> If you add it up over 10-15 years the opportunity cost of living in the US is over $1M for most people.

And you get the opportunity of living in the U.S. I certainly think this is worth >$1M over a lifetime.

I like living in the U.S. I like having a car, and the associated freedom to take a day trip anywhere in the Bay Area. I like living in a suburban neighborhood where's there's trees and greenery, and yet stores, restaurants, and other conveniences are all nearby. I like being able to work on exactly the same stuff I do for fun and yet get paid for it. I like that I'm surrounded by some of the best & brightest immigrants from around the world in my job. I like my "horrible western diet", which basically consists of being able to eat whatever variety of food I feel like. I can have Mexican for lunch, fresh fish for dinner, Belgian waffles for breakfast the next day, Indian food for lunch, and Chinese for dinner. Is there any other country where you'll get similar variety?

Whenever I've visited other countries (notably China, but also Germany/Austria/New Zealand), I've always felt that they were nice places to travel, but I certainly would not want to live there. Well, except New Zealand. I could imagine retiring there, but I'd hate to waste my 20s and 30s there.

Happiness is knowing what you want, going for it, and having the courage to say "Nope, I don't think so" when people tell you you ought to want something else.

You know, you can have a car in other countries as well. In Jakarta you can have a car and driver for less than the cost of a car in the US.

Personally, I think everyone should live in a different country for at least one (1) year. You'll gain a lot of perspective on your own country in the process. Just like learning another language teaches you more about your native tongue, so living in another country teach you about your own culture. Combine the two (new language, new country) for a serious eye opening.

For example, the Thai language has no words for "yes" or "no". There are no yes/no questions in Thai.

Only after being removed from pervasive US media do you recognize how much hollywood movie content is US centric and self-referential.

Honestly, if you love living in the US, go live somewhere else in the world for one year. You'll either love the US more, or you'll decide that you enjoy living somewhere else more than you anticipated. Either way, you'll have gained invaluable life experience.

http://www.into-asia.com/thai_language/phrases/basics.php lists Thai words for "yes" and "no", and describes other ways of saying yes or no to a question.

http://www.thaifocus.com/phrases.htm also lists Thai words for "yes" and "no", and inter alia mentions a couple of yes/no questions in Thai.

http://www.peacecorp.gov/wws/multimedia/language/transcripts... seems to indicate that Thai even has a special word whose presence in a sentence indicates a yes/no question.

http://thailanguagehut.com/blog/blog/thai-question-words-so-... has many, many examples of yes/no questions in Thai, and shows how to answer them.

What is the basis for your claim that "there are no yes/no questions in Thai"?

(It does seem that binary questions aren't treated the same way in Thai as they are in English -- the conventions for how you say yes and no are different in different cases -- but it doesn't look at all as if there are "no yes/no questions". For that matter, even in English there are some binary questions to which "yes" and "no" would be peculiar answers. For instance, questions that implicitly make an offer ("Would you like one of these?") usually have to be answered more politely.)

Actually, I speak fluent Thai, there is no word for Yes or No. There is ไม่ which is a negation word, and ใช่ which basically means "correct"/"right", not "yes". The Thai question format is generally: Q: Hungry? หิวไหม A: Not hungry. ไม่หิว A: Hungry. หิว

There are other question indicator words, but the one you're referring to is for "correct or not" type questions, e.g.

Q: This road, right? สอยนี้ใช่ไหม A: Right. ใช่ A: Not right. ไม่ใช่

Alternatively, for a lot of statements you can just respond with the polite ending words, ครับ for men and ค่ะ for women.

The question, "would you like one of these?" in Thai would be, "เอาไหม่"... literally, "want?". The correct response is then either: ไม่เอาครับ or, เอาครับ ... that is the polite form for "do not want", or "want". There is no other way to respond to that question (except without the polite ending).

Those things you describe are all yes/no questions, so it is not true that there are no yes/no questions in Thai. And what you've described are ways to give (for particular classes of question) answers that mean just the same as "yes" or "no" would for the corresponding questions in English.

It's interesting that English has a category (call it "standard binary questions, answerable with yes or no") that doesn't correspond exactly to anything in Thai. But from what you've said it seems entirely wrong to describe that situation by saying that Thai has no yes/no questions.

My wife is Thai, and I manage to speak thai a bit. I took several months of thai lessons. I confirm what has been said before. There is no yes/no word in thai. Those examples on those sites are just bad translation for beginners.

For example the word "chai" that they give for "yes" is more close to "true" when you agree with what has been said.

"Chai" is just a particular answer that can be given to a particular question. You can't use it as a "yes" answer to all question.

I actually did live in New Zealand for half a year, and yes, I'd highly recommend this to anyone, if only for the perspective it gives you.

Not all people in the US get to have Google food every day. :)

Pretty harsh to say New Zealanders are wasting their 20s and 30s by staying there.

