Living In Thailand Blog
Wednesday 21st January 2009
In English we ask people how they are even though we don't really care. It's not a real question and we certainly don't want to hear a long list of their maladies and personal problems.
The equivalent in Thai is asking people if they have eaten rice yet. It's a phrase you learn within about 24 hours of arriving in Thailand because it is spoken so often.
But there's another meaningless word I've heard thousands of times since I arrived in Thailand:
คิดถึง
kit-teung is the verb 'to miss'. Thais don't usually bother with personal pronouns so if someone tells you kit-teung they mean, "I miss you." It's completely meaningless.
If I haven't been in touch with a Thai female friend for a while, when we resume contact she will tell me she misses me. If I meet a girl for the first time, the next time I speak on the phone to her she will tell me she misses me. "Oh yeah, I miss you too."
Last year I met a Thai girl.
Not only is she the most beautiful Thai girl I have ever seen, she is probably the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my life. She's also a lovely, friendly person. She doesn't actually look all that Thai. She has dark features, obviously, but her complexion is fair and she could pass for being Spanish or another Mediterranean type. She spent a long time in education and has a Master's degree. I think her family are quite well to do.
The thing about well-bred Thai girls (as opposed to bar girls and the like) is that their physical beauty is only part of the package. When you factor in their soft, polite speech; their gentleness, manners and gracefulness; the way they gently wai, etc., they are in a class of their own.
We had dinner a few times; at first with her cousin (chaperones are quite usual at first with good Thai girls), but then alone. Nothing else happened and I wasn't expecting it to - not with a girl like that. I was on my best behaviour.
Thais use the English word 'spec' (specification) to describe the qualities they like in members of the opposite sex and if you were to write out the 'spec' of any Thai male for his ultimate female, she would fit the bill exactly.
I didn't get my hopes up because I believed it was impossible for a girl like that in Thailand at her age (she's around 27) not to have a Thai boyfriend who was very, very serious about her. I didn't see or hear from her for a couple of months and tried to get her out of my mind.
However, we exchanged SMS messages in December and she wrote that she missed me - of course. I didn't take this very seriously. The Thais use the idiom 'a dog barking at an airplane' to describe people who want things that are unattainable and I thought that chasing her would be like a dog barking at an airplane.
I then bumped into her just before Christmas. Whenever I see her I am reminded of the scene in Mario Puzo's 'The Godfather' when Michael Corleone sees Apollonia for the first time in Sicily and is dumbstruck by her beauty. His bodyguards realise that he has been struck by 'the thunderbolt'.
She smiled beautifully and her first words were that she missed me (naturally). She invited me to call her so we could go out to dinner. I didn't bother because I thought I would be wasting my time, and also that I would end up getting hurt if I were to get involved with her.
I succumbed eventually though, calling her last week, and we had a really pleasant chat. Yet again she said she missed me. She suggested going out for dinner and said she would call me when she was free. I'm still waiting for that call but I don't think it will ever come.
I think she always appears keen whenever we get in touch so that I won't feel bad. She wants to save my face. She is young, beautiful and can have any man in Thailand, some of whom are very wealthy. I'm an old, ugly farang who doesn't have much money. I would also be a stupid farang if I thought girls such as this were interested in me.
The girls here can make it so difficult for foreign men because they send out signals that are easily misinterpreted. They do this for good reasons but if a girl isn't interested it is sometimes better for her just to tell you to **** off - as a British or Australian girl would. At least you know then!
I have heard the phrase kit-teung thousands of times in Thailand and it means nothing. Other behaviour that would be meaningful back in the West also means nothing in Thailand.
Because of Thai cultural behaviour, it is so difficult trying to work out whether a Thai is being genuine or just saying something to save face or to make you feel better - or for other reasons. With this particular girl, I have guessed, double-guessed, followed my instincts, and then doubted my own instincts.
I am now trying to forget about her again. I haven't been emotionally attached to a Thai girl for years and it makes life a lot easier. I don't really want to get emotionally attached again, especially to a girl who is unattainable - if I am honest with myself.
There were several occasions when my gut instincts told me she wasn't at all interested but when she kept telling me she missed me, it made me doubt myself. When I finally gave her the chance to prove how much she missed me, she let me know in no uncertain terms how much she missed me. Not at all.
