Sometimes I get bruises on my lower jaw from hearing things people say, or ask about when they find out my connections to Thailand. I'll admit I had a few misconceptions but some of the questions I got were actually quite funny. Below are actual things people have said to me about Thailand, and Thais.

"I looked up Taiwan on the internet but didn't find Chiang Mai"

"Do they have electricity?" (Inquiring about in-laws house)

"Ah, a refugee" (When finding out I met my wife in New Zealand)

"Are Americans allowed to go there?"

"Can you speak any asian yet?"

Slightly side-tracking (sorry).but this kind of stupidity happens even about other countries...i even had it about Scotland! I went to school abroad at 16..and kids would ask me the most absolutely jaw-droppingly stupid stuff about Scotland (electricity..tv..as in have we got any..surpise when i would say i liked a program we were watching on tv: "Scotland has tv?"..yes, this WAS a serious question. Thinking we all wear kilts and live in castles.. list goes on.. bloody idiots.)

Baird...Bell? The ignorance is overwhelming at times.

My astonishment at this question is such I've never found a satisfactory answer.

Anyway I'm in a decent burger restaurant and naturally order a halfpounder or whatever.....then I'm asked how I want it cooked.

Cooked?

Yes Sir how would you like it done?

Umm cooked please.

<are you being a smart arse look>

Help is it just me???

Baird...Bell? The ignorance is overwhelming at times.

My astonishment at this question is such I've never found a satisfactory answer.

Anyway I'm in a decent burger restaurant and naturally order a halfpounder or whatever.....then I'm asked how I want it cooked.

Cooked?

Yes Sir how would you like it done?

Umm cooked please.

<are you being a smart arse look>

Help is it just me???

Sorry...I think it's just you. In other words, you were being asked, "Rare, medium, or well done?"

The mind boggles. Well if I'm ever asked how I want my chicken the answer will be 'succulent'.

Ignorance is global.

As a youngster in Fiji, a boy went into the jungle just off the track, where I had just toileted...he came back having stumbled across my leavings, and told everyone in a "eureka" type moment, that white boys have dark shit too, just like them! He was genuinely suprised!!!

I often get asked if Mr boo speaks English, I like to point out that after living in UK for 6 years, holding down a job at an private school for English kids & being able to function for years in UK, that no, not a word

Another one is when talking about tv shows as kids, Mr boo & I both watched, macgiver, a team, all the crap classic 80's shows as kids, when I mention to people that Mr Boos nickname is macgiver they get shocked that 1) thai poeple watched tv the "same as us" 2) they even had a tv 3) they had/have electric

Having to explain that no, the vast majority of the 60m+ thai people don't eat dog.

Another one is trying to get across that apart from very specific areas of very specific places, there aren't brothels/gogo's on every street corner & that the vast majority of the 30+ million thai women wouldn't dream of entering a lady bar much less being employed by one.

Not all thai men know muay thai

Slightly side-tracking (sorry).but this kind of stupidity happens even about other countries...i even had it about Scotland! I went to school abroad at 16..and kids would ask me the most absolutely jaw-droppingly stupid stuff about Scotland (electricity..tv..as in have we got any..surpise when i would say i liked a program we were watching on tv: "Scotland has tv?"..yes, this WAS a serious question. Thinking we all wear kilts and live in castles.. list goes on.. bloody idiots.)

My Swiss sister in law thought Edinburgh was about 15 miles outside of London. For her, the whole of the UK was London. But, give her her dues she had never traveled either on a train or one of those new fangled airoplains in her wee life. I took her to a live concert (Elton John and Eric Clapton) at the grand old age of 35. I thought she was going to have a heart attack (People actually do this?). Yup. Waste of cash, she had never heard of Elton or Eric before.

I was also asked about the electricity and hot water "there".

It goes the other way as well, in the UK (because i live in Switzerland) i am frequently asked if I speak Swedish. I have heard that the latest one is that we live in Swaziland!!!

