Living In Thailand Isn’t That Hard

[huawei]

I've had nothing but a fantastic experience with very few negatives since coming here 3 years ago to live. I met my Thai Wife in the US and she's been pretty Americanized so I suppose I don't have the cultural issues like many expats do. Learning Thai shatters a whole lot of difficulties and issues with everyday life. It gets easier every day.

So basically you just married another American.

Probabilities are that they will have a better marriage, better communication, same goals, more equal partnership than most. With an Asian twist..

[1FinickyOne]

I don't want learn Thai because I don't want to be too much involved in Thai gossips. your girlfriends or wife can take care of that. and as I don't want invest money here why learn Thai?

So that you can talk with the people, laugh and make jokes, make friends beyond only people who speak your language - some people have difficulty learning languages I think especially at an older age as you need to be able to hear well

If you can't easily learn a new language, I can understand that - but you say you don't want to - and that just seems like a bad attitude I am sorry but you are missing a lot

I agree with you kenk24. So many people move here but then don't want to adapt to their environment.

[StreetCowboy]

Living here isnt that hard if you adopt the right attitude.

However, I personally find it a little unsettling at how things can change so rapidly here, and the future and constant political unrest does cause me some concern.

I think you are right about attitude.

Since 1975 there have been so many twists and turns with one faction or the other predicting catastrophe, I have perhaps grown jaded. I have always been able to adjust in the past, so I tend not to worry about stuff which hasn’t happened yet.

It is like when I am out riding my bike. I deal with what the trail conditions are on any given day and don’t spend a lot of time worrying about what might happen to the trail at some time in the future.

It'll be fine until it's not

[villagefarang]

Living here isnt that hard if you adopt the right attitude.

However, I personally find it a little unsettling at how things can change so rapidly here, and the future and constant political unrest does cause me some concern.

I think you are right about attitude.

Since 1975 there have been so many twists and turns with one faction or the other predicting catastrophe, I have perhaps grown jaded. I have always been able to adjust in the past, so I tend not to worry about stuff which hasn’t happened yet.

It is like when I am out riding my bike. I deal with what the trail conditions are on any given day and don’t spend a lot of time worrying about what might happen to the trail at some time in the future.

It'll be fine until it's not

And I will deal with it then.

[1FinickyOne]

Sometimes I think that some of the posters here barely seem to know what it is to be in another culture, they think saying "same same" is speaking Thai - learning the intricacies of this culture is as challenging as learning the language - and for me, the rewards are at every corner… but it takes time and effort

And to the other thread that is working it's way through -

I agree with Village Farang - things will change, they always do and everywhere - change is a constant - and I have confidence that whatever changes might occur here, that I too will deal with them as they come…

[CharlieH]

Sometimes I think that some of the posters here barely seem to know what it is to be in another culture, they think saying "same same" is speaking Thai - learning the intricacies of this culture is as challenging as learning the language - and for me, the rewards are at every corner… but it takes time and effort

And to the other thread that is working it's way through -

I agree with Village Farang - things will change, they always do and everywhere - change is a constant - and I have confidence that whatever changes might occur here, that I too will deal with them as they come…

And I sincerely hope that your personal circumstances are such that you able to do so.

But there are many I believe that would seriously be effected, and have been already, by overnight changes here that puts their personal circumstances in real trouble and are not so easily overcome.

Changes that in some other countries etc wouldnt be allowed to happen, and if they were, at least you would see it coming and have time, that's not always the case in Thailand.

[rsokolowski]

Living here isnt that hard if you adopt the right attitude.

However, I personally find it a little unsettling at how things can change so rapidly here, and the future and constant political unrest does cause me some concern.

I think you are right about attitude.

Since 1975 there have been so many twists and turns with one faction or the other predicting catastrophe, I have perhaps grown jaded. I have always been able to adjust in the past, so I tend not to worry about stuff which hasn’t happened yet.

