Thai Face

[elkangorito]

kat- "And by the way, I'm from a low-income background and have made poverty alleviation my life's work. I have plenty of warm relationships with poor stateless migrants and the average working Thai. Maybe they appreciate that I am real, and treat them as real people in return, with real interactions, and not as sacred, idealized, romantic concepts from colonial-era ideals of the poor noble savage."

Unless one is your waiter right?

Looks like 100 000 pipers this time. By the way, according to the SI (System Internationalle), there is no comma between the "thousands". Therefore, one hundred thousand looks like this, "100 000". The ignorant American system refuses to adopt this "common sense" system. Sorry, that should read as "uncommon sense", since "common sense" is so rare in humans.

[sbk]

Thank you for that completely pointless explanation.

In case you hadn't noticed, the topic at hand is still about "Thai face" and "Asian values". Neither of which have been much discussed in the past two pages of flaming.

[English Noodles]

I think the Thais are correct, to a large extent, that there's no sense even discussing a problem that can't be solved, or if the problem-discussing would cause a Thai to lose face. We imagine 'problems' that don't exist, and waste time discussing problems that are unsolvable.

There is no such thing as a problem that can't be solved.

[kat]

kat- "And by the way, I'm from a low-income background and have made poverty alleviation my life's work. I have plenty of warm relationships with poor stateless migrants and the average working Thai. Maybe they appreciate that I am real, and treat them as real people in return, with real interactions, and not as sacred, idealized, romantic concepts from colonial-era ideals of the poor noble savage."

Unless one is your waiter right?

I tip waiters, out of common decency, whether they rendered good service or not.

Edited March 30, 2006 by kat

[ivorbishop]

I was in Pizza Hut the other week, not a fan of the stuff but I was Hank an I was in a rush, so I said "one large Super Supreme" to the girl behind the counter, there was a bunch of motorbike boys sitting behind, so while I had my hand in my pocket grappling for me reddys, she repeated the order to me, and I didn't understand a word she said, so begging her pardon I asked if she could repeat what she had just said, then she looked over my shoulder and said to the bike boys that I was a stupid foreigner who cannot speak English, I turned around And informed the lads that I am in fact English...........the girls jaw smashed on the bfloor

[Levent]

Yesterday I was yelled at by a lunatic Thai man, claiming I had hit his car. He was raging, his eyes were on fire. So far for jai yen, eh? I was the one trying to keep calm, he clearly wasn't. He was lying to me. If that's not called loss of face, then what is?

[elkangorito]

Yesterday I was yelled at by a lunatic Thai man, claiming I had hit his car. He was raging, his eyes were on fire. So far for jai yen, eh? I was the one trying to keep calm, he clearly wasn't. He was lying to me. If that's not called loss of face, then what is?

It would be LOF if you were the one yelling at him. Obviously, he was afflicted with a temporary Loss Of Smile condition (LOS), ergo LOS in the LOS.

[sting01]

Stop excusing Thais for refusing to lose face. ......... But this face saving epidemic needs to be tackled with the same urgency as Asian bird flu if Thailand is to compete successfully with the rest of the world (something I am sure the current CEO would like).

Anothern Westerner judging the Far East and its culture....the Far East where more than half of the world population lives. You are talking about Thailand here, but the 'losing face'-isue is all over Asia, like for instance China, with 1.3 Billion people with a culture which has a few thousand years of their own culture and 'losing face' experience.

Who are we to judge?

Instead we, at least, should try to understand more of the culture in other countries.

Saying the things you said shows YOU have no idea!

LaoPo

Well, my culture is also thousands years old, so if I judge, (that I do not do) I can judge with my culture that is thousands years old (1 500 years old).

[elkangorito]

"Judgement" is as instinctive as eating. I find it almost impossible how one human cannot judge another. One can try but I'll bet one still judges another, albeit in one's own mind.

One's culture may be thousands of years old but life exists "in this moment". One's beliefs may well be a problem as well as a blessing.

Edited April 2, 2006 by elkangorito