Sometimes when I read Ian’s blogs I found expressions like “Thai people don’t know how to plan”. This is certainly not true of Thai middle class but it might have a bearing of truth on very poor people. However this would be similar anywhere, in any country.

The 45 million Americans who do no have a health insurance can be accused of the same thing. They cannot afford a proper medical coverage. And they don’t know how to plan because you have to pass a certain level of affluence before you start to plan. This is human.

In both cases mentioned it’s the failure of the State, not ordinary people. (Thai state in fact pays each one 1200 Baht a year – or that might be only for the old age group – anyway it doesn’t cover a serious accident or disease). A Thai who brakes his leg in a motor bike accident and has to stay in hospital for three weeks will be asked to pay ten thousand Baht.

Now, Ian belongs to an age group that were taught in school that this world is totally deterministic. That he is a child of his time he proves again and again in his arguments. The world according to this view is divided into watertight compartments and nothing really changes, things just go on and on untouched by any circumstances. That is the Science of 1950.

This is the way Ian uses his knowledge also; as it cannot be changed, as it is all deterministic and therefore eternally true, all he can do is to run it like a game, a display, a show.

As I have a number of relatives of the same age group as Ian, I know already that you can only have a discussion with them up to a certain point. They will never leave their deterministic universe no matter how hard you try. And we are all children of our times so I don’t blame him for that.

So why does Ian, and for example Seven, attack Thai people in an unfair mode? Basically, it’s a inferiority complex. You come to foreign country and settle there; by the time you get irritated on some of the customs in your new country and start blaming it. Every immigrant does that, it’s a way to defend yourself – after all you have settled in another country because you like the place but still it will never be your own country so you defend yourself by blaming it. This takes place daily all over the world but normally mouth-to-mouth. To use a weblog for doing it – I feel is a bit out of place.

For Seven, I don’t see the point in using this blog for descriptions of strange behaviour of the Eesan (Isan) people. (His blog about the way they walk).

I have worked three years in Thailand and I have met many people from Isan (ordinary people, not bar workers) and I haven’t noticed something peculiar with them. And if someone has, I cannot see it as something else than another kind of inferiority complex from the observer. (The very opposite, then, to what it pretends to be).

I gather it must feel strange for an individual from Isan who come to Bangkok and read in a paper about the peculiarities of  his own people.

I have worked in UK too. And by the way, I have some friends who own sailing-boats and have been around the world with them. One amazing fact was told to me by one of these families – at that time they had lived, on the boat, in the harbour of Torrevieja in Spain for six years. And the women of this family was the chairman of the club of those settlers so she knew what she talked about.

She told me this: British people were the worst of all groups, arrogant, no control in their drinking and British women were the easiest catch of all nationalities. That’s Europe!

One more thing, very recently a story appeared in the paper about a HIV-infected man who succeeded to seduce 200 young Swedish girls. No Swede would find it interesting to blog about that. And is happens all the time in many countries. Some people infected by HIV are known for taking up a last mission in life: to infect as many as possible. And as the same person doesn’t mention to the victim what’s going on, well, how could they know.

About the Isan people and surgery of noses. Wouldn’t it be more interesting to write about this fashion of surgery on a higher level, a lot of Thai people do it and a lot of people in many countries of the world are doing it(?). Not doing that is what I call unfair.