PeterRS

I would love to see that video, if only to find out what type of housing remains empty and, more particularly, where it is located. Like many countries it is a fact that younger Japanese want to move to the bigger cities. I cannot believe there is much empty housing in Tokyo or Osaka. Far more likely it will be in the countryside, I'd suggest. If that is the case, Japan will not be very different from many countries. The other point about Japan is that it has been impossible for many young people to find ways of purchasing their own apartments, no matter how tiny these may be. Owning a home is still an ambition of most Japanese but many younger ones are stuck living with their parents. Then there are the blinkered predictions by property developers. As nippon.com pointed out in an article two months ago, the new buildings that are being constructed are to a large extent way out of the price range of most Japanese. In 2021 the average cost of a new 70 sq. m. condominium near central Tokyo was ¥85.57 million - US$660,000 today but around 20% more in US$ terms when the surey was carried out in 2021. Move way out into the sprawling suburbs and the cost comes down to ¥64.75 million, but you will likely be stuck with a 90 minutes commute twice a day. The rising price of new properties inevitably results in rising prices for second hand apartments. And with more and more of these luxury-type properties being built, the average Japanese is basically shut out of the housing market. Nippon.com also points out that developers are building many large housing developments on rural land that is prone to flooding. There are few regulations about construction on formerly agricultural land. With natural disasters on the increase, flooding of 3 meters is not uncommon. A final point made in the article is the reluctance of developers to knock down older housing stock as they build newer stock. Japan is therefore the opposite of somewhere like Hong Kong which routinely demolishes older housing as new housing is developed. Kyoto is one of the few Japanese cities considering the intruction of a vacant house tax but no one yet knows how successful this might be. https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/d00835/

Does anyone really expect anything else?

Be that as it may, the law in Thaiand is perfetly clear. Nudism is against the law.

There is a tendency frequently found among foreigners and western tourists in Thailand that this country provides spas and other facilities just for them. There is an extremely populous gay scene for Thais which foreigners know little if anything about. Many gay Thais attending up market massage spas are relatively wealthy professionals who are perfectly happy paying prices which foreigners find high.

Another useless government exercise! The fact is that it is extremely difficult for drivers to see some of those zebra crossings until they are virtually on top of them. Britain has flashing orange beacons on the roadside of zebra crossings to provide a timely warning to drivers. Thailand has nothing other than signs actually on the road. Besides, how are the police going to find the vast majority of drivers who do nto stop at such crossings? Are they suddenly going to increase pollice numbers? We can also ask what has happened about the law introduced just recently about fines for passengers who do not wear seat belts in the back of taxis. I rarely see anyone wearing belts in the back seats. Indeed in many taxis i have taken, there is still no connector into which to plug the belts.

I agree with the first part but definitely not the second. In my view it has absolutely nothing to do with being paid or not. I referenced the gogo bars 30-40 years ago when the majority of the customers were Thais. How often have you seen lots of Thais in gogo bars in the past decade or more? That has nothing to do with their not preferring to be with farang. It's a sign that as the Thailand gay scene and Thai society has developed, Thais increasingly want to be with fellow Thais rather than in bars where there are increasing number of farang. Times change. The same trend has become very obvious in other countries like Japan. As a gay bar/club/sauna culture developed in the 70s and 80s, young Japanese gays found it extremely difficult to form relationships with fellow Japanese. This reflected the long work hours of Japanese, the closeness of housing making it extremely difficult to keep any kind of MtoM sexual relationship private in a country in which the vast majority frowned on them, and overall low salaries. Gaijin generlly had large apartments in Japanese terms, far larger salaries and much more personal freedoms. Many young Japanese found it was far more convenient to live a gay lifestyle by attaching themselves to a foreigner. On my early visits to Japan, such relationships were extremely common. With Japan having become very wealthy since then, with social attitudes changing and same sex civil partnerships now legal in several parts of the country, Japanese preferring to be with fellow Japanese has rightly become much more the norm.

It's obviously changed a lot. In the earlier days of virtually all the saunas, farangs of almost any description were welcomed. Like the gogo bars where the Thais have now mostly disappeared, both on stage and in the audience, it's mostly the farangs who make up the clientele.

Certainly quite a few.

