Crackdown! Is Thailand Becoming a Rule of Law Society? [S8.E53]

Greg 00:00:05 On this episode, we ponder a question that we're almost afraid to ask is the rule of law finally coming to Thailand?

Ed 00:00:12 So if you've been noticing an uptick in stories about the authorities cracking down, you'll love this episode of the Bangkok Podcast.

Greg 00:00:32 So what the crap. Welcome to the Bangkok Podcast. My name is Greg Jorgensen, a Canadian who came to Thailand in 2001. Sick of the blue stains that eating blueberries left on my fingers, but now has to contend with the purple stains that eating mangosteen leaves on my fingers. Haha.

Ed 00:00:48 Pretty funny.

Ed 00:00:50 And I met Knuth, an American who came to Thailand on a one year teaching contract over 25 years ago, fell in love with Thai customer service staff who lead with a big heart rather than actual useful knowledge, so I never left.

Greg 00:01:03 I'm going to go on a limb and say, you're talking about the 600 people that assault you whenever you walk into a home, bro.

Ed 00:01:09 Dude, I practically live at home pro doing my renovations and.

Greg 00:01:13 Wave of orange aprons.

Ed 00:01:16 They're so nice. And then they rarely actually know more than me, which is the purpose. I'm the customer there. You know they work there. So their their level of knowledge is supposed to be at least one step more than me.

Greg 00:01:29 Right? We did a show about this, I think. I'm not sure if it was you and me or me and Evo about. I think it was you and me about the lack of Thailand's, like, home renovation subculture.

Ed 00:01:41 Yeah, DIY, DIY stuff.

Greg 00:01:43 Yeah, the DIY subculture. Yeah. You know, like we said, back in, like back in Canada, I could go to some any hardware store and there'd be some dude covered in sawdust with, like, two fingers missing, and he would know everything about every tool and joint and flange hinge, you know.

Ed 00:02:00 Well, Bangkok has the stores. It has stores, that are DIY, but mostly it's what I've what I've realized. It's mostly it's actually it's actually workers. It's actually Thai workers.

Ed 00:02:11 Go to the store. It's not like dad's, you know, in the in the stage. It's like a dad who's going to build a deck in his backyard.

Greg 00:02:20 Right, right.

Ed 00:02:21 But so usually. So usually the customer in Thailand actually knows more than the staff. But that's not what I expect. When I go there. I want the staff to have to know more than me.

Greg 00:02:32 I'm here to help, not to educate.

Ed 00:02:35 All right. We want to give you a big thanks to all of our patrons who support the show. Patrons get every episode a day early, behind the scenes photos of our interviews, a heads up to send questions to upcoming guests, and access to our discord server to chat with me, Greg, and other listeners around the world. But best of all, patrons also get an unscripted, uncensored bonus episode every week, wherever you're from. Current events and Bangkok topics on this week's bonus show. We chatted about a cool new website that tracks municipal complaints in Bangkok, and rates the districts on how responsive the authorities are, discussions on Nanae and how the Thai government, unsurprisingly, has pounced on her breakout fame to promote Thailand and a few quick discussions around passive aggressive neighbors communicating with construction workers.

Ed 00:03:25 And, of course, yet another tragic fire in a pub in Bangkok that could have been prevented. To learn how to become a patron and get all this good stuff, plus full access to over 800 bonus and regular back episodes, click this button at the top of our website.

Greg 00:03:46 That's right. And don't forget, if you listen to us on Spotify, you can now hear all of the bonus shows there as well. If you're a patron, simply link your Patreon account to your Spotify account and add our new feed titled Bangkok Podcast Badass Patrons Only. That's literally the title to hear the regular and bonus shows in the same place right? Then. On this episode, we ponder a question that may perhaps elicit snorts and automatic of course, knots when you hear it, is the rule of law finally being applied across Thailand. Now, I think we can all agree that laws are generally a good thing, especially for ever. Famously a rule of law guy. But everyone knows that their enforcement in Thailand is often a bit more elastic than they could be or should be.

Greg 00:04:28 But there have been some recent articles in the news, not to mention something that happened to me recently that made us wonder are things changing? Have the Thai authorities finally gotten sick of the good name of Thailand being associated with organized crime and lax law enforcement? Or is this merely another in a long line of enforcement blips that serve to let everyone know that the police are, in fact, still in charge before things go back to how they've always been? So, Ed, I got this idea because I, I'd seen like 6 or 7 different headlines over the past 2 or 3 days, right? All circled around this central idea of like, man, they really are cracking down.