It is like when I am out riding my bike. I deal with what the trail conditions are on any given day and don’t spend a lot of time worrying about what might happen to the trail at some time in the future.

It'll be fine until it's not

That is life, it will be fine until it's not. Prepare the best you can and enjoy while you are able. The bumps in the road and difficulties that come along are part of the journey. Some of the bumps can be avoided by being aware of your surroundings, choosing the people you associate with, preparing financially, and having a positive attitude. However, some of those bumps are just not going to be seen beforehand and finding a way to deal with them (and move past them) is what makes up a life.

[Stevemercer]

The OP is correct about first appearances being so important in Thailand. I did teaching for a month or so, but didn't like it much. But I dressed well, was careful to be polite, smiling and friendly. The school Directors assumed I was an excellent teacher just because I had a degree and dressed the part. I could have been the worst teacher in the world and I suspect it would not of mattered so long as I kept up outward appearances. High placed Thai people will always be friendly with you if you are well dressed and look important.

I find Thai difficult to learn, but will keep trying. I think if you are observant, and aware of the nuances in Thai culture, you can communicate a lot through body language. For example, a woman discretely holding your hand, and scratching your palm, or a high placed official trying to show off in front of you when drunk. Simple courtesy, and just being aware and observant, can get you a long way in non-verbal communication. Of course, many Thai people don't really know how to treat ferangs in the Thai social hierarchy, but most will give you the benefit of the doubt and default you to hi so if that is the way you look or act.

[1FinickyOne]

Yes Charlie H - I agree with that too and I do have reserves and contingencies which would be different if back in the West - I do not think I would want to have a feeling of dangling on a thread anywhere… and I have sympathies for those who seem to be in precarious situations… though I see that back in USA too - and probably know more people back there who seem to be struggling, not having the savings to offset setbacks - I still see this as a much happier place to be - I make my choices with open eyes - there is a plus and minus to everything…

I know people who are 65 and must continue to work in USA and could probably easily retire here… we all make our own choices. Being prepared is nice but may only get you so far… not sure anyone, anywhere can take all the risk out of living..

[SoiBiker]

Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.

[Crazy chef 1]

As usual...good one VF...

[mankondang]

Congratulations to the OP. This is by far the best post I have read. Well constructed, grammar and syntax excellent, and the the theme and argument thoughtful, organized and written without biased preaching. I sense a true Buddhist philosophy apparent throughout.

I enjoy learning and enjoy the experiences that I have encountered and the people I have met through continuing to learn the Thai language and traditions. I personally, have also learned, through living in Thailand, to be more patient with others and especially with myself. Along with all this I have found inner contentment, maybe from learning from observing specific others, and how they tought me the true nature of impermanence.

As the OP eludes to, what you wish to make of Thailand?...."it up to you".

Allso, IMHO, never forget that we always have a choice, whether we know it or not.

[bazza40]

Congratulations to the OP. This is by far the best post I have read. Well constructed, grammar and syntax excellent, and the the theme and argument thoughtful, organized and written without biased preaching. I sense a true Buddhist philosophy apparent throughout.

I enjoy learning and enjoy the experiences that I have encountered and the people I have met through continuing to learn the Thai language and traditions. I personally, have also learned, through living in Thailand, to be more patient with others and especially with myself. Along with all this I have found inner contentment, maybe from learning from observing specific others, and how they tought me the true nature of impermanence.

As the OP eludes to, what you wish to make of Thailand?...."it up to you".

Allso, IMHO, never forget that we always have a choice, whether we know it or not.

Er - after praising the OP, one doesn't elude to anything. To elude means to escape, slip away. The word you are trying to use is allude.

My apologies for being a spelling maven; however, tought and allso are also incorrect.

[starky]

Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.

Definitely not as hard as seeing with your eyes closed

[BuriramDevelopers]

I don't want learn Thai because I don't want to be too much involved in Thai gossips. your girlfriends or wife can take care of that. and as I don't want invest money here why learn Thai?

