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Stick's column


Coss

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I ended up sending an email to Stick about his column yesterday. I was never enchanted by Thailand. I was fascinated by the differences but certainly saw the "dark" side of Thailand from the start, especially after being hit by a chair from behind by another thai (the one that I had the beef with was directly in front of me) and damaging my left eye. After that, I still got married, built a house in Chiang Mai (the chair incident did turn me away from Bangkok as a place that I wanted to live and C.M. is the approximate size of my hometown, Kansas City). I did move back to Kansas City 2.5 years ago to give my wife's 3 children a chance at a better life/education, than the one that they would get in LOS, as I had planed on giving our 3 year old son. I will probably move back to LOS in around 10 years, as my wife has never fully adjusted to live in the U.S.(she just spent 5 months back in LOS, with our son who now speaks a decent amount of Thai). My son, who looks like a copy of me (for better or worse), will grow up learning to speak, read and write thai, and we will spent one or two years at our house in C.M., so he can understand the thai culture up close. He will have every right that every other thai has (but not the connections), and he will have a western education and not be indoctrinated with all that thai crap that comes with going to a thai school. Its his choice whether to live in the U.S. or thailand as an adult. But, if he chooses thailand, I expect him to do well. And, as we all know, doing well is the best form of "revenge." And, maybe in a small way, he can influence a couple of other thais and help change thailand in a small way.

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I've lived in Thailand a fair few years. I'll never be Thai, and never accepted as anything other than just another farang, bothers me not a jot. I'm me, secure in myself about who I am and what I want. I like Thailand and will continue to live here. If Thais need to score points off me by a rip off here or a put down there I see them as weak pointless fools not worthy of further thought. Most Thais don't strike me that way, certainly not my neighbours or people I've worked with. If you talk about vendors of one sort or another I find the rip off to be less than it would be with Thais. The government endorsed double pricing apart, in which I do not participate, most other negotiable deals are just that, so, up to you.

 

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I am probably as Thai as a westerner can get and am often told by Thais that I have become one of them. But I know that is not true and never can be. My wife once said to me, "I don't think of you as a Farang. You're not Thai, but you're not a Farang."

 

So realistically why would it be otherwise? My Austrian great grandmother lived in the US for more than 60 years. Yet she always had a German accent and was regarded as just sort of American. Is it different for immigrants anywhere - especially those of a different race?

 

:dunno:

 

 

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