Living In Thailand Blog
Sunday 11th January 2009
Children's Day was a lot of fun yesterday. Businesses, hospitals and emergency services open their doors and organise various things for the kids. There are lots of balloons, games and sweets but also more useful stuff.
Children can learn more about English, climb over a fire engine, get a free haircut, or get their teeth checked for free. I spent quite a lot of time in a public hospital. For some reason I always seem to migrate to places that have a lot of Thai nurses - I don't know why.
The day got off to a bit of a serious start as official proceedings were opened by an important provincial dignitary. In the 'Land of Smiles' whenever you see official people carrying out official duties everyone looks deadly serious and no one ever smiles.
It is also dangerous giving a Thai a microphone because they immediately launch into 'rhetorical Thai'. No matter how lighthearted the occasion, Thais speaking rhetorical Thai are never much fun.
I once attended a beauty contest in Songkhla by the beach. Everyone (including me) just wanted to ogle at the contestants but we were treated to a 15 minute speech about the wonders of Songkhla province by someone speaking rhetorical Thai.
Yesterday the kids just wanted to play with their balloons and eat free food but first they had to endure a lecture about the dangers of drugs and smoking. The atmosphere was like a funeral.
One thing that reassured me was seeing that when Thai kids are uninterested in what they are being told, they don't pay attention no matter who is speaking or how important he is. It isn't just my English lessons where they don't pay any attention.
Special days and occasions in Thailand are normally very enjoyable. On Children's Day (held on the second Saturday in January) it is heartwarming to see how many people give up their free time to provide something for Thailand's youngsters.
Loy Gratong in November is very special and quite spiritual; it's probably my favourite Thai festival. The King's birthday on 5th December is another special day. Witnessing thousands of Thais standing around the university reservoir singing the royal anthem by candlelight in a tribute to the King was very special, and an experience I will remember for a long time.
There are some special events in the Buddhist calendar, such as Makha Bucha Day, where Thais pay respect to the Buddha and circle the main building in Buddhist temples holding candles.
The only exception is Songkran. It used to be an enjoyable occasion by all accounts - and it still is in the company of civilised Thais - but too may idiots use it as an excuse these days to be obnoxious with water and to get drunk.
The road accident death rate soars and I have reached the stage now where I would be quite happy to be out of the country during Songkran.
The Children's Day stuff was going on in an area that I don't often go to these days. I used to live nearby but moved almost three-and-a-half years ago. I took the opportunity to eat at a little restaurant that I used to go to which serves a pretty good English breakfast.
I was amazed not only that they remembered me, but they also remembered my name. It was as if I had never been away. Thais do seem to remember me. Maybe it's because there aren't too many farangs where I am?
I just had one problem with a new waitress who didn't know me. She wouldn't come over to give me a menu or take my order but just grinned nervously and tried to get the attention of her colleagues.
I have described this previously as the 'bacon sandwich look'. Sometimes, when I walk into a small Thai restaurant the staff look at me and start grinning as if I have made a big mistake. It's as if a Jewish person accidentally walks into a restaurant that just serves bacon sandwiches.
The Thais can't speak English and assume that I can't speak or read Thai. They don't believe we will be able to communicate so they start grinning nervously and often just ignore me. Depending on my mood, I can be quite understanding about this or it can be extremely irritating.
I was speaking to an English guy recently who has lived in Thailand for 19 years and speaks good Thai. I asked if this still happened to him. It does ... often.
There's another phenomenon that if you are with a Thai person, the conversation can easily become triangular. You talk to the person you don't know in Thai and instead of replying back to you they reply to your Thai friend.
You understand the reply and ask another question but the next reply also goes to your Thai friend. This can also be very annoying.
I mentioned this to the English guy and it also still happens to him - with his children who are half Thai, half English. He talks in Thai to a Thai who then replies in Thai to his children! Sometimes you want to scream here.
While I'm on the subject, you have to realise that regardless of how well you speak Thai there will always be Thais who make up their minds they can't understand you before you even open your mouth.
Before you speak, that person will have determined they can't understand you and this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sometimes there are two or more Thais. As you speak, one or more will understand you perfectly but the one who has decided they can't understand you won't understand.
There is nothing you can do about this.
The nightclub fire in Bangkok at New Year was a terrible tragedy and it made front page news around the world. What puzzles me though is that every two or three days in Thailand an equivalent number of people die on the roads and no one pays much attention. Are road deaths that inevitable that we can just ignore them?