Yawn! Yawn! Every Japanese Prime Minister has been saying all this for more than the last 2 decades! Governments have tried various means to stimulate marriage and procreation, but they never work. It is not merely an issue of the cost of raising a child. It is much more a desire on behalf of the younger generation either to put off marriage until their mid-30s or just to remain single. Used until recently to working horribly long hours and having only a week of vacation each year, this generation has realised there is a lot more to llife and they want the time and cash to enjoy it before settling down. As many economists have proposed, what Japan needs desperately is to open its doors to many more skilled workers from other countries. This it consistently refuses to do. The country's insular mentality remains all pervasive in the corridors of power.

Unless you are Thai or Asian, forget Chakran. When it opened over 20 years ago, it was a wonderful alternative to Babylon but with more younger and in shape Thais and foreigners were made welcome. Over the last decade, though, it has become amost exclusively Thai for Thai or Thai for Asian. Even if you are young and slim your chance of success is pretty slim.

I have only recently started visiting Vietnam in the last few years. In my limited experience, the Vietnamese you meet in Vietnam can be wonderfully cute and excellent in bed. And that's non-money boys. Plus the countryside can be stunning. I'm looking forward to experiencing more about the central highlands after Songkran.

Although I lived in Hong Kong, like many expatriates I found the nine tone levels in Cantonese quite difficult to master. Invited to a rather elegant dinner soon after I first arrived, I asked my secretary what I should say to the hostess after a good meal. Driving up to The Peak I practised saying the phrase many times. But after the meal I got the tones wrong, All the guests laughed, but no one would tell me what mistake I had made. It was only in the office the next morning that i was advised to be more careful with my tone levels. What I had said was more or less "I am a sex maniac"! Well, sometimes one has to tell the truth 🤣 🤣

Perhaps they just did not understand the way you talk 🤣

Sincerely echoed, although that is the Cantonese version. Most Chinese will have been wshing their family and friends Gong Xi Fa Cai! I hope all of us older ones have prepared Lucky Red Packets with a little cash inside for our younger paramours in Thailand. So many Thais have some Chinese blood thanks to the large wave of Chinese Immigration in the 19th century.

Today is the first day of the new lunar New Year. Rather than just send everyone best wishes, i thought this pretty inapporpriate Bugs Bunny cartoon might be more fun. For those not acquainted with classical music, most of the music is from Wagner's Ring cycle and Tannhauser operas. It's very cleverly done!

Probably stuck in traffic - 🤣

As somene has said its partly a cultural thing. One of my best friends in Taipei whom I have known for 7 years since he was finishing university and see on each visit to Taiwan has called me "Papa" viritually ever since. It's a term of endearment.

Definitely not!

I wonder if this might have any effect on the parliamentary attempts to legalise same sex marriage in Vietnam? Unlikely I expect, but we shall see. In 2014 parliament passed a law removing the ban on same sex marriage. SInce then, little progress has been made, although a group of citizens has set up a co-ordinating body to press for legality by winning hearts and minds. Polls held in 2012, 2013 and 2015/16 showed an increasing acceptance of the idea of gay marriage. Those voting 'for' in 2015/16 had risen to 45% and opposition dropped to 25%. During VietPride in 2020 it had this bus with "I Do" on the side touring the country.

@spokedark is far from alone. I don't quite know why it is but there is quite a number of guys in Thailand - and some other parts of Asia - who seek much older guys as partners. The obvious response from cynics will be - cash! But that is very often not the case. It seems to me that many of these young guys come from broken homes and had sad home upbringings. There is a very definite and strong desire for love from a father figure. I have certainly seen this in Thailand, in Japan, in Hong Kong and in Singapore. While those of us from the west might have found it highly disagreeable to have sex with a much older man, many Asians look on sex in a very different light.

I have lived in Bangkok for 20 years but spent the previous 22 years living mostly in Hong Kong and partly Tokyo. After moving here I continued running a small company in Hong Kong until 2017. That meant commuting virtually every month for the first decade and then at longer intervals when work started to tail off. I still return 2 or 3 times a year. I have never been to Hutong but it has a very good reputation, although I have seen comments about a degree of racism. It seems to get very full at the weekends and the doormen then pick and choose who they will allow to enter. How true this is I have no idea. As you are still young and probably in decent - if not better - physical shape, I suspect you'd have zero problem. I have not been to an HKG sauna for about 5 years and it was usually the tiny CE which was quite close to my office. Generally it caters mostly to older westerners wanting to meet younger Chinese, although on my last visit I met a couple of extremely handsome, tall and slim Chinese from Shanghai who had come on long week-end shopping trips. A sauna and clubs were part of their schedule.

