Boo Radley Posted December 9, 2012 Report Share Posted December 9, 2012 Video of 42-year-old Frenchman 'Sam', selling glass noodle salad with his Thai wife from his food cart in BKK's Chinatown. http://www.bangkokpo...ndor-of-bangkok Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waerth Posted December 9, 2012 Report Share Posted December 9, 2012 Great! I hope he does well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Specialist Posted December 9, 2012 Report Share Posted December 9, 2012 The guy is enjoying what he does, he's doing well, he's happy. More power to him! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cavanami Posted December 9, 2012 Report Share Posted December 9, 2012 I go to China Town 237 times a week (or so it seems) but will have to have a look for him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted December 10, 2012 Report Share Posted December 10, 2012 In the late 1980s a French beggar could be seen on Sukhumwit. He was there about 4 months, until Thai beggars had enough and sicced the police on him. (Must be a restricted occupation.) He told the police his GF had run off with all of his money and he didn't know what to do. But he made so much begging that he decided to stay. The local beggars got pissed off because many Thais seemed to think it was fun to give to a foreigner! The Froggie said he took in about 1,000 baht a day ... which was more than I was making back then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Munchmaster Posted December 10, 2012 Report Share Posted December 10, 2012 The other week I saw what looked like a farang selling purses (I think) under one of the stairs up to the Saladaeng skytrain station. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted December 10, 2012 Report Share Posted December 10, 2012 Just watched "Sam" again. After 20 years in Thailand with a Thai wife, one might expect his Thai to be better. On the other hand, I know people who have lived her 20 years and can barely order a meal or tell a taxi where to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kamui Posted December 10, 2012 Report Share Posted December 10, 2012 Just watched "Sam" again. After 20 years in Thailand with a Thai wife, one might expect his Thai to be better. On the other hand, I know people who have lived her 20 years and can barely order a meal or tell a taxi where to go. At least he is communicating with the locals a lot. When I lived in Tokyo I met my fair share of expats who lived in a kind of expat bubble. They didn't speak the language and had only contact to other expats or Japanese in their peer group who could speak English. I always found this way of living to be an extremely reduced experience, but it seems that many Expats are content with this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted December 10, 2012 Report Share Posted December 10, 2012 The problem with "communicating with the locals" as he does it that you become very fluent in certain situations, and completely lost in others. That is why it's important to learn to read the language. Even living upcountry in a small city with only half a dozen Farang residents, we found that after about a year or so our language had reached a plateau. We could get by in every day situations, but if the topic turned to something else we were lost. At the same time our English was getting rusty. Much of our active vocabulary was becoming passive vocabulary. In the 1980s I lived in a compound with mostly UN employees. I might as well have been in another country, since it hardly seemed like Thailand. However, their kids were fantastic. There were children from the US, Hungary, Japan, the Netherlands and Thailand. Their common language was Thai! They played together every day, speaking Thai 100% of the time. My Mrs came in one day asking who the little blonde girl was. Her Thai was perfect! It was our American neighbour's daughter. Regretably, their parents don't have them keep up their language when they move somewhere else, and it quickly becomes forgotten (just as my childhood German is). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kamui Posted December 10, 2012 Report Share Posted December 10, 2012 The problem with "communicating with the locals" as he does it that you become very fluent in certain situations, and completely lost in others. That is why it's important to learn to read the language. Indeed, without learning to read, you stay on the level of a kindergarden kid. From experience upper class Farang - especially those who work for foreign companies/institutions - don't feel the urge to learn to read and write, since all/most basic stuff like visa, work permits, e.g. are being taken care of by others. Anyway I always pitied those expats who lived in their expat bubble, since they missed the best part of the experience living abroad: getting to know a different culture, different society, different behaviour of the people, even more a complete different perception and description of the world around us. As a side note: It no wonder that Asian Art is causing such a great stir in the West. It's market value aside it represents a different view on our world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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