Is Thailand SAFE For Chinese?

Is Thailand safe right now for Chinese tourists to visit? Or is the movie No More Bets becoming way too much like real life? Let's run the trailer. Listen guys, let me just read the synopsis of that trailer. A Chinese programmer and model who, enticed by the promise of high-paying jobs, find themselves trapped in a foreign country as prisoners of a scam mill and are forced to be part of their online fraud scheme. Now, this movie was based off real life stories that are happening where apparently there's Chinese nationals, they're strapped for cash. More recently, there were some actors, but I think for the last seven years, it's been lower middle class college graduates who just can't find a good career or whatever. They get lured to fly into whatever country directly, possibly Thailand even, and then they get trafficked to the Myanmar border, and then they get put in a scam call operation that is owned by the Chinese mafia, and they're forced to make these scam calls to people. Maybe you guys have gotten some of them. I know because I have a Chinese last name that I've gotten two of these scam calls a month for at least three years, if not more. It's a really, really sad situation. There's a lot of movies coming out about this. A lot of documentaries come out this, whether it's entertaining movies or more informational documentaries or just YouTube exposés. I'm going to try to get into it because there's a lot of finger pointing right now, right? Because Chinese people are like, oh, it's not safe to go to Thailand, but then a lot of Thai natives are like, but the Thai people don't even run these scam operations, but then people are like, oh, but there's people being paid off to turn a blind eye to it, and there's a lot of finger pointing. We're going to try to get into it. Here's the truth. Everybody is to blame, but the Chinese mafia obviously is the one that's doing it because they left China because China is becoming really strict on them. Let's just say they're leaving a province like Hebei, and they're relocating to Myanmar, and then they need to bring people in, but obviously a lot of people don't want to fly into Myanmar, so then they want to pick a more attractive country to fly into, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, let me just read some comments right now. Despite constantly receiving scam calls, I can't help but feel sympathy for those caught up in this modern form of slavery. It is really sad, dude. I did some research into it, looked up some clips from the scam farms. Definitely, man, it's really bad, and I hope that it can end soon, but I just don't know how it can, but with more increased scrutiny and spotlight and et cetera, et cetera, hopefully we can. I just wanted to talk about this. Here's the truth, guys, and I'll revisit this point later. The truth is in modern day life, everything has become hyper-individualized and differentiated. It's almost like a hot girl walking in a dark alley drunk after a club versus a big scary dude like the bouncer from the club. Let's just say, for example, the scary dude and the hot girl are both twin brother and sister, but they walk down different alleys. One dude is the bouncer at the club. One girl is just a hot girl at the club or a bottle girl. Look at how different their risk exposures are. In any city, American, non-American, it's like 20, 30, 40x different, and they're twins, actually genetic twins. I'm just using that so you guys have an example of where I'm going with this life. In a globalized society, people are trying to get rich through sometimes illicit evil ways. Our risk exposure to these scams or this evil is so hyper-differentiated based on personal identity and even the power of your passport and which governments have your back and whatnot. Anyway, let's just talk about this high-profile case because a lot of people are going to bring this up. Some people were commenting, please bring it. Let's talk about Wang Xing. Wang Xing was a C-tier actor in China. He got caught, but he got rescued after just two or three days in the scam farm, but he looked pretty bad. A lot of people are like, oh, how come he got rescued? But it's because he had friends and family, and they paid, I think, $200,000 to get him out of there. But then they're like, oh, right, everybody's celebrating his return. Some people say up to 300,000 people that are stuck in these scam farms. The number sounds really odd to me, but just the fact that you could even potentially say it was that number is super terrible, right? So guys, I don't know what to do, but I'm just saying. Anyway, let me just break this down from my research. Point number one, there are multiple groups of bad people. But yeah, like we said, the Chinese mafia has been chased out of China in Southeast Asia, really, really unfortunate. It makes me feel bad that even people have this image of gray market Chinese. There's so much that are flooding into Southeast Asia because the governments are not, it's just the systems are not as tight versus East Asia. Everything's run really tight, right? Singapore has run really tight. Point number two, I think it's mostly Chinese being targeted because they want the Chinese to speak the Mandarin and the Chinese language to scam other Chinese. But I heard there's other stories of Malaysians, Filipinos, Indians, even some Thais getting caught up in this. But obviously, they would probably be forced. I'm assuming once they're in the scam farm to scam their people that they have more, I guess, proficiency in scamming because everybody has different identities and personas and different triggers and fear and greed, et cetera, et cetera. Point number three, I think it's mostly lower class Chinese that needed money that were being targeted. But