Hmm, productivity .......... Yes, some workers are not willing to work much, and are erratic in their attendance. Some are utter criminals. BUT the biggest drawbacks are lack of investment and lack of spending power. I'm sure my father-in-law could grow a lot more rice if he had a Kubota tractor, chemicals and a combine harvester. But he hasn't. The family poultry business has improved with a little bit of investment, but could be easily doubled again. My wife has sometimes run a shop, but so do dozens of other women in the village and i doubt if any usually make minimum wage because most of the villagers don't have much to spend. But most Thais will work hard when they see a point to doing so.
I think our most important contribution is that we can help fund new projects and upgrade others; but it is a highly competitive environment and failure is easier than success. I expect the loan sharks hate us, stealing their customers! Sure we are only a small factor in the overall economy, but nether the less one of the elements behind why living standards are improving. My wife and her sister have many friends with farang partners - what percentage of them i have no idea, but a bit higher than 0.08% !
Farang Husband in Issan
Farang Husband in Issan
My observation of relatives is that all of them are hard workers.. They'll put massive amounts of time out in the village into farming vegetables, fishing or whatever that have a minimal financial payback.. Those that still live out in the country doing farming have a completely different view of the value of their time versus those that have gone to work in a wage environment... I'd say, at least interacting with my relatives, that they're all rather hard-headed and see "their way" as the only way to do most things.. So, if it is a totally bolluxed up way of doing things, they tend to continue doing the same and getting the same half-assed results..
Dave
Farang Husband in Issan
We expats are a contribution, nothing more, nothing less. Thailand could easily do without our money.
We stimulate local economy by investing in house, car, education, daily life. We tend to spend more money than most Thais and in case of marriage we improve the life of whole Thai families. But we are not irreplaceable.
Thais can, as others, be divided in hard working and lazy, plus everything in between. Two examples from my rural area:
1. The only garage in the area is used by me for maintenance of my car plus repair. The head-mechanic is a 30-year old guy, works 7 days a week. You find him from 8 am to 6 pm, he works at least 70 hours per week. His wife works at the car wash department, part-time because of small kid. Together they might earn 15K baht per month. They work hard, and always with a smile, the real Isan people (for me).
2. Farmers are amongst the laziest people. They work hard, but in periods. When rice has to be planted they work long days in the field, but only 3 weeks. Same for cutting the rice, terrible job bending your back the whole day. But after 2 weeks they are ready and hang again in their hammocks. Cassava, sugar, it's all periodical work. In the times in between they hardly do anything at all. They sleep a lot, I'm still amazed how many hours they sleep per day, must be more than 12. The women "kill" their time with gambling, either playing card or hi-lo... :-"
Some work is useless and totally non-economic. The parents of my ex-wife grew rice, had to hire tractors, people, a lot of terrible work. And for what? I calculated and advised them to stop it and buy rice. Took some years but now they rent out the rice area to neighbours, they receive 20K baht a year for that, for which they could buy 1000 kg of rice, more than the family needs per year. So they have no more work and still their rice need is financed. Matter of calculating, but as someone mentioned they keep doing things like it was generations before, plus they are very stubborn, hard to convince that another way of work would be an improvement.
We stimulate local economy by investing in house, car, education, daily life. We tend to spend more money than most Thais and in case of marriage we improve the life of whole Thai families. But we are not irreplaceable.
Thais can, as others, be divided in hard working and lazy, plus everything in between. Two examples from my rural area:
1. The only garage in the area is used by me for maintenance of my car plus repair. The head-mechanic is a 30-year old guy, works 7 days a week. You find him from 8 am to 6 pm, he works at least 70 hours per week. His wife works at the car wash department, part-time because of small kid. Together they might earn 15K baht per month. They work hard, and always with a smile, the real Isan people (for me).
2. Farmers are amongst the laziest people. They work hard, but in periods. When rice has to be planted they work long days in the field, but only 3 weeks. Same for cutting the rice, terrible job bending your back the whole day. But after 2 weeks they are ready and hang again in their hammocks. Cassava, sugar, it's all periodical work. In the times in between they hardly do anything at all. They sleep a lot, I'm still amazed how many hours they sleep per day, must be more than 12. The women "kill" their time with gambling, either playing card or hi-lo... :-"
Some work is useless and totally non-economic. The parents of my ex-wife grew rice, had to hire tractors, people, a lot of terrible work. And for what? I calculated and advised them to stop it and buy rice. Took some years but now they rent out the rice area to neighbours, they receive 20K baht a year for that, for which they could buy 1000 kg of rice, more than the family needs per year. So they have no more work and still their rice need is financed. Matter of calculating, but as someone mentioned they keep doing things like it was generations before, plus they are very stubborn, hard to convince that another way of work would be an improvement.
Farang Husband in Issan
There in is my experience as well to smart to learn anything.FrazeeDK wrote:My observation of relatives is that all of them are hard workers.. They'll put massive amounts of time out in the village into farming vegetables, fishing or whatever that have a minimal financial payback.. Those that still live out in the country doing farming have a completely different view of the value of their time versus those that have gone to work in a wage environment... I'd say, at least interacting with my relatives, that they're all rather hard-headed and see "their way" as the only way to do most things.. So, if it is a totally bolluxed up way of doing things, they tend to continue doing the same and getting the same half-assed results..
I reserve the right to be wrong, mispell words type badly. leave words out of sentences because my mind works faster then my fingers. To be an OLD GIT I've earned it