2 hours ago, captain_shane said:

The Mnemonic Sediment: An Operating Manual for Understanding the Thai Mind

What an expose. When I read it, I should think that all the Thais are great philosophers acting on a high cultutural level. Bad me when I interfere with my rfd or the local Somchai I don't experience the brillant theory you developped. Here are my 3 layers:

illogic

stuborn

short term

 

2 hours ago, captain_shane said:

I'll make sure to keep it under 200 characters for you next time.

A next time!    

I once asked the Thai man who spoke good English why Thais seem to lack common sense and reason and he laughed and he said, well as to common sense you might be right, but about reason we have it, it's just we have Thai reasoning, we don't have Western reason. And they are two very different things. Ha! 

 

I love the Thai people on so many different levels, but I try to not make that much effort to really understand them. It bends the brain too much. 

 

I always tell people who are coming here for the first time to bear in mind the Thailand is not a foreign country, Thailand is a distant planet. If you treat it as such, you'll be less astonished by things that take place here. 

 

A while back I went to a local mini mart. Bought six bottle of soda water. The old guy told me I had to pay 5 baht deposit, per bottle. I said ok. Went back with my bottles later, and wanted to buy some more. He quoted me a price that did not take into account my 30 baht deposit. I said I get the deposit back, and then pay you for the water, right? He said no, the deposit is one way! You don't get it back. I would have been upset, if I was not laughing so hard. I said no, farang is one way, that way, and never come back. I took my bottles and left. It was well worth it. Have been telling that story to my friends for years. We all love it!

 

I have had hundreds of these kinds of encounters here in LOS. Always amazed by them. There is a complete disregard for the future, for future patronage, for the idea of loyalty, and rewarding you for such. It has happened with so many merchants I had been dealing with for years. Over tiny amounts of money. Of course, they lose me for life. But, they do not seem to care one iota.

 

I am a business owner. I will do nearly anything to retain a loyal customer. Whatever it takes. A full refund, an exchange, just tell me what you want. Here? None of that. Tomorrow? Why think about tomorrow, when I can make an extra 30 baht today?

 

The tale of the One Way store. Great stuff. You could not make this stuff up, if you tried!

 

3 hours ago, captain_shane said:

So, you took nothing of value from the post?

Made no sense to me

4 hours ago, captain_shane said:

A mnemonic device, memory trick or memory device is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval in the human memory, often by associating the information with something that is easier to remember.

It's a good book Johnny Mnemonic, Philip K Dick, they made a movie of it too, with Keanu Reeves  as Johnny Mnemonic.

Why are you guys arguing...Shane clearly knows better.

 

Idiots.

I actually found that to be a very useful explanation of how the Thai mind works. It's a keeper. Thanks.

 

And just ignore the people who are unable to appreciate it.

3 hours ago, captain_shane said:

That's the whole point of my post. These other members don't get because their attention spans are broken from social media. It's to show WHY thai people do the things they do in a more logical explanation. These differences and the unawareness of them is the cause of falang/thai fights and disagreements.

I agree and liked the post - AI generated and edited or not. It gave some very useful insight into the nature of Thais. But you must understand that many posters here are not 'philosophical' people - many are just here for the fun and have not settled down (yet) and others are just visiting and having a good time.  It is only those of us that have committed to living here with a Thai for many years, who will take a look at things and wonder 'why' and draw conclusions about those things.  I especially think a lot about the axiom of the bamboo tree which is endemic in all Asian countries in various forms. IMO it is something they somehow need to change a little but not totally because it is a good thing.  I have no clear idea whether they should do that through personal changes at the family level, or though cultural changes pushed from above by those in authority - perhaps it is both.  But I see that axiom as being abused by those in authority, and those who do 'wrongs', to avoid being challenged or corrected.  The ridiculous libel laws here are just a part of that problem. 

5 hours ago, captain_shane said:

The Mnemonic Sediment: An Operating Manual for Understanding the Thai Mind

You’ve been in Thailand for a while now. You’ve mastered the art of ordering street food with a triumphant point and a smile. You know that “spicy” can mean anything from a pleasant tingle to a full-blown existential crisis. You’ve felt the disarming warmth of the “Land of Smiles.”

And yet, you’ve also felt the friction.

