What Thailand YouTubers DON'T Tell you about living in Thailand

check out Jon's channel here: youtube.com/@JonInChiangMai/videos

Jon needs to take a trip back to the UK and then his appreciation of Thailand would go back up. If he thought the UK was bad 12 years ago, he should see what it is like now.

It sounds like he got tied down into all the Western traps whilst living in Thailand. Nobody is claiming Thailand is better if you want to be a 9-5er living in a random town in the rat race. They are claiming Thailand is better because you can escape from all of that and avoid all of that. If his priorities in life are mortgage, suburbs, corporate jobs etc, he should just go to a Western country rather than complaining that it's hard to live that life in Thailand. Of course it is!

Thailand has always been geared towards tourists and retirees. Anything in between is going to be difficult.

Some people don’t realize that wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If are a mean nasty drunk in your home country, you will be the same here. If you have untreated addictions at home, they will just get worse here. If you have no capacity for self-discipline or self-reflection, you aren’t going to change in Thailand. If you have empathy and a desire to understand others, Thailand can be place where you can practice that with joy. If your life is filled with discontent of others because they don’t please you at home, your life isn’t going to magically change here…or anywhere else.

He is regretting wasting his youth away. While his peers have built a career with upward mobility, he's fallen into a trap of his own making. For a guy who complains about the UK's nanny state, he would be the one who can benefit fom the UK's safety net.

Hi, It sounds to me like John is depressed. Living in rural Thailand can be very boring and unfulfilling. For me I do live in rural Thailand in a small village. It can be soul destroying at times, but we go back to Pattaya for a week per month in order to preserve our sanity.

"Comparison is the thief of joy" Make your little space, Think about what you like, and set out to do it. Accumulation of things and wealth is an endless and I would say joyless journey. Finally- if you don't have health everything else is worthless.

He's not saying any specifics, it's annoying.

I moved to Thailand three years ago entering through the Phuket sandbox; I stayed there a few months before finding a condo at The Base in Pattaya for 7000 baht/month. I was there a year before moving to Pratamnak for 9000; now I live in an older condo on Jomtien beach with a beautiful ocean view for 9500/month. My bills are reasonably priced; electric and water. I'm from Missouri in America. Even a crap apartment in the small town of Cape Girardeau Missouri is not cheap; 1000usd if you are lucky. Although I agree mostly with what was said in the video, Thailand is still a bargain. It may not be the bargain that it once was. There are numerous other upshots to living here as well; I won't elaborate at this time. cheap delicious food; beautiful women; gorgeous weather, et al.

Gad, I'm six minutes into the video and he's hardly given any specifics at all. Just fluff so far.

It seems like this is a good example of a guy who needs to go home and get his life recalibrated and then come back with a better plan. Anyone else agree? I did that with my time in Thailand couple times and it made a world of difference.

He just seems unhappy with himself, and he's blaming Thailand instead of holding himself accountable for his own life. He needs to develop himself and not use the excuse of limited opportunities in Thailand. Thailand has always been about Thai people. Suck it up and handle your own life like a grown man is supposed to. There are sacrifices to move to Thailand and sacrifices to stay where you are.

I’m an American retiree living 7 years in Thailand. I would never recommend to young working age adults that they move here. Better to work a career, make western $$, and earn a pension and/or Social Security in your western home country. Thailand then becomes your reward for all that hard work. It seems to me that the opportunities for a sustainable future are just not here for young people unless you set your standards pretty low.

