Category · 9 articles
Us & You
Explained from the inside, for people who weren't born here.
How the romance scam industry actually works — and who's really running it
300,000 people work in Southeast Asia's scam compounds. Most are trafficking victims. And in Thailand, the people losing money aren't the foreigners — they're Thais.
The foreigner price: a Thai explanation
Thai national parks charge foreigners five to ten times the local rate. I'm Thai, I pay the local rate, and I think the policy is defensible and the enforcement isn't.
The pension system is called your children
Remittances from adult children reach around 30% of rural Thai household income. It isn't a scam or a red flag — it's the pension system, and a fertility rate of 1.18 is about to break it.
The other foreigners
Nearly five million migrant workers are in Thailand — over 10% of the labour force and 4.3–6.6% of GDP. When either Thais or expats say "foreigners in Thailand", neither group means them.
The English Thailand isn't a translation of the Thai one
English-language Thai news isn't a translation of the Thai-language press — it's a separate product for a different audience. Here's what you're missing and how to get at it.
Your nickname is older than your name
Thai nicknames aren't diminutives of formal names. They're what's left of the naming system Thailand had before 1913 — which is why Kanchana is called Kai.
Kreng jai: the one rule underneath all the others
Kreng jai, saving face, mai pen rai, the smile, the avoidance of confrontation — these aren't six Thai customs. They're one mechanism, and it has real costs.
When the tour arrives
Thailand's online pile-ons are called ทัวร์ลง — "the tour descends." A culture built on not imposing on people produces some of the most intense mobbing anywhere. That isn't a contradiction.
The price of milk and rice
Sin sot's old name was ค่าน้ำนมข้าว — the price of milk and rice. It isn't buying a wife. In a country with a ฿600 pension, it's a transfer between retirement systems.
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