Boys

[Gaybutton]

This board is by no means my first board and I also moderated the Gay Thailand board (now known as the Gay Guides board) for a few years. I opened this board July 31, 2010.

I've been operating boards since before there was such a thing as internet. It used to be 300 baud connections by direct telephone lines - compared to speeds available now it then was like comparing a snail's pace to a cheetah - but in those days that's what we had. You dialed in to boards. Moderators then were called Sysops. If you wanted to save a program it was done on tapes, which would take forever - before CDs, flash drives, and DVDs ever existed. I remember when one local sysop boasted that he had a new 20 meg (meg, not gig) hard drive and the rest of us were jealous.

[Jun]

If you wanted to save a program it was done on tapes, which would take forever - before CDs, flash drives, and DVDs ever existed. I remember when one local sysop boasted that he had a new 20 meg (meg, not gig) hard drive and the rest of us were jealous.

My first computer programmes at school were written on an A4 sheet of paper and sent away, where they would be typed onto punched cards and run on a mainframe.
There was also a Tandy TRS80, with a SLOW 250 baud cassette interface for storage.
The year after, they had an Apple II, complete with a fast floppy disk and a huge 48k of RAM. Like night and day compared with the TRS80.
I did not know of any means to connect these devices, never mind participate in boards or online dating.

[billyhouston]

And do not forget the Bumese (from MYanmar as their govt now wants to name it)

Burmese is both an ethnicity and a language. The majority of Myanmar migrants working in Thailand are likely to be non-Burmese, who make up 40% of the population. In the North there are probably three million or more Shan. There is also a large number of Karen in the country.

Myanmar existed in the days of Marco Polo and, for a very short period of time, the country was called Burma by the colonial power, Great Britain. (1 April 1937 - 4 January 1948 if you are interested.) Following the 'final conquest' in 1885 the country ceased to exist and became a province of India governed from Delhi. The 1947 Constitution resulted in the name 'The Union of Burma' or 'The Union of Myanmar' depending upon the language. You should read the constitution, it's an unusual and interesting document.

Following the 2008, 'Nargis', constitution the government wants to name it 'The Republic of the Union of Myanmar'. I object to this just as strongly as I object to the virtue signallers who call the country Burma.

Tin hat on!

[Gaybutton]

Following the 2008, 'Nargis', constitution the government wants to name it 'The Republic of the Union of Myanmar'. I object to this just as strongly as I object to the virtue signallers who call the country Burma.

I'm confused. If we should not call the country Burma or Myanmar, then what should we call it?

[Jun]

Possibly a topic for a different thread, but countries tend to have multiple names anyway, depending on the language.
For example: Deutschland is known as Germany in English, Allemagne in French and Alemania in Spanish.
There are hundreds of examples.

[billyhouston]

I'm confused. If we should not call the country Burma or Myanmar, then what should we call it?

'Union of Burma' and 'Union of Myanmar' are both fine but long-winded. As a compromise I tend to use Myanmar.

The problem with 'Burma' is that people, quite naturally, call the population Burmese. This insults the 40% of the population who are ethnics and not Burmese. The ethnics have been subject to murder, rape and pillage at the hands of the Burmese army for more than 70 years. This is not hearsay, my family has suffered terribly at their hands.

At the present there is essentially a civil war, with almost the entire population taking on the army.... initially with 19th century hunting guns in some cases. The Burmese (ethnicity) have never been subject to this before and are, thankfully, starting to realise what it is like to be an 'ethnic'. They are, as a consequence, moving towards a future federal structure that was promised to the ethnics at Panglong in 1947. The Panglong Agreement, partially at least, filled the requirements placed on the Burmese (under Bogoke Aung San) for the inclusion of the Frontier or Primitive areas (the ethnics) in an independent Union of Burma. Clem Atlee's government was not intially inclined to include these areas. The Karen refused to sign and thus have been fighting the government for longer then any of the others. (KNLA)

[Dodger]

I'm confused. If we should not call the country Burma or Myanmar, then what should we call it?

How about Turkiye? Ops, that ones already taken...

[bkkguy]

I'm confused. If we should not call the country Burma or Myanmar, then what should we call it?

How about Turkiye? Ops, that ones already taken...

"Land of the Free"? Oops, Thailand's already grabbed that one

[pong]

Thanks for billy & othres who took trouble to explain again. I kind of know, though not that in detail-specific-and have been there (not that long and not inviting enough for a repeat). Yes, I know that most Burmese here, as I keep on calling them for personal reasons, are not Burmese, though I must also admit the difference between Shan and Kar(y)en-as thats how they all name it has escaped me-perhaps you even have that knowledge?
Bamar- (h)Mon- etc. Loads of them in TH and here in BKK-in fact it seems nearly half the vendors in MBK are of Burmese descent. Plus that these Kar(y)en I nearly always seem to get along very well with-in normal jobs here. They all seem to have a great sense of humour-and miss some of those hangups the Thai tend to have.
Calling Burma ´Land of smiles´ (yes, you will see it even more as here in LOS itself)-also cannot do, name has also been taken.
So that remains: land of military regime? Of ladies smoking cigars? Of all men wearing longyi (sarong type of cloth replacing trousers/pants)?
BTW-now that we have hit this topic- how widespread are the Burmese in Pattaya? Knowing the ever diminishing nr of Thai wanting to do those menial jobs lake HTL-room cleaning, kitchenwork, cleaning restrt tables & all that- plenty of that in touristy areas, another source has to be found. or have the Khmer (Cambodia) stepped in?
Incessant rain again & thunderstorms right now here in this part of BKK-I should have come later. The TV shows Thai news and there is the usual endless list of carcrashes.

[Gaybutton]

If you happened to notice I was mostly absent over the past few days, that was because I was invited to a Thai friend's home in very rural Isaan. I was in just about as "the middle of nowhere" as it gets.

I'm back home now, but the point of this post is the apps. I had no intention of trying to meet anyone, but while I was there, mostly out of curiosity about what might happen, I opened the Hornet app.

Much to my surprise I received 12 chat requests within just a few hours. I thought I might get 1 or 2, but 12? I wasn't expecting that. I'm sure every one of them were boys hoping for money, but I really did get that many.

The point is, no matter where you go in Thailand, no matter how far in "The Outback" you might be, if you want to meet boys, all you need to do is open one of the hook-up apps and you will virtually be sure not to have to spend a lonely night . . .