PeterRS

Chinese groups falling foul of the censors for whatever reason no longer have to depend on this one app. There seems to be no news about similar blocking on the other mega social networking site weibo which has half a billion users in China. Besides, new apps spring up with unsurprisingly regularity given the size of the country. Here is info on a dozen. https://nealschaffer.com/top-12-new-social-media-china/ My take on this after talking with a friend in Shanghai is that the government is seeking to rein in Tencent, the owner of WeChat, only partly because this app has many members outside China. Tencent had a market value of US$500 billion in 2018. It has purchased major holdings in more than 30 worldwide companies. Its tentacles cover technology, entertainment, gaming, medicine, on-line payments etc. The recent action follows Tencent's blocking of TikTok videos. IN 2019 the government ordered Tencent to improve the rules of WeChat. This is perhaps somewhat similar to its recent reining in of another mega company, Alibaba. Why the LGBT community should have been specifically targeted is worrisome but my friend says he has seen no other recent action of the government against the community.

I wonder how many forum members use the apps for commercial hook ups and how many just to meet interested guys who want to have some easy fun without payment (apart perhaps from transport money). The impression I have is that Pattaya is almost exclusively gay for pay on the apps whereas in Bangkok there seem to be quite a few guys, especially students, who do not see it as a financial transaction.

I think we must add to that list two vital elements that are only partially implied: total ineptitude of the government and endemic corruption. If the numbers are really much higher than are being reported, opening up of the country is surely going to be a long way away.

Probably illustrates that I had my mind on other things when that slipped through

I had to have a friend take me to a gay sauna to overcome my shyness. But once experienced, I just wanted more and for 25 years or so I enjoyed many experiences in a sauna environment. If I could knock those years and more off my age, I expect I would be similarly keen. And I see no reason why younger guys today would not have a similar desire. You can be shy in the anonymous environment of a sauna, You cannot be shy meeting someone from the apps. Then of course, your only worry might be bumping into someone you would not want to see. A good friend was once in a small sauna when the door to a cubicle opened and his boss emerged. Their eyes locked whereupon the boss quickly slammed the door shut and locked it. As a married man with two kids, he must have been rather terrified. Realising the situation, my friend wrote a quick note and slipped it under the cubicle door. Basically he just wrote, "Please do not worry. We are both in the same boat. Our secret will be safe from others."

With all respect, the horrors of racism were indeed born out of the centuries old 'tradition' of slavery. Not to diminish it in any way whatever, though, I do suggest that making war on a country is a totally different issue. This is especially true when you know so little about the country you have decided to make war on. We know that the excuse for going to war in Vietnam - the Tonkin incident - was a manufactured lie. McNamara's book In Retrospect sums up what followed as a result of that lie. "We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who participated in the decisions on Vietnam acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of this nation . . . Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong." I wonder how the families of the more than 3 million killed in those USA adventures felt when they read that, an admission from the man who basically directed much of that war, the Secretary for Defence. And what of those massacred in Laos and Cambodia, wars that were illegal in that Congress had not given the President approval to make war in those countries? Go further back in time. The USA was one of the most anti-colonial governments anywhere. Yet it permitted the hated French to return to take over its Indo Chinese colonies without any suggestion that it might eventually withdraw. Had first Roosevelt and later Truman paid any heed whatever to the various letters received from Ho Chi Minh, they would have realised that Ho was a nationalist and he wanted his country back from the French. Had Truman put pressure on France, that country was in no position to resist. It could have said its farewells to India-China and likely there would have been no wars in Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia. Russia and China only became involved thereby making the region a Cold War issue after 1950. Would they have become involved if Vietnam had become an independent nation in 1947 with assistance to build the country from the USA, that country of which Vietnam had been an active ally in World War 2? The problem with war is that too many governments resort to it on the basis of assumptions and vastly insufficient knowledge. The USA had hardly any South East Asian specialists in Washington after World War 2. It had hardly any Arabic speakers prior to the invasion of Iraq. The British had too little knowledge when it decided to invade Egypt in the 1950s to take back the Sex Canal. It suffered an ignominious defeat. So lies formed the basis of actions.