I am the same. Although I was there in November for 16 days I'll be back next month for 10 days. The Pride Parade is in my diary and I will do my damndest to get there again. The date is Saturday 28 October but the parties go on all weekend. The saunas and hot springs will be totally packed!

Isn't this also an essential element to a successful encounter? Picking two boys who do not know each other often just does not work. Thais tend to be shy in front of other Thais unless they know them well. Let all meet up at Foodland and you are guaranteed a 7-star Michelin star events LOL.

That first video showing the aircraft banking steeply to the left is remarkably similar to another turbo prop crash in Taipei 7 years ago. This was the second deadly crash by turbo props run by Trans Asia Airways. Three years earlier it had started international services to Bangkok and Chiang Mai as V Air using I believe an A 320. I should know as I took that flight several times. The accident enquiry found that shortly after take off there was an emergency warning in the cockpit indicating that one of the engines was flaming out. In such a circumstance the engine should be shut down and the propeller blades automatically go into a position that will not affect the speed of the aircraft. The captain decided to turn around and return to Songshan airport (the one on the west side of Taipei). He orders the co-pilot to shut down the No. 1 engine - the one under the right wing. The aircraft quickly loses speed and stall warnings sound in the cockpit. The co-pilot tells the captain that there is now a flame out on both engines and asks how this is possible. Realising that he has shut down the wrong engine, the captain orders the left engine to be restarted. The plane banks steeply to the left and crashes. Even if the captain had ordered the right engine restarted, it is unlikely sufficient power would have resulted to keep the aircraft in the air as it was far too low to the ground. Many errors on behalf of Trans Asia maintenance, the captain's preflight inspection and faulty coordination between the pilots were discovered. Soon Trans Asia ceased all operations.

One disaster that was is the crash of the Yeti Air turbo prop about to land at Pokhara in Nepal on Sunday. The airport was quite new but I cannot believe that was a major contribution to the crash. We'll find out in due course. I have flown that route twice - in November 1980 and November 2009. Kathmandhu Domestic ariport must be the most inefficient and disgusting in the world. Both flights were due to take off around 1:00 pm. The first did, but it was cloudy all the way. That struck me as odd because Nepalese Airlines have to fly by visiual flight rules. If all the pilots saw was cloud, how did they make it safely to Pokhara? The 2009 flight almost never took off. The terminal smelled of urine, all flights were delayed and all monitors were broken. Flights were announced verbally by a man with a voice few could hear. My flight was delayed and delayed to the point where we were informed if the incoming plane did not arrive by round 4:30 pm, we would not be able to take off as it would be too dark to land at Pokhara. Eventually just before 4:30 we were asked to board. We were in the air about 15 minutes later. This time it was a bright sunny late afternoon and I was staggered at how close the aircraft flew to the mountains on the right. We landed with some light still guiding the pilot down. I asume the pilot of my 1980 flight had a good idea how close he was to those mountains. Pokhara when I first visited was a small village with one main pot-holed road lined with guest houses. But getting up at 5:00 am for the hour long trek up the hill to watch dawn break over the Himalayas resulted in one of the greatest sights I have seen anywhere. As dawn broke, the clouds I assumed I had seen in the sky were in fact mountain peaks. The Annapurna range is literally just across a valley and boasts one peak over 8,000 meters, 13 over 7,000 meters and 16 over 6,000 meters. I think that experience was as close as I have ever come to a religious experience. When I returned, Pokhara had become a city of over half a million and packed with tourists. The hour's morning trek was just a 7 minute car ride to the look-out point at Sarangot. This had well over 100 young Japanese and Koreans waiting for dawn to break. Unfortunately, trailing clouds from a cyclone over the Bay of Bengal meant the view was not as crystal clear as it had been 29 years earlier. But still utterly awesome.