If you are a foreign man and get involved with a Thai girl, she will tell you lots of flattering things and that she misses you. She may be a really nice girl and what she says is true - to some extent - but you can take a lot of what is said with a very large grain of salt.
Tuesday 20th January 2009
The best of luck to Barack Obama. Timing is everything in life and he seems to be just the person the world needs right now to lead the world's biggest economy. Along with most of the rest of the world, I have high hopes for his presidency. The USA is such an important country and many countries want to support it, but it was difficult under the last administration.
There was a situation around four years ago when elections were held in the UK, the United States and Thailand within the space of about six months. In a short time, the world could have been rid of Blair, Bush and Thaksin. Instead, all three were voted back in ... and look what happened.
They have all gone now and a new era has begun; one which I hope will be a lot better for all of us.
Monday 19th January 2009
The Thais have a strange way of treating criminals and victims of crime.
If the police catch a drug dealer, they make a huge thing out of the arrest. The criminal, along with the drugs, any money he made from his activities, any mobile phones he used, any weapons he may have been carrying, etc., all get very publicly displayed while the media people swarm around.
I don't have much sympathy for criminals who suffer this intrusion of privacy but victims get treated the same way.
The guy who broke into my apartment building last year was caught a few days after his crime. The girl victim suffered a very serious assault so the police were quite thorough with their investigation. They asked around the neighbourhood and found that a small shop had CCTV. When they analysed the CCTV footage they picked him up as he was leaving the building.
What happens in this situation is that the police then take the criminal (and the victim) back to the scene of the crime and make him re-enact his crime. He has to show them how he entered the building, trace the original route he took, and demonstrate exactly what he did to the victim.
I happened to be in my room (which is next door to where the robbery and attempted rape occurred) when this took place and saw everything. The building was suddenly overrun with people. There were police, loads of media people, and a general crowd of onlookers. The rapist was also there in handcuffs.
The person I felt really sorry for was the victim. This happened only a week after the incident and she was still very shaken up. He had dislocated her jaw and her face was still black and blue. Not only was she confronted by her attacker again, but her room - her own private space - was completely invaded by strangers.
I found this all to be in very poor taste.
Today I was watching TV in a restaurant and there was a pretty young girl being interviewed in a police station. She had been sexually assaulted by a Thai man, and was obviously still very upset, but she had to make her statements while the Thai media thrust cameras into her face.
If this had happened to a Thai girl I knew and she had to suffer the indignity of such an invasion of privacy I would be furious. But this is the Thai way and you can't do much about it.
On the subject of sexual assault, what I am about to write may be contentious but I am just reporting what I was told a few days ago.
I was speaking to a Thai massage girl about rape and sexual assaults in Thailand because this seems to be quite a big problem. She was married to a Thai man but now has a farang boyfriend living overseas. She worked in a big farang tourist area of Phuket for a long time and she has lots of experience of both Thai and farang men.
One of the major differences between Thai and farang men, she told me, is that if a girl tells a farang man, "No," he stops doing whatever he was trying to do and understands that she means no.
She told me that once a Thai man has made up his mind he won't take no for an answer. The Thai word she used sounds like bplum.
ปล้ำ
I didn't know this word but my dictionary says - to struggle with, to wrestle with, to grapple with, to fight, to try hard, to rape, to violate.
I was in Nakhon Sri Thammarat a few years ago and went for a massage. The massage rooms were small with just thin partition walls in between. I heard a Thai man go into the next room with his massage girl.
They talked a lot at first and it started off quite amicably but after about 10 minutes the girl started screaming and was obviously in a lot of distress. Despite her screams, he didn't give up whatever he was trying to do and it continued.
A couple of months ago I went for a massage and at first I didn't realise that the girl was in a very bad way. She had experienced a big problem and had run away to live with her sister. She was desperate to tell her story but couldn't tell the other girls in the massage shop.
As soon as she realised I could understand some Thai she started pouring out her heart to me. She then started to undress. I wasn't sure what was going on at first but she wanted to show me the bruises that covered her body.
Her relationship with her Thai boyfriend had turned sour and had effectively finished, but after going out drinking with his friends, he would go back drunk and rape her. When she resisted he used force and Thai girls bruise very easily. She looked terrible.
