Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are asking "what are retirees in Thailand?" and before anybody gets up in arms about this, I am asking that in response to a prior video. We made a video "Nomads, expats and immigrants". Basically I talked about there is kind of a difference in paradigm and in thinking between a "nomad, or an expat or an immigrant".  

I got a comment on that video. I got a number of comments and some correspondence which caused me go ahead and make this video. The comment and to quote directly: "I am not certain where I and many others who are retired here and would like to become a resident fit into your paradigm?" In other correspondence I got kind of the same feedback which was basically, "I am a retiree here, I don't know where I fit. Am I an expat? I am not working. I am not really an immigrant because it is often times rather difficult for retirees to get legal lawful permanent residence in Thailand or even nationality. At the same time you know I am definitely not a nomad."

I didn't really think about that and you know what if I am remiss in that I do apologize to the retirees watching this channel. My thinking comes from a place of somebody far younger than a retiree and so sometimes I don't really maybe put myself fully in your head space as much as I should. But yeah, I didn't really think about that but in a way, Retirees kind of fall somewhere between expat and immigrant in that prior video's analysis insofar as I do think a number of retirees come here and just say “look this is where I am going to be; I am here.” Now they are not working so in the sense that the Immigrant context it doesn't quite fit and the working expat context doesn't quite fit but yeah I do understand the way people might say "yeah I can't really be pigeonholed into any of those three holes". It is somewhere between expat and immigrant and unfortunately as I said earlier it is very difficult, in certain cases it may be impossible, for a retiree to ever become legally resident in Thailand in an immigration sense. But in all the ways that count, notwithstanding non-immigrant status, retirees in Thailand very much fit many of the attributes of an immigrant in Thailand and in a certain way kind of the expat factor too. I would say especially with the long-term retirees I have known over the years here in Thailand, they very much fit more into the Immigrant mold more than the expat mold.