just want second opinion from us the fairer sex:

all the guys are discussing this book in the hong klaay kriat forum; any of u read it w/or w/o your spouse?

clue: about thai women/farang men self help in understanding eachother book

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=34609 this is the other thread malej oriented of course

Edited May 28, 200521 yr by bina

i can speak for my wife on this (she asked me too) and say that she fully recommends it

well i just recently bought the book for my boyfriend and i. (who is thai.) we've known each other for a year and a half and have been together for about five months. ( already i feel as if i'm defending our relationship...but)

anyways, i have found this book helpful in some manners. we've both taken turns to underlining other sections of the book we want each other to understand, and i've got to say we've chosen totally different sections of the book.

like there are issues about privacy, for example my need of it-- or my need of alone time-- which he didn't seem to understand. i think he found it nice to label this a "farang issue" rather than a "relationship issue."

and i find it nice to realize he wasn't nutso traditional with his whole issue of our heads not sleeping under the clothesline when we went back to his family home in Isaan. When he explained that Kon Thai don't lik to sleep with their reads under the clothing, i assumed it had something to do with the worry that nesting spiders might crawl dwon from above in the nethers of the night....that had transformed into a cultural tradition. but no, it has something more to do with the head being the highest part of the body thingie....(again).

and i also think he's found it helpful now that i'm understanding a little more about greeng jai....or whatever it is that whenever i ask where he would like to eat or what he would like to do-- he continually "dtam jai's" me...which basically means he answers "up to you....anything will do...." although i have to admit i'm a bit of a control freak and am picky about how and where i spend my time, i assumed that he was either being wishy washy, or feeling guilty that often times i do foot a good portion of our expenses. and this is something i don't want him feeling guilty about as he's working more hours than i ever thought humanly possible and receiving crap for it.... anyways, apparently this "up to you" thingie, isn't just a bar girl response (as many people might recognise the reference)... or the "bar girl" response is a "thai girl" response...most people don't want to impose anything on someone else...so no one really wants to put their foot down to make a choice...so everyone says "up to you."

or so the book says....there's more...

alot of the book is centered around a western male and a thai girlfriend, and i wish there was more about the western female/ thai boyfriend thingie--but maybe that will be another edition.

off my pedestal. orlando

tham jai (as u wish) is often an age thing; i get tham jai'd as i am the older, and in my 'home area' so i decide; when we are in 'his' area, then i 'tham jai' him to whatever he wishes since he has more of a clue then me to what should be done eaten said etc.....

greeng jai is a bit different and has lots of suble things added to it for bosses, parents, friends, co workers etc

i'm glad to see your point of view, i suspected that the book would be farang man/thai girl oriented...will buy as birthday gift and something to read (wait, i forgot to ask, is it in thai also??? he doesnt read english)

i can reccomend a good book for you that also helps a lot its in english w/thai transliteration AND in thai (the sayings are, not the expanded definitions) so can be used to point to and say: this is what i feel or mean (none of these saying are listed in the basic dictionaries since they are combined phrases)

the book is called: heart talk by christopher moore

lists and explains (more or less acurately) all the 'heart sayings: ....jai, jai.... that thai use... soon u can streamline to the main ones that are used often:

tham jai, tok jai, sia jai, sou jai, poom jai, jep jai, jai ron, jai yen, etc.... some things are said better in thai then in english i've noticed... maybe we have less heart?!

i picked up this book after reading this thread and i can not tell you how helpful it is to me... especially learning the words for things i just heretofore have not understood at all- ie. tham jai and sumnuk bun kun... yikes! it's funny how many problems can be simply attributed to cultural differences!

Our very own "Easyb" kindly wrote a review on it which you can read here.

I'm not sure why, but books dealing with the usual tripe (eg- "BG stole my wallett and my heart ") seem to get all the reviews. Boring actually. OTOH, Thailand Fever appears quite usefull...

I wish I had read this book sooner. I've had it for about 7 months, I found it while desperatly searching for a book on Western culture for my then boyfriend to read. If only I had it before I went to his house, I would have realized that was a marriage proposal! Well, we are actually married now, and I still open it up to try and figure out why the ###### is he acting a certain way. He hasn't read it as throughly as I, and sometimes I think the Thai language parts are a little discriminating towards Western culture--I think they don't leave much room for understanding, but more for judgement. But I still find the book helpful.

As for a Farang woman-Thai man version, ladies, I think we are too much in the minority for there to be a market. There are just too few of us to warrant a book, I'm afraid.

Never read it & still going strong after 4 years , we worked our problems out in the 1st 6 months & it was hard for both of us, lots of rows but we now communicate well together (about feelings/problems etc) that I dont' think a book can tell me anything that my husband cant tell me to my face. Might have eased the way though in the beginning But I would suggest "Thai for lovers" to any new or long term couples as even though it is specifically geared towards thai women farang men, some of the vocab is useful to everyone and fun too