Thai girls are very wary of Thai men but tend to trust foreign men. I have massages often and always talk to the girls. There are lots of Malaysian tourists where I am and the girls go to their hotels to give massages but they tell me this isn't a problem.
However, they also get Thai men asking them to go to 'resorts'. 'Resort' is a locally used euphemism for the little 'love hotels' where you can book a room by the hour. The girls know that these men are up to no good and always refuse.
These comments don't apply to all Thai men, obviously. There are many really good Thai men who have lots of respect for girls, but there are also lots of scoundrels. Because of this, it can take a long time to establish any degree of trust with a Thai girl but, as foreigners, we have a big advantage.
If this sounds like a general rant against all Thai men, it isn't. I have worked alongside, and for, some wonderful Thai men. I have also taught some great young lads who I would be proud of if I was their father.
After living in Thailand for a while though - and hearing and observing different things - you start to realise that there are common themes. One such theme is that a section of the Thai male population is very defiant. If they want to do something, they will go ahead and do it.
If what they want to do violates laws or regulations, they will simply ignore the laws and regulations. What happens all the time on Thai roads is a classic example of this. If what they want to do violates the will of another person, they will simply ignore the other person.
Harry Nicolaides, who was arrested last year while attempting to flee the country, has been sentenced to three years in jail.
The article linked to above says he didn't realise he was committing an offence by writing what he did. I find that a little surprising. I've read some of his articles in the past and two things become clear. The first is that he is a very intelligent man, and the second is that he has a very good knowledge of Thailand.
In Thailand there is a very clear line that you must not cross and Harry crossed it big time. To say he didn't realise the implications of what he was doing is somewhat doubtful.
From a wider perspective, it is also slightly worrying for anyone who writes about Thailand what the consequences might be if they write about the country in anything less than glowing terms.
There is a certain Thai policeman (Police Lieutenant Colonel Watanasak Mungkijkarndee) who seems determined to go after Jonathan Head, the BBC Thailand correspondent, for articles he has written.
Jonathan is a very good journalist who has many years experience in Southeast Asia and writes perfectly factually. It is a journalist's responsibility to write things as he sees them, but those things might not always be very flattering and, as we have seen, the consequences could be dire in Thailand.
Sunday 18th January 2009
Let's say that a pint of beer costs a standard £2. You see a pub one day advertising 'Half-price Beer' and think, "That sounds good." When you go into the pub you see more signs saying 'Beer normally £4 a pint but now half price at only £2 a pint!"
Would you think you have found a bargain? More than likely, you would get pissed off at this cheap trick and walk straight out to find an honest landlord.
When I first came to Thailand I started buying cheap clothes but it was a false economy. The quality was terrible and after a few washes the clothes would start to look awful. When I realised this I began buying more expensive clothes from Camel. The quality is good and I prefer practical clothes to fashionable ones.
A Camel shirt is about Bt750 but it is never sold simply at that price. As new clothes hit the shelves they arrive with two prices. There is an artificial high price and the actual price. Because of this artificial price the shop then claims to be giving a discount of 30% when selling at the real price but it is a mythical discount because the items were never sold at the higher price.
I know this and try to ignore the silly games Thai vendors play so it annoys me when I go shopping and sales assistants constantly tell me, "Discount 30%," "Discount 40%," etc. The items were never sold at the higher price so it isn't a discount.
Today, I passed one of the Camel shops in a local department store. Instead of big signs saying "Discount 30%," "Discount 40%," etc., there was a sign that said "Buy one, get one free."
When I looked, the original price of a shirt is now Bt1,500! Therefore when you buy one and get the other one for 'free', they work out at Bt750 each - the standard price. How stupid do Thai merchants think people are?
In the UK - and probably other Western countries - there are laws against this sort of thing to protect consumers. In Thailand there are either no laws or, if there are laws, the Thais treat them the same as they treat all other laws.
There are hundreds of opticians shops in Thailand and every day of the year, every shop is advertising some kind of special promotion on glasses and contact lenses. I bought some glasses last year and saw later that the shop had a new promotion.
I went in again to find out more details. The girl as good as told me that the signs outside mean absolutely nothing. The first price you are given is always very high - after all, there is a chance that a naive customer might agree to the high price straight away.
