Does Anyone Else Get These Stupid Questions Regularly?

[Flashermac]

It used to be a joke that GIs in Thailand during the VN War always ordered khao pat when of base, since it was the only meal they knew how to say. It wasn't quite true, but was close to it. I did meet one GI who spoke good Thai and knew his Thai food. He was a crewman on a Jolly Green Giant rescue chopper, the guys who flew dangerous missions over Laos and even NVN to save downed pilots. He was my kind of soldier.

 

I went once with Farang friends to a Thai restaurant in the States ... and all but one of them ordered sweet and sour chicken, which is Chinese! The exception was a guy who asked me what I recommended. He chose the Pra Ram Long Song and loved it.

[jitagawn]

One just has to ignore these comments as they generally come from those people that live an incredibly insular life.(most Thais)

They are part of the fabric here...

 

That being said like Flash I am always amazed when after chatting clearly with me for several minutes in Thai

 

They say " Oh you can speak Thai"

 

Hello earth to Thai person..

[baa99]

I would have thought a comedian would have a witty comeback! Especially after a few years of hearing the same remark.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7kKXWuXnfU

[unit731]

You may tell jokes . . . but you are no comedian. Classic.

 

 

LINK

[Bangkoktraveler]

Thais can eat anything ......just give them half of our limburger cheese sandwich.

[Fiery Jack]

Bangkok taxi drivers often ask me if I can eat Thai food, even after we may have been chatting in Thai for the last 15 minutes. Do they think I eat all my meals at McDonald's and Pizza Hut?

 

If they're anything like a lot of insular-minded jingoistic doss Japanese cunts I meet in Japan (after having lived here for over 2 decades, fluent in Japanese etc. etc.), yes.

 

jack

[Fiery Jack]

By way of illustration, allow me a resurrection...

 

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a single pair of shoes, must soon be in want of a mender. Being a tight-fisted cunt, I took a pair of ancient, forlorn summer sandals with the left sole hanging lolloping off like a tired gundog’s tongue to the local ‘Mister Minute’ shoe-fixer place inside our goodly neigbourhood department store one Saturday, only to find that the cobbler's booth in question had recently gone arse-upwards and closed down with a frozen yoghurt and crepe emporium standing proudly in its stead.

 

Undeterred, I lurched along to a nearby smallish easily missed joint further down the road that's a dry cleaners by name but, I'd been told, also does alterations to clothes and, more importantly to my good self, offers a shoe-repair service to, erm, boot.

 

I should mention right here that I lived at that juncture in a small rural city in southern Japan, for it may soon become relevant to this narrative. My local dry-cleaning place was manned, ironically given their gender, by three Japanese females. :grinyes: It's a bit of a ‘Generation Game’ sketch, to all extents and purposes: Meet the Shimizus! The miniature leather-faced old crone that sits on a stool at the end of the counter looking and speaking as if she’s been gargling sake for most of her days, bewildered and staring into space; her middle-aged daughter, a rotund and ruddy-jowled excitable woman with breasts like melons who barks at customers with a rasping growl that sounds like she's made of gravel; and the grand-daughter, a jolly wee bundle of dentally-challenged energy of some twenty summers whom, given half a dozen tins of strong beer and previous access to internet pornography, I'd definitely shag, once she'd taken her bottle-end specs off and made friends with a toothbrush and some mouthwash.

 

Anyway, the damaged shoe sole in question seemed to be crying out for, basically, a smattering of glue. Mister Minute would have bonded and set it to perfection while I waited, polished the healed footwear up a bit on his spinning brush-wheel, told me about the time he went to Oregon to visit his sister who married a lumberjack with a penchant for domestic violence, and charged me the princely sum of 200 yen (just over a pound) for the entire, smooth 20 minute operation. I say this with unbridled confidence, for Mister Minute had done exactly that to this same pair of shoes 6 months ago.

 

With the Shimizu clan, however, a very different scenario rapidly unfolded. You see, they don't do repairs in situ but, rather, sub-contract the job to some bloke somewhere else. It'll take about a week, sir. The elsewhere bloke will look at the skis and give the goodly Shimizus an estimate for the job. If you agree to elsewhere man’s quote, he'll proceed to fix them and you can pick them up chez Shimizu when they're ready. Fair enough: how do I know what the estimate comes to? No problem: leave your phone number and we'll ring you before Wednesday with the price. :grinyes:

 

I gave mid-range Shimizu my mobile number and wrote my address on a form for her in scribbled kanji that were much admired by all three ladies — ‘He can write Japanese characters! It’s unbelievable!’ — the more as the calligraphy flowed from a non-Japanese hand (never minding the tiny fact that kanji were imported to Japan from abroad in the first place). In short, we had no problems communicating and I left the store with a spring in my step to the usual chorus and catcalls telling me how amazingly stunning and fluent is my Japanese. (One initially flattering but thereafter increasingly tiresome aspect of the gaijin experience is Japan is to be told that one’s Japanese is fluent after uttering a simple ‘sayonara’ in however clumsy an accent, just one prominent example of Japanese politeness to ‘outsiders’: the word gaijin literally translates as ‘outside person’).

 

Imagine my surprise, then, when I check my mobile messages some days later and there's one voice message. I recognise the voice. It's Rotund Shimizu, and I can hear Grandma and Jack 'o Lantern Teeth in the background filling in the harmonies. It goes like this (in translation that is my own):

 

Rotund: Oooooooh hell!. What shall I do? He's a gaijin, won't understand a word of Japanese even if I leave a message? What shall I do?

Grandma: Get a move on!

Rotund: Maki, you can speak English can't you? get on this phone, now!

Jack 'O' Lantern Teeth: Get lost! Why don't you speak to him in English, Mum! Beckham! Fish and chips! Merry Christmas!

All: Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!!!!...

Call abruptly terminated.

 

I called them back (their number was displayed on my phone). It went like this (in translation again):

 

Rotund: Hello, Shimizu Cleaning.

Me (in Japanese): Hello, I'm the foreigner who can't understand Japanese. You called me earlier and left a message. I presume you've got a price for my shoes?

Rotund: Eh? How did you know...

Me: I heard your message, and realised who it was.

Rotund: But I didn't leave a message.

Me: But I heard you talking, saying that I wouldn't understand because I'm a foreigner.

Rotund: Oh, sorry, sorry. I'm so rude. I'm sorry.

Me: I thought it was funny.

Rotund: You speak very good Japanese. Unbelievable.

Me: How much are the shoes going to be.

Rotund: Erm..... 4,600 yen.

Me: What! I paid less than that when I bought the bastards. They only need a bit of glue. Mr Minute charges 200 yen for fixing the bloody things.

Rotund: But we have to send them to Osaka.

Me: Bugger that then. All bets are off. I'll pick them up tomorrow and take them somewhere else.

Rotund: Okay. You speak very good Japanese, fluent...

 

jack

 

Edited to alter it a bit.

[King Kung]

Ryoko wa fukaku zoshite munashiki ga gotoshi.

 

It's a very old kotowaza. Care to look it up?

[Fiery Jack]

Never heard that one before, mate. Without the kanji I can't be certain, but it would seem to mean (literally) 'Containing depth, travel similarly empties the spirit'? Or 'Deeply accumulating travel, the same as an empty spirit'?

 

æ—…è¡Œã¯æ·±ãåƒã—ã¦ã€è™šã—æ°—ãŒå¾Œã¨ã—。？

 

 

Where did you hear that one, chief?

 

jack

[Fiery Jack]

And probably ã”ã¨ã—, not 後ã¨ã—.

 

jack