You’ve experienced the polite, smiling “yes” that turned out to be a gentle “no.” You’ve seen a minor inconvenience, which you thought required a straightforward solution, instead dissolve into a series of indirect conversations and a vague outcome. You’ve sensed a complex, invisible architecture of relationships humming just beneath the surface of every interaction, a system whose blueprints you were never given. You feel like you’re watching a play where everyone but you has a copy of the script.

What you are sensing is not a random collection of cultural quirks. It is the output of a deeply coherent and powerful cognitive operating system, one forged under immense historical pressure. The best way to understand it is not as a list of rules, but as a kind of geological formation: a Mnemonic Sediment.

Imagine, over centuries, that powerful historical forces—the constant threat of powerful empires, the survival demands of wet-rice farming, the gravity of a god-king—acted like immense pressures on the Thai psyche. These pressures compressed shared experiences into a dense cognitive bedrock. This sediment is not a collection of memories people talk about; it is the very lens through which they unconsciously interpret reality. It is the generative code that produces the intuitive, relational, and flexible mindset so characteristic of Thai people.

To understand Thailand, we must become cognitive archaeologists. Let’s excavate the three primary layers of this sediment.

Layer 1: The Axiom of Relational Position (“The Great Tree”)

The Mnemonic Axiom: "Your identity, safety, and path forward are determined by your precise position relative to others in the hierarchy."

This is the foundational layer, the granite bedrock of the Thai cognitive system. It’s the single most powerful and continuously reinforced piece of code running in the Thai mind. The world is not a collection of autonomous individuals; it is a single, interconnected organism, a great tree of relationships. Your location on this tree—as a high branch, a low leaf, a supporting root—defines everything.

How the Sediment Was Formed: This axiom wasn’t taught; it was inhaled.

• Linguistic Repetition: The Thai language itself is a relentless mnemonic device. The mandatory use of status-based pronouns forces the brain to calculate social hierarchy in every single interaction. Choosing between phom/chan (I/me), khun (you), pii (older sibling), nong (younger sibling), lung/paa (uncle/aunt) isn't an occasional thought; it is a constant, subconscious cognitive loop running from the moment a child learns to speak.

• Physical Repetition: The wai (the prayer-like gesture of greeting) is a physical encoding of this axiom. The act of performing and receiving the wai, with its subtle but critical variations in hand height and head inclination, is a daily, physical reinforcement of the mental map of social status. It is a somatic consensus, a bodily agreement on who is who.

• Systemic Reinforcement: The historical Sakdina system, a feudal-like structure that assigned every person a rank and value, has left a powerful echo in modern patron-client relationships (phu yai/phu noi – big person/little person). Stories of success and failure in Thailand are almost never about a lone hero battling the system; they are stories of navigating this human hierarchy correctly or incorrectly.

What This Sediment Produces:
This layer generates the powerful, automatic intuition known as kreng jai. Foreigners often translate this as “respect” or “deference,” but that’s a pale shadow of its true meaning. Kreng jai is a non-conscious, high-speed calculation of how one's actions will affect the face, feelings, and status of others within the hierarchy. It’s an automatic threat-assessment and harmony-preservation algorithm. It’s the reason for indirectness, the hesitation to deliver bad news, and the deep-seated impulse to avoid causing another person to lose face.

It also produces a cognitive bias where personal relationships are perceived as more reliable and important than abstract rules or laws. The intuition is that navigating the network of people—the great tree—is the true path to getting things done. Relying on an impersonal system, with its cold and inflexible rules, is seen not just as inefficient, but as naive and deeply risky. You trust the person in the network, not the faceless system.

Layer 2: The Axiom of Flexible Accommodation (“Bamboo in the Wind”)

The Mnemonic Axiom: "Rigidity leads to fracture; fluidity leads to survival. Absorb, adapt, and bend without breaking the core."

If the first layer establishes the structure of the world, this second layer dictates the strategy for navigating it. It is the wisdom of the bamboo, which bends in the typhoon that shatters the mighty oak.

How the Sediment Was Formed:

• National Narrative Repetition: The central epic of modern Thailand is the story of “never being colonized.” Repeated in schools, media, and public discourse, this is not a story of brute force but of cleverness and adaptability. The heroes are always the diplomats and monarchs who “bent like bamboo in the wind” between the British and French colonial powers, ceding some land on the periphery to protect the heartland. Flexibility is explicitly coded as the ultimate survival virtue.

