My Wife'S Friends

[chonabot]

In the Teacher staffroom at my school - about 90% of them are women - the amount of gossipping and slagging off I heard on the first day was amazing.

When they realised I could undersatnd and speak Thai reasonably well, the gossipping was reduced but only slightly

[BigJohnnyBKK]

Without wishing to sound harsh, it is apparent that the friends of the Ops wife are from the lower echelons of society.

The only reason they could not want a westerner to speak Thai is to take advantage of them and / or gossip about them.

While on a recent trip to the UK my wife and I met up with a friend from Uni and his Thai wife, my wife was polite enough to accommodate his wife (who was open with my wife about being an ex-bar girl). My friends wife was pleasant enough, polite and friendly. By the end of the evening my wife knew ‘too much’ about her and their relationship, their sexual positions, the money he spent on her etc etc… my friends wife was clearly happy and proud with the way her life had improved and was happy to talk about it. My wife appeared to spend most of the evening nodding and listening! (I understand Thai enough and trust my wife enough to know such matters between ourselves are highly private).

The point here; My friends wife was a right old gossip and might not have been entirely comfortable if he could understand what she was saying.

When in Thailand and mixing with the folk I mix with, they all seem to want me to speak more Thai. These are the regular every day, real life people who want nothing of me other than friendship and genuine respect. Pretty much the same type of person I would hang around with and make daily contact with in the UK.

Your "upper echelons of society" (sic) don't gossip any less openly amongst themselves, just as they believe just as much in ghosts, spirits and other superstitions.

They've just found out about and learned to accommodate the (to them) weird habits of farang. So many will deny being superstitious, just as they won't gossip as openly in front of us, because they know we'll think less of them for doing so.

The conception of "personal" and "privacy" is not part of Thai culture, it's all fair game, if you want to keep something truly private you need to take up 007 tactics and keep them secret from every Thai, including your SO.

There may be some .0001% exceptions here, but they've got a lot more to do with personal loyalty and sincerity than they do with wealth and social class.