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Thais Just Walk Off


Torneyboy

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My TGF says that "goodbyes" sound permanent to many Thais- kind of an ill omen of "never see you again".

 

This sounds familiar to me too, all jokes aside. Even in English, "goodbye" does mean forever, although it's generally used as a way of saying "see you later/next time".

Still strange the Thais don't seem to have a way of saying 'see you later' in this case anyway.

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Think yourself lucky the fuckers actually leave.

 

Nothing like outstaying your welcome. Have had many weeks now of the Pinoy family group coming around for the evening. It's like being invaded by a troop of monkeys. There can be upto 9 people in a one room apartment, all fucking around with my shit, combing their hair with my combs, using my towels, drinking my iced coffee, thumbing thickly through my books, flicking tv channels to something with a bit more unintelligible shite on it, eating my dinner, playing cards, lowering the seat on my mountain bike. It kinda reminds me of going to the Safari Park back in the UK and the baboons jump all over the motor and bend the aerial and piss witht the windscreen wipers. Makes you wanna kill.

 

Course sometimes they just nob off without a by your leave. That I'm happy for.

 

The other night the gf had her mother and two nieces over, on a Friday night for chrissake. They were busy playing cards and yakking in Tagalog. Gf turns to me and says in front of them "is it alright if they stay over?" So have to say yes. Trouble was I wanted to watch Snoop Doggy Dogg in "Bones" on the box, (big mistake). That meant that they bedded down in the aircon bedroom at 10 pm while I waited for the movie to start at 11. Which meant I ended up sleeping on the bastard floor with the fan all night and eepus (cockroach fuckers) crawling around.

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I think a lot depends on the social confidence, especially near farangs, of the person. Not that they feel awkward, but the farang is the farang, and some may feel totally OK to chat a goodbye while others just don't. Some may do it with some persons, and not with others. some may do it 5 minutes before, and not 5 minutes before (aie!! I almost said: same in the west.... ::)

 

often if we stay long enough in LOS, we can see we adopt a few traits, and i am sure i have often left a social gathering without saying goodbye, just because i took on the habit of thais. So, why do we do it?

 

Incidentally, i have also noticed that people can drop by and not say hello at all. My take is that they are not doing anything consciously, and that's why they may not understand we question it (why farang want to know everything).

 

Though this is changing fast, my only cultural explanation is related to thais sense of space. there was not that much difference between public and private space in the past for most, so that entering/leaving one or the othe space, did not mean they had to acknowledge it with a sign, unless some "protocol" was required.

 

Old hands may remember the "this is the King's land" saying. Not sure if you still hear that, but even in Pattaya, late 80s, i'd see a neighbour entering a friend's house, not saying much, hanging around, then leaving, and as i asked my friend "WTF?", he told me he once asked the "trespassers" what they were doing, and they answered "this is the King's land", meaning all land is owned by the King, but public to all.

 

Now, insecurity and theft have done this custom thru, but i think there are remnants of that in certain behaviour, that public space, social gathering like visits and parties are just to be taken casually. Not even IMO, just an idea....

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Hi.

 

 

Thought this post was in the writers competition ::

 

i know how you feel.

They tend to take over , i am a virgo ...so a fussy peron...dont like mess around my home.

Wife is fine...visitors are a different story.

 

We go out and when come home place looks like a bomb hit the place.

 

I don''t say anything ...wifes friends etc.

But i let her know after they have gone how i feel about the takeover.....""Thai people"" again :doah:

 

Must find out what this term covers.

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torneyboy,

 

Huh. I'm a Virgo too, and know exactly what you mean here. I hate people fucking around with my private stuff, and hate parents who don't tell their little brats not to fuck with my stuff. And can't begin to tell you how pissed off I get at people who enter my home and think they can trash it and not pick up their garbage, or at least put it in the garbage, and not on the damned floor with the persian carpet. I'm sorry to say but a lot of Thai village people are fucking slobs, and ignorant of personal space and private property. Also, although Thais are personally very clean and fastidious of their personal hygene, usually, they are much less so about their place of residence and their country itself. It fairly boggles the mind, of this farang at least, what filth these people will live in. A well laid tile floor might as well be a dirt floor for a lot of them the way they treat it.

 

I'm in the middle, well, almost finished now, of cleaning and painting the interior of a house we are renting along with a shop. This house looked like it hadn't been cleaned since it was built maybe twenty years ago. I KNOW for a fact, because I'm just doing this myself, that the fucking windows have never been washed since the day they were installed! You cannot even see through them they are so dirty. And really the neighbors are amazed I'm taking the time to wash and scrape the old paint and lizard shit off them. You should see the difference. I have a before and after photo that shows just how scummy the windows were. It's shocking! An American or German housewife would probably keel over in a dead faint if they ever saw this, in shock. :-) The windows were so bad I needed to scrape them clean first with a straight razor blade. The windex wouldn't even make a dent in the grime until I shaved the crap off! Another thing that amazes me is the filthy bathrooms. I'm afraid to take my pecker out in some of these hong nams for fear of some deadly dick destroying germs jumping on it and eating it away! :-) Haven't these people ever heard of tiny scubbing bubbles? Or lysol or bleach? Walls caked in 10 or 20 years of filth and grease seem not to bother anyone much, and spider webs the size of mosquito nets hanging from the rafters seem to be a fashion statement in some circles it seems.

