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I, Me and Myself
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Yes, I'm kind of three persons in one. The first guy (I) has no idea what he wants, the second guy (me) knows exactly what he wants and the third guy (myself) knows everything better. As a result, the three of us together (we) know not very much!
Having been in conflict with each other all of our life together, we finally, at the age of 60, have reached a mutual understanding in peaceful coexistence. Actually, thoughtfully analyzing the teachings of the Buddha during the last 5 years or so and comparing them with our experiences of life, contributed greatly to this, making bits and pieces falling into place - at last!
During the last 17 years we lived in SE-Asia, most of the time in Thailand, but since Febr. 2006 in Cambodia. I have not planned this at all, it just happened. For me it was simply to do it and this web site was definitely composed by myself. However, just this page in particular is from the three of us, in mutual agreement, even though with some reservations from me, but nevertheless. It was decided I would write it, so further in singularis.
Though I'm a physicist-engineer and thus should only bother about exact matters, I yet think and philosophy a lot about humanities. Previously I had much of that on my web site, but finally removed it all when it became clear to me that it doesn't do me any good there. Indeed: "talking is silver, silence is gold" (very difficult for me to live by).
In fact, I have chosen the wrong education. I should not have become an engineer, but rather studied psychology and have made big money in the advertisement business. But then not again, cause I'm too honest for that, meaning I must believe in what I say and you definitely should not do that in advertising. The customer knows what is best and a good salesman confirms that, by arguing how well his product helps the customer to reach "the best", not about what "the best" is. For the same reason I can't sell myself either and that's probably why I never made any career. Needless to say that I would totally fail in politics? (I actually tried once, so I know)
Being an engineer isn't that easy either. My boss orders me to make a more simple design, because the "right" one in my view, is too expensive. If then the according machine doesn't work properly, I'm blamed for it, not my boss. If I argue against my boss too often, I will get fired sooner or later. If I advice a customer that the project he wants to have done is not feasible, my boss gets very upset because I made him lose a customer - I'm not allowed to talk with customers any more (it happened to me). If I do not advice the customer and the project fails in the end, guess who will be blamed for it? It's not easy to get a good reputation a an engineer, let alone to get "wealthy" by it. It are the sellers who make the big money, not the producers.
Apart from being a priest (a 'believing' one - I'm an agnostic myself), the only jobs that I have a call for is to be a teacher, or an artist. In such occupations you can express the truth you believe in and be appreciated for it. Indeed, the artist is in me, making many drawings as a kid and youngster already and also in technical school, my design drawings stood out in aesthetical appearance from the others and my engineer colleagues later on. Today I would like to work as a freelance graphical designer, but I lack professional merits to attract any customers and would have to learn a lot on other software as well. For my personal needs, mainly my web site, Photoshop is fully sufficient.
However, I actually did work as a teacher during one year at a technical gymnasium and found that teaching indeed is THE profession for me. The same experience I had with teaching English to Thai children and teenagers. Well, my late mother was a teacher herself, so I guess it went into my genes? I should have added an education in pedagogics to my engineering one and have become an authorized teacher in engineering instead - too late now.
Thus I wound up in Thailand as an engineer, being offered a job as such there. I should have returned to the safe Swedish social welfare state, after that job ended with the economical crisis in Asia 1997, but I decided to stay - it caused my Swedish wife to divorce me (rightly so, no blame on her).
During my previous years in Bangkok, surrounded by foreigners like myself, I didn't really change very much on the personal level, but so much the more afterwards, living with the Thais in rural Thailand. I might as well say that I became a "man" then, having been a "big boy" before only. Thailand is not a social welfare state and "justice" varies with how much one pays the police and other officials. Naturally, because the official salaries are far too low to provide a reasonable standard of living. Even worse in Cambodia, where the average is well below 50 US dollars a month, more like 30 dollars. Hence, all governments in poor developing countries claiming to fight corruption, but not willing to pay its lower ranked officials more than a starvation salary, are simply lying up front.
Moral and ethics, even the perception of good and evil are very much different from what they are in the rich western world. It has nothing to do with religion and/or culture, but with economical conditions only. Money not only governs the world, it also and most specifically governs the people's minds. Hence, I'm convinced that the same applies everywhere in the world. This should not be confused with social behavior, which indeed has very much to do with religion and culture.
One can make the most peculiar experiences here, like one of many in Thailand, that I never forget. I talked with the victim of an usurer, she just paid to. When I said this is a bad guy, the victim did not agree: oh no, he is a smart businessman and she made thumbs up. This of course means she would do exactly the same, exploiting others to the max extend, if she only would get the chance. From this and other related experiences I know that here nobody asks how you make your money, just you have it and the more you have, the more 'human' you are. The poor surely envy the rich, but do not have the hostile attitude towards them, that western socialists have. The poor admire the rich instead for being so smart and strong, etc. The poor would behave the same way as the rich, if they would get the chance - which they also do with each other.