After being arrested, people often ask " for a chance '................ Oh that always gives me a good laugh........................ ( cry sometimes with the sheer joy of the moment )

Are you asleep? No, I am in bed with my eyes closed because I am dancing.

I was in a really bad car accident when I was 17. Besides laying me up in the hospital for 7 weeks and suffering other various injuries, my scalp got laid open. Something like 250-300 stitches to close. Anyhow, though most people don't notice it, a coworker happened to notice my foot long scar. He4 asked how I acquired it and i told him about the accident. His response? " Did you die" ?

There is a Television program in America that is dedicated to asking people in the streets questions you would expect everyone to know about their OWN COUNTRY. The answers are hilarious. It's the misconceptions that the media and immigration has about Thailand that astounds me.

"I looked up Taiwan on the internet but didn't find Chiang Mai"

I couldn't find a Chiang Mai in Taiwan either.

After being arrested, people often ask " for a chance '................ Oh that always gives me a good laugh........................ ( cry sometimes with the sheer joy of the moment )

Amateurs.....the only person I'll be talking to is my lawyer......or Simon Cowell of course.

dam_n deal or no deal?

in summer school in Nashville in 1962 one of my class mates asked where I was from as I talked and dressed differently from them and I said California....he said 'they got sum really neat cars over there, huh?'

I was only 12 y/o but that observation really got me to thinkin'...

I shoulda known better when I opted to return there for my junior year of high school...Nashville likes to think of itself as progressive but it is still the 'Deep South' and California is a different planet...

how does one reply when you have weird things taken out of context?...no question is ever really 'stupid'...

talkin' with the bolivian housemaid when I was there briefly in 1985 and she said: 'folks up your way (i.e., urban USA) think that we all wear feathers (her words: 'que nos andamos con plumas') and engage in dubious practices...'...she was a smart girl...her name was Emita...

this one is more about the pathetic-ness of peopIe, rather than stupidity. At 16 i had the opportunity to study abroad. I had a Saturday job in a IocaI shop (part of my "you shouId Iearn the vaIue of money" education). I toId them i was Ieaving and when asked why, i said i was going to study in Montreux, SwitzerIand(weII at the time i assumed Montreux because thats where my brother was, but ended up in a different area..but thats another story.) The next day one of my co workers came over to me with a smug Iook on her face and with gIee toId me that im a Iiar, that im not going to Montreux, because its not even in SwitzerIand, its in Canada... (Montreal).

SmaII town gossip and wanting to catch peopIe out.. Zzz..

talkin' with the bolivian housemaid when I was there briefly in 1985 and she said: 'folks up your way (i.e., urban USA) think that we all wear feathers (her words: 'que nos andamos con plumas') and engage in dubious practices...'...she was a smart girl...her name was Emita...

Ah, but they DO wear feathers and engage in dubious practises... But then that's another story and one I can't go into here. I still have some of the feathers.

I think I would have liked Emita.

To be fair Boo, my husband did not have TV growing up. In fact, he grew up with no TV, no cars, no electric, no doctor, no hospital, no banks, no paved roads, a barter economy and few schools. He had to go to high school in Samui. That said, no he does not eat dog (he was asked that once).

No the most jaw droppingly stupid person I met was a Londoner who thought California was a city.

Baird...Bell? The ignorance is overwhelming at times.

My astonishment at this question is such I've never found a satisfactory answer.

Anyway I'm in a decent burger restaurant and naturally order a halfpounder or whatever.....then I'm asked how I want it cooked.

Cooked?

Yes Sir how would you like it done?

Umm cooked please.

<are you being a smart arse look>

Help is it just me???

Sorry...I think it's just you. In other words, you were being asked, "Rare, medium, or well done?"

If it was a decent burger restaurant, as you say, then this should be a perfectly normal thing to ask.

Baird...Bell? The ignorance is overwhelming at times.

My astonishment at this question is such I've never found a satisfactory answer.

