When in Rome ... do as the Thais do

[buksida]

I've made a few observations about westerners who stay in Thailand for too long and start "going native", most of these things the average sane person wouldnt even dream of doing back in their own country.

1) Not waiting at the traffic lights when turning right and favouring the up the wrong side of the road manoever.

2) Putting their children on motorbikes without making them wear helmets.

2a) Putting their children on motorbikes.

3) Putting ice in their beer.

4) Watching TV in a foreign language.

5) Standing in the smallest sliver of shade they can find when outside.

6) Speaking Thai to fellow westerners.

7) Using a squat toilet without falling off.

8 ) Ordering food without knowing what it is.

Most of these are quite amusing but the road incidents I witness farangs in just annoy me. Anyone any more?

[Mart]

Just laughed when I read Buksida's number 6...

I've started speaking Thai to other westerners!

Mart

[JD]

Why do some expats have a conversation with you in that broken English as if they are talking to their housekeeper.

Had a conversation with an Englishman this morning and he said to me.
“We go Bangkok, bad road, and some driver he no good, he go quick, have many accident, no happy go, but have business, have much danger.â€

[Jaime]

I started a similar thread previously but it was called 'When Farangs lose the plot - what are the signs?'

http://www.huahinafterdark.com/forum/vi ... php?t=3365

As highlighted in that thread, my own favourite is not when farangs start speaking Thai to other farangs but when they have developed such a command of Thaiglish, under the expert tuition of their wife/gf/bg, that they adopt it as their own 'language', even when talking to other Farangs.

So a phrase like "I haven't been back home in ages" would come out like "I not go back England loooong time."

A sob story might go like:

Farang: "My wife she tell me she want many thing. She say she want big house but I say CAN-NOT! No have mun-ey!

[Jaime]

JD - You just beat me to it! Glad its not just me though!

[STEVE G]

You’ve got a long way to go yet Buksida, there’s an old Englishman living not so far from our house up in Nong Ki, who has been farming rice for about ten years. The locals now tell me, he is actually getting very good at it!

[Bamboo Grove]

3) Putting ice in their beer.

I do it because 1. your beer gets warm quite quickly (my other way of handling this is to drink fast, most of the time I still drink fast even when I have ice in my glass.) 2. It somehow makes the local beer which is usually very high in alcohol percantage lose some of its bite (I still end up totally waisted most nights.)

4) Watching TV in a foreign language.

I couldn't watch TV in my own language in any foreign country. Maybe I should start campaigning for Finnish language broadcasts on BBC.

[DawnHRD]

How about going to the beach fully dressed? Last time I went to the beach was with Mum, the littl'un & his friend on littl'un's birthday. They changed into swimming attire & played in the water. Mum & I sat under the beach umbrellas, fully dressed. I even went in the water to retrieve my boy's football with my combat trousers on!
Oh, and found myself saying thank you in Thai to a farang woman who held the door for me in Family Mart today.
The day I'll really know I've gone native is when I put sugar on pad sie euw (sp?) or similar instead of just the other 3 condiments offered. Sugar on savoury food still turns my stomach, so there's hope for me yet!

[PeteC]

You've already gone native Dawn, just by knowing that stuff...LOL. .

Try pad sie ewu with gung and tell them to use sen mee, instead of sen yai, you get more food. That's my breakfast, several days a week, with a side order of bacon and raw onions, the small purple kind. Yummm!

Where do you get your combat trousers? Women in jungle attire is a definite turn on. Get yourself a VN era boonie hat for the rain and sun and you'll have old Veterans chasing you down the street. Pete

[Jaime]

Don't forget though that sweet and savoury is not a distinctly Thai thing. Things like HP sauce and ketchup are packed with sugar. In fact, many mediterranean dishes relying heavily on tomatoes involve liberal quantities of sugar to take the tartness off the tomato sauce. I always put the sugar in my noodles because I am a soft farang, rather than because I've gone native (perish the thought)!

[buksida]

I must admit to the "ice in the beer" one, for all the reasons that BG described.

The clothing in the ocean thing cracks me up, used to work in the dive industry, on occasion we'd get a fully laden boat of Thai snorkellers wearing the latest names in fashion from the big malls in Bangkok ... jumping in with the fish, have yet to see a farang do it though, which brings me to another one:

9) Walking down the highstreet with no shirt on.

Yeh, I know there has been a thread about this before.

[malcolminthemiddle]

I heard that "ice in beer" originated in Vietnam (where warm beer in local establishments is the norm) during the Viet war to "highlight" powdered glass that may have been slipped into the GIs beers, a favourite trick of the VC.

[migrant]

I spent quite a bit of time in Honduras and Costa Rica. The ice in beer is common there also.

I don't really mind beer that isn't real cold, but don't really like it as much warm, so will compromise and maybe 1-2 cubes of ice.

[Sultry]

One Thai habit that I've picked up is drinking from bottles through a straw.

In the West, I never used a straw. I always drank straight from the bottle. But here, I feel weird if I don't use a straw.

[chelsea]

Sultry, you have become brainwashed by the people in the 7-11. Whether you want one or not, standard issure with a can of drink at a 7-11 is a plastic bag and a couple of straws.

Cannot get over the ice in beer though, what a way to spoil a good beer.
Also in that catagory is people who put ice in white wine. Never do either, it waters down the alchohol content and spoils the taste as well.