 

If cleanliness is next to godliness than some of these fuckers better get themselves an exorcist quick! The filth they allow themselves to wallow in is truly disgusting and nearly indescribable. And if you looked back in the kitchen of some of the places you eat in along the roads and sois for a quick bite you'd probably never eat outside your home or a farang style or expensive tourist type Thai restaurant again! :doah:

 

Cent

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P127,

 

"I think a lot depends on the social confidence, especially near farangs, of the person. Not that they feel awkward, but the farang is the farang, and some may feel totally OK to chat a goodbye while others just don't."

 

I think you are right in this if applying it to the big city of Bangkok maybe, where they deal with farang on a more steady basis, but this is happening in the village and in Surin and other places I've been to. In Bangkok they are exposed to the farang culture a lot more, and some take on some of our customs, and others don't or are more uncomfortable with this still.

 

"Some may do it with some persons, and not with others. some may do it 5 minutes before, and not 5 minutes before (aie!! I almost said: same in the west.... )"

 

Have no idea what the heck you just said there my friend!

:-)

 

"often if we stay long enough in LOS, we can see we adopt a few traits, and i am sure i have often left a social gathering without saying goodbye, just because i took on the habit of thais. So, why do we do it?"

 

I agrre. I've noticed the longer I'm here the more I pick up some of their own habits and customs and such traits. I walk slower, am not fazed by people being late much anymore, things like that, BUT, I still don't pick my nose in public, cover my mouth when I laugh, burp in a persons presence and not excuse myself, wear a ski mask in 90 degree weather, drink lao khao, or complain too much when the AC is a bit chilly, eat pet mahk som tam, or wash my asshole after I shit with my hand and some mosquito larva infested scummy water and not a towel or paper towel or toilet paper to dry my hands with after! ::

 

"Incidentally, i have also noticed that people can drop by and not say hello at all. My take is that they are not doing anything consciously, and that's why they may not understand we question it (why farang want to know everything)."

 

Yes. I think it is a cultural thing. Someone said the Thais think it is unlucky. I think this is the closest to the truth. And yeah, I've heard the complaint that we farang ask too many questions.

 

"Though this is changing fast, my only cultural explanation is related to thais sense of space. there was not that much difference between public and private space in the past for most, so that entering/leaving one or the othe space, did not mean they had to acknowledge it with a sign, unless some "protocol" was required."

 

Yes, I think this may be where this habit originates. The lack of private space for so long for many as they've grown up in the village in a one room shack with a towel or sheet strung up to give them what little privacy they can grab. I suppose this may be it as you point out. Good point.

 

"Old hands may remember the "this is the King's land" saying. Not sure if you still hear that, but even in Pattaya, late 80s, i'd see a neighbour entering a friend's house, not saying much, hanging around, then leaving, and as i asked my friend "WTF?", he told me he once asked the "trespassers" what they were doing, and they answered "this is the King's land", meaning all land is owned by the King, but public to all."

 

I'd read this somewhere before. Thanks for explaining it further. Would seem to explain why some just walk right into your home in the village and wander around then walk back out as though they had every right to do so, without saying a damned thing.

 

"Now, insecurity and theft have done this custom thru, but i think there are remnants of that in certain behaviour, that public space, social gathering like visits and parties are just to be taken casually. Not even IMO, just an idea...."

 

It is very sad the amount now-a-days of the theft and pilfering and shoplifting. It seems to be getting worse lately too I've seen. Where I am the women living alone are very worried, and there have been three breakins in the past 8 weeks time in our neighborhood. There is a building down the soi where students from outside of Surin stay while they go to school here. The family says it is these boys that are the ones they think are doing this stuff. I have my doubts about that though. Seems a bit more professional, and looks like someone in the neighborhood may be tipping the thieves off as to when someone is not at home for extended periods of time.

 

Later,

 

Cent

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Sukhunvit,

 

Hahahahahahahahaha! Very funny post. Sorry to laugh at your problem here. I know what you mean. I've heard the Fillipinos are even worse than the Thais in this respect. Time to hide the good stuff and put the mousetraps out! Oh yeah, and NO ONE is allowed to touch my mountain bike! Seriously! Just what I need, to be riding along and some fucker has screwed with the quick release on my seat post and the damned thing collapses, crushing my balls, or they've loosened the fucking quick release for the front wheel and I hit a bump and the freakin' wheel comes off in traffic! No way! Hands off you little pests! DON'T touch my bike dammit! (Are they as lax as the Thais when it comes to watching the little brats they drag along who seem to get into everything and want to touch and screw with anything they can reach without getting a slap on the hand and a decisive "Don't touch!" from the parent?)

 

Cent

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Ranma,

 

"A Thai told me that a lot of these strange (to us) quirks of behaviour are perhaps so that both they and you can avoid any situations where you might display emotion and thereby lose face."

 

Ah, there we go. Yeah. I'd heard this explanation once too. Thanks for jogging my memory. I'd forgotten that one. Seems a good theory. One I can believe they think as a reason not to make a big deal of saying goodbye.

 

"Another is when you give someone a present. They will generally not open it in front of you, but just put it to one side until they are alone. This can seem quite rude to us."

 

I've seen this myself, even with the wife. Although she's gotten beyond this custom the past few years. :-) I was told once when asked why they do this it was in case you didn't like the present it wouldn't show on your face when you opened it. Or if it was possible it might be something too personal of a present to open in public viewing.

 

And yes, they mostly don't make much of a display, especially in public, of saying goodbye when you'll be gone for a long time. And when you return there isn't much of a big deal made. Almost as though you've been gone only to go buy a pack of cigarettes at the corner store it seems. Strange how much customs vary from one culture to another in things like this isn't it?

 

Cent

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