Highlandman

The masks that are worn here don't protect you from diesel fumes and its not just diesel that's dangerous, gasoline fumes shouldn't be inhaled either.

I've not noticed Thais taking their masks off to talk to one another or necessarily, quickly put them back on when a foreigner comes by. Yes, that did happen in 2020, 2021 and early 2022, but not much anymore. When Thais do that these days, they do it to everyone. Basically, in customer facing roles, they might remove their masks if there is no one to serve and quickly put the mask back on when a customer arrives. Nowadays, you still see Thais diligently masking while sitting alone at a restaurant or Cafe, only removing their masks when the food comes around and then putting them back on as soon as they're done. Mask wearing in general seems to be around 50%, but can be higher. It remained stubbornly high at 80%+ except in very rural areas, as recently as July. I don't visit hospitals, but from all accounts, mask wearing is near 100% there, except among children under 2. I'd be very very surprised if mask wearing at clinics or hospitals were below 99% anywhere except medical tourism hospitals full of foreign patients such as Bumrungrad. In fact, I recently drove past a clinic in Nong Bua Lamphu and noticed 100% of patients waiting there wearing masks. By contrast, in Savannakhet, Laos, I saw no one wearing a mask in the hospital grounds there. I also saw no one wearing a mask at the Siem Reap hospital in Cambodia and this was in November 2022! It's really only Thais wearing masks these days. Their neighbors have largely moved on from this strange obsession. I recently visited several Thai companies for business purposes. Some of them still had "no mask no entry" signs, though fortunately, this wasn't enforced on visitors. However, we did have people wearing masks while talking to us (they were masked before we came) at 4 of these companies. One of them, a Japanese company, even required we submit Covid antigen tests before arrival AND we wear masks during the meeting. This is October 2023 and they're still doing this with no end in sight. I think it's permanent now, they only lifted the mandates due to tourism but privately, many Thai companies maintain mandates and so do many schools and other settings.

There are plenty of yards in Thai homes but most aren't very big compared with back home.

Why on God's green Earth did you agree to lend him the truck??? I would NEVER lend my truck to any Thai. Not least because I always need it but even if I'm abroad I still won't allow it.

Yep, got it. I just corrected my post prior to you sending this one. Clearly you were his patient Yeah so the doctor trying to practice his English or try to make himself look good. Aha so you gave her some of her own medicine. Lol.

I think I got it now. It was the slight spelling mistake you made. The doctor said he doesn't consider you to be Thai, as you weren't born in the country. A ridiculous thing to say, but apparently he said it.

Yeah a joke only you can understand . Funny. Haha. Isn't it a bit early to be drinking? Or did you just fall off your bar stool?

I would have told her off. Chinese and farang getting Thai nationality - same thing. Yeah the mask wearing ethnic Chinese ones, I know the type. Lol. BTW can you explain the context of why the doctor said that? Are you a business owner or something where the doctor came in and made that remark?

Sounds like you have just arrived in the country as I'm the one giving you correct and useful advice.

You just say "tem tang" (which means full tank) or a numerical amount (such as 100 or 200 Baht). No one ever tells a gas station attendant to put in a particular quantity of gas into their vehicle. That's too complicated for the attendants to work out. It's always a numerical value - for cars you might say diesel, 1000 Baht. That's it. Diesel = diesel in both Thai and English. In the past, "sola" was often used but that term is now almost extinct

Considering he's a Thai citizen (even if naturalized) I find it strange that he wouldn't be understood but because we're talking gas station attendants here's the reason: He's speaking Thai to foreigners, who themselves aren't good at Thai. The vast majority of gas station attendants are Burmese or Cambodian, as Thais don't like to do that kind of work.

What?? Of course Thai language is mandatory at Thai schools. This is a point of contention in the 3 southernmost provinces, where the majority of the population would prefer their children were educated in Pattani-Malay or Yawi, rather than Thai. Thai is so dominant nowadays that minority dialects and languages are being wiped out. It's English that isn't necessarily compulsory at every school. Nearly every Thai parent sends their child(ren) to school. Education is considered to be mandatory from the ages of 6 or 7 (different sources are conflicted on which age) but homeschooling is a legal pathway that can be taken as an alternative. Very, very few Thais choose this path, though it's slowly growing in popularity. Quite a few rural Thais end up leaving school early, but very very few have never attended school (unlike in Laos, where most of the rural population has never been to school). Your comment shows a complete lack of understanding of the Thai education system.