I perfectly understand the 'niceties' here. But if as we were informed the government signed a contract for 10 million doses monthly, citizens of Thailand should be informed why contracts were subsequently signed to permit 40% or 50% of Thailand's amount to be sent overseas. Seems to me that's a government issue. If anyone can point to a media story that this was not a government decision, then I'll take the hint and shut up on the matter.

After living 20 years in Thailand and with no residence in the UK, having to spend six months in the UK each year to gain £15 or so extra per week doesn't make much sense to me, unfortunately.

That is a fair point. But it assumes a person knows he will retire abroad when he leaves the UK. I left the UK at a youngish age and fully expected to return. After all, I was only on a 3-year contract. I did not know when I departed that I would be offered two contract extensions. I did not know that other opportunities would open up for me in Asia when I was expecting to return to the UK. When I left I investigated what I could. I knew I would have to continue paying the full NI premiums to maintain a right to a full pension and arranged to do so. Similarly I knew that would enable me to have access to the National Health Service whenever I wished. i did not change the rules - governments did and then failed to notify me. I do not believe it is incumbent on any UK citizen working overseas to check on the rules every year. The government was well aware of my address from my NI file. It could easily have sent a circular to all citizens working overseas advising them of changes. The UK government did nothing.

As far as I am aware, Sinovac was marketed before Sinopharm which might explain Thailand's preference. Also has any one provided any proof that Sinovac has any Thai partner and investor? I have not heard of one. My understanding is that China donated two lots each of half a million doses of Sinovac to the country. This was followed by Thailand purchasing another 9.5 million doses. A private Foundation is arranging for the purchase of some Sinopharm vaccines to help speed up vaccinations. The Thai business partner is with Astra Zeneca. https://thainews.prd.go.th/en/news/detail/TCATG210606104251913 https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2137287/2-million-more-sinovac-doses-arrive-in-thailand I find this not just extraordinary but close to downright criminal. According to the Prime Minister in January, the target of 10 million Astra Zeneca deliveries to Thailand per month was the sole domestic requirement for the country. The contract was presumably made on the basis that the manufacturer knew it was able to deliver these for use in Thailand. Presumably also this was the number negotiated by the government in its written contract with the producer. Now this number will be reduced by 40% to 50% "because some supplies are allotted for export." For export? Is it not a Thai company? Did it not do a deal with Astra Zeneca's UK manufacturer to produce vaccines for Thailand? Was that not why it was given the contract? The government needs to explain this situation quickly - if it hasn't already done so. https://coconuts.co/bangkok/news/thailands-astrazeneca-supply-all-good-now-stop-talking-about-it-pm/

I agree with the former. But what would you do if you had not been told by any government department at any time that your pension would be frozen from the date of first drawing it down? If you only learn that a few years before taking it, It's a bit late to think of private pension arrangements. Of course, nobody should ever have based their retirement purely on the basic state pension even if it had not been frozen because it will never cover anything like a retiree's full financial requirements. But in the case of the two expats I wrote about in another thread who I assume have now been deported, had they been entitled to the full basic pension, the difference over 20 years would be somewhere like 2 times 125,000 baht annually. That's quite a tidy sum.

It will never work. I have written several letters to MPs, notably the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. Pre-Brexit I also wrote to several UK members of the EU parliament. The best reply I received was a statement of government policy followed by "we are constantly reviewing the situation" nonsense. The current government with its large majority states this on its website - "The Government has no plans to change the policy on up-rating UK State Pensions overseas; the policy is longstanding and has been supported by successive Governments for over 70 years." Bye bye increases! But for any government to argue that conditions in 1951 were similar to those in 2021 is more than disgraceful. In 1951 Britain was still in a sorry state economically as it recovered from the war. Many items were rationed and hardly any ordinary folk moved overseas because they could not afford to do so - even if the thought might have come into their minds. The only people who moved overseas were the rich. They did so primarily to escape the crippling 91% rate of tax on their incomes. The government's argument is totally false.