So that you can talk with the people, laugh and make jokes, make friends beyond only people who speak your language - some people have difficulty learning languages I think especially at an older age as you need to be able to hear well…

If you can't easily learn a new language, I can understand that - but you say you don't want to - and that just seems like a bad attitude… I am sorry but you are missing a lot…

Coming here, working here and living here now for 8 years, and i feel the same. I have no interest or need to learn their language really. Everything i need i get done., I like it now here. Not sure if i still would if i understood them better than i do now. The words from another poster stick with me the most. Ignorant, unequal and cruel. I'm surprised by the number of foreigners , settling in the Thai way, with the argument,,,hey you live here now, so adjust. Why is that nescessary ? Just because i live here does not mean i agree with their ways, it means i will accept it, as it is not my country, i will not judge them for it, for the same reasons, but i am not blind to the reasons for so many problems here . And yes there are other people from other countries who might have better ways to do things. ????yes really there are.

Bashing Thailand is not the right way, but ignoring the reality isn't either.. . It is ok to point out shortcomings, without being named as someone with a bad attitude, or someone who just does not get it. Antisocial or whatever. Bussiness is easy, The government is easy, never bring problems to my life, but hell, i don't think that it is always the right thing to just go with the flow because it is there. I am not Thai , i just live here, but i like my standards , which i learned back home, and i will maintain them no matter how long i live here.

Thailand you gotta love it, if not up to you,

It need to be said though. I have absolutely no problem, with Thai people and the way they do what they do, i just most of the times, prefer to do them differently and many time in my eyes, more sensible.

[sandyf]

I don't want learn Thai because I don't want to be too much involved in Thai gossips. your girlfriends or wife can take care of that. and as I don't want invest money here why learn Thai?

So that you can talk with the people, laugh and make jokes, make friends beyond only people who speak your language - some people have difficulty learning languages I think especially at an older age as you need to be able to hear well…

If you can't easily learn a new language, I can understand that - but you say you don't want to - and that just seems like a bad attitude… I am sorry but you are missing a lot…

I agree and at 71 not only am I partly deaf I am also fairly tone deaf due to working on jet aircraft for years with no ear defenders.

Thai being a tonal language what I do speak Thai what I think I said may come over completely differently to a Thai speaker. Fortunately my Thai family, neighbours and people I deal with in the village have become accustomed to my butchering their language and more or less understand what I want. When I try to explain that I am partly deaf they make some allowances and try to figure out what I meant from what I said.

You're not alone there Bill. I did try, attended a course at one time but a waste of time and money.

There is an old saying, 'actions speak louder than words' and that goes a long way here.

[sandyf]

" As foreigners we start off with a fairly elevated status in the eyes of most Thais and have to work pretty hard to shatter that view of us. "

That may well depend on where you live. Around here foreigners from the west are considered arrogant and useless. When I first married the family were not happy and it was an uphill struggle to get over the prejudice. The breakthrough came when my father in law couldn't fix the light in the toilet block. I got my multimeter and traced the fault to the on/off switch and from then on things improved. We lived with him for about 15 months till our house was built and apparently after about a year he started to tell the neighbours it wasn't too bad having a falang in the house. Since then the family have done everything they can to look after me.

[PaullyW]

I agree generally with BuriramDevelopers.

As a citizen of the world, we foreigners need not adapt all the ways of the locals. Surely it is not a legal requirement.

We have our cultures and values. We try not to hold them in conflict with those of the locals, but sometimes we will/must, and those issues will need to be dealt with.

Living in a foreign country is only a binding agreement insomuch as we follow the laws.

As to individual impressions and experiences, my *general* opinion is that there will be more similarities among foreigners within certain stages of life/purpose in Thailand:

Tourists - Thailand is great!

Retirees - Usually great!