• Sensory Input: Thai culture is a living museum of successful accommodation. The food is a sublime blend of influences from China, India, and Portugal, yet it is uniquely Thai. The temple architecture incorporates Khmer, European, and local styles into a harmonious whole. This constant sensory input reinforces the idea that absorption leads to richness, not dissolution.

What This Sediment Produces:
This layer generates the famous “mai pen rai” (it’s okay/no problem) response as a default cognitive reflex. This is not apathy, as it is so often misinterpreted. It is the intuitive output of a mind that has learned over generations that rigid confrontation is unproductive, dangerous, and a waste of energy. When a plan fails, the rigid mind shatters with frustration; the fluid mind immediately pivots, seeking the path of least resistance to preserve relational capital and forward momentum.

It also creates a strong cognitive bias against dogmatic, all-or-nothing ideological commitments. The mind intuitively distrusts systems that demand total purity and offer no room for negotiation or adaptation. They are seen as brittle and destined to fail. This produces a worldview where identity is not a fortress to be defended, but a resilient core that can remain intact while absorbing and utilizing useful external elements.

Layer 3: The Axiom of Practical Efficacy (“The Layered Altar”)

The Mnemonic Axiom: "The value of a belief or practice lies in its tangible utility, not its theoretical purity."

This final layer is the most pragmatic. It governs the criteria for what is considered “true” or “good.” In short: if it works, it’s valid.

How the Sediment Was Formed:

• Spiritual Layering: The history of religion in Thailand is the perfect model for this axiom. It is a story of accretion, not replacement. The original Animist beliefs in local spirits were never eradicated; they were overlaid with Brahmanism/Hinduism from India (which provided rituals for statecraft and life transitions) and, finally, Theravada Buddhism (which provided a profound moral and philosophical framework). These were not seen as competing truths to be debated, but as different tools in a spiritual toolkit.

• Problem-Solving Repetition: This layering is enacted daily. A Thai person may consult a Buddhist monk for moral guidance (Buddhist tool), ask a Brahmin-influenced astrologer for an auspicious date for a wedding (Brahmin tool), and leave an offering at a spirit house to prevent local misfortune (Animist tool), all in the same week. This repeated act of selecting the "right tool for the job" without worrying about theological consistency hardens the axiom into cognitive bedrock. It decouples “truth” from “usefulness.”

What This Sediment Produces:
This layer generates an intuitive comfort with ambiguity and apparent contradiction. The Thai mind does not automatically flag a conflict between praying to a Hindu god at a shrine and listening to a Buddhist sermon as an error. It intuitively categorizes them as different operations for different goals.

This produces a powerful cognitive bias towards results over process. If a non-traditional method or an unorthodox combination of approaches works, it is intuitively seen as valid. The “proof” is in the outcome, not in the logical consistency of the method. This generates a national expertise in syncretism—the ability to seamlessly blend disparate elements into a functional and often beautiful whole, whether in cuisine, business strategy, or personal philosophy.

Conclusion: The Thai Operating System

Understanding this Mnemonic Sediment transforms your perspective. It’s the key to the script.

From: "Thais are non-confrontational and hierarchical."
To: "The Thai collective subconscious operates on a foundational logic, forged by history, that identifies social harmony and clear hierarchical relationships as the primary variables for survival and stability."

From: "Their belief system seems inconsistent."
To: "Their spiritual operating system is based on pragmatic accretion, selecting the most effective tool for a given task, a logic born from centuries of cultural layering."

The rapid calculation of social position, the default to non-confrontation, the bias toward personal connections, and the pragmatic, results-oriented approach to problem-solving are not random “cultural quirks.” They are the predictable, logical outputs of this deep, functional, and historically forged cognitive system.

To engage with Thailand; whether in business, diplomacy, or friendship—without understanding this is to see only the surface screen while remaining completely unaware of the powerful operating system running silently in the background. You cannot fight the sediment. You must learn to work with it. Build the relationship before you discuss the project. Learn to communicate with nuance. Value flexibility over rigid planning. And appreciate that in a world structured like a great tree, nurtured by pragmatism and weathered by storms, the most successful strategy has always been to bend like bamboo in the wind.

