Yep. In a lot of the villages you can see changes, and the changes extend to attitudes as well, not just improvements in the quality of life. In the village I visit from time to time, the foreigner population has shot up in the past three years, and to be honest it is easy to understand why. The lifestyle is better than BKK (though the mod-cons are sparse and the entertainment is almost zero), the weather is better than BKK and to be candid, the people are a shed-load more pleasant and honest than in BKK (yes, a generalization, I know, but not untrue for being so).

As far as aI know none of these foreigners believe it is their job to change anything, they are just bringing their own lifestyle and attitudes with them and the Thais generally seem to like them better. So the villages change, and the people change. This is what populations have been doing for millennia, but I’m damn sure this stupid government will think it’s a bad thing.

Or put another way: foreigners are helping Isaan people overcome their economic and racial status in a country where Northeasterners get scant notice or aid.

I only read BD’s summary and the verbose abstract, but that’s what it looks like to me and it seems worth pursuing.

I did read the study linked here, so what more do I need to know about what the author was “thinking”? While there is no such kerfuffle about other asians marrying Thais, maybe its more profitable for caucasians with Thai spouses to stay under the radar.

What kind of laws do you think will be implemented on the back of such a study? In reality it means even more laws that penalize both the foreigner and the NE woman and their families. Does anyone for a second believe that the existing laws don’t already loudly reflect the policy makers bias?

Again, maybe a study on the machinations of the unholy marriage of lame academia and a subordinate judiciary cemented with a hefty dose of xenophobia, chauvinism and secterianism, such a study might elucidate what’s behind the lawmakers intentions. Unfortunately we know well what the criteria is. I don’t see that getting better before it gets much worse. Does anyone really believe that bringing an “aberration” into the spotlight will soften the lawmakers stance?

Sorry about the predictable response by the way. I was just surprised to learn you knew the writer’s intentions. But then if you can read minds everything’s predictable, right?

“Buddhism has little to offer these days, everything that Buddhism offers is explicable and achievable using plain common-or-garden psychology. Most of what remains is just superstition.”

That still seems to be slightly more than what the other major religions are offering, IMO.

A lot of what is called Buddhism is not the religious practice but something that has blended into this bizarre mix of cultural tradition that has very little to do with what Gotama himself intended.

However, strip this off from all this extra packaging and you can still find what the Buddha taught if you care to look for it that is.

“(…) scrutinized by people with arguable credentials and duplicitous intention (…)”

According to the Mahidol website she’s got a PhD in Women’s and Gender Studies from the University of British Columbia. What’s arguable about that? As for “duplicitous intention,” you do actually know what she’s thinking then?

Any anthropologist would be interested in how a minority group affects the culture of a country they’re living in. For example, I am sure many U.K. anthroplogists have studied the interactions and behaviors of Hindu and Muslim communities in the U.K.

And as Chdarat says, God knows enough Western anthropologists feel happy pontificating about Thailand.