That seems a singularly inappropriate argument. I am a UK citizen born and brought up in the UK. I moved overseas at a relatively young age. I was not a rich fat cat like so many who just decided to base themselves in Swiss or Caribbean tax havens. I had a good University degree and considerable experience in my chosen field. I went because I was offered a job that was a slightly better job than I had in the UK and a better job that I could have then obtained in the UK. I did not return to the UK for the simple reason that I could get jobs with more responsibility in Asia than I could in the UK. I work in a highly specialised field and there simply are very few jobs in the UK in that field. When I moved overseas I did not decide unilaterally not to pay UK taxes. I was informed by the government of the day that that was the regulation. I did not unilaterally decide I did not wish to vote. That was a decree brought in by the Margaret Thatcher government after i had left and no government department ever saw fit to inform me. Why should the right to vote in the country of one's birth and education depend on being resident in the country and paying taxes in that country? That makes no sense to me whatsoever. If one is a citizen of the country, the right to vote should be automatic. It also annoys me greatly that citizens of other countries can park themselves in the UK and then end up with the right to vote. Besides, in addition to taxes there is the issue of National Insurance which is not dependent on taxes. This is the amount deducted from wages and salaries which gives the worker two rights: first to access to the National Health Service and second to the state pension. If you work overseas, you do not have to pay this contribution, but then your rights are justifiably either reduced or withdrawn. To maintain my full rights I elected - note, elected! - to pay the NI premiums in full for the entire period I worked overseas. Then what happened. Tony Blair's government decided that access to National Health treatment would be withdrawn after something like 6 years away from the country, even from those paying their contributions. This was made more stringent in a 2015 parliamentary Act. As with the Thatcher government, no government department bothered to inform me. As for the freezing of pensions, I do not know when that happened. But it is a nonsense when the contributions have been fully paid up and so confirmed by the relevant government department. Additionally an overseas pensioner creates almost no drain on the services available to the elderly within the UK. We should therefore receive a higher pension! A government has a right to change rules. But it has absolutely no right, in my view, to change rules and at the same time backdate the changes. And to do so continuously without informing those whom the changes affect is an utter disgrace. Change should only be forward looking. I want to vote in the UK. It should be my right. I want and deserve access to the NHS should I require it. I want my full pension and not the reduced one I have reluctantly been given. The one problem for those who have been overseas for some years is the constituency system. I have no idea if my old constituency still exists. So, why not have an overseas constituency?

I am not a Facebook member and have not desire to join. But we all know it is not the only way to meet guys and the apps we use have been changing over time. At the end of the 1990s there was one here in Thailand mostly for Thai boys but surprisingly was almost all in English. I'm sure it was only on the internet, but it was a good way of finding very agreeable company. For some years my two most successful Asian computer apps were fridae, based in Singapore, allegedly with 500,000 members around the Chinese diaspora, and gaydar. The former was free but you accessed the entire membership for a $49 annual fee. Living in Asia that was certainly worth it and I met many guys as a result. It was taken over from the gay guy who ran it as a commercial concern about 5 or so years ago. Now it is a shell and in its death throws. Perhaps surprisingly I found gaydar extremely good for making contacts in places like Japan and Taiwan. I may have mentioned this hook-up before - if so, apologies in advance. I have tried to find the key words on the search engine but without success. Once planning a trip to Tokyo in the mid-2000s I spotted a lovely 21 year old on gaydar. We chatted and agree to meet at my hotel for coffee after he had finished his studies. I never like to hook up with someone first in my room as descriptions and photos are still sometimes inaccurate. So I waited for my hoped-for new friend in a corner of the lobby coffee shop. A few minutes later in walked this vision. Surely it has to be him, I thought. It was. He came and sat with me and we chatted for about an hour. Not surprisingly for those looking for foreigners on the hook up sites in those days he spoke excellent English. He told me he had recently broken up with a US sailor from the nearby Yokosuka Naval base. He was happy to come up to my room. I was ecstatic! I was even more so when he hugged and held each other tightly. I could feel down below something which was certainly not the "medium" in the gaydar description. I told him, "Masayuki-san, that is not medium. It's not even big. Its humungous!" Clothes ripped off, I saw with my own eyes that I was right. A marvellous sight to behold - and he was not even a top! We quickly showered, played around a bit and then got down to business. Wow! What an evening. Later I suggested I take him for dinner. One of my favourite restaurants in Nishi-Azabu was full and so we went to a nice French restaurant across the road. He then came and stayed the night, as he was to do the following two nights until I had to leave. Masayuki was definitely boyfriend material - and more! But there were two problems. We lived in different countries and his studies were being paid by one of the Japanese large conglomerates. Six months later when he graduated, he was theirs for a minimum of five years and they could post him anywhere and everywhere in Japan they wanted and when they wanted. So as we discussed seeing each other again, we both knew we could only be together before his graduation. I made the most of it with three trips to Japan and he came to spend 8 days with me in Bangkok and Phuket. We said our goodbyes and they were tearful. Yet we did meet up once again. Probably around 2 years later I was whiling away time in the shower area of the 24 Kaikan sauna in Tokyo when I heard someone mention my name. Who on earth can this be? It was Masayuki. But he had changed. Once he started working, he had met up online with an New York banker who visited Japan every month and was a muscle mary. He had persuaded Masayuki to join him in the gyms. In a way I was glad, because this body was not the Masayuki I had known. But that "medium" appendage was still there! I wonder what the best apps are nowadays apart from Facebook.