On Children's Day in Narathiwat yesterday, seven children and two mothers were killed when the pickup truck they were travelling in overturned.
You see pickup trucks driving around loaded up with people in the back (especially Thai Muslims for some reason), yet despite this they still drive like maniacs.
In Korat, a young boy and his aunt were riding home on a motorbike after visiting the zoo on Children's Day when they were hit and killed by a bus.
Not only are newspaper stories of road deaths very common in Thailand but ever since I got here I have also heard many stories first-hand from locals whose friends or relatives have been killed in road accidents.
When you observe how Thais drive and observe their disregard for traffic laws, this is absolutely no surprise. Many road deaths in Thailand would be quite avoidable if laws were obeyed and reinforced.
I realise that I go on about this a lot but the Thais are a lovely race of people and this senseless loss of life is something that really hurts.
While enjoying Children's Day at the hospital yesterday, I met and spoke to a couple of youngsters in wheelchairs who were patients after serious motorbike accidents. They were lucky - they survived to live another day unlike the victims in Narathiwat and Korat.
One of the young lads had suffered severe leg injuries. Because of the amount of practice they get, Thai doctors have lots of experience repairing the limbs of motorcycle accident victims so he may walk again (similar to doctors in Colombia with gunshot victims).
However, had these injuries been to his head instead of his legs I doubt very much if I would have had the opportunity to talk with him.
I've been taking a lot more motorbike taxi rides than usual recently. Finding myself a lot busier nowadays, I take a motorbike taxi now when I would use to walk in order to save time.
Some of the drivers are fine but others make me feel very uncomfortable. Their primary objective seems to be to get from A to B without stopping. At junctions where I would always stop if I was driving, they never do.
It doesn't matter if they want to turn left or right or go straight on, at the junction they just continue going without stopping. They hope there won't be any vehicles in the way or prepare themselves to drive around any vehicle they meet. This is a strategy that works most of the time but it is bound to cause problems eventually.
The closest I have ever been to being involved in a road accident here was on the back of a motorbike taxi shortly after I got to Thailand. The guy built up a lot of speed going downhill but came to a junction where he wanted to turn right. Of course, he didn't want to stop.
He pulled straight out and turned right planning to drive along the wrong side of the road for a while until he could cut across to the left (correct) side of the road.
As he pulled out of the junction another motorcyclist was coming along and had to brake sharply to avoid us. The other motorcyclist went into a skid and his bike turned sideways as he headed towards me. He stopped just short of my right leg.
It was entirely the fault of my driver but he just cursed the other guy and continued. The Thais are normally lovely, easy-going people but on the roads they can turn into devils.
Saturday 10th January 2009
Today is Children's Day in Thailand. It's maybe easy to think that children get enough anyway these days without needing a special day of their own?
Some do but many in Thailand don't. A young boy I taught last year was the son of an important provincial politician and arrived for his lessons in a new BMW X5 driven by the family driver. Quite a few other kids I have taught have also been from wealthy families.
But other kids have almost nothing. There's a group that lives very near to me on a piece of waste ground in wooden and corrugated iron shacks. Their parents trawl through rubbish looking for things that can be recycled, and earn just enough that way to survive.
The kids living there are great though. Despite their poor background they always look smart for school and they are genuinely nice, well-spoken, polite children. Sometimes they help me by lightening my shopping on the way home. I leave the supermarket with three packets of chocolate biscuits but by the time I get home I only have two!
I'm not sure exactly what I will do today but I think the organisation I work for has a plan to contribute something towards this day for Thai children and I hope to take part.
I heard a comment from an Australian yesterday that completely contradicts what I have been saying recently - but it is a comment from foreigners that is fairly typical.
He said, "Even if I lived in Thailand for another 20 years, I wouldn't be able to read Thai." Why do so many people think this way? I maintain that if you apply yourself you can start to read quite a lot of basic Thai in just a few months.
He's not a stupid man. He's an educator who has taught in Thailand and now teaches in Australia. He could easily pick up what I have taught so far.
Because of the way Thai is written with no spaces, foreigners just see a long line of weird looking characters and it seems like an impossible mountain to climb. If you believe that something can't be learnt within 20 years, what is the likelihood that you will even bother to start learning?
When you start breaking the language down into its constituent parts, it starts to look quite easy and when you eventually understand enough easy parts the mystery suddenly disappears. That's what I am attempting to do here. Anyone who has already been through the process will now tell you that basic Thai is quite easy - because it is.
