Empathy And Compassion

This submission is in response to the many submissions which insult the old, bald, ugly, fat, uneducated, stupid Farangs who may associate with Thailand’s bar girls. In my opinion we should all have some empathy and compassion towards each other.

OLD – It’s inevitable that we all get old and a lot of people are like my mother who says she still feels eighteen on the inside. I have an older friend who is 66 and he still has an eye for the ladies. His head will turn when a pretty girl
walks by and he has a younger wife. I say good luck to him and hope I will be like him when I am older. I’m 38 by the way.

I think all the comments about disgusting and sad old men being with young Thai girls are from young people. Put yourself in their shoes, what will you be like when you are their age and consider what happened to them before they came to Thailand to visit
these lovely girls. Some have been in oppressive marriages, some are incredibly shy, some are just a little different from most other people. Most are not as lucky as many of the critical submission authors in not being young enough and good looking
enough to meet a non bar girl. For them this might be as good as it gets.

BALD – Now this is something no one can help or change except by wearing a syrup (a wig for those not familiar with Cockney Rhyming Slang) or with pretty drastic surgery. There is nothing wrong with being bald and in my humble opinion does not make a
man, or in some cases a woman, look any less attractive. <Cripes, a bald woman would scare the hell out of me! – Stick>

By the way, I was told that men who are bald at the front are good thinkers and those bald at the back are good lovers. I am bald at the back and front so considered myself a good thinker and a good lover but was quickly corrected by being told I just
think I am a good lover.

UGLY – Again, this is something none of us can help. Some people, like me, fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.

What really annoys me are the submission writers who tell everyone how they don’t have a problem pulling a Farang woman or getting a drunken snog. Good for you, why not have some empathy and compassion for those who are aesthetically challenged.

FAT – Ok, I’m bald and ugly but I’m not fat. I try to keep myself fit and think it is important to do so. I feel great while swimming, surfing or cycling and invigorated afterwards but I know some people who don’t enjoy any sports
and feel terrible afterwards. Physical exercise is not for them and no amount of criticism is likely to change them. As a result they may get fat but that is no reason to judge them detrimentally or criticise them. It is their choice and no one
else should make that choice for them. This, of course, should not be confused with concern for their health and encouragement to become fitter.

Here is another consideration – I met this really nice fellow at a party and he was very overweight and as a result perspired profusely and had laboured breathing. Initially I thought that this bloke needs to lose some weight and get fit. I’m glad
I didn’t vocalise my thoughts because it transpired that he used to be a Royal Marine Commando and was shot in the abdomen during the Falklands war. This had resulted in many problems with his internal organs and caused his weight problem.
Not all weight problems are as a result of poor self discipline.

INTELLIGENCE – In my humble opinion to define intelligence is almost as difficult as answering the question – Who created God’s creator? For me qualifications are probably the best way to show your intelligence to a prospective employer with the
limited time available in an interview. Most people recognise the work and application that goes towards getting the qualification but how do you explain those who have few or no qualifications that do well.
I once read about a well
known founder of an automobile company who drove his college lecturers mad because he would only attend the lectures concerning mechanics and none of the others. The qualification at the end of the course was unimportant to him since all he desired
was the knowledge to enable him to build cars. Sympathy can be felt for the college lecturer because a student enrolled in his course and it appeared that he did not do his job in helping the student to obtain the qualification. This student knew
exactly what he wanted though, he went on to build cars and to build a very successful manufacturing business.

I think it is common knowledge that the founder of the world’s largest software company was a college dropout. Again, this shows how successful you can become without a formal qualification and this did not hamper his drive to build a massive company.

The moral of this section is that qualifications do not show the complete picture. I have known academic people get ripped off because they were not street wise, which I would class as a type of intelligence. I know a carpenter who is very skilled in
his work who cannot write a quotation or keep accounts. I know another academic person who would look under the bonnet of a car and say – "So where are the wheels on this model ?" – ok, I made that one up but I hope you get my point.

Up until recently I always regretted not having done a degree. I am one of five children and my parents could not afford to send me to university when I was eighteen. A few years ago I started an Open University course in Computing. I gave this up, however,
after the realisation that the qualification was not important to me any more but the knowledge was. I taught myself how to build web pages and now have an online shop and another web site to promote my other business. I may not be able to show
a qualification from a good university but I am very content with myself in that whatever I need to know for my two businesses I am able to find and teach myself.

MUSEUMS & ART GALLERIES – Now I realise that to visit museums and art galleries in foreign countries is the cultural thing to do but a lot of people do not find this interesting. Some men have an overwhelming desire that is much stronger
than the desire to visit a museum.
Consider someone who has a high libido but who is old, bald, ugly, fat and uneducated. What should he do when no one fancies him? Is it wrong when he goes with a young Thai girl? He is happy because he gets
the company of a young beautiful girl and she is happy because she gets paid the equivalent of a week’s wages or more in one night. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with that. We all know why they come to Thailand, it’s because
its cheap and the girls are so friendly.

Something that I do find wrong is where everything that a person does is determined by what he/she thinks other people will think. Some people do a certain college course so they will be highly regarded, some people go to art galleries and museums to
appear cultural to other people and some people wear what is acceptable to other people to seem high class. This is alright if that is what you want but wrong if you are doing it for other people.

BEAUTIFUL GIRLS – I have seen phrases like "they were more beautiful in the old days" and "99 % of them are ugly" in some submissions. Again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I would be the first to admit that I have Yellow Fever
and I don’t mean this in a derogatory way. I, personally, find Asian women to be the most attractive and have lived and worked in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. Although you can generalise and say which are the most beautiful this is
just one facet of beauty. I find it so much more appealing when the girl smiles, is content within herself, whether she is highly educated or not and is fun to be with.

CONCLUSION – Next time you see an old, bald, ugly, fat, uneducated Farang with a young Thai girl put yourself in their position. Don’t make an outright judgment on them because you don’t know the whole situation and the events that led top
him being with that girl. As I said earlier – He is happy because he gets the company of a young beautiful girl and she is happy because she gets paid the equivalent of a week’s wages or more in one night. Are you happy with your current
situation?

Good luck to all of you in whatever you do. Remember to lead your own lives. Please be considerate, empathetic and compassionate to other people and most of all keep smiling.

Stickman's thoughts:

Generalisations are easy to make, but often there is some truth in them.