I do have sympathy for the age at which he came to Thailand— 17 is so very young. But there’s also a few red flags. I’d expect a man of that age, with a Thai family, to speak excellent Thai. I believe writing and speaking excellent Thai would open up so many doors. His job clearly seems dubious, as evidenced by how cagey he was speaking about it. That’s not going to make you feel great about yourself or your life. In my mid 20s, I moved to Russia and taught English for a few years. While there, I studied Russian intensively. While some of my coworkers put very little effort into their teaching, working for what a friend in Bangkok brilliantly termed “beer tokens”, drinking between classes, often hungover, I really studied English grammar. I never wanted to not be able to explain the theory of something. That helped tremendously with my writing. Even led me to one day publish a book. After 3 years I managed to get editing and translation work. My students were often successful. They worked at museums and galleries, international firms, places that needed clean English translations, which they hired me to do. They had friends who worked in media. That eventually opened up the door for me to work in journalism, which I’m doing now. It’s my career. My salary is decent enough for me to invest. Those investments, I hope, will allow me to live in Thailand permanently in a few years. See, I’m not an entrepreneur. I don’t have a business mind. But there are opportunities for every sort of person, depending on how they choose to spend their time, wherever they are. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the people I knew back in Moscow are doing exactly the same thing. Working for beer tokens. Nursing increasingly worse hangovers. Some folks I know from Bangkok are doing more or less the same. Wherever we are, we have choices. It all comes down to: why are you really in Thailand? A cheaper consumer experience? An ability to get a girlfriend without having to confront unresolved trauma? Is there anything about actual Thai people and Thai society that speaks to you? Can you form deep relationships with Thai people where sex isn’t involved? Once again, what leads a 17-year-old here versus a 70-year-old could very well be different, but resentment of your own society also isn’t a great reason. That’s only a reason to leave. But it’s not much of a reason to “go”. Who are you, who do you want to be, and how can 20 years in Thailand help you become more deeply rooted in your own human experience than 20 years back home, or anywhere else? Whenever we are, we must ask ourselves: to what end am I actually living my life? And does being in Thailand actually bring me closer to that purpose, or does it simply make it easier to get by because I’m not actually trying to realize my purpose, if I have one to start with? Thailand offers plenty of distractions from confronting yourself. And that’s a serious problem if facing, and learning to love yourself, is the one thing that you really need.

When you're young you accumulate money, when you're old you get to spend it, bear that in mind when you think about living in Thailand!

What are his actual complaints? That he's not getting what he wants? So, Thailand's not what he wants or doesn't give him what he wants, but he still wants to get Thailand citizenship. Countries, companies, people in general want people who can contribute to them, not freeload and take. This is just life. Work your butt off to make things happen. Don't just expect to get things.

Even today Thailand is a great place to live if you have the financial means and resources.I can remember the old expats in the late 90s complaining about how expensive Thailand was becoming compared to 70s 80s etc.Things change and we need to be adaptable to survive here.

I have lived in Japan for almost 30 years, and there are similar challenges, but to thrive you need to be creative. I wouldn’t change anything about my life. Living in Japan has given me many, many opportunities to travel the world and to enjoy a very interesting culture. I recommend that if you move to any culture, you find one aspect of it to immerse yourself in. This will not only connect you with the culture, but it will also help develop friends. For myself, it has been Zen Buddhism. I have experienced wonderful things, and made Japanese friends for life. I hope the guy in this interview finds happiness.

It’s all down to perspective. What I’m experiencing as a retiree living in Thailand is completely different from what Jon is describing. I can imagine living here as a young person with a family, ambitions, a career and a life to build, you may get seriously frustrated because of the limitations you have as a non-Thai, and as Thailand is progressing and becoming more developed, I understand that you may get a feeling of being left behind. As a retiree, I don’t have to think about building a career anymore. I don’t aspire permanent residency. I’m not tied down to any one place. Basically, all of my time is leisure time and - barring any financial restrictions - I can basically do what I want. Yes, there are certain aspects of Thailand that frustrate me no end, even to the point that I sometimes get angry about it and my wife has to calm me down 😂, but that’s also true for my home country. And of course Thailand is not the same as it was 10, 20, or 30 years ago (what do you expect?), but neither are western countries. The whole world changes, and alas, not always for the better. With all due respect to, and understanding for Jon and his particular situation, I just want to say that it’s all very relative depending on your particular situation, location, stage you are at in life, etc. For me, in my particular situation, there are many more positives than negatives about Thailand. I’ll happily take the less fun things and the restrictions of being a foreigner in Thailand in my stride and focus on enjoying the good things. I’m happy here, and I’m staying as long as they will allow me.