Greg 00:05:03 So what are you seeing? What are you seeing out there?

Ed 00:05:06 Well, first off, I love the topic, of course, but I think you're right. So you, you and I have focused on a few of the crackdowns. So in particular we talked about a nominee ownership. And actually that relates to both business ownership and property ownership.

Ed 00:05:23 So there's different angles to it. and then we've also talked about, some kind of crackdown or maybe backlash against certain segments of tourists. it seems to be it seems to be Israelis have been getting a lot of lately, Indians. but but the question is, were these just isolated things or is it part of a larger pattern? And I agree with you. I agree with you. It's like, I mean, we're going to run through a bunch of examples. So the kind of purpose of the show is to expand. We're going to expand this topic to actually, they're not just cracking down on nominees. There's a whole bunch of different areas of the law that we're going to get into. that shows that there actually seem to be getting serious, like broadly serious.

Greg 00:06:14 Yeah. Like any news day you'll find, like they raided a factory or they arrested some people working without a work permit, or they closed a school that was working illegally or land encroachment or something. Like, those stories happen fairly regularly, but they're they're hardly anything but these headlines that we've seen are like kind of big deals.

Greg 00:06:31 And yes, they are making a big splash. And it seems to be something that is, sticking around. But for now anyway. But we'll we'll see how that lasts. So like you said, let's just let's just go through some of these headlines here and discuss what's going on. the first one is something that happened that started happening a few months ago, actually, but I think it finally came into effect pretty recently. And this is Thailand's end of the 60 day visa free stay for a lot of nationalities. Now, this is it might not seem like it's directed at like the rule of law clamping down, but the reason they did it at least, is what they said is because people were abusing the 60 day visa, which, you know, used to be 30, but they bumped it up to 60. People were abusing that in all kinds of ways, and they just kind of got sick of it. So they snapped things back and put it back down to 30 days for most nationalities.

Ed 00:07:25 Just to clarify by abuse. But Greg is saying is it is. People will come here and try to work on the this it's a tourist visa basically. So on a tourist visa you can't work and they're quite strict about it. We've talked about it a little bit. Even things like volunteering for no money is technically illegal in Thailand. right. And what they were, what they were discovered under the 60 day thing, which you also could renew is basically you had a lot of foreigners. Again, I think there were in this case a lot of Indians, who were, you know, working in restaurants or working in the tourism industry. Once they had 60 days, so they decided to roll it back to 30. and so they said, no, this is a just, you know, the rule of law is not just about the letter of the law. It's also about the spirit of the law. So.

Ed 00:08:20 The 60, the 60 days is really was meant to be as a tourist, not to start acting like someone who lives here.

Greg 00:08:28 You come in for 30 days. That's a pretty strict timeline, but you got 60. You got a bit more wiggle room to sort of look around and maybe.

Ed 00:08:35 Yeah, you can make some dough.

Ed 00:08:38 If you're a young person or like a low budget traveler in a 60 day period, you might think, hey, I can why don't I work for a couple of weeks and save some money?

Greg 00:08:48 Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, I mean, this is this wasn't just a little a little blip here. This affected the entire country. And it's 30 to 40 to 60, whatever it is, million tourists who come every year. So, you know, that was a pretty major change.

Ed 00:09:01 No doubt, no doubt.

Greg 00:09:03 The next one that we want to talk about is something we've covered before. I think we actually did a whole show on it recently, but it is, of course, the nominee, situation where people set up a company that is owned by a majority of Thai people only to be tricked and find out later that those Thai people don't exist, or that they're maids or drivers or just random people, and they have actually no input into the operation of this company that is making money.

Greg 00:09:28 And a lot of times transferring that money outside of Thailand, they've they've been really cracking down on this over the past few months. And almost every day you see several headlines where people are getting are getting slammed.

