Tropical robe in Thailand
When I decided years ago to spend a large part of my time in Thailand, I thoroughly oriented myself about what would await me. I decided to take the wise advice of experts in particular to heart.
I then made a list of behaviors that I would exhibit if I lived in Thailand for a long time, perhaps too long, and which I would have to worry about if they became too frequent and dominant. I don't want to withhold that list from you, for it seems to me very useful to make a self-examination from it from time to time.
How do you behave when you live in Thailand for a long, maybe too long?
1. You look twice to the left and twice to the right before crossing a one-way street.
2. You bought a house for a bargirl, or at least a cell phone.
3. You enjoy watching Thai soap operas on TV, you think you understand them and the acting deserves an Oscar.
4. You sleep on the table and you eat on the floor.
5. You think it's normal to drink a beer at 09.00:XNUMX in the morning.
6. You season your hamburger with nam pla prik and your pizza with ketchup.
7. You haven't sat on a firm chair in five years.
8. A police officer stops you for a minor offense and you automatically grab your wallet.
9. In a taxi you always take something to read with you, so that you have something to do if it takes you more than half an hour to cover less than a kilometer.
10. You carry an umbrella to avoid tanning in the sun.
11. As a straight person you walk hand in hand with your straight friends.
12. You no longer use deodorant but talcum powder.
13. You think you need a calendar more than a watch.
14. You think it would be a good idea to start your own restaurant.
15. You wear plastic sandals to a job interview.
16. You realize that everything you wear and use (your clothes, your underwear, your watch, your DVDs, even your Viagra) is counterfeit.
17. The footprints on your toilet seat are your own.
18. You can't remember the last time you wore a tie and you consider a safari jacket and jeans formal attire.
19. You find out that your girlfriend is your boss's mistress.
20. You buy things at the beginning of the month and at the end you take them to the pawn shop.
21. When they ask what your favorite Thai restaurant is, say KFC.
22. You're starting to find western women attractive again.
23. You realize that you never really have a clue what's really going on.
24. You always have a silly grin on your face.
25. You go back home and wonder where all those farangs come from.
26. You find it exciting trying to get into an elevator before someone can get out.
27. You no longer wonder how someone who earns $200 a month can drive a Mercedes.
28. You consider it part of the adventure that the waiter repeats your order exactly and the cook prepares something completely different.
29. You're not surprised when three men show up with a ladder to change a light bulb.
Sources: 1 to 25: Jerry Hopkins, -Thailand Confidentional 26 to 29: Robert De Angel in the Pattaya Mail of 02.09.2011
30. You laugh at stereotype lists on thailanblog.nl 😉
haha. I realize I've lived here way too long. And what's strange about putting ice in your beer? And I am no longer surprised when my girlfriend reports how "handsome" I am.
4. – You sleep on the table and you eat on the floor. (IKEA is a bit far from the Isaan.)
12.-You no longer use deodorant but talcum powder. (If you make your bed in the morning, you can at least say that you slept in the (dust) clouds.)
17.-The footprints on your toilet seat are your own. (And the mud puddle on the toilet floor is also your own.)
21.-If they ask what your favorite Thai restaurant is, say: KFC. (Or at home with the ants on the table.)
30. You fill your beer glass with ice cubes before pouring beer into it.
31. You mess up white, rosé and even red wine with ice cubes.
32. There is always a roll of toilet paper on your dining table.
33. There is no toilet paper in your toilet, there is a “spray” hanging on the wall.
34. The floor mats in your car are covered with a piece of brown paper that slides precariously under your feet.
35. You really start to believe that your first name is "fallang".
35. You really believe you have beautiful eyes because young girls keep repeating it.
35. You consider yourself an Anglo-Saxon linguistic expert, while self-taught "Coal English" yourself.
36. When your family from the Netherlands finally comes to visit once every 1 years and you offer to pick them up at the airport, you expect them to pay for the gas;
37. On the way to the guest address you have to pass the Tesco Lotus to let your guests do their shopping for two weeks; they themselves stay 3 days;
38. If you also let them pay for two tanks of cooking gas at the Tesco Lotus because they are empty at home, you will not wonder how you have cooked in the past three weeks;
39. Of the three boxes of Chang bought by your family, it is quite normal for you to hide two right at the back of your shed;
40 When your guests ask about those boxes of Chang, you look around very stupidly with a very stupid grin on your face.
41. one of the family members is the owner of the motorbike in your shed, you can ride it all the time, without batting an eyelid you ask your guest if it is not about time that maintenance is carried out on that motorbike
42. Your current wife / girlfriend has a child from a Thai man, you pay all the costs of that child without complaining, you never ask again if there happens to be another responsible parent (father) walking around somewhere who can contribute to the costs
43. If you get into the right lane when you have to turn left.
44. You try to spend money that you haven't earned yet.
45. Be very honest, except when it comes to family.
46. Check bin calls to the waitress.
47. Swallows 20% of all words.
48. Wash your hair when dinner is on the table.
49. Never pick up the phone in important cases.
50. I go to relatives with my daughter. Daughter turns out to be uncle, 2 aunts, neighbour, 3 nieces and grandmother.
51. Don't ever listen to wise advice.
52. Call out 6x no problem, not their problem, your problem.
53. Someone else has always done it.
54. After 12 years of not knowing who has right of way in traffic.
47. 20%, being the final consonants of each word.