I have not been to a sauna in many years but have heard about the pricing policy from a couple of older guys. I have also read about the higher prices on various sites. 4 comments from travelgayasia.com from 2020 and 2019. 28 Feb: “Pure discrimination, under 50: 280B, 50 y/o & over 1500B 28 Nov: “People over 50 yo are unwanted, almost banned. 1500 baht for them instead of 280 baht!“ 2 Jun: “Foreigners entrance fee has shot up double since my last visit 2 years ago, now it is 4 times the local Thai (what an extortion - weekend is even higher)" 15Jan: “If you're over 50 or look over 50 years old, then you will be charged 800 baht for the pleasure of going into this place." Even Utopia-Asia (granted, not always the most up to date site) states this: "Men over 50yo must pay a higher entry fee." I understand Sauna Mania has the same ownership as R3 sauna near Fortune Tower. A similar pricing discrimination operates there. Maybe the pricing policy changed in 2018 or 2019.

An Appendix to Dedicated Followers of Fashion The Long and the Short With the European Football Championship and the South American Copa America Championship now down to their semi-final stages, I willingly admit that in my youth I was a dedicated follower of football. ‘Real’ football, that is. Not the American corruption which to this uninitiated observer always seems much more a mixture of a dash of rugby in an outright war – with each stop/start play gaining one side merely a few yards before the head-butting and shoulder-charging relentlessly resume. It all does seem a bit like trench warfare in World War 1, one step forward – two steps back. Only the battle-dress is less depressing! Mind you, I don’t like rugby either! Most of the players are built too much like refugees from Bangkok’s Tawan bar for my liking. Now the beautiful game has conquered the world. Not even the USA is immune to soccer’s charms. I remember in my youth watching my local team in the UK. It was often frustrating, if only because they lost far more often then they won. But sometimes it was utterly magical. I particularly recall when a Hungarian was purchased by my team, the only foreigner in a team of Brits. He played at Inside Right. This was long before the days of football managers adopting various pitch formations with their 10 outfield players more like mathematical formulae: 4-2-4; 4-3-3; 1-4-2-3 and other such seeming nonsense. This player moved around the pitch like a gazelle. His deft swift passing threaded the ball past several defenders of the opposing team as though through a needle, and his goals frequently wondrous. Of course it could not last. He was just too good. Soon he was sold to another continental team. What a sad day! There was, though, another reason for my interest in these supremely fit and talented players. Their shorts were more like mini-skirts for men! They might not have been skin-tight, but you could see all the detail of the players’ thigh muscles below. Even better, when those wearing white shorts were running, the muscles in their bum were deliciously clear. And just occasionally a player would tug at his opponent’s shorts pulling them ever so tightly so that the outline of dick and balls were equally clear. Two English soccer players 38 years ago: Photo Getty Images Although as remarked earlier I was no fan of rugby, when living in Japan I would often be transfixed watching the game on television on a Saturday afternoon. There should have been another word for the shorts these guys wore. Short they were not. Ultra-shorts? These Japanese teams wore mere slips of cloth. Best of all was watching the scrums, those parts of the game where the eight forwards in each team grab hold of each other, face the other team and then bend down low to try and push the incoming ball to their back line. Imagine! To stick together, you need to grab hold of something down there, and most hands latched on to those slips. Inevitably with all the pushing and shoving, the shorts frequently rose up to expose an alabaster coloured butt. Not once! Not twice! Throughout the whole 80 minutes! So why did all this change? Somehow, somewhere, the football authorities – in fact many sports authorities – decided that shorts had to fall. Not off, alas. Just down. And so over a period of years their length at least doubled. Then they got even longer. By the turn of the century, describing a basketball players’ shorts was a complete misnomer. ‘Longs’ are now hardly appropriate. A glimpse of a thigh these days is often like trying to spot a tiny slice of chipolata in large loaf of bread. And don’t get me off on swimming shorts when all decent young slim Asian guys should only consider the skimpiest Speedos. Jeremy Lin the Taiwanese-American who inspired 'Linsanity' was a basketball sensation who fell from hero to zero. With those white 'longs' looking hideous over longer black leggings (true, I don't like them!), perhaps not surprising. Photo: Getty Images Ah well! Progress cannot satisfy everyone. I ‘long’ for the old days when soccer players’ shorts were akin to those worn today by the many cute Asian gymnasts today when doing their floor exercises. Will they ever return? I still watch soccer occasionally. But the beautiful game has lost a little of its temptation for me. Photo: Tiebreaker Times