Ed 00:09:41 Right. Well, this so you posted a link, in our in our show notes. And, you know, as, as a rule of law, what I want to see is that if they decide to. Okay, let's start enforcing the law. What I want to see is that they're enforcing it the same against everyone. And it's not targeted because, you know, as I mentioned earlier, you know, there's nothing wrong with the government saying, hey, we notice a pattern among certain people. There's a lot of maybe Indians working in the tourism industry or whatever. But the truth is, when they enforce the law, they have to enforce it against everyone. They can't say, we're going to. We're going to crack down on Israelis. I think that's wrong, you know.

Greg 00:10:26 Yeah, I.

Ed 00:10:27 Agree. You know, you you know, you have to enforce it the same. So one thing I like about the story that you posted is that it actually involves Taiwanese and it's not again, I'm not picking on Indians and Israelis. I'm just saying it seems like those two, you know, those two groups have been in the news. They've been in the news the most, you know.

Greg 00:10:46 Yeah. Right.

Ed 00:10:47 Right. You know.

Greg 00:10:48 People pitching.

Ed 00:10:48 Is people bitching about either Indians or Israelis. And so I'm glad. I'm glad that they're I'm glad that they're enforcing enforcing the nominee rules against Taiwanese.

Greg 00:11:00 Yeah. And this is one of those things where like it the these crackdowns can sort of be seen to be applied in the wrong way as well. You know, like the like the laws are lax. The crackdowns, like you said, they can often be directed or targeted or unfair. but sometimes they are probably doing the right thing. Like in this case, it says seven suspects, including two Thais and five Taiwanese nationals, were arrested after immigration police dismantled an alleged transnational nominee shareholding company that uncovered 27 companies registered at a single house in Sam Cooke district of Pattani.

Greg 00:11:37 So clear. Clearly the law was being abused there, you know.

Ed 00:11:41 So no doubt as long as they're going after everyone, then I support it.

Greg 00:11:47 Yeah. It's interesting what the issue that came up in the last time we talked about this too, was that there's just these nominee cases. You know, they've got 10,000 of them. Oh yeah. We can get to like three a month.

Ed 00:11:59 Well we'll see. I mean, you know, I raised that point earlier. I found it interesting, you know, skeptic who said he, you know, basically said that the Thai government doesn't have the means to enforce this. So. But we'll see. I mean, it's like you pointed out, it's it's basically in the news every day. Some some new nominee bust is in the news every day.

Greg 00:12:22 Right. I will say, though, that the story also says financial records showed more than 130 million bought in circulation through certain corporate accounts within a five month period. We're in the Wrong Business Man podcast.

Greg 00:12:33 It doesn't pay that much.

Ed 00:12:35 Yeah, we need to set up an illegal nominee company and start raking it in.

Greg 00:12:39 Right. The Bangkok podcast, the Thornbury podcast, the podcast. That's right. The background podcast. Where did it go? So this one is very interesting. the headline here says six hospitals probed over birth record scam.

Ed 00:12:57 Again, this is something else that I feel good about because it doesn't fit the pattern we've been reading about. This is something different. In fact, it sounds almost American because, you know, right now in the US, there's a battle going on over birthright citizenship. And it's this idea that anyone born in America is a US citizen, right? And this, of course, it can be abused. In other words, you could be an illegal immigrant who crosses the border while pregnant just so your kid can be an American citizen.

Greg 00:13:33 Just happened.

Ed 00:13:33 Yeah, right. But in the US, there's also a problem of wealthy Chinese tourists who fly into the US again while pregnant.

Ed 00:13:44 And then they give birth in the US. Their kid is an American citizen and then they fly out. And this is something, you know, this is something Trump has been complaining about. But essentially this story is similar in that it's it's somehow Chinese in Thailand who I think it's Chinese women giving birth in Thailand. Now I think Thailand does not have birthright citizenship, but in this case, what they're doing is they're getting Thai guys to claim to be the fathers.

Greg 00:14:20 Right, right. Yeah. So, it wouldn't work if, you know, they claimed that I had been the father. Then an Asian baby comes out. They'd be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, something's up here. But you got, you know, a Thai guy who was getting paid to say, yep, that's my baby with this lady. Okay. And it's it's not. It's, you know, the the father is Chinese. He's in China. The mother came to Thailand. So it's kind of the same idea as what they're going through with the US, with birthright citizenship, but just a bit of an end run around the rule there.

Greg 00:14:48 That's right.