 

Isn't ChatGPT 5 simply awesome?

5 hours ago, captain_shane said:

... Build the relationship before you discuss the project. Learn to communicate with nuance. Value flexibility over rigid planning. And appreciate that in a world structured like a great tree, nurtured by pragmatism and weathered by storms, the most successful strategy has always been to bend like bamboo in the wind.

 

...and learn the language.

5 hours ago, captain_shane said:

5 hours ago, CharlieH said:

Overall, it reads more like a theory than an on-the-ground reality.

Which parts do you disagree with?

 

...crickets

50 minutes ago, TroubleandGrumpy said:

I agree and liked the post - AI generated and edited or not. It gave some very useful insight into the nature of Thais. But you must understand that many posters here are not 'philosophical' people - many are just here for the fun and have not settled down (yet) and others are just visiting and having a good time.  It is only those of us that have committed to living here with a Thai for many years, who will take a look at things and wonder 'why' and draw conclusions about those things.  I especially think a lot about the axiom of the bamboo tree which is endemic in all Asian countries in various forms. IMO it is something they somehow need to change a little but not totally because it is a good thing.  I have no clear idea whether they should do that through personal changes at the family level, or though cultural changes pushed from above by those in authority - perhaps it is both.  But I see that axiom as being abused by those in authority, and those who do 'wrongs', to avoid being challenged or corrected.  The ridiculous libel laws here are just a part of that problem. 

 

And many of the nonphilosophical, after a little as 10 or 15 years here, dismissively think they already know it all while others, who have served a longer sentence, and thought they knew it all, simply laugh at them.

 

5 hours ago, Negita43 said:

Not a thing - far too long and obviously AI generated so I didn't even read it.

And before you respond - note I made no comment about the quality of the content only about a persons ability to think for themselves and the fact I thought it was obviously AI generated.

4 hours ago, captain_shane said:

I apologize, I shouldn't have cast pearls before you. Maybe in a few reincarnation cycles you'll have the brain power to process the original post.

I enjoyed the op.  well done   probably wasted on many of the AN members who always claim know better, some after being here for a matter of weeks 

2 minutes ago, Bday Prang said:

I enjoyed the op.  well done   probably wasted on many of the AN members who always claim know better, some after being here for a matter of weeks 

 

Spot on.

3 hours ago, vangrop said:

What an expose. When I read it, I should think that all the Thais are great philosophers acting on a high cultutural level. Bad me when I interfere with my rfd or the local Somchai I don't experience the brillant theory you developped. Here are my 3 layers:

illogic

stuborn

short term

 

 

You forgot the all-important 4th layer

 

know-it-all

Just now, NanLaew said:

 

Spot on.

Thanks. I'm expecting a few thumb downs  from the usual suspects to confirm this further lol

27 minutes ago, NanLaew said:

 

Isn't ChatGPT 5 simply awesome?

I don't know anything about AI but the op reads better than most of the Admin generated ones..Which always end with a nearly identical conclusion....Which underscores (or highlights)  bla bla bla

6 hours ago, captain_shane said:

The Mnemonic Sediment: An Operating Manual for Understanding the Thai Mind

You’ve been in Thailand for a while now. You’ve mastered the art of ordering street food with a triumphant point and a smile. You know that “spicy” can mean anything from a pleasant tingle to a full-blown existential crisis. You’ve felt the disarming warmth of the “Land of Smiles.”

And yet, you’ve also felt the friction.

You’ve experienced the polite, smiling “yes” that turned out to be a gentle “no.” You’ve seen a minor inconvenience, which you thought required a straightforward solution, instead dissolve into a series of indirect conversations and a vague outcome. You’ve sensed a complex, invisible architecture of relationships humming just beneath the surface of every interaction, a system whose blueprints you were never given. You feel like you’re watching a play where everyone but you has a copy of the script.

What you are sensing is not a random collection of cultural quirks. It is the output of a deeply coherent and powerful cognitive operating system, one forged under immense historical pressure. The best way to understand it is not as a list of rules, but as a kind of geological formation: a Mnemonic Sediment.

