topic is not necessarily meant to describe misunderstandings due to language problems but general interesting experiences with a foreign partner due to different culture, social background, education, religion, upbringing and the like.

now that i have made a start i will lean back and wait for the first postings till i add my 2,000 satangs of experience.

Always language with me, culture rarely as I seldom did anything until a local had done it first to make sure I got it right.

I had a Lao girlfriend once in Vientiane and she wanted me to wear a good black shirt I owned to somewhere we were going one night.

She couldn't find it and kept asking me where it was, I thought she was telling me to go and buy one and I kept saying I didn't need to as I had one already. I think we went around in circles for about an hour before it was sorted out.

Another time I called a local monk Ajarn and he asked me not to.

not exactly directly related to the topic:

Grandma: your parents said you want to marry. it's about time! but one from xyz-land... aren't they all pitch black?

Naam: some of them are Granny but the one i'm going to marry is whiter than my butt which has never seen any sunlight.

Grandma: well, whatever... as long as she is not jewish.

Naam: she is not Grandma although her nose is as long as any jewish nose could be.

Your butt has never seen sunlight?

Maybe you just don't remember the 60s.

Your butt has never seen sunlight? Maybe you just don't remember the 60s.

i remember the 60s very well but still insist that no sunray has ever hit my butt

Your butt has never seen sunlight? Maybe you just don't remember the 60s.

i remember the 60s very well but still insist that no sunray has ever hit my butt

It's always good to save some new experiences for later in life.

I guess this is a generic one..Thai time. Bf says we will go or do xyz in 30mins, i figure ok ill add at least an hour or so on for Thai time. No matter how much I tell myself to not get bothered by it, if it gets to the 3,4,5 hour mark, my patience wanes.

edit: to elaborate a little, heres an example. I might say after an hour and a half "Darling..shouldnt we be thinking about heading off ...?", answer along the lines of *smile, smile* "oh oops, yessss, ill just finish...xyz". Some time later (another hour maybe).."Daeng.... i think its getting a bit late". Looks surprised. Says not been long since i last reminded. "Been an hour dear". 'O' expression "ok darling, sorry". Bit later, fighting the growing atomic bomb within my head thats making my ears burn. Another hour "Daeng..the time..", "what time is it" (tell him), look of real surprise and shock. He didnt realise so much time had passed. But still...time goes on. Now I scowl. He knows that look. Nervous laugh. Goes gets car keys. "Ok lets go". Me..."not in the mood now! We were going to go 5 hours ago!!"

(A bit of huffiness and banter later, we finally set off).

I guess this is a generic one..Thai time. Bf says we will go or do xyz in 30mins, i figure ok ill add at least an hour or so on for Thai time. No matter how much I tell myself to not get bothered by it, if it gets to the 3,4,5 hour mark, my patience wanes.

perhaps you should decide if and when you have sex with him?

..ahh the tainted mind

Clarification of xyz: Something like...Shopping, going out to Huay Tung Tao, some day to day stuff outside.

As for your xyz.. for some reason with him, that one doesnt seem to fall into Thai time.

..ahh the tainted mind

Clarification of xyz: Something like...Shopping, going out to Huay Tung Tao, some day to day stuff outside.

As for your xyz.. for some reason with him, that one doesnt seem to fall into Thai time.

Thai time X10

..ahh the tainted mind

Clarification of xyz: Something like...Shopping, going out to Huay Tung Tao, some day to day stuff outside.

As for your xyz.. for some reason with him, that one doesnt seem to fall into Thai time.

Thai time X10

Yep .... it's still the one thing that has me falling out of stage three and back into number two periodically.

"where are you?"

"I'm eating at xxxx"

"ok , see you 30 minutes"

one hour later,

"where are you?"

"I'm having a beer at xxxx"

"ok, see you 30 minutes"

One hour later.......

"where are you?"

"I go home"

"ok, see you 10 minutes"

And this has nothing to do with misunderstandings in language, in the time I spent working in the UK, punctuality was key, and it's probably the one thing that will end up driving me insane.

Ive been in other countries where time seems to run slower too. But never have I experienced anything to the degree of flexibility that there seems to be here (especially with what you described Taddy. "See you 30 mins" "See you 10 mins" etc). No matter how much I try to be easy going about it, or tell myself not to get worked up, the extremity will at times take me to my patience limit threshold.

Another thing that baffles me a bit (and i dont know if its just me, and ive learned to stop - for the most part - asking) is if I ask in the late evening or in the morning "what are your plans tomorrow/today?", I receive this look like im just a little bit odd. Pause. look. pause. "Im not sure yet". Ive learned that I can only really get an answer to this after a few hours or by midday, and only after breakfast or brunch or lunch has been eaten. (He has various businesses and people working for him, so his time is fairly flexible each day). Its like there is something strange about wanting to plan ahead or know whats going on. Once his kids were suddenly gone, and I found out that they had gone to camp. He had forgotten about it, but no big deal, the kids just said to him they have camp so quick pack and off they went. In many ways thats great, refreshing from everything being close to a military operation which seemed to be my own experience of growing up. But not easy to bend my head around. His everyday seems to be lived in the minute, and loose plans are moulded and bent and changed at the drop of a hat. Weekday isnt so bad as I do my own things, but at the weekend I would prefer at times to have some things we would like to do together established (but then Thai-time comes into play!).

Aghh *bangs head*

What I like about Arabs is that when asked how long they will be, they often reply "Three hours, Insha'Allah", quite clearly informing the listener that they will ONLY arrive at that time if it is the will of God.

In Switzerland, where everything runs like clockwork, they do have a thing called the "quinze minutes vaudois" which gives you a 15 minute leeway either way. But if you go over that 15 minutes - you are probably ignored for the rest of the evening.

Took me a lot of 20 minutes late to suss that one....

It was one thing I loved about Swizerland, everything ran like clockwork. But then again I have only been late twice in 21 years and both times were beyond my control...

It's a good point though, who suffers from stress more, me or the average Thai?

It was one thing I loved about Swizerland, everything ran like clockwork. But then again I have only been late twice in 21 years and both times were beyond my control...

It's a good point though, who suffers from stress more, me or the average Thai?

There must be a lot of Swiss men with really big arms.

What I like about Arabs is that when asked how long they will be, they often reply "Three hours, Insha'Allah", quite clearly informing the listener that they will ONLY arrive at that time if it is the will of God.

for anything that is in the future a Muslim is supposed to add إن شاء الله

The boyfriend still finds it hard to believe that we have fires inside the house in the UK to warm it up

wife (who was 29 when we got married) said casually after we got married and having real but gentle sex for the first time "so that's what they are raving about in books and what the tales of my girlfriends are all about? "

correction: one should not mix up facts and phantasy. she confessed much later that she was thinking the above at "that" time.

The boyfriend still finds it hard to believe that we have fires inside the house in the UK to warm it up

He's obviously not from Chiang Rai then.

for anything that is in the future a Muslim is supposed to add إن شاء الله

" Indeed Allah wanted "

.....and what was it that you said about only English or Thai over in the IT forum ?

الغذائية اقترحتم جيدة. شكرا لك