I think that the reason why that this case has raised more international exposure is because he was an actor who had famous and rich friends. So it is different. This goes to a whole other issue that's not here right now. But off to the side, anytime beautiful people, anytime rich people, or people that draw a lot more magnetism or gravity, something bad happens to them, it does bring additional spotlight. We need that additional spotlight. But it's unfortunate that that's just the way the world works. It's not there without these people being who they are. Point number four, who is corrupt in this system? Obviously, we know that the gangsters are evil or whatever. You know what I mean? There's a lot of finger pointing and who is not doing their job. Basically, who is not doing their job and why? Is it because they're negligent? Is it because they don't care? Is it because they've been paid to do that, turn a blind eye, or et cetera? I don't know. Point number five, I realize now that in Myanmar, the situation is so complex because the government doesn't control the whole country. There's certain rebels that control this part of this land and that part of this land. The infrastructure there is so messy that anytime your country is fragmented and splitting apart, it makes it almost like the 70s or something like that. Military juntas and all this thing. This is rebel-controlled land and et cetera, et cetera. A lot of third world regions, they experience this. Point number six, what is the self-responsibility or personal responsibility for having more street smarts? You may come from a way of life or a country or a culture that really doesn't have street smarts. I don't think a lot of Chinese people have street smarts on a probability basis. Chinese people, don't get mad at me. I'm just saying on a probability basis. You might be one of the ones. I'm saying on a probability basis, China is just not a place. It's so controlled and stuff like that. Book smart versus street smart. Intelligence versus wisdom. Knowledge versus experience. Academics versus common sense. A lot of times, it's like, you see these videos. I don't even want to play the video because it looks bad, but it's like, you see this Chinese girl, she's getting kidnapped at the airport, but people are just holding her arms and she's not fighting and she's not screaming and she could, but she hasn't been trained to. It's almost like an elementary school kid. I could see, but when you get older, sometimes your environment doesn't teach you. It's different. Even in America, I've seen things happen to people from upper middle class to rich suburbs. They're jogging in the wrong neighborhood. They went to Latin America. They were jogging in the wrong neighborhood. Something really bad happened to them. You know what I mean? Versus people from the projects, even though the projects are inherently much more dangerous than the sheltered environment, the people from the projects, they would never go jogging in a bad neighborhood because they can't even go jogging in their own bad neighborhood. They're always on high alert. They develop the high alert muscles. Listen, guys, some people come from countries where it's almost like it stays in elementary mode for their whole life. When there was fights in elementary, even though it's bad and the teachers still break it up and they're like, hey, there's a triviality to the fight that when there's a fight in prison, people start worrying about people getting shanked, right? It's a completely different level of stakes. Some people are in the middle. Some people are at elementary mode. Some people are in prison mode in their mind, in the jungle mode, concrete jungle mode. Point number seven, I think that, yeah, like I said, there's a lot of finger pointing from different groups and people at Myanmar are like, oh, whoa, it's the Chinese, Burmese. It's not the native Burmese. Obviously, the Thais are like, whoa, and I understand why because they don't want and they shouldn't because if there's very few, if none, and there may or may not be on the official side, but it's like they're a bribe to being a part of this, then the blame does fall on Chinese scamming other Chinese. I can understand why they wouldn't want to shift that blame, but it's like, here's the truth. There's a blame pie and there's pie slices for everybody to go around, but yes, the largest pie slice goes absolutely 100% down to the Chinese mafia, right? But yeah, there's a lot of ineffective law enforcement, international coordination, transnational security forces, et cetera, et cetera. Those systems might need to get bolstered with AI and robotics and more cameras and AI cams and retina scans and just et cetera, et cetera. Obviously, that's why the scam farms are in Myanmar right now because the whole country is fragmented. It's got no stability, so people are taking advantage of this. It's crazy to say, but the way that bad people are looking at this, they're just trying to run an operation. They're just looking for the grounds that are most fertile to run their operations. It's almost like setting up an LLC in Delaware or something like that or opening up a Swiss bank account or et cetera, et cetera, like that. Anyway, let's just get into the debates right now. Some people are saying Thai tourism is going down. I do think I looked it up from second tier Chinese cities. It's dipping a lot. People are canceling their hotels and stuff like that. But it is Chinese going against other Chinese, to be honest, but they're utilizing maybe a more loose atmosphere to take advantage of each other, Chinese on Chinese. Somebody said, go to Singapore. Singapore is much safer. Yes, absolutely. Singapore is way more safer, but it's also less fun and it's way more expensive. There