Lol, England again. I've never even been to England. Also, how many British people say "gas station"? You Brits use another word altogether. It's called "petrol". I don't have time to have conversations with menial workers ive never met before. I tell them what I want and that's it. You'll be the one people hate (mostly Thais) if you hold up the queue at a gas station by having a pointless conversation with someone who's employed to serve you and move you along as quickly as possible.

I'm offended when that happens given I'm fluent in the language. In the past due to my lack of Thai, it was the opposite - I wanted people to speak English with me, because I didn't know enough Thai. The issue is not that Thais don't want to speak in their language (they do) but there's a mental block, that they have to overcome because they're not used to foreigners speaking Thai (although it is getting more common). The other aspect is - how good one's Thai is. If one's accent is really strong (such as is often the case with American speakers of Thai) that might cause a Thai who speaks reasonable English to switch to English. The only types who can get quite arrogant and even racist and who you may struggle to speak Thai to are the educated elite, often university professors, doctors and the like, who quite often aren't that good at English, or not as good as they think they are.

I don't waste my time with beggars. I just ignore them like Thais do.

Why would anyone have a conversation with a gas station attendant? All you're ever going to say is how much you need and the type of fuel. Most gas station attendants in Thailand are foreigners from Myanmar and Cambodia, hence why their English may sometimes be slightly better than that of Thais, but their Thai is often not very good. Thais often like to poke fun at how Burmese speak Thai.

Travel by land via Cambodia, keep the guinea pigs out of sight and let a local on a motorcycle carry them across the border once you're at the Vietnam border gate? Pay him handsomely for the service.

Depends. The Chinese police react similar to the Thai police. If no property damage occurs and if no one is hurt, they try to defuse the situation and that may be the end of it. An arrest might occur in some circumstances, but "decades in jail" is pure mythomania. China works very differently to how most westerners imagine it.

The outcome would have been identical, assuming said "non-Chinese chap" had reacted identically. Thailand doesn't do woke politics (thank God) if you're a foreigner, you're a foreigner.

4. Not so sure about that. This kind of incident happens regularly in China. So often, there's a chance you'll spot one or two incidents on an average 1 week trip.

Yes exactly. I know. In the past, Thai mothers, like mothers everywhere else in the world, stayed home to raise the children. This has changed now, with many, if not most mothers being in the workforce and thus requiring children be raised by others. BTW even in rural areas, most Thai toddlers go to childcare and then kindergarten and regular school, the vast majority in fact. This occurs even if there's grandparents available to look after them. The grandparents look after them at night, because the parents live elsewhere and thus the children live with their grandparents.

In the past, when mothers didn't have to go out and work, they looked after the children. This has changed to grandparents over the past few decades as social and economic conditions have changed. Look at hill tribes in Laos for instance; the mothers would take their children to the fields and take care of them while they work OR outside the home, if they primarily work from or near their homes. You don't generally see grandparents being the primary caregivers in Lao villages, except in the case of parents who are migrant workers living and working abroad. Africa is similar. Again, not saying grandparents aren't important caregivers, as they do tend to be there too, but traditionally, mothers raised their children by staying home and tending to household duties. It's different now, but in rural northern Laos, one can still get a glimpse of the past, since the lifestyles of many rural people, especially tribal peoples such as the Hmong, remain relatively unchanged from decades and centuries past.

I don't think so. Mothers looking after the children during the day, while the father goes out to work has been the natural order worldwide for thousands of years. Grandparents would only ever assist soon after birth, but not take over the primary caregiving role. That's only occurred in countries like Thailand, primarily because the parents don't live with their children, since they work in another part of the country or abroad.

He's THAI!! Did you not read anything in this 2 page (now 3 with yours)? You clearly didn't notice he mentioned that he's a Thai citizen.

It's really sad isn't it? The only Thai parents who do raise their own children are the middle class and upper classes, who mainly live in Bangkok, Chonburi and other wealthy regions of the country. Although they sometimes overdo it (I know several parents who rarely wear masks anymore themselves but force their toddlers to continue to wear masks at all times, for their own "protection"), going to the doctor and freaking out every time their little one has the sniffles (this began long before Covid), constantly posting pictures of their little masked emperor doing all sorts of "cool" things on Facebook. You know, that kind of essentially narcissistic behavior. Constantly showing off their children on the internet, but at least they're the ones raising them, not the grandparents. Poor Thais seem to always pawn off the raising of their children to their grandparents, with often disastrous outcomes. I wonder when this started. Can't imagine this was a thing in Thai society 100 years ago, but it most certainly is nowadays.