I keep referring to 'basic Thai' because the written language can get difficult but what I am referring to here are signs, menus and other media that use single words or short phrases. If you stick with me and make an effort to study I think you will be surprised at how much progress you can make in a short time.
Not having a TV - and not even bothering with a radio - I haven't heard the new Thai Prime Minister speak yet. When I found out that Abhisit was born in Newcastle I thought it would be great to have a Thai PM with a Geordie accent. I could just imagine him throwing in a few wye aye's, sounding just like Jimmy Nail or Sid the Sexist.
However, considering he was educated at Eton and Oxford, I suspect his English speaking voice is more Pimm's No. 1 than it is Newcastle Brown Ale.
After living in Thailand for a while I started asking myself questions about my own behaviour. In case you wondered, "Why am I here?" isn't one of those questions. That's quite easily answered; it was a good move and one that I don't regret.
Why was I annoyed with myself yesterday for forgetting to buy cat food while out shopping when I don't even have a cat? That's the kind of question I meant.
In addition to the rats and snakes I mentioned a couple of days ago, there are lots of cats and dogs running around in Thailand. Some of the dogs are the crusty, hairless variety that you can smell downwind from several yards away.
However, there are lots of really cute animals as well. They are kind of looked after by the Thais but they aren't pets as Westerners define pets. Some have collars and the locals put out food for them but they live on the street and have to fend for themselves.
As an animal-loving foreigner living in Thailand what do you do? One extreme is to set up an organisation to take care of Thailand's stray animals, such as SCAD in Bangkok, which is run by foreigners.
The other extreme is just to ignore them. They're not your responsibility, are they? The problem will never go away because of the Thai belief system and you can't rescue every stray animal in the country, can you?
For some people though, ignoring their plight is difficult.
Orphaned kittens a few weeks old will certainly die if not taken care of before they are old enough to take care of themselves. However, my attempts at rescuing orphaned cats haven't been very successful so far. Last year I documented how I had tried to rescue a kitten that was being abused by a young Thai boy but it was killed by a dog at the temple where I took it for sanctuary.
Prior to that, Iss had tried to rescue a kitten. She took it back to her village home where it survived for a few months before being hit and killed by a car.
I started feeding some local street cats some time ago and once you start it is difficult to stop. One cat - a black and white tom cat - is terrified of people (and he was terrified of me initially) but now he is my friend and quite affectionate. That bond with an animal can be quite powerful.
They're not my responsibility and I can't help every stray animal in Thailand but at least I can help a few have a slightly better life. That's about all most of us can do.
Thursday 8th January 2009
This week saw the rainy season give way to the hot season in the space of about 36 hours. I think the last two months of 2008 were the wettest months I've experienced since I got here with rain every day and flooding in the southern provinces.
The rain continued into 2009 but it suddenly stopped on Sunday. Monday was almost perfect, being dry but not too hot. However, by Tuesday it was back to intense heat and that's how it has stayed.
Still, it could be worse. I could be in England where it is -12°C at the moment.
Just before Christmas I returned to my room to find a snake in the apartment building car park. I told the security guard thinking that he would take some action. He wasn't bothered at all and told me they visit often. He just left it to depart on its own. It wasn't that big - only about three and a bit feet long - but the security guard said it was venomous.
The owner of the apartment lives in a house next door and used to have a pet dog. The security guard told me that a cobra got into the garden last year and there was an altercation between it and the dog. The dog killed the snake but was also bitten in the process and died shortly afterwards.
Before I came to Thailand I had never seen a snake outside of a zoo or a snake farm but I have seen quite a few here, and many sightings have been in densely populated areas with lots of people around. Thailand is not a good place for ophidiophobics.
I've also seen thousands of rats since I got here and these are also animals that don't seem to bother Thais. During all the rain recently I was sitting in a small restaurant eating lunch while there was a torrential downpour in progress.
The rats live in the storm drains but these became flooded during the storms so they had to leave their accommodation temporarily. A monster rat ran into the restaurant and headed for my feet. Being brave, I screamed like a teenage girl and drew my feet up. There was no reaction from the Thais and the rat eventually ran out again. They looked at me as if to say, "What was all the fuss about? It was only a rat."
Thai uses the same word for rat and mouse. Occasionally when a huge rat appears, a Thai will say, "Oh, there's a mouse." I feel like replying, "No, mice are cute and fluffy - that's a ******* big rat!"