you go. Somebody said, corruption runs deep. Somebody said, Xing Xing's girlfriend is the real MVP. If you guys know the story of Wang Xing, aka Xing Xing, the actor that got brought back, it was a girlfriend that contacted all the famous friends. Famous friends turns into national pressure. National pressure turns into governmental pressure. Governmental pressure brings Xing Xing back. He may or may not have also paid a ransom. This is more macro thoughts, guys. Why does it seem like the world is becoming more dangerous these days? How do you have trust between human beings? And then somebody said, there's definitely a link between capitalism and profiteering by deception. Somebody said, listen, you used to be able to hitchhike around Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, and now it is very dangerous to hitchhike and people are very much cautioned against it. Because yeah, you could end up human trafficking even in Europe these days. I'll say this. I just think that the dangers have shifted. In the old days, there was no medicine. There was a lot of wars, formal wars, like people like marching towards each other with guns, right? There still is to this day, and obviously more recently, some high profile cases, whether we're talking about Ukraine and Russia, Israel, guys in Middle East. And obviously more recently, it has sparked up recently, but I believe for the longest time, there was a lot less deaths due to war. However, first world societies have become more dangerous on the streets, and just the nature of greed and stuff like that. So it's weird. You're less likely to be conscripted to fight in a war, because like I said, I'm not saying there's not wars going on right now, but just there's less than there was relative to the past. I'm serious, look it up. But then the war has moved more onto the street, and that's why you being street smart has become more important than ever. And it's a shame about Chinese people always targeting other Chinese people. My quick thought on that is that I think that Chinese people are generally not that vicious. So when you have somebody's evil, but not that vicious, but still obviously vicious enough to do the evil, the only people they can prey on is people who are like really not vicious and not evil. So that's like where their aggression advantage is more exploited. They can exploit it, right? And also the language, cultural cynosphere. I'll say this. Here's a profound truth about modern life. I'll end on this, guys. And like I said, I hope the scam farms can end. I'm not in control of it at all. Me even making this video potentially can raise more international awareness, which can lead to pressure and domino and other things. But I'm just saying, here's a profound truth about modern life. It has become highly atomized, highly individualized, and experiences and outcomes are often shaped by personal identity, social positioning, and global power structures. If you have an American passport, if you look like me, I look Chinese, I'm protected. If I somehow got captured, let's say on a fake YouTube brand deal and brought to Myanmar, the US government is going to come get me with like Black Hawk helicopters, right? Even if I don't look white or whatever, right? You know what I'm saying? Because that's the power of the American passport. So people just don't want to bring that on them. But if you come here under false pretenses as a Chinese citizen, it's different, right? Because I don't know. I want to say if you're high profile, they'll come get you. But there's people that are stuck right now. So I just think that there's a lot of broad answers nowadays. Is New York City safe? Is Thailand safe? If you live in the West Village, you can be out at night. It's completely different than being out at night in High Bridge. You know what I mean? In the BX uptown. So it's just so completely different. And those places are just 30 minutes away from each other. It's like my building in New York is like a luxury building. And right across the street is the Projects. Somebody got shot in that parking lot of that Projects building. But there was 30 seconds walking, but it was like a world's away. And that's just speaking to the modern, you know, like I said, the profound truth about modern life has become highly differentiated based on personal identity, socioeconomic status, but everybody's crammed together. It reminds me of almost like hearkening back to the old days where oftentimes whether it was the Forbidden Palace in Asia, in Beijing, or it was the castle versus outside the castle walls in Europe. Like it's almost like going back to like a more individualized version of like, are you inside the castle walls or outside the castle walls? But these walls now are more based on identity. And, you know, some people think that's a good thing, a bad thing. It just is what it is. Life's becoming more complex. Please become more street smart, guys. Please, please, please, please sign up to become more street smart. You know, at the Google Forum, you know, Tiger Club, sign up for that at the bottom section. I didn't mean to segue that into a promotional thing, but I really just think it's going to be a program that helps people. But, you know, just watch this video, share it with somebody you know. Give me your anecdotes in the comment section below. I wish we could fix all the problems in the world. I got such a big heart for a lot of people, but I just don't know. Guys, life is unfair. And, man, but it makes you grateful. But, you know, definitely wishing the best and hope that that whole, this whole thing for mostly for their sake in the scam farm, but for everybody else who's getting the scam calls, it all can come to an end soon. Until next time, Hop Hop Boys, we out. Peace.