Tips and Tricks Part Two; Taking on Thai Life

When I was heading over to Thailand I remember having this idea of some calm serene country filled with beautiful buildings and cute kids in rough clothes on bikes, with the air filled with sweet smells of spice and incense. I thought of the people as being calm and logical people who live by all these buddhist parables and thought provoking statements that we see all over facebook. The reality, as always, was very different. I think its important to have a realistic view of the country you are planning to move over to before you go.

Don't get me wrong, its a really lovely country, but its more filled with the smell of food rotting in the relentless heat, the streets are more grimy than beautiful, and the buddhist religion in reality is not what we perceive it to be in the west. Its a religion based on money and questionable morals, the same as majority of religions in the present day.

Honestly though, all that you get used to. It becomes normal. What people going over have to get their heads around is that Thailand is not the West. I know that is an extremely 'duh' sentence, but so many people go over there not realising the weight that the statement brings. Things don't work over there like they do here. When deciding to work on another continent you have to be very open minded and flexible about the way people live, their laws, their professional conduct, and their attitude to society in general.

For an example, and this sounds harsh but its true; your school will most likely tell you to pass your students even if they never show up in your class. I know this sounds ridiculous to us, but in Thailand nobody is ever shamed or loses face. Everybody works as a community, and in your classroom there is very little room for personal failure. You simply have to put pass marks after every child's name. This is normal and you simply have to accept it.

Secondly, the school pretty much has the idea that you are their teacher 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your school will show up to your door at 7pm on a Saturday night without any warning telling you that you must attend a party where you sit, understand nothing, and look pretty simply because you are white and they want to show off their white teacher. They are fascinated with white people and white skin. It gets very creepy sometimes I have to say. There is very little point in saying 'no' to these 'invitations'. They don't take no for an answer. You are pretty much a show piece for your school as much as you are a teacher. Don't get me wrong, they will treat you very well, but they expect a lot more from you than Western employers do. The trick is to leave your town at weekends so you simply cannot go to another dinner.

Expect that in Bangkok and other big cities, you will be charged maybe two or three times more for things than locals are. They consider you a 'farang', which mean white person, and they see your race as a wealthy one and they will scam you. Trick is to bargain everything down with an incredibly low starting offer, and then accept that you will still be ripped off. They have no concept of racism, and they will talk about you in Thai in front of you, referring to you as 'farang', and there is no point in thinking 'racism', because the concept of racism is literally incomprehensible to them.

Expect everything to not work. Trains and buses can just randomly not leave with no real explanation. Your school will organise something and then cancel it 10 minutes before for no reason. They will also spring classes on you and just tell you to 'teach' with no notice. They will cancel your classes and not tell you. This is just the way things are done, and nobody else except you will be surprised or have a problem with it.

Oh and one pretty big thing. They do not do fighting at all. Arguments NEVER happen, If you shout at a Thai person, expect them to either stand dumbfounded like they have just seen you murder someone, or even just run away. Talking in a calm low voice, making everything sound cheery and light is the only way to do things. Even with your students. Shouting at them makes no sense to them and it will only make your classes a million times worse (more about discipline and teaching in tomorrow's post).

Also, and this is more for girls than guys, their perception of women is very different to the West. For me, they couldn't understand how I was 22 and single and not tied at home under my parents control until I was married. I could never show my shoulders, EVER (resulted in a serious farmer's tan), and I couldn't show my knees. Women, especially white women, should never be seen smoking, and drinking is extremely frowned upon, especially in small towns. If you are in Bangkok, it doesn't really matter, but where I was I couldn't even buy alcohol without all my colleagues knowing from gossip. I was set up numerous times with Thai men at work parties and dinners, and was shouted at, whooped at, and followed by random men in the streets because I was a young woman and white. You just have to be very aware of your surroundings, and never trust the men. Thai people are incredibly friendly and flawlessly helpful, but just always be aware that many men have a massive fascination with white women, so just always be on the alert, especially if you are travelling or wandering around alone.

Finally, as a warning to those of you who are fond of Christmas. There is NO Christmas in Thailand. I cannot stress this enough, because although many people know this coming over, they go in search of Christmas dinners and Christmas atmosphere and it results in massive disappointment. It doesn't exist in Thailand, and you have to realise that there is no Christmas for the time you are away. Yes, it will be the hardest time away, but again its all about attitude. For me, I realised that its one day. I talked to my family on skype, I made a nice dinner for myself and my housemates, many of my friends in different towns bought in different food to usual, and you have a little cry and maybe open a present that your parents sent you, and then you go teach your normal day and move on. You have to put it in context and be an adult about it. One Christmas is not worth missing out on your Thai experience.

I know all of this probably sounds very negative, but the way you take this all depends on your attitude going over there. Things are different, and one more Western person is not going to make any difference to the way these people live. They have lived this way for literally hundreds of years. Thai's are nothing if not fond of tradition. When working there, you have to take on the Thai way of living, and they live by one phrase; Mai Pen Rai. This simply means 'no worries'. They never ever get stressed, and you have to do the same with everything they throw at you.  You wither take on this attitude or live with constant anger and slight insanity. I always say it to all the people who email me; If you want things to be like the west, stay in the west. So stay positive, take it all as it comes, and when stressed repeat 'Mai Pen Rai' about four hundred times while swigging from a bottle of Sangsom (thai rum).That always helps ;-)