I am told that the storm drains are also alive with snakes because they feed on the rats. When I was told this I felt a shiver go through my entire body. You certainly feel more in touch with wildlife here than in the West.
Singapore is also an interesting place for wildlife. On the surface it is a highly modern city but its location is in deepest, steamiest Southeast Asia where 200 years ago there was just jungle. I've seen some huge monitor lizards running around in Singapore storm drains and my brother who lives - and plays cricket - in Singapore says there are cobras where he plays. That would certainly add some spice when the skipper tells you to field down at long leg.
On one occasion he was telling me about a big commotion at a friend's apartment building when someone found a huge python in the apartment swimming pool. These things sound strange but considering the geographic location they are perfectly natural.
Road safety officials in Nigeria have brought in a new law that requires motorcyclists to wear crash helmets. The law is for their own good. The motorcyclists are furious and have started wearing "improvised helmets" to get around the law such as dried pumpkin shells. Nigeria bikers' vegetable helmets
I have yet to see a Thai wearing a dried pumpkin shell while riding a motorbike but many Thais also wear "improvised helmets" to get around the same law in Thailand. That's when they bother at all.
Many don't bother and continue to ride around without anything on their heads knowing there is only a very small risk of being stopped by the police. Others carry their crash helmets in their handlebar baskets to put on quickly if they see a traffic cop, and once the danger has passed the helmet goes back into the basket.
The Thai "improvised helmets" range from fireman's helmets to the lightweight plastic safety helmets you see construction workers wearing on building sites. They are light and probably quite comfortable but in the event of a serious crash they wouldn't be at all effective. However, their only purpose is to keep the cops away and this seems to work.
Last year Thailand made it illegal to use a mobile phone while driving. This is another sensible law that many countries have introduced because it has been proven that chatting on a mobile phone while driving is as risky as driving while drunk.
This is another law that is openly flouted in the part of Thailand where I live. Every day I see lots of drivers still chatting away on their mobile phones. You can see that they are concentrating fully on the phone conversation and while doing so they aren't really paying attention to driving.
Most Thai drivers drive way too fast. Whenever I see a car that is going very slowly it is normally because the driver is engrossed in a phone conversation on his mobile.
It is this kind of thing that makes Thailand such a confusing, contradictory and frustrating country. Many aspects of Thai behaviour resemble that of a Banana Republic but it definitely isn't a Banana Republic.
The healthcare system, for example, is fantastic and the treatment I have received from Thai doctors and dentists has been far superior to anything I ever received in the UK. But for everything good about the country, there is something else that is a joke.
I'm off to the local vegetable market now because I've just had a great idea how I can make a few extra Baht here in these difficult economic times.
Wednesday 7th January 2009
Here's a tip for remembering Thai characters. (I apologise in advance if I am teaching Grandmother to suck eggs.)
The act of writing something down on paper is very powerful. If you just look at a Thai character it is unlikely you will remember it, but if you write it down several times this will commit it to memory.
This is one of the reasons I recommend getting some Thai kids' join-the-dots books because these are a very convenient way of learning to write Thai.
These books also show you where you should start writing each character and in which direction the pen should move. Thais are very fussy about this kind of thing. I have been told off more than once for writing a letter the wrong way! The end result was exactly the same but I was told I should start off with the straight line at the bottom and not the curve at the top.
If you aren't in Thailand and can't get hold of any of these books, just copy the characters below as carefully as you can on to a piece of paper and do this several times. It will go a long way in helping you to remember them.
My current boss is a lovely lady. I had lots of different managers in my UK career days; some good, some bad, so I really appreciate working for a good person.
She speaks excellent English and I know that must have taken a lot of hard work. She has built up an excellent business, which must also have taken a lot of hard work. You might think that she is a goal-driven person because of this success but she is very much a warm and friendly people person.
She's married to a very pleasant Englishman and because of this understands farangs very well. She always has time for people and she is very generous with other things besides her time. She organised a BBQ before Christmas for her staff and then took everyone out for a New Year meal. You couldn't really ask for anyone better to work for.
On top of all this, she got me out of a huge hole a few months ago when my world was falling apart. With the Western economy on the verge of collapse, my financial situation was looking dire and, having been told my previous teaching contract would not be renewed, that gave me another big problem.
She offered me a new job and did all the paperwork for my new visa and work permit extension. She also paid for all this. In the past I had done this myself - and paid for everything myself - but this time I didn't need to lift a finger or pay for anything out of my own pocket.
