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How dumb are Thais?


thalenoi

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We've all seen a thai taking his calculating machine to figure out how much money he should get when you buy 3 kilos of tomatoes at 15 baht a kilo and looking at you in disbelief when say 45, but what happened yesterday is not bad in the stupid league also:

 

I bought 80m of metal wire to fence the land we built a house on. The plot is approx 40m x 40m and the other 80m is perimeter wall. Day one they fixed 60m wire and it was obvious to the eye that some 5m extra would be required to finish the job. The wire comes in rolls of 10m. Not sure you can buy less than 10m at 2400 baht/roll we decided to wait until they worked on the last roll to go out buying some more.

 

So yesterday one of the workers came to me and said: You need an extra 380cm, so 4m will do. I went to the nearest building shop and lo, they were willing to sell me just 4m, cutting 4m from the roll. One hour later the same worker came to tell me he was sorry: one more meter was required!!!

 

I could not believe my ears: you take a roll meter and you can not figure out wether it's 4 or 5m you mesure :cussing:

I must have looked idiot at the shop asking for one more meter of fence :o

 

Other dumb stories are welcome.

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How many Thais have been awarded recognition in the life sciences, math, physics, chemistry, techonolgy, etc.?

 

Intellect, curiosity, initiative, self-starting, precision and accuracy, learning for learning only purposes are not part of the thai culture....

 

Practical, do what is only nescessary, save energy, circumstance and pomp, show no emotion (like a good buddha), don't overtax one's brain, have a balance approach to life, group collectivism and cooperatism, never mind small details like a meter off or holes in an airport runways, etc

 

So what life do you choose? One with high expectations striving towards perfection with a lot of stress or one with a smiling face, mai bpen rai atitude towards life, and little stress?

 

Is it a tough call?

 

CB

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I went to buy a hat once. One hat cost 25 baht. I asked how much would 3 hats cost. The person said 85 baht. No matter what I said, the price was 85 baht for 3 hats, ten baht more then if I bought each hat seperately. So I next tried buying each hat one at a time. The salesperson thought I was tricking him and would not sell. I gave up and walked away.

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I went to buy a hat once. One hat cost 25 baht. I asked how much would 3 hats cost. The person said 85 baht. No matter what I said, the price was 85 baht for 3 hats, ten baht more then if I bought each hat seperately. So I next tried buying each hat one at a time. The salesperson thought I was tricking him and would not sell. I gave up and walked away.

 

oh man, that's a classic...

 

but something puzzles me...we all know that thais are generally deficient in, shall we say, "critical thinking skills," ability to synthesize information, see the "big picture," etc...but you would think that someone who sells goods for a living and has to make change possibly hundreds of times a day would gain a basic facility for multiplication, calculating certain amounts of change for certain size bills without having to use a calculator, etc....???

 

preahko

 

 

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I went to buy a hat once. One hat cost 25 baht. I asked how much would 3 hats cost. The person said 85 baht. No matter what I said' date=' the price was 85 baht for 3 hats, ten baht more then if I bought each hat seperately. So I next tried buying each hat one at a time. The salesperson thought I was tricking him and would not sell. I gave up and walked away.[/quote']

 

oh man, that's a classic...

 

but something puzzles me...we all know that thais are generally deficient in, shall we say, "critical thinking skills," ability to synthesize information, see the "big picture," etc...but you would think that someone who sells goods for a living and has to make change possibly hundreds of times a day would gain a basic facility for multiplication, calculating certain amounts of change for certain size bills without having to use a calculator, etc....???

 

preahko

 

 

The old babes who work at the kiosks dotted throughout the train stations across Japan are pretty sharp. Some locations have bar code readers for price/inventory, but many do not. The ladies seem to have all prices memorized and rattle off your total in an instant along with providing the correct change without the use of a calculator.

 

TheLastEuropean

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I'm still befuddled by the logic 30 years ago when a colleague wanted to buy some stamps at the post office. The postal clerk said they were out of stamps.

 

My friend said, "No, you're not. There are some stamps right in front of you!"

 

The clerk came back, "Yes, but those are the only stamps we have. If we sell them to you, we won't have any stamps. And the post office has to have stamps."

 

:banghead:

 

 

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Bangkoktraveler, I love the hat story you told us.

 

I went to the village market last week and at the stand with the most and best looking vegs I asked in thai "how much for one kilo tomatoes?" I received an answer in english: "twenty five" whilst the going rate was 15 baht. So I bought some tomatoes at an oher stall and showed my plastic bag to her on the way back and told the lady I paid 15 baht. To which she replied "chai, chai" for yes or sure?

 

So yesterday she stopped me walking by and asked in thai if I wanted 2kg tomatoes for 15 baht. Did I hear that correctly? She put tomatoes in a plastic bag, put them on the balance which showed 2.2kg. She asked: "more for 20 baht?" So I got 3kg for 20 baht. Go figure :confused:

 

And to the others reading this board: No, I don't want to get scammed buying daily vegs or fruit at the local market. :nono:

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