Ed 00:14:50 and actually, I do think there's somehow overlaps with like, the nominee thing because I think then this is how like deep this goes. I think then the, the, the act, the Chinese baby who now has Thai citizenship, they're then somehow using them as being like owners of companies.

Greg 00:15:10 Oh yeah. That would be great. Like, my six month old is the CFO of my new company.

Ed 00:15:15 Yeah. That's right, it's just the owner. Like, just the just the paper owner. So, again, again, I'm just glad that I'm glad that the crackdown is not just focusing on, let's say, for wrong, like, because, you know, sometimes you just get these generic complaints about for long. And listeners out there, the word farang does not really mean foreigner. It really means Westerner.

Greg 00:15:40 Yeah. You would not call someone from Africa offering a generally speaking.

Ed 00:15:44 That's right. so in this case, I, I, I'm glad that they're, they're chasing after Asians who are breaking the law as well as white people.

Greg 00:15:55 Although if Elon Musk came to Thailand, he'd be a farang because he. But even though he is from Africa. So.

Ed 00:16:00 That's right. Good point. Good point.

Greg 00:16:01 He is an African American anyway. yeah. This is this is interesting. So it says, so according to doctor blah blah blah, authorities are reviewing birth notification documents which record details such as the child sex, date and time of birth wait in the names of both parents. the documents must also be signed by the delivery attendant, a supervising physician and the hospital director. More than 160 cases across six hospitals are under review. If irregularities are found, the next stage could involve forensic examinations, including DNA testing. Hard to fake that.

Ed 00:16:29 That's right. Quite difficult.

Greg 00:16:31 Criminals are smart, man. you know, say what you will about crime not paying. But you gotta be smart to figure this stuff out. the next headline is something that, affects a lot of, civil servants. The headline says 5000 dishonest officials to lose jobs over exam scandal.

Ed 00:16:53 This is probably the best. This is probably the best of all these stories, because in this case, it's a crackdown against, Thai people, which which supports, you know, this supports the case that maybe Thailand is moving slowly, inexorably to become more of a rule of law society because this is a crackdown on Thai people.

Greg 00:17:16 Now, it's very easy to sort of gin up a lot of anger about the dirty foreigners and how they're exploiting our systems and our laws and, you know, getting all kinds of shortcuts. But. Right, these are Thai officials going after Thai people. So this story says all key suspects in the civil service exam rigging scandal have been arrested. The officials who conspired with them will be charged and exam cheats will lose their job. 11 officials are going to be charged with illegal assembly, document forgery and putting false information into a computer system. Man, that computer law in Thailand is really, really powerful and really broadly applicable, isn't it?

Ed 00:17:54 Yeah. Which could which could be good or bad.

Ed 00:17:56 But in this case, I think what was going on is they. So these are, these are Thai people applying, for like, bureaucratic positions with the Thai government, and they have to take it like a civil service exam, like this is like a. Yeah. And and in this case, they were cheating somehow, like, they I think maybe the scores were faked, or maybe they got copies of the exam ahead of time. I'm not sure what the exact scam was.

Greg 00:18:23 Yeah. So I'd put that out. The permanent secretary for interior said the investigation found irregularities in the exam scores of 5000 new local government officials. Out of the 15,000 hired this year, they would probably lose their jobs. About 400,000 people sat the exams that were organized late last year to fill 6700 positions.

Ed 00:18:45 Holy shit. Oh, wait. Say that again. Wait. Read that again.

Greg 00:18:48 Yeah. 400,000 people sat the exam.

Ed 00:18:51 Holy. Oh my God.

Greg 00:18:53 400,000 to fill 6700 positions. Although.

Ed 00:18:58 Oh my God.

Greg 00:18:59 In the previous paragraph, it says that 15,000 were hired, so that doesn't really match up anyway.

Ed 00:19:04 Still. That's insane.

Greg 00:19:06 Maybe they just the way typical government bureaucracy. Maybe they're like, well, we want to hire a person for this job. Let's hire two for the same job just as a spare. All right. All right. So thousands of candidates paid bribes ranging from 350 to 800,000, but depending on the desired positions to ensure they got a passing grade.

Ed 00:19:23 Brutal. So this is this is the best headline so far.

Greg 00:19:27 If it involves anyone, action will be taken against them all. Pressed on whether senior party figures would also be subject to investigation, he replied certainly if they are members of the party they will be no exceptions. Not holding my breath for that one, But baby steps.