I don't think she realises just how grateful I am to her.
Anyway, I saw her yesterday after the New Year break and she hadn't had a great break. She went away with a large group of people to spend New Year and the person who was supposed to be arranging everything didn't arrange anything.
When they arrived they had no hotel reservations and everywhere was fully booked. They decided to go to another province but someone who said he knew a short cut got them all lost. They got to their new destination eventually but it didn't sound like a very enjoyable trip.
She also told me she has to teach next week. She is very busy running the business and doesn't have time to teach so this sounded unusual. It turns out she has been let down by one of the new teachers.
He was a young guy and I think the Thais in the office (all girls) liked him. They like youth, and he was fresh-faced and quite good looking (unlike old farts like me). He also kept telling people how he loved his job and loved to teach.
The Thais just listened to the words but when he spoke to me I also listened to his body language and I could tell he wasn't being sincere. He was also a smart-ass, which I didn't like.
I heard some of his lessons (it was difficult not to) and his teaching 'technique' was to be Mr Fun and Outrageous. He shouted at the kids at the top of his voice to 'sit down', stand up', 'run around the room', etc., etc.
Maybe if you are teaching the imperative you can have 10 minutes of telling the kids to 'sit down', stand up', 'run around the room' but you can't do it all the time. After his lessons I heard him telling his teaching assistant how much fun the kids had.
He had only been teaching a couple of weeks when he asked to have time off to meet his family who were visiting Thailand, but after he met them he never returned. He called my boss from the airport and told her he wasn't returning.
He told her it wasn't adventurous enough for him but I'm not quite sure what adventure he was expecting to have from teaching kids in Thailand.
She told me she had received a complaint from the school in the short time he was there but I don't know why. She has had problems there with previous teachers and now that he has left it has given her another problem. She also fears that she might lose the contract because of him.
I was angry at him for letting down a good person. Presumably she did all the paperwork and paid the fees for his visa and work permit too and he rewards her like this. At least it confirmed my previous thoughts about him.
She must fill in for him now and try to get a new teacher to replace him. However, that is difficult also. When she advertises on-line she gets about a thousand e-mails for every teaching position.
The problem is that a lot of the e-mails are sent by dreamers. They are sitting in their miserable offices in Farangland dreaming about living in Thailand so they send off e-mails saying they are very interested but they have no real intention of making the move.
Thais love to have their own businesses and a few have asked me why I don't open a language school. It's an easy answer. When you run your own business it is a case of being under constant pressure. You never really have time out for yourself where you can switch off completely.
As an employee you don't have this pressure. I just turn up to work, teach, go home, prepare lessons plans, teach again, and get paid at the end of the month. If I want to move on I just resign and go. I don't have to think about staff and I don't have to do reams of paperwork to satisfy Thai bureaucrats.
Financially it may be more rewarding to run your own business but this extra money comes at a cost and money isn't everything in life.
Saturday 3rd January 2009
From the feedback I have received, it seems that only those people who already have knowledge of written Thai are interested in Thai language reading tutorials but they are the people who would derive none - or very little - benefit from tutorials aimed at absolute beginners.
Being able to read Thai is one of the most useful skills you can have in Thailand and, what's more, lots of foreigners visit - or live in - Thailand. They either know how to read already (although that is not what evidence suggests); they regard learning as a waste of time and unimportant; or they are interested but it seems too difficult.
I don't believe it is too difficult. In fact, basic Thai is very easy. Anyway, I have decided to give this a shot and will review the situation later to see if it is worth continuing or not. I am a firm believer in 'the best way to learn is to teach' so I am also expecting to learn from this.
Thursday 1st January 2009
It's a wet start to the New Year in southern Thailand but I am very happy that 2008 has gone for reasons I have already written about.
I started the New Year with a thorough room-cleaning session; partly because it needed doing but more as a symbolic gesture to start 2009 with a clean sheet. The first thing to go was my desk calendar for 2008. Never before have I been keener to throw away an old calendar. I don't want to keep anything that reminds me of 2008.
Without trying to sound too much like a grumpy old man, I have started to dread certain times of the year in Thailand. The problem is the juvenile behaviour of Thai males - many of whom aren't that young. They're not aggressive or anything but their behaviour reminds me of being about 12 years old.
Songkran is one of those times of year. The joke about throwing water at people never gets boring and copious amounts of beer are consumed which then turns to drunken singing, drunken driving and a raft of road accidents. The already high death rate in Thailand from road accidents soars over Songkran.