I definitely agree Lawrence of Arabia should be in a 10 best movies list, although I have not seen it 10 times. Arguably the greatest epic ever made - cast, director, writing, music and especially its cinematography and stunning desert scenery. Loved Noel Coward's quip to Peter O'Toole after seeing the premiere, "If you'd been any prettier, the film would have been called "Florence of Arabia"! David Lean was a wonderful director. Some might argue that Dr. Zhivago is at least as good, although I think not. Bridge on the River Kwai was surely one of the great non-epic movies. His one semi-failure was his last in my view - A Passage to India. Another superb cast led by Dame Peggy Ashcroft who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. But casting Alec Guinness as the Indian Professor was a major mistake. No matter how hard he tried, he could never portray an indian successfully. I also felt Lean's keen eye sometimes deserted him. When there is a close up of the train arriving (to take the party to the caves?) it is spotlessly clean, not a speck of dust anywhere. Yet it had just steamed through the Indian countryside and surely should have been caked in dirt!

I thought I had never seen any movie ten times - then realised there is one I love which I have shown to many friends and boyfriends, Everyone loved it Victor Victoria with the quite wonderful Robert Preston as a gay nightclub singer, Julie Andrews, James Garner and Leslie Anne Warren Coming close would be Woody Allen's Manhattan with George Gershwin's great music.

Sauna Mania remains off Soi Convent. But I read it is almost exclusively Thai for Thai/Asian. Besides, over 50s are charged something like 1,200 baht entrance. They only want younger guys there.

I walked past it quite a few times but never went in. I'm not into that particular scene. But I loved the saunas. Oban was a revelation when I first visited around 1982 several years before its closure to combat HIV - well after the cat was out of the bag. Once saw a handsome tall porn star there. My favourite sauna experience, though, was in one in Shibuya probably around 1984. I now have no idea of its name or exactly where it was located, but I met a guy there who was just amazing. Three hours of heaven including a session on the roof. It seemed to me that there were some blocks where people could see what was going on on the roof. but i was far more concerned with the guy on my lap than any voyeurs

