In case you don't know: "Not in Kansas anymore" is an Americanism for experiencing strange new things in strange new lands and realizing you are really FAR from home.

OK it's not as if Kansas isn't super strange but that isn't the point.

I saw something today which inspired this thread. It made me think: WOW. This country is SO different. Even after all these years. It was a non-cliched thing that I saw.

Examples of CLICHED things that we probably really don't need to hear about again include:

Seeing an elephant in a city street

Seeing carts selling fried insects

Seeing go go bars with people wearing numbers

Etc., you know, that kind of standard TOURIST stuff

My NON-CLICHED moment that I saw today.

Hanging around the basement of a local IT mall, I saw a toddler playing with a plastic bag over his head. This went on for many minutes. He was laughing and running and kept trying to TIE the plastic bag on his head. Again and again. Some adults were WATCHING him and laughing hysterically along with the fun. During this time he ran outside the view of his fun loving guardians.

Now observing this I didn't really think the toddler's minders were going to let him suffocate at that time during this play. But they were REINFORCING the good fun of tying a plastic bag over his head. It's like they didn't think the toddler might do the same thing while nobody is watching ...

Then it hit me. Not in Kansas anymore!

In the USA, people would have called child protective services or at least butt into the watchers business and give them a stern lecture.

So I've started it.

Would you like to share YOUR non-cliched "Not in Kansas Anymore" moments in Thailand?

One of the things I have seen more than once is when we eat on the patio, a week later I have plants growing from the food we had eaten. I now have a number of items, most notably chili peppers and cucumbers.

That never seemed to happen at our family picnics in Calgary...

OP second try compact version:

Mateys and Dudes, tell us about some weird and surprising sheit you've seen in Thailand that you'd never see back in Blighty (or wherever).

But nothing about eating bugs and stuff, that's too obvious.

You should have made a video of the toddler playing with the plastic bag, sounds like he had loads of fun

Tourist Cliché Alert

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Last night two attractive girls kept trying to pull down my short in the disco, not sure why but they seemed to take lots of fun in this game, I thought past kindergarten this kind of stuff was over Never happened to me before, maybe they were attracted to my unconventional sportswear short

You should have made a video of the toddler playing with the plastic bag, sounds like he had loads of fun

I think I see where you're going. Maybe. Are you suggesting we're supposed to go so native here that when we see insane things like toddlers tying plastic bags over their heads and their minders celebrating it, we're supposed to feel that sense of fun too? Maybe if I came over here much younger ... like as a toddler ...

Honestly, I was staring at the scene the whole time, mostly looking at the minders to see if I saw even one clue of concern especially when the toddler had run out of their view, still with the bag tied on his head. Nothing. Nothing at all.

Are you saying that from this point on we should now call you Dorothy JT?

It would suit you.

Are you saying that from this point on we should now call you Dorothy JT?

It would suit you.

Friend of Dorothy, more like.

You should have made a video of the toddler playing with the plastic bag, sounds like he had loads of fun

I think I see where you're going. Maybe. Are you suggesting we're supposed to go so native here that when we see insane things like toddlers tying plastic bags over their heads and their minders celebrating it, we're supposed to feel that sense of fun too? Maybe if I came over here much younger ... like as a toddler ...

Honestly, I was staring at the scene the whole time, mostly looking at the minders to see if I saw even one clue of concern especially when the toddler had run out of their view, still with the bag tied on his head. Nothing. Nothing at all.

I know there is nothing I can do about it so rather than get mad and rise my blood pressure I just smile

I know there is nothing I can do about it so rather than get mad and rise my blood pressure I just smile

Understood. I wasn't really mad. Just amazed. I really never saw anything like it. The bag wasn't just on his head, he was tying it around his neck. I was feeling concern for the child's future with minders like that but understood it's out of my hands.

Are you saying that from this point on we should now call you Dorothy JT?

It would suit you.

Friend of Dorothy, more like.

Toto then........ I'd prefer Dorothy.

Toto then........ I'd prefer Dorothy.

No.

Back to the topic.

This thread is a non-starter, isn't it?

Oh well.

Toto then........ I'd prefer Dorothy.

No.

Back to the topic.

This thread is a non-starter, isn't it?

Oh well.

So many moments are the cliched ones JT...that is why they become cliches. Of course, for someone seeing it for the first time, it is not so cliched to them

I used to live in a small village for a while when I first came to Thailand. There was a cute little baby boy that all the adults adored and pretty much every day one of them would play with his little ding-a-ling until he got an erection. The other adults would all stand around and giggle. I never saw anything like that back in Kansas.

I was not new to Asia when i had my first trip to Thailand, having spent quite some time in India.

One morning i was sitting outside my favourite coffee shop, don't remember in which town, when i saw 3 monks on a motorbike, which for me was already strange enough.

The monk sitting in the back, a guy in his sixties, was puffing from a really big and fat cigarette with absolute delight.

For a moment i was not believing my eyes.

Not in Kansas anymore - shoes/sandals left directly in front of a doorway and motorbikes parked directly in front of a store's entryway making it difficult to enter or leave. Why oh why can't they put them to one side or the other?

Like in the Joseph Conrad stories...

.... Anyway, there was three of us had come out from Scotland together to work in Hong Kong; the others had been before, but not me. Anyway, we went for a few beers and something to eat, and it all seemed ordinary enough. I woke early the next morning with a bit of a sore head and a thick tongue from the jet lag, and walked down the hill to see what I could find. Well, of course the humidity was a bit of a blow, past a little row of Chinese shops selling stuff that looked like you were supposed to eat it, though for the life of me I can't imagine why you would.

All the little Chinese shops with their Chinese banners, just like in a Jackie Chan film, and I was beginning to feel a little bit out of place, with the old trams clanking noisily past. 'This all seems a bit foreign', I thought to myself, 'I wonder how I'm going to get on...'

Then... and I followed the sound... across the road, dodging the trams, down an alley, round a corner up to the gate of the Logistics Depot, and there's the Royal HK Ambulance Corps Pipe Band on rehearsal "Ahthinkwe'lldaejustfinehere, bytheway"

Thai funeral - in particular picking bone fragments out of the ashes with two wooden sticks (almost like using chopsticks) the following day after the cremation and putting in cloth to put in the "spirit house" - sorry not sure of the correct name.

I knew I had to find a better school travel option for my son when I watched the sangtew with 50 kids , including little green onion , in and on top of it lurching off for the 10KM trip to town . Anyway he was soon banned for fighting , and it was definatley his fault because he shouldn't have got so upset by the bullying and name calling dealt out by the village kids . I have ridden many a sangtew , jeepny and the likes ( the 42 up emburu rd ) but I knew that day for sure , most definatley , I wasn't in Kansas or Texas .

The kid was recycling...he and the parents should be congratulated for that, not ridiculed.