Ed 00:19:39 Right? Well, since, most of the time people do complain about Thai government, inefficiency. If if this is endemic, if the actual exams are scams, that might explain some of the inefficiency.

Greg 00:19:55 Yeah, we'll see how this one plays out. and the, the second to last one from the from the headlines, the last headline we're going to read, is actually the big news, the big tragic news of another fire at a pub up in Chatuchak district the other day as we're recording this on July 15th. But yeah, I mean, I think everyone's probably heard the story, read this, read the story and seen the video. Flammable insulation inside the pub. electrical spark blocked exits, locked exit doors. People lost and confused. Just another really, really enraging tragedy that could have been prevented. There's not much more to say than that.

Ed 00:20:29 Yeah, it's a nightmare. We talked about a little bit on the bonus show. obviously it's a it's a sign that regulations have not been enforced in pubs. So as far as our topic tonight, the issue will be will there be outrage over this such that they actually start enforcing that? Because the problem is not with the law. The law already says you have to have exits.

Ed 00:20:58 You have to, you know, have ventilation. In this case, it's all about enforcement as usual. And as we said on the bonus show, what we need is outrage. Like Thai people cannot cannot be minded about everything. Like Thai people need to be outraged about this totally to get the laws to actually be enforced.

Greg 00:21:19 Yeah, I've said that for years and I'll say until I'm blue in the face, it's Thailand has enough laws. What it lacks is enforcement, and that's a problem. But you know what? I'm not holding my breath for this one, man. I mean, it started and it didn't start, but in recent memory, the biggest one was the Fire Atlantica, where like, 66 people died. Then you had a few years ago, we had that bus that caught on fire, and all those school kids were burned on this bus. and, you know, people were angry for a few weeks. And then they say changes have been made, but where? When? I don't know, I guess not.

Greg 00:21:52 And then it just dies down and people forget about it and, like, rinse, repeat. It sucks.

Ed 00:21:57 Well, I just I just hope that's not true at this time.

Greg 00:22:02 Yeah. This is terrible. So we need we need sustained, consistent, loud anger and feedback for sure. Otherwise. Otherwise I don't think anything's going to change. So yeah, this this is just a recent story just the other day. So, unfortunately we're going to have to read more about it as it plays out. but what I want to finish on actually, is something that happened to me personally now. and I think most people who listen to this are pretty well acquainted with Thailand's visa and work permit system. You most people can only stay here one year at a time. And, you know, every year you've got to trudge up to Chiang Wattana, which is this behemoth building in the northern boonies of Bangkok. That's right. you know, you've got to take an entire day sitting there, waiting in line while they process your paperwork and take your fingerprints and sign a billion pieces of paper.

Greg 00:22:51 So I did this, last week, and I wasted an entire day up there and left my passport, photos, all this stuff. And, you know, I left with with the agent from my work that handles all this stuff for us. And she said, yeah, well, they'll they'll let us know next week. And first of all, I'm like, wait, didn't I get it automatically? Like, I've been doing this for 26 years. Right, right. Like I have to, you know, and until they they deign to give me another year to stay in the kingdom. Okay. That's how it's done. So this was last week. so I had the weekend, and then on Monday, I decided to work from home because our company is pretty good with that kind of stuff. You can work from home on Mondays and Fridays if you'd like. And my son is on summer vacation now, so I figured, like, I'll work from home today. We can have lunch and stuff like that.

Greg 00:23:38 So I get a call from my agent on Monday afternoon and she's like, hey, an immigration officer stopped by the office to look looking for you.

Ed 00:23:45 Oh, shit. You mean to stop by your your company, your office, where you work?

Greg 00:23:50 Yeah, like a spot check to make sure that I was real, to make sure that I am actually at the office working.

Ed 00:23:56 Now, do you remember this ever happening before?

Greg 00:24:00 Never. Never happening in my entire 26 years here has never happened once. I will say though, 26 years ago I was working for a company without a work permit and immigration would come by just to sort of do a spot check and I would have to leave. But they did. They didn't come to check on me.

Ed 00:24:17 The right, I get it. Okay. So that doesn't count. That doesn't count.