Anyway I'm in a decent burger restaurant and naturally order a halfpounder or whatever.....then I'm asked how I want it cooked.

Cooked?

Yes Sir how would you like it done?

Umm cooked please.

<are you being a smart arse look>

Help is it just me???

Sorry...I think it's just you. In other words, you were being asked, "Rare, medium, or well done?"

If it was a decent burger restaurant, as you say, then this should be a perfectly normal thing to ask.

Why? A burger is minced beef (hopefully) and as such has to be fairly well done, unless you are eating a steak Tartare or similar. No good in half-cooking minced meat. It's usually too fat. Only the previously mentioned ST is fat-free.

Burger meat needs to be cooked well - gawd knows whats inside it.

(Edit) - Sorry, I forgot Labh

After being arrested, people often ask " for a chance '................ Oh that always gives me a good laugh........................ ( cry sometimes with the sheer joy of the moment )

You wouldn't happen to be that chap on "Trouble in Thailand" series would you?

Drifting slightly off-topic for a bit :

My German employer has just returned from a trip to UK.

He has friends in Edinburgh and went to attend the wedding of one of these.

What he didn't tell me was that the wedding was in Liverpool. He literally had to have one of his Scottish friends by his side all the time to translate.

And the best man's speech was even lost on the translator, supposedly indecipherable. Maybe just bloody indecent.

Anyway I've asked to see any video that may come out of this, to see if I can do better.

But my employer could well be asking stooopid questions about Liverpool now, as he reckons it's a foreign land unlike any other.

And Robbie Fowler scored a hat-trick over the weekend for .........

Perth

(The copy one in WA, not the proper one in Scotland)

A burger is minced beef (hopefully) and as such has to be fairly well done

Not if you prefer it medium or rare it doesn't.

If the concept of ordering a burger medium or rare was so strange, then the line at approx 31 seconds in this clip would never have been written:

Baird...Bell? The ignorance is overwhelming at times.

My astonishment at this question is such I've never found a satisfactory answer.

Anyway I'm in a decent burger restaurant and naturally order a halfpounder or whatever.....then I'm asked how I want it cooked.

Cooked?

Yes Sir how would you like it done?

Umm cooked please.

<are you being a smart arse look>

Help is it just me???

Sorry...I think it's just you. In other words, you were being asked, "Rare, medium, or well done?"

If it was a decent burger restaurant, as you say, then this should be a perfectly normal thing to ask.

Why? A burger is minced beef (hopefully) and as such has to be fairly well done, unless you are eating a steak Tartare or similar. No good in half-cooking minced meat. It's usually too fat. Only the previously mentioned ST is fat-free.

Burger meat needs to be cooked well - gawd knows whats inside it.

(Edit) - Sorry, I forgot Labh

I know, having partaken of his rissoles a la blue steak (Well browned on the outside, still mooing in the middle), that Zpete will differ with you. Delish.

I worked out a trick at McD's......if I wasn't particularly fussed which burger to order, I would order whatever I could see was NOT on the racks, thereby ensuring that the patty was so fresh off the grill that it was still moist. Even minced meat can be overdone.

I think the "myth" about ensuring minced meat is well done comes from a time when, although there may have been hygeine, it was not as scrupulous as today. Minced meat is susceptible to bacterial infection, unless finickly prepared from woe to go, as they do nowadays.

I think fatty meat is a rarity these days too (unfortunately )

Four children died in 1993 from an e coli infection picked up by eating hamburger not cooked well done (Jack in the Box). That started the well done cooking thing in all burger joints.

Most people in the States used to order a med or med rare burger before 1993 in high class burger joints. E coli is only really only a problem for ground beef as opposed to steak because it comes from the cow's intestine which are sometimes spilled as beef is ground.

Cows are completely ground up for burger. Steers are used for steaks and the trim is sometimes ground up for burger.

An old dairy cow enters the slaughterhouse and 20 minutes later a burger rolls out. There are all different kinds of burger but the hamburger chains buy the cheapest so e coli is still a danger. If you grind up primal cuts of meat the risk is very low and rare is fine.

