Quote Originally Posted by BigRed View Post
I think some of you should take a step back and look at how immigrant communities are treated in your own countries before you start criticising the Thais. The UK for instance supposedly is proud of their multicultural society and has a tradition of integration. Trouble is, in reality we never trusted or liked the Jews, then the Jamacans, then the Indians, now the Eastern European gipsys and the Muslims. Come to that the Welsh, Scots, and Irish are a rum lot, not to mention them bloody Southerners.

Integration takes several generations and at the slightest trouble all the old predudices will emerge.

I know several countries where the loudmouthed, arrogant, yobbish, rich influx are resented and treated much worse than in Thailand. It's bad enough when we criticise immigrants, worse when we are the immigrants looking for a better life but wanting our own cultural standards and our little walled compounds, McDonalds, English Bars, KFC, etc and running down our hosts.
We are the immigrants? To where? Certainly not Thailand.

Let me give you a clue, we are not Immigrants if we have a Non-Immigrant visa or tourist visa in our passports, which accounts for 99.999% of us.
We are either tourists or temporary residents for purposes other than tourism (Non-Imm visas).

A small percentage get permanent residency. An even smaller percentage, almost not even worth mentioning here, become full Thai citizens. Only then can you call yourself an Immigrant.
Of course you'll never be 'Thai' no matter how much you convince yourself otherwise because you are caucasian but I digress.

Comparing Immigrants integrating to the UK and foreigners residing in Thailand only highlights the fallacy of your arguments. Indeed, it is laughable.

You can't integrate into a society when you are merely a temporary visitor. Let's start by getting the same rights as Thais let alone getting carried away with these grandiose ideas of integrating into their society! It's a closed shop.

FYI - McDonalds in Thailand, or McThai, is a wholly Thai company, used predominantly by Thais and brought from the US by a Thai guy who saw a market for it in the 60's. Running down out hosts? They can't get enough of it.