Expat contact workers (2-3 yrs) - soso

Middle-aged career migrants: not so great

Young career migrants: pretty bad depending how heavily career is weighted vs, say, fun (Sex, romance, etc.)

Basically, if you are doing anything of any consequence in Thailand, life can be extremely frustrating. If you are, for example, just relaxing your later years away, the experience will almost certainly be different.

[SoiBiker]

I know a load of 'young career migrants' - they mostly seem to love it here. By contrast, retirees mainly seem a sour bunch.

[PaullyW]

I know a load of 'young career migrants' - they mostly seem to love it here. By contrast, retirees mainly seem a sour bunch.

Well, I doubt they are the types who value career advancement and achievement more than fun because Thailand is an almost entirely anti intellectual place of encouraged low achievement.

[SoiBiker]

I know a load of 'young career migrants' - they mostly seem to love it here. By contrast, retirees mainly seem a sour bunch.

Well, I doubt they are the types who value career advancement and achievement more than fun because Thailand is an almost entirely anti intellectual place of encouraged low achievement.

Teachers, mostly. There are some excellent schools here in Bangkok.

[PaullyW]

I know a load of 'young career migrants' - they mostly seem to love it here. By contrast, retirees mainly seem a sour bunch.

Well, I doubt they are the types who value career advancement and achievement more than fun because Thailand is an almost entirely anti intellectual place of encouraged low achievement.

Teachers, mostly. There are some excellent schools here in Bangkok.

Well good on them if they are happy. To be fair though, the numbers of young career foreigners in Thailand is extremely low compared compared to any major subgroup. And the number of good schools in all the country cannot employ more than a handful of these people. Very low numbers

[PaullyW]

And, here's an additional point to consider.

How much progress would the world and humanity have made if every group had some defined boundary within which they could force anyone to act with perfect precision to their own, special and strange customs?

Culture, even within the relatively recent constructs we call "nations", are living, evolving, mixing things.

Some great percentage of what is considered normal for the majority Thais now wasn't so just a hundred years ago when heavy ethnic Chinese immigration began. Much of what Thais now consider part of 'their' culture was forcibly resisted for decades.

The same is true looking further back in regards to Cambodia customs and culture and Indian and Sri Lankan going ever further back.

So, while the OP is interesting, in good taste and has a very positive ambition, I might argue that it is intellectual flawed.

We are permitted and even encouraged to play our parts - - within the laws and decency parameters - - to give of our own cultures to form a more perfect global community.

100 years from now, arguments like that presented in the OP will seem likely seem very quaint and dated and maybe even silly.

[SoiBiker]

I know a load of 'young career migrants' - they mostly seem to love it here. By contrast, retirees mainly seem a sour bunch.

Well, I doubt they are the types who value career advancement and achievement more than fun because Thailand is an almost entirely anti intellectual place of encouraged low achievement.

Teachers, mostly. There are some excellent schools here in Bangkok.

Well good on them if they are happy. To be fair though, the numbers of young career foreigners in Thailand is extremely low compared compared to any major subgroup. And the number of good schools in all the country cannot employ more than a handful of these people. Very low numbers

I didn't say there were a lot of them. Just that they're happier than you make out in my experience.

[questionsreplies]

Wow we are so lucky to learn new things everydsy ♡♥♡

[Mitkof Island]

You move to a foreign country half way around the world never bother to learn the language, never learn about their customs , never eat their food , date and marry bar or massage girls , spend most of your time in bars and then wonder why you hate it so much. Three words come to mind. JUST PLAIN STUPID.

[Jingthing]

You move to a foreign country half way around the world never bother to learn the language, never learn about their customs , never eat their food , date and marry bar or massage girls , spend most of your time in bars and then wonder why you hate it so much. Three words come to mind. JUST PLAIN STUPID.

I love me some Thai food.

I learned about the local customs and I didn't care for them.

So I should leave?

Maybe someday. Not in a rush.