The price will quickly come down depending on your bargaining skills until it reaches a point where the vendor will genuinely make no profit. This price will be a small fraction of the original price you were given.
This is just how Asia works. The big department stores have fixed prices but in the small shops and markets, the vendors will always try to get the highest price they can, and buyers should always try to buy for the lowest price.
The moral here is always to be very cynical about discounts and promotions in Thailand and never to believe what a Thai vendor tells you - no matter how sweetly she smiles at you.
Saturday 17th January 2009
I have churned out yet another learning to read Thai tutorial.
Learn to read Thai - Tutorial 10
I have spent quite a bit of time doing these this week because I wanted to make sure there was enough material to keep any interested readers going for a while.
I have also had quite a lot of free time this week - which helps. However, I have to start working for a living again now so I won't be producing tutorials quite as regularly from now on.
I have structured these tutorials to follow on, and build from, each other. Before moving to the next tutorial you must ensure that you understand and remember everything from the previous tutorials.
If you can't understand something, read it again to see if it makes any sense. If you can't understand because of the way I have explained something (or haven't explained something), please tell me, and give me specifics.
This level seems very straightforward to me but that assumption could lead me to skip some essentials and not explain properly. Feedback has been good so far but please keep it coming.
My plan at the moment is to add a few more Thai characters each time, and using the new characters plus ones we learned previously, make words to give you more reading practice. As we advance, the level will get increasingly more difficult.
Eventually we will have covered all the Thai characters and then I will start taking photos of signs and let you practice reading them. Photographs will illustrate real life examples and show the unusual fonts that are used in Thailand.
I will assist, of course, and as I mentioned before this is proving to be a great learning exercise for me. By doing this, I have spent quite a few hours studying Thai this week which in normal circumstances I wouldn't have done.
Bird flu is back - Birdflu warning for 14 provinces
I thought we had seen the last of this but apparently not.
When it first appeared in early 2004, Thaksin - who was PM at the time - strenuously denied its existence even though birds had been dropping dead for two months.
It wasn't until a renowned medic went public with the facts that he admitted to the problem. (Source: 'Thaksin - The business of politics in Thailand' by Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker p.232)
This book speculates whether the cover-up had anything to do with the big Charoen Pokphand (CP) chicken conglomerate's close relationship with the government. The authors also mention that Thaksin's biggest fear over bird flu was what impact it might have on the economy, stock market, and big business rather than the implications for the health of the nation or world.
Anyway, those days are over now and it's clean politics all the way with Abhisit at the helm ...
What I shall always remember about bird flu in Thailand the first time around was how all the Thais were telling me how dangerous it was and how they had stopped eating chicken, yet when the government organised an 'eat free chicken' day to declare that chicken was safe there was almost a riot as the Thais fought amongst themselves to get free food.
I should start an FAQ based on search engine queries. Here are a few from yesterday:
Q. Are Thai girls attracted to Western men?
A. A small percentage are but most of the ones who make themselves readily available to Western men are attracted to Western men's money.
Q. What do Thai bar girls expect?
A. They expect foreign men to be completely ignorant about Thailand, not to understand any Thai, to believe their lies, and to hand over lots of money. You can have fun with them on a short vacation but it is dangerous to get attached or to start taking them too seriously.
Q. hua hin thai uni girl sex farang (not really a question but I get the gist)
A. I worked at a big Thai university for about four years. The Thai girls I know studying at university are there to study and are quite career minded. They all tend to be from very conservative backgrounds. I haven't met any yet who earn money on the side by going to Hua Hin (or elsewhere) to prostitute themselves to desperate foreigners.
Friday 16th January 2009
I had a really weird experience today that I can't explain. I have no religious beliefs and don't believe in any kind of supernatural powers, but the more I think about this the uneasier I feel.
Yesterday I wrote about a Thai word and said I wasn't sure about the spelling because I had seen it spelt two different ways. See yesterday's entry for details.
Today, I had lunch and then decided to go to the local supermarket to buy a couple of cakes. My intention was to just buy the cakes and return home straight away.
As I entered the supermarket, instead of going to the cake shop I felt something telling me to go to the bookshop first. This thought came to me in a flash and was something I hadn't considered doing two seconds before. I have all the books I need at the moment.
