Doing Things The Falang Way!

[southbot]

In my house we do things the farang way.

You can tell.

There are no footprints on our toilet seat

The sugar bowl is refilled when half empty, not 4 days after it is empty

The TV has had the PAD channel filtered out permanently

Tookays live safely within our houses perimeters with no fear for their life

Food is not served on the floor but on the table, unless I am really drunk

There are chairs in our living room

We only turn on the rice cooker a few times a week for an hour or so at a time

Hey, listen, I could go on.

Actually, there was a vaguely similar thread some time back on TVF, titled "You know you have been in Thailand too long if".... it is here: LINK

Cheers all.

[robsamui]

he he he he - all of these PLUS ...

being able to get money out of an ATM in 2 minutes with only 4 button pushes.

(I'm convinced that Thais see ATMs as some kind of video game ... )

R

[kennkate]

Using a spirit level when puting up a shelve (why you use that ) ?

[Gonsalviz]

In my house we do things the farang way.

You can tell.

There are no footprints on our toilet seat

The sugar bowl is refilled when half empty, not 4 days after it is empty

The TV has had the PAD channel filtered out permanently

Tookays live safely within our houses perimeters with no fear for their life

Food is not served on the floor but on the table, unless I am really drunk

There are chairs in our living room

We only turn on the rice cooker a few times a week for an hour or so at a time

Hey, listen, I could go on.

Actually, there was a vaguely similar thread some time back on TVF, titled "You know you have been in Thailand too long if".... it is here: LINK

Cheers all.

Having something more than water in the fridge

[mgjackson69]

Disagreeing with our boss...and telling him NO!

[mattias33]

he he he he - all of these PLUS ...

being able to get money out of an ATM in 2 minutes with only 4 button pushes.

(I'm convinced that Thais see ATMs as some kind of video game ... )

R

Hahaha, good one robsamui!

I have always been convinced they have to take those balance checks over and over again because they think if they do it many enough times the money will increase. There should be a fastlane with a special Atm only for farangs. More than once i lost my temper over this when i´ve been in a hurry, and a few times i told the slow Thai in front of me, after the 4th balance-check: "you´re done, out of here!". But thats me in a stress mode. If i am not in a hurry i just laugh about it.

[Shotime]

he he he he - all of these PLUS ...

being able to get money out of an ATM in 2 minutes with only 4 button pushes.

(I'm convinced that Thais see ATMs as some kind of video game ... )

R

Right on.

Except it's not like they see them as video games. They think they can trick it. Then they walk away with a look on their face like it's the ATMs fault. Never fails.

[mangostays]

What do you think amuses/annoys Thai about falang?

I think we can have fun with this one

1. Not taking as absolute, gospel truth everything we are told by a government official.

2. Having the bare faced audacity to question an official decision even when the decision is obviously rubbish, misguided and against the kings law!

3. Wearing speedo's to a bar

4. Not giving away your lifes savings to your girlfriends mother.

5. Prenuptual agreements

6. Being smarter than the average fruit vendor

7. Having the option to leave Thailand whenever you want

8. Knowing your rights

9. Having an embassy round the corner with scary officials in suits and ties who actually might take the side of the farang.

10. blogging and thai visa, telling the world how it really is!

[neion2000]

What do you think amuses/annoys Thai about falang?

I think we can have fun with this one

Amuses Thia's... Be a Farang and speak Thai...

Annoys Thai's... Understand what they're saying when they talk shit about you..

The best advice given to me was "don't let a Thai know you speak or understand the Thai language"...

[mgjackson69]

The best advice given to me was "don't let a Thai know you speak or understand the Thai language"...

Yes, absolutely so...

I was on a site in Chiang Mai a few years ago with one of our local Thai guys from BKK. He and the site manager were conversing in Thai as I was "driving" the keyboard. I was sort of following their conversation, maybe getting half of it. I heard the site manager ask if "the farang can understand Thai". The response was (paraphrasing again) "he can understand some but speaks only a little bit".

After that, the conversation switched to mostly English...

[mattias33]

What do you think amuses/annoys Thai about falang?

I think we can have fun with this one

Amuses Thia's... Be a Farang and speak Thai...

Annoys Thai's... Understand what they're saying when they talk shit about you..

The best advice given to me was "don't let a Thai know you speak or understand the Thai language"...

Don´t know about the Thai language. My Englich is limited, and also the Thais i speak to have limited Englich, and i find it helpful to do kind of a "thinglich" when i speak to Thais. Some Englich words and some Thai words. If i speak to my wife i/she even throw in a few Swedich words! Everything that works to get what you want said as quick as possible i suppose...

Still i do get your point. All Thais i know are a bit annoyed by "farangs" that kind of "overdo it" if you know what i mean. Go to tempel on tempel day, where yellow shirt at mondays and pink at wednesdays and so on. The ultimate way (as far as i understand) to make a fool of yourself in the eyes of Thais (and farangs?) is to become a registered Thai citizen. Then you really put a questionmark after yourself. "Why did you ever do it?" "you gonna call yourself "Thai" now?"

Those people are the biggest joke to me and the people i know.

The language thing i never thought about ´til now, but it is possible even i am a joke in the eyes of the mighty Thais then, hahaha. Lucky for me at least my wife understands and appreciate my efforts and also been very helpful in my understanding of the language, culture and how to behaive and what to do/not do to gain/show respect to the Thai-people. I probably do it all wrong and understood it all wrong, but i am NOT a Thai member and i DONT wear yellow on mondays (at least not on purpose). And the few Thai´s i hang around with seem to be ok with my style. The least thing i want to do is being disrespectful or make fun of their traditions. Still i am not a Thai and i don´t pretend to be one either. I got the oppinion they dont respect that at all, even though they are usually to polite to say anything about it. At least not in The limited Thai i understand!