Standing On A Coin

[LivinLOS]

My buddy was visiting as a pure tourist and first timer..

He eat at an informal and relaxed spot and when his change came, and as he had no pockets in his beach cotton trousers, went to put it in his shoe..

The staff tried to say no no no.. He didnt understand them (english is not his native language either), they didnt explain correctly.. he freaked.. They tried to explain badly and under pressure.. It all went tits up and ended up with him running out of the restaurant and off down the road, presumably with notes flapping from his loafers..

Comical when you hear but he had no clue what they were trying to do.. Thought they wanted to take his money or some thing.

[gburns57au]

Dave, while I personally dont agree with body modifying culture or practices such as Suttee...Is it right to force a country to change its culture because it goes against our own culture or our sense of what is right or wrong? To do that we should insist that the Longneck girls should stop that practice, The piercings practiced in the Phillipines, the self flagellation of the Iraqis, the Australian Aborigine practice of spearing, Middle East stonings or many of the other cultures that are practiced throughout the world.

I think there are a lot atrocities that have and do take place which are all part of a countries "culture".

You could say "what may be wrong to you, may not be wrong to them", yes it is true.

But for these cultural practices i feel something like "It hurts of kills someone" would be a valid reason for something being "wrong", and i don't think "But it is just the way it has been for 1000 years" would be a valid rebuttal or reason for continuing the practice.

Or are you of the opinion that the continuing of a "cultural" practice is more important than someones personal safety? I think if someone is being needless hurt it is right to force a culture to change.

Obviously pretty far off topic from the foot and head thing now

Coming back to the foot thing; i just don't think you should be offended when someone, who is totally unaware of your (some what odd) superstition, does something counter to that belief.

Let's say i believe it is bad luck to break a mirror. Doesn't mean i will be offended if some guy is out on his lawn bashing a mirror (might be annoyed about the loud bashing and crashing but that is a separate issue).

I have already stated that I dont agree with some of the more barbaric acts.....However it is their culture. I may not like it but I have no right to interfere with it.

Back to the foot issue.....the mirror analogy is not a good one...the only person getting bad luck would be the one breaking the mirror, so more fool him.

Most Thais if they knew someone was totally unaware would be forgiving, However if the person kept doing it after being made aware then they would rightly think that the person was taking the pi55...it is one thing to do something accidentally and another to do it deliberately.