right now and ASK HIM HIS OPINION... :: :)

[FIGJAM]

suadum said:Well, let's see. The issue with daughter would be handled in the same manner anywhere in the world: if the idiot would not take no for an answer and I were there, he would be picking himself up off the floor, probably more than once. Simple.

Well, Mr Clark Kent, sorry to bring bad news to you but every Superman has his kryptonite...

What if you were NOT the bigger dog? What if the Thai man/men who took a fancy for your daughter were of higher status, higher means and better connections than you?

Are you still going to tell me that America and Thailand offer you the same exact choice of options to defend yourself and your family from stronger parties?

 

Do you really want to make me laugh to death?

 

Now, did daughter cause some of the issue? Maybe, because she was in a place near Nana (Bully's) playing pool. But the idiot who broke the "anachary rules" failed to acknowledge that Thailand is not one big brothel and not all women he see are whores. Therefore, it is his fault.

Mr Clark, in Thailand nobody gives a fuck to whose fault it was.

And once you are in ICU with a smashed skull and internal bleedings it doesn't matter anyway and your hope of justice mainly lies in some Thai cop who "may later question" your butcher...

 

Violence towards women? It is a big a problem in the States as it is in LoS.

Posting drunk? Farang feminazis would have you in jail for verbal sexual abuse.. Try in Thailand to get the attention of some Thai cops while they are laughing at some Thai guy punching his wife senseless before their very eyes...

 

There are no "safe places" to raise children.

No, not that I know of anyway.

But there definitely are safer and less safe places and Thailand and all the rest of 3rd world countries that I know of score extremely bad in my book.

As a father, it's your choice, of course. Just be careful not to run out of spinach...

 

Thailand vs US vs Oz vs Italy vs UK...it's all the same. But I think that problems/dangers are good because it teaches them that the world is NOT a nice place. I would rather they learn that when I am around to help them.

I would rather put them in an environment where they could ALSO count on laws, police forces, judicial system and a general social drive to defend Truth and Justice instead of Status/Wealth/Connections...

 

But back on topic. You and I do not know fuck all what happened that night -- do not trust what is written in the papers. Who knows their source for the story? I merely said that with no information at all, save for the time and location, I would side with the Thai given my experiences. I still would.

And here lies the whole question. I do not need to know the bar owner's reasons nor the customer's to state that smashing someone's skull and sending him in ICU with internal bleedings in response to whatever non physically violent disagreement is in any case totally, absolutely, completely, entirely unacceptable anywhere but in a ruthless rabid dogs' society.

 

PS - I find it humorous that a guy who visits LoS a couple of weeks a year (if that) has it all figured out...nothing personal, just an observation.

And I find it equally humorous that a guy pretends to measure the whole of the American values, principles, culture, society, laws, police force and judicial system by his lowlife neighborhood in Detroit and the whole of the Thai values, principles, culture, society, laws, police force and judicial system by the social farang ghetto he lives in in Bangkok.

 

FWIW, I came in Thailand with lots of money and time to spend as a boy younger than most of the bargirls catering to farangs. I spent almost 3 years there NON-STOP and mainly lived amongst the locals in many different parts of the country (except the deep south for which I frankly don't care), many different social settings, many different kinds of people and neighborhood. I have developed a good understanding of the Thai language, a sufficient understanding of the main Issan dialect and a very basic ability to read Thai. I have gone the full range from living in a "bargirls condo" in BKK getting drunk and playing cards with the other Thai boys "meng-da" living there, to the high-end BKK nightlife, to touring alone the countryside by bus/train/rented motorbikes even having to sleep in makeshift ways because caught where there wasn't anything like a hotel/guesthouse/rented rooms, to renting rooms in the "students condos" in the bigger Isaan towns, to listening the stories of the Pattaya CIA undercover operatives while living with one of the then Supergirl's top dancers...

I have extensively traveled all over Europe with my mates during our summer school holidays (2 months at a time), I have later visited (alone) several Arab (yes I distinguish them), African and Asian countries and I have lived for a year in the USA (West Coast).

It was at that point that started my SEA adventure which terminated 3 years later when I met my now wife accompaining a farang friend of mine to attend his courses at a major Bangkok university (I still consider it an "incident" ).

I had long learned that no real normal life is possible for a foreigner in Thailand (read: no real integration, no matter how willing you are. Before commenting on this point, go check what integration really means) so we are now living in Italy, I am back at uni and she attends the same school in which my mother teaches, learning Italian (free courses especially for foreigners) and working part-time.

She goes out with my sister's friends (same age) and has made new friends of her own.

The only Asians around here (a typical 40000 inhab. north/center Italy town) are the Japanese wifes of the (Japanese) managers of the big Japanese plants in the industrial zone out of town. Most of them attend the same classes of my wife and are among my wife's new friends.

It goes without saying that she is NOT and she feels NOT like a second class citizen over here and she has got more or less the same rights that any Italian enjoy plus some others especially protecting foreigners from racial-based discriminations.

 

I have not set foot in Thailand since I left 1.5 years ago and we have no plans to do so in the near future, her parents will come to visit us in a couple of months.

[rogueyam]

FIGJAM - Thank you for all of your excellent posts to this very interesting and important thread. I will be brief here because you have said just about everything I would say on this topic, and I agree completely with what you have written.

 

I have just two points:

 

1) There is a HUGE moral difference between saying "LOS has serious, uncontrollable dangers that must be taken into account when deciding to come here," and saying "LOS is no different, really, from farangland, and those who are harmed here have almost certainly brought it on themselves." The second of these is a dangerous lie that is inexcusable to tell.

 

2) Those who compare what happened in the subject case (even based on what little is known) to America, and say that something comparable could be expected here are telling foolish, immoral lies. I have lived in San Francisco's Mission District (Old Hippie's example) for twenty years, and I have also spent a lot of time in Detroit (another poster's example). Stories like the one that started this thread simply do not happen in these places. Period. To say otherwise is to lie. (Sorry, guys, but that's the truth.) "Detroit" is, of course, code for the black underclass. Do some poor black people in America act like violent savages? Sure. Do BAR OWNERS in Detroit maim people over property disputes? No they do not. Not ever. Period. Same-same in San Francisco, in spite of the presence of some violent thugs here as well (typically of the latino flavor, at least here in the Mission). To compare the behavior of business owners to that of poor, marginalised, criminal scum, and conclude that the situations are equivalent is profoundly dishonest and just plain wrong.

 

 

- rogue yam

[Zorro]

Let's put this whole argument into some perspective.

 

What country recently had the dubious distinction of some 2000 extra judicial killings?

 

Yes, it was Thailand.

 

Comparisons with any western democracies are ludicrous.

 

The true murder rate in Thailand must be astounding.

[jxxxl]

There was an incident in CM recently where an acquaintance was knocked off a motorbike by a backhoe, and while he was picking himself up, was run over and killed. Did this get logged as murder?

 

Yes, I think the murder rate here is astounding.