Imagine, over centuries, that powerful historical forces—the constant threat of powerful empires, the survival demands of wet-rice farming, the gravity of a god-king—acted like immense pressures on the Thai psyche. These pressures compressed shared experiences into a dense cognitive bedrock. This sediment is not a collection of memories people talk about; it is the very lens through which they unconsciously interpret reality. It is the generative code that produces the intuitive, relational, and flexible mindset so characteristic of Thai people.

To understand Thailand, we must become cognitive archaeologists. Let’s excavate the three primary layers of this sediment.

Layer 1: The Axiom of Relational Position (“The Great Tree”)

The Mnemonic Axiom: "Your identity, safety, and path forward are determined by your precise position relative to others in the hierarchy."

This is the foundational layer, the granite bedrock of the Thai cognitive system. It’s the single most powerful and continuously reinforced piece of code running in the Thai mind. The world is not a collection of autonomous individuals; it is a single, interconnected organism, a great tree of relationships. Your location on this tree—as a high branch, a low leaf, a supporting root—defines everything.

How the Sediment Was Formed: This axiom wasn’t taught; it was inhaled.

• Linguistic Repetition: The Thai language itself is a relentless mnemonic device. The mandatory use of status-based pronouns forces the brain to calculate social hierarchy in every single interaction. Choosing between phom/chan (I/me), khun (you), pii (older sibling), nong (younger sibling), lung/paa (uncle/aunt) isn't an occasional thought; it is a constant, subconscious cognitive loop running from the moment a child learns to speak.

• Physical Repetition: The wai (the prayer-like gesture of greeting) is a physical encoding of this axiom. The act of performing and receiving the wai, with its subtle but critical variations in hand height and head inclination, is a daily, physical reinforcement of the mental map of social status. It is a somatic consensus, a bodily agreement on who is who.

• Systemic Reinforcement: The historical Sakdina system, a feudal-like structure that assigned every person a rank and value, has left a powerful echo in modern patron-client relationships (phu yai/phu noi – big person/little person). Stories of success and failure in Thailand are almost never about a lone hero battling the system; they are stories of navigating this human hierarchy correctly or incorrectly.

What This Sediment Produces:
This layer generates the powerful, automatic intuition known as kreng jai. Foreigners often translate this as “respect” or “deference,” but that’s a pale shadow of its true meaning. Kreng jai is a non-conscious, high-speed calculation of how one's actions will affect the face, feelings, and status of others within the hierarchy. It’s an automatic threat-assessment and harmony-preservation algorithm. It’s the reason for indirectness, the hesitation to deliver bad news, and the deep-seated impulse to avoid causing another person to lose face.

It also produces a cognitive bias where personal relationships are perceived as more reliable and important than abstract rules or laws. The intuition is that navigating the network of people—the great tree—is the true path to getting things done. Relying on an impersonal system, with its cold and inflexible rules, is seen not just as inefficient, but as naive and deeply risky. You trust the person in the network, not the faceless system.

Layer 2: The Axiom of Flexible Accommodation (“Bamboo in the Wind”)

The Mnemonic Axiom: "Rigidity leads to fracture; fluidity leads to survival. Absorb, adapt, and bend without breaking the core."

If the first layer establishes the structure of the world, this second layer dictates the strategy for navigating it. It is the wisdom of the bamboo, which bends in the typhoon that shatters the mighty oak.

How the Sediment Was Formed:

• National Narrative Repetition: The central epic of modern Thailand is the story of “never being colonized.” Repeated in schools, media, and public discourse, this is not a story of brute force but of cleverness and adaptability. The heroes are always the diplomats and monarchs who “bent like bamboo in the wind” between the British and French colonial powers, ceding some land on the periphery to protect the heartland. Flexibility is explicitly coded as the ultimate survival virtue.

• Sensory Input: Thai culture is a living museum of successful accommodation. The food is a sublime blend of influences from China, India, and Portugal, yet it is uniquely Thai. The temple architecture incorporates Khmer, European, and local styles into a harmonious whole. This constant sensory input reinforces the idea that absorption leads to richness, not dissolution.

What This Sediment Produces:
This layer generates the famous “mai pen rai” (it’s okay/no problem) response as a default cognitive reflex. This is not apathy, as it is so often misinterpreted. It is the intuitive output of a mind that has learned over generations that rigid confrontation is unproductive, dangerous, and a waste of energy. When a plan fails, the rigid mind shatters with frustration; the fluid mind immediately pivots, seeking the path of least resistance to preserve relational capital and forward momentum.