As I entered the bookshop, I still wasn't sure why I had gone or what I was going to look for, but whatever led me to the shop then led me directly to a blue book written in Thai. It was titled:
กระ และ กะ (gruh and guh)
It was a Thai dictionary but only contained words beginning with gruh or guh. If you read what I wrote yesterday you will see the significance of this to my unanswered question.
I was quickly able to ascertain the correct spelling, which is:
กะเทย ... without the 'r' character.
Do I have an invisible hand helping me with my Thai?
Hot on the heels of 'Children's Day' last Saturday, comes 'Teacher's Day' today. This means another day off work. All this time off work is good but it doesn't do much for continuity when teaching. In the past couple of months I have hardly seen some of my pupils.
In December there were public holidays for the King's birthday and Constitution Day. The school had quite a long break over Christmas and they also organised a fair so there was more time off to prepare for this.
The senior students had a couple of weeks off regular lessons to do university entrance exams, and now there are mid-term exams for all students which means more cancelled classes.
I added another Thai language reading tutorial today:
Learn to read Thai - Tutorial 9
There have been two less than flattering stories about Thailand in the news this week. The first was about systematic torture of Muslims by soldiers in the southern provinces (Thai troops 'torturing in south'), and the second was about Thailand forcing illegal immigrants back out to sea without engines or food (Thais 'leave boat people to die').
I only know about these things from the media. Generally, Thais are very kind people but I have read other stories and seen at first-hand how some can also be extremely cruel. The story last year of the 54 Burmese suffocated in a truck as they were being trafficked into Thailand to do construction work in Phuket was particularly horrifying.
Construction companies benefit by getting extremely cheap labour, and traffickers get a bounty for each person they supply but the human cost can be huge.
Thursday 15th January 2009
Adding reading tutorials here had started to get a bit unwieldy. I have listened to reader feedback and separated the tutorials into individual pages. Here is a link to the first one and from there you will find links to the others.
Learn to read Thai - Tutorial 1
I also added another tutorial today:
Learn to read Thai - Tutorial 8
The BBC published some photos of Indonesian ladyboys (for those of you who are interested in such things). The article says they are known as waria in Indonesia.
Thai has its own word but I have seen two different spellings:
กะเทย
กระเทย
Does the word start with a 'g' or a 'gr'? In colloquial Thai the 'r' normally gets dropped (or turned into an 'l' sound) anyway.
Either way, the standard transliteration (katoey or kathoey) is one I think is inaccurate. The version that uses 'th' is particularly confusing because people will start to put their tongues between their teeth to pronounce it.
The way I would spell this in English is a bit messy but phonetically I think it is more accurate. The only reason transliteration systems exist is for a reader of one language to pronounce words written in a different language. If the transliteration system isn't correct phonetically, what is the point?
guh-ter-ee or gruh-ter-ee
The first syllable is a low tone (mid-class initial consonant, dead syllable, short vowel) but I'm not sure how to work out the tones of multi-syllabic vowels like the one used in this word for the second and third syllables. I will try to find out. If anyone knows, please send me an e-mail.
กะเทยควาย
guh-ter-ee kwaay translates to 'Buffalo Ladyboy' and this is what Thais call the oversize, very butch-looking ladyboys. Be careful though. Calling someone a buffalo is a general insult in Thailand and calling a ladyboy a buffalo ladyboy gets them really upset. If you don't believe me, give it a try!
It's probably not a good idea to use this term too much in Pattaya or Phuket's Patong Beach. Knowing some Thai words in Thailand can be a good and useful thing but knowing too many of the wrong words can get you into trouble. Swear at Thais all you like in English - as strongly as you like - and it means nothing to them, but insults in their own language carry a lot of weight.
You'd think that anyone driving a public vehicle would drive responsibly to ensure the safety of his passengers, right? Not in Thailand.
I use quite a lot of sawng-thaews to get around. These are the pickup trucks with a couple of rows of seats in the back and a flimsy roof to keep the sun and rain out. The roof isn't a roll cage. If the vehicle overturns with passengers in the back they will most likely suffer the same fate as the pickup truck passengers in Narathiwat a few days ago.
Occasionally the drivers go crazy, and it happened again this evening. If Thais want to kill themselves in road accidents, that's up to them, but it's a different story when they start putting other people's lives at risk.