How about this guy in a Thai farmer village, who lets his illiterate mother sign a paper, by which he, her unwittingly, could mortgage the small piece of land she had (bought for 40 baht many decades ago, now worth a 100,000). He took the money from the bank and disappeared - never heard of again. Finally his sister became a prostitute in the go-go bars of Bangkok, to pay the bank back. Many bar girls are in similar positions. This is how the families "stick together" ... exploiting each other. Wannna have a bar-girlfriend btw, to give her a 'decent' life? Her family will "love" you!
Travel with the bus through rural Cambodia and observe that most of the many, many very poor shelters have TV-masts, though there is no electricity grid. They use batteries, that can be charged somewhere there is a diesel generator. They are so poor that they can't pay a few dollars per month to send their kids to school - the TV likely costs more!! Instead the kids can work and make some money, much "better". In the streets of Phnom Penh, they can make half a dollar with brushing the rich foreigner's shoes in 5 minutes, whereas their father would have to work hard a whole day to make one lousy dollar only. Thus pappa doesn't work any more and drinks whisky with his friends all day and gambles from what is left of the 4 - 5 dollars the kids bring in every day and late evenings. He "loves" his kids, that he is too poor to pay school for. This is how the families "stick together" ... exploiting each other.
How about this one: a man in a farmer village rapes his 14 year old grand-daughter. The aunty-caretaker became very much upset, not by the act of rape, but so much the more by the 'horrible' consequence that she now couldn't sell the girl's virginity any longer, a 500 dollars value, which is a small fortune in a poor farmer village. For reasons like these I have no pity with the poor, the beggars and other deprived ones. They are not a bit better than those they are exploited and suppressed by and so I ignore their misery. One becomes hard here, actually!
Poor people can't deal with money either, very strange as I at least would expect the opposite. They lose whatever money they get within hours and days, spending it on both necessary and unnecessary things, often gambling and without a thought on saving anything. If you have a poor girlfriend here, you better be well off yourself, meaning you have a good regular income, because however much you may have in the bank, won't last very long otherwise.
An American friend of mine lost his 250,000 dollars within a year on the family in the village where he went to live with his Thai wife. He met her in the States before, where they got married and lived many years, having a common economy together and so also in Thailand, their bank account was on both names. His wife gave the money away to various family members, without him knowing about it, until he one day went to the bank for some cash, only to find out nothing was left. Did the receiving family members become wealthy? No, they spent it on booze, parties, sex, gambling, etc - they are again as poor as ever. The American guy had to take up a bank loan to survive the remaining years to his pension. Now he has it, but his life's savings are gone for ever, he's well over 60 now, has a heart condition, asthma as well and hospitals ask for money first, before doing anything....
Just today I read in the news about a 64 year old German man, being shot dead by a pillion rider in Pattaya, Thailand. He had previously bought a 5 million baht worth house on the name of his former Thai wife. His present "wife" (not registered "marriage") is just 25 years old (the usual case, most surely a former bar-girl) and was suing the former wife (most likley of the same brand) for the return of the house and other assets. Then imagining that many thousands of such "dirty old men", are making Thailand rich (not the bar-girls, they stay poor in the end, or even get killed in the further process as well.... the family in "need".) My American friend above doesn't fit in this pattern - his wife is even older than he is, but where money is concerned, what is the difference?
I myself didn't do better in the financial sense, worse in the social one. I don't really want to mention it here, but the other day I got approached by an other victim of the same wicked women I lived married life with and who ripped me of most of my money. In a few seconds she finished three years of "love for ever" with wordly saying I had paid for sex only!
The a.m. victim found my name on some envelopes in her home (that I largely built - see picture) and so he found my web site. He met her around 5 years after my time, so she's still "active":
Therefore I mention it here, in case you who read this, also would have become involved with her - Jamjan Kamkaew (Noi) in Ban Huai Bong, Amphur Ban Rai, Uthai Thani province. She "hunts" in Pattaya's bars and nightlife since years and has HIV now - beware!
Btw, watch out in a civil marriage with a Thai woman. From unoffical side I have the information that, though Thai law splits assets 50-50 in case of a divorce, a foreigner signs him unwittingly a waver, so it becomes 0 -100 in her benefit - only sign translated papers! (you will not get this confirmed from official side). In general, never buy property on a Thai name, nor invest in it, unless in a company, in which you are a registered shareholder, or in case of land, you have a lease on it.
A saying I once heard, so true: "If you come from a rich town, to live in a poor village, you will become poor too." When I am asked about my girlfriend, I honestly answer that I'm not rich enough to have a poor girlfriend ( the only kind I can get here). Thus I don't have one - my rule of life has become:
STAY AWAY FROM POOR PEOPLE !
To be continued..