[BuriramDevelopers]

You move to a foreign country half way around the world never bother to learn the language, never learn about their customs , never eat their food , date and marry bar or massage girls , spend most of your time in bars and then wonder why you hate it so much. Three words come to mind. JUST PLAIN STUPID.

I love me some Thai food.

I learned about the local customs and I didn't care for them.

So I should leave?

Maybe someday. Not in a rush.

exactly my point. Jingthing.

Living here so long. Trust me i know their customs, their food, their ways. You must be ignorant residing here for 8 years and having no clue where you are.

So yes completely stupid are words you can use, but just not in the way mentioned before.

Seen the customs, did not care much, eat the food , never been a big fan though, have so many Thai people working for me already, do not need to know the language in order to understand more, that will be an addition to what i know already and what i need to know. I know a little, and most of the time that's all you need,

For the rest i believe 99 % of the foreigners have no clue about how the culture developed over time, hell most Thais don't even know their history. Politics and social order i leave up to the Thais.

Just not interested in being Thai and although i love the country i have absolutey no wish in adapting the way of living. that does not meani don't know, but only living here is good enough for me. Thainess is waisted on me.

. Or do you think everybody in Holland eats cheese and walks on clumps and in Germany they all drink beer and eat bratwurst and wear lederhosen, and all British eat fish and chips ......cmon

Multiclturalism is what they call that.

And one last footnote....NOT everybody is here for the same reasons, so just stating it is stupid is a litlle shortsighted if you ask me.

There are alternative reasons for people to be here other than bargirls, living the dream.and especially living as Thai do....................reasons that don't need me or any other to be Thai or live that way.

Why is that so strange? i really feel the opposite.

If you adapt it all because you are here now i feel you have not learned a lot in life yet, because else you would use the knowledge available to you, And much of that is what you learned elsewhere, unless you live here the biggest part of your life or you feel that Thailand is the best culture in the world and has the best solutions for everything, what i can not believe. So most likely you are keeping most of your own ways too, just not the ones that annoy you.

Not living like them does not mean you can not live together with them right?

[JAFO]

Living here isnt that hard if you adopt the right attitude.

However, I personally find it a little unsettling at how things can change so rapidly here, and the future and constant political unrest does cause me some concern.

I think you are right about attitude.

Since 1975 there have been so many twists and turns with one faction or the other predicting catastrophe, I have perhaps grown jaded. I have always been able to adjust in the past, so I tend not to worry about stuff which hasn’t happened yet.

It is like when I am out riding my bike. I deal with what the trail conditions are on any given day and don’t spend a lot of time worrying about what might happen to the trail at some time in the future.

I have to say, being I came over and worked in a Thai company, its all about attitude. I met many foreigners that came over that thought they were kings and had an arrogant "holier than thou" attitude. Thai's resent that behavior and pick up on it quickly. I, on the other hand, made time to work with the staff and understand the dynamic. I did not eat lunch with the other foreigners onsite, I ate lunch in the cafeteria with the Thai staff(besides the western food was crap and the Thai food was WAY better). I was quickly respected and soon after invited to family gatherings, Friday night dinners out with the engineers. They steered me to places to go see. Many helped me book rooms at various islands. My first trip for the US company they put me up in a major hotel in BKK. If I left for the weekend to go see something I let some of the Thai folks use the Hotel room and enjoy the pool and amenities. 10 years later I am still friends with most of the people I met and many have moved onto to others tech companies.

I have found anywhere you go its all about Attitude.

[thaiduncankk]

I know a load of 'young career migrants' - they mostly seem to love it here. By contrast, retirees mainly seem a sour bunch.

Well, I doubt they are the types who value career advancement and achievement more than fun because Thailand is an almost entirely anti intellectual place of encouraged low achievement.

Teachers, mostly. There are some excellent schools here in Bangkok.

I take it you can verify that ?

Where, exactly, are your kids educated ?