Greg 00:24:21 Yeah. But anyway, so I mean it wasn't a big deal. The guy showed up and he's and the, the, the the HR person was like, well there was like six people in the office.

Greg 00:24:30 She's like, no one works here on Monday. Everyone works from home. So Greg isn't here and he's like, oh, okay, okay, no problem. But Tuesday, yesterday, as we record this, I had to go up to Chang Wattana again to prove that I'm real.

Ed 00:24:44 Wait, wait. Didn't did. Didn't you just go to your office? Are you. Or why did you have to go back to Chang Wattana?

Greg 00:24:52 Well, the guy's not going to come back again because of course they can't tell you, right? He can say like, hey, I'm going to come and check that you're real, be here at this time and date like.

Ed 00:25:00 Oh shit, oh, shit. So, so because you missed the spot check, you had to go back up to Chang Wattana.

Greg 00:25:05 Right? So suddenly the onus was on me to prove that I exist. So I had to go back up to Chang Watson. Another hour and a half in traffic.

Ed 00:25:12 Okay, this is proof. So it sounds like Thailand is finally becoming a rule of law.

Greg 00:25:17 Society backing down man. Yeah. And, so, I mean, it was all very friendly. And I walked up there and I sat down and they signed a piece of paper, and they took a picture of me against the logo that said, like, Chang, what's in that immigration bureau?

Ed 00:25:30 Oh my God. Okay. This is so funny. Yeah. Yeah.

Greg 00:25:33 The whole the whole thing took about 20 minutes, and then I'm like, all right, well, back in the car and back in another hour in traffic to get back to the office. But it's never happened to me before.

Ed 00:25:42 Yeah. I mean. Yeah. Something's going on. I think overall, overall, I'm going to say it's good as long as it's applied evenly. You know, as I said. But, it just like the fact that you've been here so long, you're married to a Thai person, you have a son, you've been paying taxes forever. It's just it's a little bit silly that that you have to go through this, that we have to go through this.

Ed 00:26:07 It's just. It's a bit ridiculous.

Greg 00:26:10 You know, a dude that arrived here last month has to go through this, right? You know, the exact same process up to Changhua to now wait all day for a visa. But after.

Ed 00:26:20 26 years. After 26 years, you should have kind of. I know you're waiting on, citizenship and all that kind of stuff, but after just after 26 years, you should have just kind of automatically been put in another category.

Greg 00:26:34 Yeah, like I'll jump through hoops, but give me the benefit of the doubt. Like I'm here. I'm not going.

Ed 00:26:38 After a decade, after a decade, Christ. Or after being married? It it's you know, it it we've we've said it many times. Thailand is very friendly to tourists, but actually not friendly to expats. Like in terms of the law. The law is not friendly to expats.

Greg 00:26:58 Yeah. Anyway, it was it wasn't that big of a deal. Just, you know, normally actually I am world there on Mondays, but this one Monday, I just happened not to be at work.

Greg 00:27:06 So anyway, interesting to see that things are changing that way. But I wonder how long it'll stick around.

Ed 00:27:13 I agree. I mean, the question is going to be in six months or one year. Are we going to see the same headlines? That's the question. I, I do feel that this is different. I mean, I don't want to be the naive guy, but I feel this this is somewhat different in how and how broad it is like, and it's covering Chinese and it's covering Thai people. So maybe, maybe things maybe, maybe things are changing for the better.

Greg 00:27:41 Maybe. And just as I end on a footnote here, you know how the work permits are. I have always been a blue book. Like a blue visa kind of thing. I mean, when you work for a buoy company like I used to be when I worked with a Goda, that's a digital work permit, which is cool. It's on your phone. But these are the new physical work permits. I'm not sure if you've seen them or not.

Greg 00:27:59 Check that.

Ed 00:27:59 Out. Oh, cool.

Greg 00:28:00 Just a little, little pink card.

Ed 00:28:02 Oh, nice. Mine is up in December. I guess I'll get one of those.

Greg 00:28:06 Yeah, yeah. Seems to be much easier. So cool. There we go. Anyway, that's our take on that. if you got any stories about getting caught up in any of these nets, hopefully nothing serious, but, if you've seen anything changing, let us know. We'd love to hear what's going on out there.

Ed 00:28:21 Well, sure.