It also creates a strong cognitive bias against dogmatic, all-or-nothing ideological commitments. The mind intuitively distrusts systems that demand total purity and offer no room for negotiation or adaptation. They are seen as brittle and destined to fail. This produces a worldview where identity is not a fortress to be defended, but a resilient core that can remain intact while absorbing and utilizing useful external elements.

Layer 3: The Axiom of Practical Efficacy (“The Layered Altar”)

The Mnemonic Axiom: "The value of a belief or practice lies in its tangible utility, not its theoretical purity."

This final layer is the most pragmatic. It governs the criteria for what is considered “true” or “good.” In short: if it works, it’s valid.

How the Sediment Was Formed:

• Spiritual Layering: The history of religion in Thailand is the perfect model for this axiom. It is a story of accretion, not replacement. The original Animist beliefs in local spirits were never eradicated; they were overlaid with Brahmanism/Hinduism from India (which provided rituals for statecraft and life transitions) and, finally, Theravada Buddhism (which provided a profound moral and philosophical framework). These were not seen as competing truths to be debated, but as different tools in a spiritual toolkit.

• Problem-Solving Repetition: This layering is enacted daily. A Thai person may consult a Buddhist monk for moral guidance (Buddhist tool), ask a Brahmin-influenced astrologer for an auspicious date for a wedding (Brahmin tool), and leave an offering at a spirit house to prevent local misfortune (Animist tool), all in the same week. This repeated act of selecting the "right tool for the job" without worrying about theological consistency hardens the axiom into cognitive bedrock. It decouples “truth” from “usefulness.”

What This Sediment Produces:
This layer generates an intuitive comfort with ambiguity and apparent contradiction. The Thai mind does not automatically flag a conflict between praying to a Hindu god at a shrine and listening to a Buddhist sermon as an error. It intuitively categorizes them as different operations for different goals.

This produces a powerful cognitive bias towards results over process. If a non-traditional method or an unorthodox combination of approaches works, it is intuitively seen as valid. The “proof” is in the outcome, not in the logical consistency of the method. This generates a national expertise in syncretism—the ability to seamlessly blend disparate elements into a functional and often beautiful whole, whether in cuisine, business strategy, or personal philosophy.

Conclusion: The Thai Operating System

Understanding this Mnemonic Sediment transforms your perspective. It’s the key to the script.

From: "Thais are non-confrontational and hierarchical."
To: "The Thai collective subconscious operates on a foundational logic, forged by history, that identifies social harmony and clear hierarchical relationships as the primary variables for survival and stability."

From: "Their belief system seems inconsistent."
To: "Their spiritual operating system is based on pragmatic accretion, selecting the most effective tool for a given task, a logic born from centuries of cultural layering."

The rapid calculation of social position, the default to non-confrontation, the bias toward personal connections, and the pragmatic, results-oriented approach to problem-solving are not random “cultural quirks.” They are the predictable, logical outputs of this deep, functional, and historically forged cognitive system.

To engage with Thailand; whether in business, diplomacy, or friendship—without understanding this is to see only the surface screen while remaining completely unaware of the powerful operating system running silently in the background. You cannot fight the sediment. You must learn to work with it. Build the relationship before you discuss the project. Learn to communicate with nuance. Value flexibility over rigid planning. And appreciate that in a world structured like a great tree, nurtured by pragmatism and weathered by storms, the most successful strategy has always been to bend like bamboo in the wind.

Well if you find any Thai that understands one iota of the palava you've written, I'll take my hat off to you!

Just now, Cardano said:

Well if you find any Thai that understands one iota of the palava you've written, I'll take my hat off to you!

Well if you find anyone Thai that understands one iota of the palaver you've written, I'll take my hat off to you!

2 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

I once asked the Thai man who spoke good English why Thais seem to lack common sense and reason and he laughed and he said, well as to common sense you might be right, but about reason we have it, it's just we have Thai reasoning, we don't have Western reason. And they are two very different things. Ha! 

 

I love the Thai people on so many different levels, but I try to not make that much effort to really understand them. It bends the brain too much. 

 

I always tell people who are coming here for the first time to bear in mind the Thailand is not a foreign country, Thailand is a distant planet. If you treat it as such, you'll be less astonished by things that take place here. 