The passengers sit in the back but the driver sits in an air-conditioned, enclosed cab. Many of the drivers are young men of low education and they install loud music systems and small steering wheels, etc. Instead of acting responsibly towards their passengers, all they care about is having fun by driving as fast as possible.
I managed to get to my destination in one piece but said a few words to the driver when I paid my fare.
I know that considerate Thais often don't like the behaviour of other people (because they tell me) but they will never say anything to the inconsiderate person. It's partly cultural and partly because they are afraid of retribution. I don't care and I tell people.
He was furious. Many Thai men have this attitude that they can do whatever pleases them in Thailand. If they want to drive fast, drive drunk, drive the wrong way, smoke in no-smoking areas, they just go ahead.
They don't expect anyone to say anything - because that's the Thai way - and they don't like it if anyone does say anything. They particularly don't like it if a foreigner says something. I've run into this problem a few times when I have almost been hit as a result of a Thai breaking traffic laws. They object to me telling them they are in the wrong.
The driver tonight launched into a tirade of abuse using the 'f' word frequently (farang). After saying my piece, I just walked away and didn't give him the satisfaction of responding.
The ratio of good to bad people is very high in Thailand but there are bad apples just like there are in every other country.
The thief/rapist who broke into my apartment building last year and committed a serious assault on my neighbour was a sawng-thaew driver. Most of them are nice guys but a lot of low lifes you come across in Thailand drive a vehicle of some kind for a living.
Wednesday 14th January 2009
I said previously that the best way to learn was to teach, and that writing things down is a great way to commit those things to memory. This exercise is certainly proving to be useful for me, and the good news is that I have signed up two students already!
In light of this good news I have decided to offer a full money back guarantee. If you are not completely satisfied with these tutorials I will refund your course fees in full. I can't say fairer than that.
While in the process of learning something, it is useful to know how much more there is to learn. With regard to what I am trying to achieve here, that's a difficult question and I can answer in one of three ways:
- Pessimistically. I expect to be studying Thai for the rest of my life and I will never learn everything - not even get anywhere close. The process is infinite.
- Logically. There are 44 consonants and 32 vowels but two consonants are obsolete. So far we have covered four vowels and nine consonants, so there are 28 vowels and 33 consonants left.
- Realistically. In everyday Thai only a small subset of letters are used regularly and already we have covered quite a few. If I had to make a finger-in-the-air guess, I reckon that if you learn 20 more common consonants and vowels in addition to what we have covered already you will know enough to read a hell of a lot of Thai words. Once you get to that stage, then learning the remainder will be quite easy.
Answer 3 is probably the most accurate and it should also be the most encouraging.
Last week, I was talking to the young German girl who's an exchange student at the school where I work about discipline at the school.
In my English lessons there is absolutely no discipline but the school is very strict about other matters - especially appearance. Remember: face, image and appearance are much more important than substance in Thailand. The girls wear long-sleeved blouses that must be buttoned at the neck and the cuffs. If buttons are undone this earns a telling-off.
They can't wear make-up or jewellery, obviously, and must wear their hair in the Thai 'schoolgirl bob' style. They hate this and can't wait to leave school so they can start growing their hair. One of my students, who comes from a local family, has a twin sister who studies in Bangkok. I asked her why her sister didn't also study locally. The answer was that she wanted long hair and girls can have long hair at the school in Bangkok.
Most Thai girls are obsessed with their own appearance, and especially their hair. When I wrote previously about motorcyclists not wearing crash helmets, the worst offenders seem to be young girls and I think it's because they don't want to mess their hair up by wearing a helmet. If they have a bad accident they will mess up far more than their hair but they don't think about this.
Back to discipline at the school, and teachers regularly inspect the girls' hair and finger nails. If hair or nails are found to be too long, they don't just tell the girls - they get out the scissors there and then to fix the problem.
I was horrified but the German girl told me that all females can cut hair. Really?
Getting a hair cut in Thailand can be good and bad. It's cheap - which is good - and instead of contorting your neck to wash your hair uncomfortably over a sink (as they do in the UK) you lie on a special bed and get a 10 to 15 minute full head massage, often from a pretty girl.
This is very good and, what's more, the girl won't be called Sharon or Tracy and normally doesn't speak enough English to ask you annoying questions about where you are going for your holiday this year.
