Eating alone in Thailand

[Julian2]

In one of John Burdett's books, Bangkok 8 he describes the hero's shock at finding an FBI agent eating alone in her hotel room. I live in a far less sophisticated part of the country than Bangkok but none of the many people who wander through my house seem to display any suprise at the sight of me tucking into a plate of bacon and eggs while my Thai wife dines on noodle soup across the road. (Usually alone too). I know enough to offer them a piece of toast (usually declined) and still remember the shock on a lad's face at the taste of matured cheese.

Any comments on this please?

[fudgyMcPacker]

My first comment will concern the book. It started out fine, and then it started sucking and by the end I felt that I had waisted pretty much all the time that I had spent reading it.

 

The comment will convern eating alone. I see people eating alone all the time, and they don't appear to be stigmatized. I think maybe in the real old days maybe people didn't eat alone, but this is the 21st century and things change.

 

A while back I went to see the movies, Walk the Line, and there in the theater were young ladies that went to the movies alone, and this was late at night. And it was a Saturday night. If there isn't some major stigma attached to that, I don't think some one eating alone in the privacy of their own home has anything to worry about.

 

And finally back to the book. There is a reason it is in the fiction section. If you go through that thing looking for mistakes, you going to find a book full of them.

[Nervous_Dog]

Thais as a rule hate to eat alone, at work a girl will sit around waiting for her friend to finsh so that they can eat together, rather than alone.

 

That said, Thais see nothing oddd about farangs eating alone, we are odd people, so the odd things we do isn;t surprising.

 

To make a big deal about it in a book strikes me the sign of someone trying to impress people with his "Knowledge"

 

DOG

[Julian2]

I picked the book up on a remainder table in Australia for $5 and it filled in a plane flight quite well. I thought as mystery/ crime fiction it did a reasonable job but Thai culture still baffles some people who have spent years here so I think Burdett bit off a bit more than he could chew.

[limbo]

I see plenty of Thais eat alone all the time in the small side road restaurants.

[..]

I was thinking the same thing Limbo. I think Doggie got it tight with his last thought -- book smart vs. being here smart.

 

Cheers,

SD

[limbo]

Notwithstanding the fact that if they can eat with friends, they will prefer that.

[..]

Doesn't everyone?

 

Cheers,

SD

[limbo]

Guess so

[cardinalblue]

I think falangs accept eating alone much more than thais do as a reflection and a consequence of the lifestyle and culture we created for ourselves....hence the emergence of fast food, instant coffee, frozen dinners and meal milkshakes...

 

Eating is something we have to do in order to do something else. In LOS, it is an end result and done for social pleasure...

 

CB