Greg 00:28:22 Yeah. All right. Let's get into some love, loathe or live with where one of us picks a particular aspect of living in Bangkok, which we discuss to decide if it's something we love about living here. Loathe about living here, or have come to accept as something that we just have to learn to live with, no matter how we feel about it. This weekend, I got a question for you.

Ed 00:28:39 All right. Hit me.

Greg 00:28:40 It's to do, actually, with the thing I just talked about.

Greg 00:28:43 Now, when you go to a bank or immigration or whatever, any official thing where you're asked to sign a stack of documents, how do you feel about signing? Say they give you ten pages to sign. How do you feel about that? Not about doing the signature ten times, because that's not a big deal, to be honest. But how do you handle writing your signature? Because my signature is can can be quite different from time to time. And there have been times where someone has said, this doesn't match the one on your passport. It's similar, but not the same. So whenever they tell me about this, I get a little bit nervous, like, oh man, I better go. Oh, interesting. Signature gets the same.

Ed 00:29:31 No, I've been in this exact situation. Exactly. it this relates to what we were just talking about. It's it's silly. How many, how many times we have to give our passport to someone. I, you know, I joke that half the people in Thailand have a copy of my passport signed, like a signed copy of my passport.

Ed 00:29:52 I just hand out. I just hand out copies of my passport, like, left and right, and I sign.

Greg 00:29:58 Helicopter and just bomb them over the city like everyone get.

Ed 00:30:00 One. And the number of the number of times we have to put our signature down is crazy, as you said. And I've been in this exact situation, like, just like you. I've been told that, oh, your signature doesn't match because, I mean, my my handwriting in general is bad. My signature is a mess. You know, my signature is, you know, you know how artists just have a weird, like, scribble?

Greg 00:30:24 Yeah.

Ed 00:30:25 I'm like that, dude. I just like, throw down, like like crazy squiggles.

Greg 00:30:30 Oh, really? Yeah. Mine's kind of legible. I do the capital G, and then I do R and then the G going down, and then I do a capital J, and then I do a squiggle and then it's Jorgensen. So there's a G in the middle of my last.

Greg 00:30:44 And I usually do like a little push down with like a G coming down. But sometimes I miss it. So it just says like J squiggle with no g. And then they look at it going like,

Ed 00:30:54 Well, just on principle. On principle. I gotta go lothe just, just I don't like the fact that we have to do it. I don't like doing it. And then, like you, I run into consistency problems because my actual full name is I Am the Third and that's my that's on my passport. The third.

Greg 00:31:14 Oh.

Ed 00:31:15 And then and then I don't normally when I sign I don't put the third. But then sometimes they notice that they notice that I haven't put the third and they're looking and it's they. It doesn't match. So I find the whole process annoying just on principle loathe. And then in fact, I mean, I'm not like. Like literally when I'm doing it, I'm not hating it, but it's just I don't like it. So it's I think I'm over the line into loathe.

Greg 00:31:43 Interesting. I get a different take I live with, I don't really mind doing a bunch of signatures. Doesn't bother me, but this one is almost a self low self loathe for me. Right, right right. That I can't write my signature right at the same time every time. It's it makes me nervous. It's like going through security at the airport. You're like, did I pack any guns or drugs? I don't think I did, but Jesus.

Ed 00:32:03 Well, no. Well, that shows you that it's not normal. It's not normal. Just have to write your signature. So many times. It's just it's just a sign of. It's a sign of excess bureaucracy, excess paperwork. I I'm a load.

Greg 00:32:16 All right. Good enough.

Ed 00:32:17 All right. A final thanks to our patrons who support the show. Patrons get a ton of cool perks and the warm, fuzzy feeling knowing that they're helping and are never ending. Quest for cool content. Find out more by clicking support on our website and connect with us online.

Ed 00:32:32 Where Bangkok podcasts on social media, Bangkok Podcast on the web or simply Bangkok Podcast at gmail.com. We love hearing from our listeners and always reply to our messages. Unless, of course, you're a PR agent who pitches clients who have no connection to Bangkok.

Greg 00:32:49 That's right, you can also listen to each episode on YouTube. You can send us a voicemail through our website. We'll feature that on the show. Hit me up on blue Sky on. Hey Greg, thanks for listening. Everyone. Take it easy out there and we will see you back here next week for sure.