A few more related to language:
a- apply your own grammar to another language
b- you can no longer pronounce two consonants in succession
c- perfectly knows and can speak the different tones of a word
d- you think the l and the r are just interchangeable. So the one time you say arai? the other time alai? but also : rottery instead of lottery. The Chinese cannot pronounce the r, Thai can, but in their language it is interchangeable with an l. So if you say: I'm going to immigration, you've lived in China too long. If you say: I'm going to do my raundry (laundry), then you have lived in Thailand too long.
Just add:
Nr xx: living in BKK for too long makes you look down on the Isaan.
Isaan small? 30% of the population lives there.
Isaan fake? Okay, it used to belong to Laos, but the language is older than pasaaThai
And another thing: this is the funniest entry+reactions I've read on thailandblog so far, SlagerijVanKampen's reaction is out of place, but yours even more so. Thailand is definitely bigger than BKK.
If you indeed consider most of the (nice) points as normal. I wonder.
What are you doing here. Do you really have a partner who does that?
Cees,
I have completed almost all 54 points.
But yes, that's what you get when you go on holiday with your Thai wife for several weeks every year from 1980.
The language that I and my wife speak in the Netherlands is almost impossible for an outsider to follow.
If you do not behave in accordance with point 1, the chance that you will reach the other stages is relatively small anyway.
- Why would you let an ambulance go first, is the patient in such a hurry?
-I ignore all traffic rules because I want to be 5 minutes earlier than 2 hours late.
Now let's eat first, my girlfriend hasn't gotten her food yet, but I'm already starting
29. You're not surprised when three men show up with a ladder to change a light bulb.
Why should you be surprised?
Except maybe because of the fact that there are usually more than three.
One to change the lamp, one to hold the ladder and then usually two or three men to see if everything is going well.
However, the fact that everything went well does not mean that the lamp will also burn when they leave.
29. You're not surprised when three men show up with a ladder to change a light bulb.
Why should you be surprised?
Perhaps due to the fact that 3 people had already shown up at the agreed time?
55. When you just let the door close behind you, knowing someone is walking behind you.
56. Even if you know that person has his/her hands full.
57. If you want to push ahead by any means necessary. Always. Everywhere. Everything is a race.
58. If your first question is 'have you eaten yet'
59. And your second question 'what did it cost?'
If you live in a lonely village, without sufficient knowledge of the language, and insist that life is so good there, and you don't want to go back to your home country for anything.
Everything you really think you know about Thai society, customs, and politics is really nothing more than what your Thai wife or her family is willing or able to tell you.
When friends from Europe come to visit you, with a few simple words, such as "Sawadee Krap" or "Mai pen rai" you give the impression that you are a real Thai connoisseur, and everyone understands.
Can't have any conversation, which goes a bit in depth, because their English, is very poor and your Thai is not enough, and yet you insist, that you had an interesting conversation.
When you step over thresholds instead of on them
If you take Buddhism more seriously than the Thais for whom is the most ceremony.
If you manage to convince yourself that those 40 degrees in the Isaan are more pleasant than a partly cloudy day with the occasional shower in the Netherlands.
Looks like I haven't been here long enough! haha
I meet a lot of those points, so I think I'm already well established.
Especially number 1 is important if you want to live or stay in Thailand for a longer period of time.
However, the order left-right-left-right, or right-left-right-left, is completely unimportant, because the probability of a car coming from the left or right in a one-way street is the same.
when you sing "yellow liver"
Awesome!!! Lie double here!!
If you think in Schiphol: how strange do those people look here (was in 1993)
No, you are only in Thailand long enough when you have hope
given up on wanting anything, no matter how insignificant
change….555
when you talk to a Thai for fifteen minutes in your best Thai and he thinks you speak poor English.
I notice that I am still 100% farang… I find nothing in my behavior…
You point people and objects in all directions during a conversation.
Then you enjoy your meal, you slurp and smack everything with your mouth open.
When you have finished the meal you notice that there is a piece of chicken between your teeth, you remove it with a toothpick, but out of decency you cover the open mouth with one hand.
555
jos k.
You like being addressed as 'papa' or 'boss' which is uncommon in your own country.
That you drive 80 on a scooter with 3 people without a helmet and without a correct driver's license
That your wife likes everything or says nothing at all
That you put on a cardigan in the winter at 25 degrees
That you don't go swimming because then the water is too cold
That it is difficult to explain that you want to eat, but not rice
That you say to your wife today I want potatoes and then you get a dish with potatoes. And rice.
That you know that 1 task (hardware store, immigration service, hospital, etc.) will take all day
That you are no longer afraid of the Thai dentist
That lao khao is quite delicious
That you sit right at the men's table at a party
That you have to trim your nails every week
That you should just let your mother-in-law throw plastic into an open fire.
That friends are suddenly in your house but also suddenly gone again
That if your stepson has English tutoring on the weekend and you ask what English words he has learned and he says English? I have been coloring in a notebook
That in some restaurants they think you can eat everything with your hands
That no one seems to have real friends but they all care for each other anyway
That you know more about Thailand than your wife does
That Facebook is here to stay in Thailand
That you just sleep through the night despite the noise of the dogs and roosters
That there is a party somewhere every day
That your wife is scared because the clinic says the baby will be between 3 and 4 kilos and she says such babies don't exist at all
That you've come to like karaoke