 

A while back I went to a local mini mart. Bought six bottle of soda water. The old guy told me I had to pay 5 baht deposit, per bottle. I said ok. Went back with my bottles later, and wanted to buy some more. He quoted me a price that did not take into account my 30 baht deposit. I said I get the deposit back, and then pay you for the water, right? He said no, the deposit is one way! You don't get it back. I would have been upset, if I was not laughing so hard. I said no, farang is one way, that way, and never come back. I took my bottles and left. It was well worth it. Have been telling that story to my friends for years. We all love it!

 

I have had hundreds of these kinds of encounters here in LOS. Always amazed by them. There is a complete disregard for the future, for future patronage, for the idea of loyalty, and rewarding you for such. It has happened with so many merchants I had been dealing with for years. Over tiny amounts of money. Of course, they lose me for life. But, they do not seem to care one iota.

 

I am a business owner. I will do nearly anything to retain a loyal customer. Whatever it takes. A full refund, an exchange, just tell me what you want. Here? None of that. Tomorrow? Why think about tomorrow, when I can make an extra 30 baht today?

 

The tale of the One Way store. Great stuff. You could not make this stuff up, if you tried!

I think you are totally mistaken, this not a funny story. The guy simply screwed you because you are a farang so he didn't care. He wouldn't do that to a Thai

3 minutes ago, vangrop said:

I think you are totally mistaken, this not a funny story. The guy simply screwed you because you are a farang so he didn't care. He wouldn't do that to a Thai

Mikie thinks he is special and Thai people love him. 

8 minutes ago, vangrop said:

I think you are totally mistaken, this not a funny story. The guy simply screwed you because you are a farang so he didn't care. He wouldn't do that to a Thai

I would pay 30 baht for that experience once a week! It was absolutely precious, if we can't laugh at the silliest things in life what's the point of even being alive, much less experiencing a culture is bizarre as the one we have here? 

 

I simply do not subscribe to victim culture, and I would prefer to use a sense of humor to laugh at things, rather than feel like I'm being put upon and taking advantage of. 

 

If we're talking about a substantial transaction that's a different story.

1 hour ago, TroubleandGrumpy said:

I agree and liked the post - AI generated and edited or not. It gave some very useful insight into the nature of Thais. But you must understand that many posters here are not 'philosophical' people - many are just here for the fun and have not settled down (yet) and others are just visiting and having a good time.  It is only those of us that have committed to living here with a Thai for many years, who will take a look at things and wonder 'why' and draw conclusions about those things.  I especially think a lot about the axiom of the bamboo tree which is endemic in all Asian countries in various forms. IMO it is something they somehow need to change a little but not totally because it is a good thing.  I have no clear idea whether they should do that through personal changes at the family level, or though cultural changes pushed from above by those in authority - perhaps it is both.  But I see that axiom as being abused by those in authority, and those who do 'wrongs', to avoid being challenged or corrected.  The ridiculous libel laws here are just a part of that proble

we are happy to welcome a new philposopher

17 minutes ago, Cardano said:

Well if you find any Thai that understands one iota of the palava you've written, I'll take my hat off to you!

 

Did you miss the thread title?

 

The treatise is to assist the noodle-headed farang in understanding the Thai mind. The locals have theirs already sussed.

5 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

I simply do not subscribe to victim culture,

Yes, you do. 

No need for a manual, after 35 years in this country, i have learned to be humble and non-confrontational,

do that, and you can have an easy life here. 

I read the book "Wondering into Thai Culture" many moons ago (Still to buy from Amazon) and that book have for me been extremely useful throughout life here.

Felt

6 hours ago, Negita43 said:

OMG not another

Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.

Blaise Pascal

 

But of course AI will take even that away.

This whole AI generated 'stories' thing is getting tiresome.

 

Beautifully constructed but obviously AI

 

I think I'd rather go back to bickering members than this constant feed of nonsense, which is nothing more than clickbate

How's that Psychology 101 course going?

37 minutes ago, Mike_Hunt said:

Yes, you do. 

In your very limited universe I suppose it appears that way, but complaining about a circus clown many would argue as the opposite of victim culture.

 

I don't consider myself to be a victim on any level, though I am an American and I do have a douchebag president, but that doesn't make me a victim, it just makes me honest.