"New Zealanders are wasting their 20s and 30s"

He didn't say that! He said he wouldn't want to waste his 20s and 30s there. Different people want to do different things with their lives. NZ doesn't suit his chosen 20-to-39 lifestyle.

Local atmosphere > national atmosphere.

Obviously the national laws and economy do play a role, but it's a smaller role then the local economy/politics. Consider rural Kansas, vs. the Bay Area.

The Bay Area is great but you apparently missed out on the great places in Germany/Austria when you visited them.

And it's easy to miss out on the great places, they are few and far between, and they are spread out all over the world.

New Zealand is right out for me....giant $%^&ing spiders.

I've considered eastern europe, argentina, spain (cheapest european country supposedly) and singapore.

Similar to my reason why I'll never move to Australia - too many poisonous things that will kill you.

No offense but that's as silly as not moving to Australia because of organised crime. If you're going to become a cropper by either means you're doing something drastically wrong.

What spiders?

These spiders:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/23/giant-spider-kills-...

[edit: see below post, this is australia. My bad. I googled "new zealand giant spider" and got that link. Regardless, NZ has the same spiders.]

That's Australia. But wow!

The ones you never see until it's too late.

So they are invisible huge spiders? No wonder I have never seen them.

Holy crap, you need to get out more if you think that the Bay area is somehow magical because you can have a variety of foods, work with smart people and take day trips to fun place.

I live and work here and frankly its no better or worse than many other places I've lived or worked.

And get paid western wages. If you live in thailand you get paid thailand wages, and thailand connections for the most part, which are locally adjusted for the cost of living downwards.

Living in Thailand doesn't mean you have to work in Thailand. That is the crucial difference...

I live here (Thailand) and do contract work at near western rates. That means I can live for months off the revenue from a single project.

To be fair though, the cost of living in Thailand is higher than the article makes out. Rent is quite high (if you want to live in a good location), and having western food all the time gets expensive. Expect to spend about 30k THB per month on ChefXP and FoodByPhone.

As for a variety of foods, Bangkok is hard to beat. Except for the lack of decent mexican food (Sunrise Taco should be burned down), we have pretty much anything you could want to eat... and it can be delivered to your door w/in 45minutes for less than you'd pay in the US.

Bangkok is a 24hr city. You can get good food any time day or night. There are always things to do no matter what the hour... ผมรักกรูงเทพฯมากๆเลย

I've lived on 4 continents (Africa, N. America, Europe, Asia), and I seriously believe that Thailand is the best country for living.

I can confirm that. Bangkok/Thailand can be both very cheap and extremely expensive, depends on what you eat, how you live. If you adjust your taste to thai food, you can get by pretty cheap, but even if you eat moderately fast food western food here and there like 112 pizza, food court in MBK (has great greek lamb!) toll can get up high pretty fast.

Living in BKK is another story, you can buy a decent house in a decent neighborhood for about 4 mil baht, which is cheap in my book. I have, due to the nature of my work, lived in nearby Salaya and commuted to shooting location and BKK with designated driver, prices of living there (only a 30 minute drive from BKK) are significantly lower than in BKK.

I can testify that is not true. It really depends on what you are working, I have been payed a pretty good sum of money while working there, as well as my Thai buddies - pay was on the level you would expect anywhere in the world for that kind of job. And I have witnessed several foreigners (farangs) that were payed significantly more than their thai counterparts.

Being Thai myself, my general observation is that westerners (farangs) are always paid more than their thai counterparts doing the same job. This has always rubbed me the wrong way. It's like reverse racism almost.

Also although the cost of living CAN be low, if you wanted to live cheaply and save money, you'd have to live like a middle class Thai person. That means no Starbucks (who the heck pays 80 Baht for coffee when you can get REAL thai iced coffee for 5 on the street). Even what we know as fast foods are somewhat middle/upper middle class.

The foreigners I know living in Thailand seem to live a pretty upper class lifestyle here in Thailand because their dollar goes a long way so I'm not sure how much they are saving. Then again, they're not hackers.

Even normal things that middle class westerners are used to could be considered luxury for the middle class Thai. Cable for example is pretty expensive compared to the cost of food and living and so is internet. Travel in the city can be dirt cheap if you stick to public transporation.

So again, you can stretch the dollar if you are willing to be fruga. Then again you can do the same if you choose to live in the states.

Check out this article titled 'An Experiment on Cheap Living from 1872' http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2009/05/23/an-experiment-i...

Starbucks has some of the most disgusting coffee I've ever tasted in my life, if you can call that coffee at all. I have noticed one thing that stood out amongst thais that were payed on pair with farangs, they all have mastered english more or less they can communicate with ease, you probably know that there are not that many people in thailand that have a really good grasp of english (English is not my first language also).

Here is a good article on trying to live on 30k a month. It is a pretty frugal lifestyle actually. Lots of toast for breakfast, not a lot of ordering Au Bon Pain.

http://www.ajarn.com/Banter/30kamonth.htm

Not if you live here (Thailand) and contract for westerm companies.