The bad news is that many girls cutting hair aren't really what I describe as hairdressers. They fart around for ages trying to keep the basic shape of the hair while reducing the overall length. This doesn't inspire confidence.
I want a proper hairdresser who can dive in and cut my hair properly. A couple of years ago I found such a hairdresser. Her name is Maew (cat) and she comes from Nakhon Sri Thammarat. Maew always did a great job but at the beginning of this year she went back home to take care of her parents in Nakhon. Now the search is on for a new hairdresser.
I found a fancy looking place last weekend and it was the owner who cut my hair. I was hoping for something similar to Maew. However, when she said she had finished it seemed a bit premature and now - just a couple of days later - my hair looks a mess again.
I will continue the search.
Tuesday 13th January 2009
The vast majority of visitors to this site arrive on (and leave from) the page I wrote about Thai girls and most searches are related to sex. They want to find 'underage girls', 'virgin girls', 'naked girls', 'university girls', 'hotels that don't charge joiner fees', 'single man's guide to pattaya', 'Thai girls with huge t*ts' (from yesterday), etc., and one guy arrived recently looking for 'Thai girls who take it in the back door'.
I'm a bit puzzled as to why search engines point to my site for some of these terms but people arrive anyway after firing a search into a search engine.
Most arrive via Google Images meaning they just want to look at photos, not read anything. Perhaps they are illiterate? It's a bit sad really and it isn't surprising that so many run into problems with Thai women.
They arrive in the country with a very narrow-minded view of Thailand and head straight to the beach resort bars where they meet Thai girls who are guaranteed to cause problems. If they took a genuine interest in the country they would then start to meet good girls who wouldn't cause problems (or, at least, wouldn't cause as many problems because all girls cause problems!).
The best way to demonstrate a genuine interest in the country is to show knowledge of Thai ways and Thai culture, and one of the very best ways is to demonstrate knowledge of the Thai language.
Just my two cents.
Any paramotor pilots out there? How's this for a way to see Thailand? Moonair trip to Thailand. There's a rather nice photograph on this page too.
Most Thais are nice people but behind the sweet smiles and "butter wouldn't melt in their mouths" expressions, some can be extremely cunning, crafty and scheming.
TV soap operas in Thailand show this to the extreme when the lead actress gives a sly smile to the camera after getting her own way by being deceitful and conniving. But this kind of behaviour is not reserved for TV soap operas.
I mentioned before that my new job is good - and it is with the older students - but from Day One I had problems with the youngest class. They were noisy, inattentive, and cheeky to the point of being rude. They answered back constantly, told me what I was doing was boring, told me they didn't want to follow my lessons, and I heard some very sarcastic comments in Thai if they thought something was too easy.
I tried to fix this myself at first by getting the ringleaders on my side to act as my teaching assistants. However, this idea didn't work and the problems continued. It was impossible to teach them.
Knowing that this would escalate into a major problem before long, I told several people who could influence matters. As a result, the whole class got a serious talking to from their Thai teachers and their behaviour changed immediately. What a relief.
I have just found out (in a very roundabout fashion) what was behind all this nonsense.
They had a female foreign teacher before and liked her but she went home. They believed she was still in Thailand and wanted her to return to teach them. To achieve this they decided that if they made my life hell, I would leave and she would return. Nice, eh?
I'm not the greatest teacher ever to have been born but I think I do an OK job. I have my students' interests at heart first and foremost, I think I explain things in an understandable way, and I can explain quite a lot in Thai.
I have taught English to qualified dentists, and students up to PhD level. I have also proofread papers for international publication from Thai doctors and university professors. I get on well with good students who want to learn but not so well with bad students who think the role of a foreign teacher is just to keep them entertained.
I've generally had an enjoyable time teaching in Thailand and some of my past students have become good friends. What I don't need at this stage in life is to be playing psychological mind games with a gang of 12 year-old Thai girls who want their previous teacher back.
However, when you sign up to teach in Thailand this kind of crap - which occurs occasionally - goes with the territory.
If I imagined I would be teaching here for many more years to come I think it would drive me insane. What keeps me sane is the fact I don't intend doing it for much longer. I can start drawing my company pension next year, and provided the figures look OK (and if the economy looks better), that will be the signal to finally hang up my teacher's hat.