E coli is killed immediately at well done temperatures or slowly at med rare temps in the case of roasting.

It of course is a standard question in a steak house to ask how you would like your steak cooked or in a breakfast house how you would like your eggs cooked.

That started the well done cooking thing in all burger joints.

Must be an American thing then - there's no "well done cooking thing in all burger joints" in Europe: medium or rare burgers are perfectly acceptable. Been asked in Bangkok how I'd like my burger cooked on a few occasions too.

This reminds me though, and bringing this back on topic a bit, I was in one of these cheap, coffeeshop-cum-restaurant places in Bangkok, Black Canyon or something, and after ordering a pork steak the waitress asked me how I'd like it cooked. I looked at her with an expression of disbelief, and confirmed that she understood it was pork I was ordering. "Yes", she said "do you want it well done, medium or rare". I changed my order to something a bit safer.

Baird...Bell? The ignorance is overwhelming at times.

My astonishment at this question is such I've never found a satisfactory answer.

Anyway I'm in a decent burger restaurant and naturally order a halfpounder or whatever.....then I'm asked how I want it cooked.

Cooked?

Yes Sir how would you like it done?

Umm cooked please.

<are you being a smart arse look>

Help is it just me???

Sorry...I think it's just you. In other words, you were being asked, "Rare, medium, or well done?"

If it was a decent burger restaurant, as you say, then this should be a perfectly normal thing to ask.

Why? A burger is minced beef (hopefully) and as such has to be fairly well done, unless you are eating a steak Tartare or similar. No good in half-cooking minced meat. It's usually too fat. Only the previously mentioned ST is fat-free.

Burger meat needs to be cooked well - gawd knows whats inside it.

(Edit) - Sorry, I forgot Labh

I'm getting a picture of the sauce dripping out of my burger after taking a bite.....and its not ketchup.

Worked out the answer now I reckon. I shall just say " Piping hot in the middle". .....if that don't work I'll just get up and leave.

I can't remember every being asked a really dumb question, I can remember giving some really dumb answers tho'

Baird...Bell? The ignorance is overwhelming at times.

My astonishment at this question is such I've never found a satisfactory answer.

Anyway I'm in a decent burger restaurant and naturally order a halfpounder or whatever.....then I'm asked how I want it cooked.

Cooked?

Yes Sir how would you like it done?

Umm cooked please.

<are you being a smart arse look>

Help is it just me???

Yeah, you.

Burgers are cooked 3 ways, rare, medium, ruined.... and inbetween.

Four children died in 1993 from an e coli infection picked up by eating hamburger not cooked well done (Jack in the Box). That started the well done cooking thing in all burger joints.

Most people in the States used to order a med or med rare burger before 1993 in high class burger joints. E coli is only really only a problem for ground beef as opposed to steak because it comes from the cow's intestine which are sometimes spilled as beef is ground.

Cows are completely ground up for burger. Steers are used for steaks and the trim is sometimes ground up for burger.

An old dairy cow enters the slaughterhouse and 20 minutes later a burger rolls out. There are all different kinds of burger but the hamburger chains buy the cheapest so e coli is still a danger. If you grind up primal cuts of meat the risk is very low and rare is fine.

E coli is killed immediately at well done temperatures or slowly at med rare temps in the case of roasting.

It of course is a standard question in a steak house to ask how you would like your steak cooked or in a breakfast house how you would like your eggs cooked.

I don't know how they do it in America, but even so, I doubt you are right.

Yes, old dairy cows, as well as old bulls, are the animals mainly used for the hamburger industry, but it is ONLY the meat. The beasts are slaughtered and butchered exactly the same way as any other meat animal, ie dressed (hide and offal removed), hung, and boned (by hand), just the same as your T-bone steak.

20 minutes is not realistic, either.

You are right that E-Coli is the main culprit, and that it likely can come from intestinal contamination....but from poor butchering practices.