New Year is another one of those times I have started to dread. All day yesterday - right from early in the morning - bangers were going off constantly. Apparently many Thai men stocked up on firework explosives and decided that setting one off every 10 minutes throughout the day was a good thing.
As the day progressed things got gradually worse. After sunset they all took to their motorbikes and last night was absolute lunacy as they raced around at breakneck speed with stupid grins on their faces. They were still setting off fireworks while racing their motorbikes, and by that time many were getting worse the wear from drink.
I decided the best place to be last night was indoors and it seems the local cops had decided the same thing. Despite the mayhem on the streets last night, there wasn't a single cop to be seen anywhere.
This morning after answering a few New Year's SMS messages, I checked the news. I saw that a major fire in Bangkok had killed at least 59 people and injured dozens more. About the fire, The Nation reports:
"Some pub workers told police that the fire was likely caused by firework explosions which set alight the pub's interior which housed many inflammable materials."
I then saw another story about how road accidents had claimed 56 lives and injured 635 on the first day of the New Year holiday. Based on what I had seen yesterday, both stories were shocking but neither came as a great surprise.
The Thais are famous for their sense of fun but many can't control themselves. This compulsion to enjoy themselves has no consideration for other people and quite a few end up killing themselves because they don't know when to stop.
One thing I discovered quite early on is that nothing ever changes. Despite horrific numbers of people dying on Thai roads every major holiday, it will be exactly the same the year after. Even if the cause of the fire in Bangkok is proven to have been fireworks, there will be just as many unregulated fireworks around next year.
The other thing I discovered is that in Thailand you have to be personally responsible for your own safety all the time. Don't expect other people to think about what consequences their irresponsible actions may bring about, and don't expect anything to be regulated to ensure public safety.
The daughter of a woman I know was hit by a bullet when a group of Thai boys were playing with a gun and firing bullets into the air. They seem to have forgotten that what goes up must come down. The bullet lodge into her Achilles heel tendon and she is lucky now to be able to walk.
Whether it's missing man hole covers, sharp poles sticking out at eye level height from street vendor carts, Thai drivers, or men letting off fireworks, you have to look out for yourself all the time.
Thai girls face these and other dangers from Thai men. It is no wonder then that so many Thai girls decide it is just too dangerous to go out in the evenings and stay at home.
Many farangs come to live in Thailand because they enjoy the freedom that Thailand gives them. They were fed up living in countries where laws were enforced and everything was very strictly regulated.
I didn't particularly like that either but I've seen both sides now and something somewhere in the middle is probably about right. I often wish there were a few more regulations and a little bit more law enforcement in Thailand.
Regarding this blog, it stopped a few months ago around the same time that the entire Western banking system was on the verge of collapse. That wasn't a coincidence.
I watched helplessly as all my plans for the future - which have taken years of hard work and careful planning - started to collapse. I now find myself back in full-time employment at a time in my life when I was getting close to giving up work entirely.
My plans could start to get back on track but it is entirely dependent on the economy, and what will happen in 2009 is anyone's guess. Hopefully, things will start to stabilise again but how many more Bernard Madoff's are out there? He and his scam went undetected for many years but the trouble with building a house of cards is that once it starts to collapse, all the weaknesses that were previously hidden start to reveal themselves.
I am currently very busy with a couple of things but in another few weeks I hope to have some free time again. One of the problems with doing something like this is that it needs to be interesting for both author and readers.
Based on search engine results since I put this site together, I can see what the most popular subjects are among farangs regarding Thailand but unfortunately I am not particularly interested in those subjects and I don't want to spend my time reviewing Go-Go bars (even if there were any Go-Go bars where I lived to review).
Subjects that appeal to me are those such as Thai cultural behaviour, and especially language. However, hardly anyone visits the five pages I wrote about Thai cultural behaviour and only a couple of people showed any interest in the language tutorials that I wrote previously in this blog.
One idea I had was to do a series of tutorials for learning to read Thai aimed at those with zero knowledge. The books I have read on the subject tend to jump in too deep right from the start and I think this tends to put beginners off.
Basic written Thai is ridiculously simple and of the many characters, only a small subset get used regularly. If I was teaching someone who knew nothing I would just concentrate on this small subset initially and that would mean very little to remember.
The thing holding me back is that (based on previous experience) this would involve a lot of work for me and I don't think there would be much interest. Feel free to let me know but if I don't get much feedback just expect very occasional posts here in future.