Do You Eat Out Of Plastic Bags And Cartons

[JetsetBkk]

It is heaps cheaper than buying boxes of expensive, perfumed, individual sheets - tissues.

Aaargh! I refuse to wipe my mouth with perfumed paper and end up smelling (and tasting) the sickly stench for the next several minutes.

Standard, disintegrating bog-roll is OK, but get your S.O. to check for the little scraps of tissue hanging on to your stubble as Crossy says.

[klikster]

But, I WILL NOT wipe my face with toilet paper...and try my best to avoid using it for anything other than its intended purpose. How in the world Thais came to choose that paper for their napkins, I don't know...and don't really want to know. Same for using it as non-existent paper towels in most bathrooms.

Just doesn't work for the intended purposes, whether at the table, or at the wash sink. Even some Thais I know carry around their own bags of baby wipes so THEY have something to clean/dry their hands with...

I guess I am now socially stigmatized by using toilet paper to wipe my mouth. Perhaps drooling .. or dripping various and sundry sauces on my shirt, will enhance my standing among the hi so and so so?

Oh, woe is me!

[bina]

for 22 years i have been using toilet paper as facial tissue, napkins etc... everyone here did that; now, if u are city snotty folks, u use aloe vera facial tissue, fancy napkins etc... or the recycled stuff (very in here now)'

plastic chairs, same same, as well as plastic plates and cups... and for many meals a pita and hands are the tools... what can i say, living in a mid east culture has ruined me for getting my kids in the debutante list.....

dont miss mother's kosher cooked to death roast by any means...

all my kids ate with spoons even before anon moved in... as did i, even at my mother's neat little kitchen table, although i was taught about wines and proper silverware at the same table...

bina

israel

[Jockstar]

I LIKE to drink out of the bottle.

I have to agree. Beer tastes so much better out of a glass bottle. Same as with Coke. Out a can is just not the same.

[Naam]

Do You Eat Out Of Plastic Bags And Cartons

i don't but i would if hungry and no crockery available.

[mahtin]

It creeps up on you the longer you are here.

Table manners where did they go to.

Do you do this and more

1. Eating out of a plastic bag in the street.

2. Using toilet role on a table to wipe your face with.

3. Eating with a giant spoon.

4. Drinking out of a plastic bag.

5. Eating of a plastic plate while sitting in a plastic chair.

Guilty on all 5 counts, except for toilet roll on table - we sit on the floor, and we have a woven t-roll holder, souvenir of trip to Lao.

[Gary A]

Are those little tiny pink pieces of toilet paper that are supposed to pass as napkins preferable to actual toilet paper? What's wrong with rolls of toilet paper? It all comes out of the same paper mill.

[kmart]

I could NEVER return to so called PROPER eating habits nor could I return to wearing PROPER clothing. My uniform of the day is shorts, T shirts and sandals. I used to wear long pants and a button shirt to immigration but I have given up on that too. I hate fancy hotels and hate fancy restaurants even more.

My wife keeps throwing my favorite clothes away just when they get good and comfortable. I embarrass her because I drink beer right out of a big bottle. She thinks I should use a glass. I LIKE to drink out of the bottle.

Sounds like you've gone PROPER troppo, mate. Or broke.

[Ga-gai]

Question:

-Do you wipe your ass with your bare hand in the toilet?

-If so, which hand? Right or left?

[mahtin]

I could NEVER return to so called PROPER eating habits nor could I return to wearing PROPER clothing. My uniform of the day is shorts, T shirts and sandals. I used to wear long pants and a button shirt to immigration but I have given up on that too. I hate fancy hotels and hate fancy restaurants even more.

My wife keeps throwing my favorite clothes away just when they get good and comfortable. I embarrass her because I drink beer right out of a big bottle. She thinks I should use a glass. I LIKE to drink out of the bottle.

Sounds like you've gone PROPER troppo, mate. Or broke.

Gone Troppo (an Australian slang expression meaning "gone mad/crazy")

Right on, Gary

[popshirt]

Question:

-Do you wipe your ass with your bare hand in the toilet?

-If so, which hand? Right or left?

Left. Right hand is aiming the bum gun.

And afterwards, a good scrubbing of the hands with soap at the sink.

[mahtin]

I could NEVER return to so called PROPER eating habits nor could I return to wearing PROPER clothing. My uniform of the day is shorts, T shirts and sandals. I used to wear long pants and a button shirt to immigration but I have given up on that too. I hate fancy hotels and hate fancy restaurants even more.

My wife keeps throwing my favorite clothes away just when they get good and comfortable. I embarrass her because I drink beer right out of a big bottle. She thinks I should use a glass. I LIKE to drink out of the bottle.

Sounds like you've gone PROPER troppo, mate. Or broke.

What's "Gone Troppo"? It's Australian slang for having reached a state of tropical madness which usually happens when one has been too long in the tropics.

And forgets one's table manners.

No table, no problem

[Ga-gai]

Question:

-Do you wipe your ass with your bare hand in the toilet?

-If so, which hand? Right or left?

Left. Right hand is aiming the bum gun.

And afterwards, a good scrubbing of the hands with soap at the sink.

Bum gun? Cheater!

Don't you use the plastic bowl?

I wonder who makes all those. That guy must be rich by now...!