It's clear we all have stories to tell about our times in Asia. Not necessarily with the boys of our dreams or the times of our lives. Often just general observations that strike us for one reason or another. Since few of us can travel and our time at home has not only already extended for the better part of 15 months but there is no end in sight, this little series (hopefully more will contribute) may help to while away the time - as well as raise a smile or two. As mentioned in another thread about Gay Icons, about 5 years ago I used to write for a blog run by an Ozzie guy. I kept much of the material and it's easy to bring it more up to date. So I'll start the ball rolling with an experience centred on two cute late teens Japanese guys. Dedicated Followers of Fashion I guess it must have been about 20 years or so ago. I had just spent a fun evening at the Ueno branch of Tokyo's 24 Sauna (the more popular branch in Shinjuku ni-chome had not yet opened) and was close to Ueno station for the train back to my hotel. It was then that I saw them. Two youngish Japanese guys chatting and laughing and turning right to the stairs taking them up towards the platforms. They looked cute - as most Japanese in their late teens do. Not unnaturally I followed, staying three or four steps behind so that my eyes would be in line with what I assumed had to a pair of lovely, lightly muscled Japanese derrières! Not that I had failed to see any in the sauna a little earlier. Far from it! Being a Saturday evening, 24 had been busy. The communal bathing area, the more personal showers and the rain shower room had all been full of a variety of tempting naked bodies. Even the darker communal rooms upstairs where coupling took place either on large mattresses on the floor or bunk beds with bodies only occasionally covered by duvets, had been witness to some lovely pounding flesh. But as I climbed those steps, assumption was as far as I would get that evening. Japanese youngsters are mostly slaves to the latest fashion craze. In my enthusiasm I had totally forgotten that the fashion of the day was a sort of grunge, loose-fitting look - in the case of my two boys, so loose that the crotch of their pants was as low as their knees. What a terrible shame, I thought! And then I remembered those days when skin-tight jeans had been all the rage. A bit before my time, but I had heard tales and seen photos of the mods and rockers and the skinhead motorcycle gangs. Drainpipe jeans, as they were called, had been all the rage then. Yet somehow for a growing boy who had never seen an Asian in his life, they held absolutely no appeal for me My youth coincided with the most inappropriately named bell-bottoms, for they had absolutely nothing to do with "bottoms" as I then associated the word. Cut rather tightly over the hips and thighs, these then flared out from the knee so that the bottom of the pants would be almost as wide as the length of the boots most commonly worn with them. Why on earth anyone thought these were fashionable beats me. But for a while they were immensely popular. The 1980s and 1990s seemed to flash by as I paid little attention to fashion trends. My work demanded suits or at least jacket and slacks, with jeans rarely figuring in my day-to-day existence. In those days before the Internet when hook ups took place mostly in bars and clubs, at first glance faces were more interesting than the lower part of guys' anatomies. By around the mid-2000s quite suddenly, or so it seemed to me, a merciful revolution took place. Around the world, designers decided that slim and skin-tight would return as the new 'look'. Young guys in Tokyo and all around Asia got rid of those low crotch garments in favour of increasingly hip-hugging, crotch-hugging, thigh-hugging, lower leg-hugging pants. Fashion now dictated that the precise contours of the lower body, every shape and every muscle, henceforth be visible in all their glory! All? Well, not quite all! Whilst derrières may now be proudly displayed leaving precious little to a fertile imagination, a certain degree of modesty extends to the slightly more loose-fitting front. No doubt some will suggest that in their quiescent state, few Asians have much to boast about in that department. And as a habitue of saunas and hot springs around parts of Asia in those days, I agree that is not entirely untrue. But then, who walks around with a permanent erection? And I can guarantee that once standing tall I have seen many young Asians with equipment that is more than merely satisfactory - in a few cases even humungous! But then, that's another story. In the meantime, I am just thrilled that every day I am able to see dozens of perfectly lovely slim young Asian guys showing me how they will look once those pants have been pulled off. Now if only someone would come up with a way of getting them off in a flash rather than the inelegant and constant tugging now required, many of us would be in seventh heaven.

Surely Grand Master sounds a bit too much like chess? Maybe others could come up with more appropriate suggestions for some of the categories. Like Desirable Dick Wondrous Wanker Slurpy Sucker Prolific Poofter Fabulous Fucker

Eisenhower was correct. "A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction... "This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist."

Even if it does, Thailand has not enacted a Civil Partnership Bill. If I am wrong I am sure someone will correct me.

It is free for Thais. It's even free for farang who live here if you register for it. According to a message put out by a major Bangkok hospital, those under 60 will get Sinovac or AstraZenica at present, with over 60s only getting AstraZeneca (presumably the locally made version).