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Showing results for tags 'bad manners'.
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I've been mulling this around in my head for a long time but I decided to write this after simply_oriental's post in the forums. I've never really understood many of the Thai girls I see in Bangkok who come from very humble backgrounds (i.e. farmers) and once they come to Bangkok they start acting like they're a member of royalty. For instance, when I first moved here I was living in Ratchaprasong, a somewhat hi-so neighborhood. I met a friend at my apartment before heading out to a movie at Central World. She looked in my kitchen and because she saw two plates and a glass in the sink she asked "You should have your maid clean this up. It's dirty." I'm like WTF?!? She's told me she grew up on a farm up in Isaan and I've seen pictures of her home and the last f*cking thing she should be doing is complaining about my maid considering that her family home doesn't even have a flush toilet. I responded by saying, "Well, if your maid is better, give me her name and I'll hire her." She responded, "I don't have a maid." I said, "Exactly. When you get a maid you can complain about mine." She got angry about it but I didn't care. There's another girl I know who is married to a farang on an expat package and he makes nearly 1M baht per month. His wife, an Isaan gal who had been working in the fields only a year before meeting him, always complains how he's such a stingy bastard. And then I'll interject something like "Didn't you tell me that he gave your family 2 million baht about a year or two ago because your family was going to lose their home?" Yeah, but he puts her on a leash of only 35,000 baht per month to spend. OMG!?!?! Of course, now that they're married she owns 50% of a multi-million baht condo here in Bangkok, a home back in his country, and a vacation home in a third country. But, he's obviously a stingy bastard because he doesn't let her sit around and blow through 10,000 - 20,000 baht per day shopping. What makes it even more comical is that they have a child. And the reason we go out with her as much as we do is that she goes out more than Ked and I do. She'll invite us out while the nanny takes care of the kid. She's always upset that her husband expects . . . of all things . . . that she stay home and take care of the baby more often. It's one thing if she didn't love him. But she talks about how much she loves him and her baby all the time. It's just that she doesn't like the fact that both get in the way of her going out and partying in hi-so nightclubs every night. And it's not like these are the only two examples. I can keep going for pages. I'm just trying to understand where this mentality comes from. I think this is the reason why so many farang men end up getting burned here. I think from their mentality they expect someone being given a dream life compared to how they grew up to be thankful. Instead, many of the girls turn into Isaan Princesses and think that they should be dripping in gold. Obviously not every Thai is like this. And not everyone from Isaan is like this. It's just an observation about living in Bangkok. For whatever reason this just happens more than is normal for farang culture.
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I had an experience up in Chaing Mai once, was wandering around town, visiting the many temples there and taking pics. One of the temples was adjacent to a school and it was recess time. As soon as the kids saw me, they were about aged 4 or 5 I guess, they rushed over and encircled me, pointing up to me, smiling, running around in circles, all of them saying "Farang!". I thought it quite novel, I mean, here I am a special person in their eyes, really made me smile. Got some neat pics too. Then I was reading something that ac69uk wrote, where he had a similar experience with a couple of youngsters doing the farang chant also. So it got me to thinking, why? Why is it that Thai kids will surround visitors and tourist and yell farang? I mean, I know what the word means and all, and I don't find it offensive in the least. Just what is it in the Thai culture that causes this? Do moms and dads, brothers and sisters, teachers and etc, tell the little tikes, "There's a farang, you know what to do!"? Just something that kids do or is it something that they are taught?