[blakegeee]

I am pretty flexible and quickly became used to the Thai Style of "dining". I rarely to never miss the old countries ways while in Thailand for 2.5 years continuously. Now that I am in Canada, I do miss the Thai ways however. In 4 month I will be back in Thailand, and it will be a long long time before I come back here again.

The only problem I see with this list of dining "habits" is the waste. It is unfortunate that there is so much plastic and styrofoam wasted for each meal. I think the "Toilet paper" argument is just stupid. It is just tissue on a roll. Its not as if its recycled. You wipe you back side with it, it is toilet paper. You wipe your face with it, it is facial tissue. If someone has decided to live in Thailand, I would expect that they should be able to get over minor differences in how things are done compared to home. Its not like we are talking about a sanitation issue at all. It is a fairly easy issue to adapt to.

[Groongthep]

Table manners where did they go to.

Do you do this and more

3. Eating with a giant spoon.

Eating rice dishes with a tablespoon and fork (i.e. pushing the rice into the spoon with the fork) is not only practicle it is considered good manners in Thailand.

[aries27]

US-based siblings thought it was "scandalous" to see a toilet paper roll on the dining table one time. dont really mind this too much... i mean, at least there's some paper there (as against none at all). but of course, there are napkins which is the proper stuff...

as for the big spoon. if you are eating rice, a spoon is the most convenient thing to use. fork isnt just that filling....

[soisicknote]

But, I WILL NOT wipe my face with toilet paper...

It's not as if it's been used already...

hehe i like that 1, if it had it would add to the flavour

[greenmember]

They use bum "guns" so what you think as t.paper is the multi purpose tissue paper .

When I eat, my hands are clean or only 2 fingers of left hand are used. After a meal, I wash my hands and mouth at the dish washing sink.

Husband and sons can't live without the hand tissue on table when eating, but for a few months I don't buy new, they still survive without making the table and chairs dirty. When I put the box there, they just pull and pull .

[Ga-gai]

Yepp!

There is no such thing as toilet paper in this country. Only tissue rolls!

Sometimes I can see faces, wondering why I enter the gas station public toilet carrying a roll of tissue. Tissues are cleaning your hands and such. Not for the toilets! The water is free so why don't use it, some may wonder...

And yes... Maybe they got a point. Living in a hot country and only using T-paper, doesn't make you feel very clean after your duties. I'll guess it's we who are the strange ones! :D Maybe I should bring a couple of Bum Guns with me, the days I decide to move back to my own country! I'm getting used to them now. Shame on you, all you dirty western bums!

Edited May 26, 2008 by Ga-gai

[toptuan]

Maybe I should bring a couple of Bum Guns with me, the days I decide to move back to my own country!

You won't have to. In the West (where they originated) they're called "kitchen sink sprayers"--the clever adaptation of a Thai builder who brought them to Thailand several years ago.

[blakegeee]

Its true, it really is the west that is more unclean. The bum guns are great! Although the tissue is still nice to dry off with.

[louissmith]

Picking ones nose seems to be accepted here also. However , I'll pass on that bad habit !

[blakegeee]

Picking ones nose seems to be accepted here also. However , I'll pass on that bad habit !

Thats the whole point. Its only a "bad habit" according to the place you come from. I bet its acceptable to blow your nose at the table or in front of others in you country, but that it unacceptable here. And i find the sound of snot blowing out of somebodies head much more offensive than a finger stuck in a nostril. It is probably also acceptable to show everybody the inside of your mouth while you pick the crap out of your teeth with a toothpick back home. Again, kind of gross, and unacceptable here.

These are differences in culture. One is not necessarily more right or wrong than the other, just different.

[Ga-gai]

Yepp...

Like eating food with open mouth. It is unacceptable where I come from. It's bad manner and low class.

But here, even the rich and "Hi-Soo" people eat with their mouth open!

Tends to be the same in whole Asia. The Koreans does it. Probably the Chinese as well.

Don't know about the Japanese though...

Edited May 28, 2008 by Ga-gai

[greenmember]

Bum gun is a must for me. So dirty not to have a bum gun. Spray first. Shower gel to follow

[burman]

Out of cartons yes, not bags though. In the UK we used to wrap our fish n chips in newspapers.

[greenmember]

When we buy KFC to eat in car, we eat from their carton box.

[Tod Daniels]

I don't see how a person can eat any food off the streets in the glorious "Land 'O Thais" and NOT get a plastic bag or carton. This entire country's population would starve and commerce as we know it would grind to a halt IF they stopped producing tiny rubberbands and those plastic "gold fish bags" (which is what they're called back home).

Don't even get me started on thai etiquette as that is an oxymoron if there ever was one. Public nose picking, close scrutiny of the debris while testing the viscosity and/or tensile strength, showing it to your friends, before wiping it on the underside of the table is just too much information.

I am all for doing my part to make the world a better place but that being said; this ain't my country. If the conduct of the inhabitants here are any indication, they don't give two sh*ts about plastic bags or cartons littering the landscape.

[pampal]

yes to all of the above

[Ga-gai]

When we buy KFC to eat in car, we eat from their carton box.

I got amazed and disgusted once when I saw a group of people from India, eating their dinner from the plate with their bare hands and fingers without any spoon or fork. Dirty and disgusting! But then I realized... -Hey! We (westerners) do that as well!! Eating at McDonald's, we eat with our bare hands and fingers. Disgusting? Noo...