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    Domestic / cross cultural issues - Thai / Foreigner concerns

    The Ever-Present Tortured Expat and the Paradox

    By surinfarm, Created on: 27/05/2011, Last updated on: 11/06/2011

    » Perhaps someone might enlighten me as to the conditions of contradictory that persist amongst the resident {long-time or short-timers} Westerners in Thailand..... Angst, frustration, and mild hostility seems to be a common thread within a broader and growing extension within the Farang resident community....

    • chazthai commented : I too sense a growing frustration on the part of farangs toward many things Thai, but I think a large part of it is frustration over the way things are done over here. Thailand wants to be so "modern", so "Western", but they just can't seem to get it right and consistently come up short. Take the current kerfuffle over the EZ-Pass system, for example. The complaints that it just doesn't work are completely logical and justified, and the solutions are apparent to anyone who has experienced the system in the US, for example. I wrote on this just a few days ago. But is it going to get fixed?...Not very d...n likely! There are many, many other issues which could be cited. I think the solution is drastic but not easy to accomplish: either Thailand must do its best to fully and correctly emulate Western ways and systems, or it must return to a third-world, insular "Thainess" and withdraw to whence it came - and that is hardly likely to happen. In many ways it is easier for a foreigner to live in a totally non-Western society as a complete outsider than it is to cope with a partially Westernized culture which offers only frustration when it falls short and fails to deliver. Take my internet service from TOT, for example: It fails dozens of times a day because this is the rainy season and the underground lines get wet! Really, folks...who needs to put up with this in the 21st century? I know that my comments will draw ire and criticism from many readers, but that is the purpose of this forum, and it is welcome.

    • drake commented : [quote="chazthai":347j46x5]Take the current kerfuffle over the EZ-Pass system, for example. The complaints that it just doesn't work are completely logical and justified, and the solutions are apparent to anyone who has experienced the system in the US, for example. I wrote on this just a few days ago. But is it going to get fixed?...Not very d...n likely! [/quote:347j46x5] Yeah, that. Here it seems more about the ease of paying the toll rather than consideration for the traffic congestion. Someone went out and bought this gated system from Kapsch Group instead of a different toll tag system that allow the cars to zip through at highway speed and we are stuck with it for now. The funked up lane assignment system which places the ezPass gate at random slot at each of the toll station but (almost) always between paid gates, well, that could only have been dredged up from the eleventh cesspool of chinese fire drill inferno by committees of Thai bureaucrats. But I digressed. Re. the original question "The paradox. Why...?? Why, if they are not happy and comfortable in there chosen country of residence, do they insist to be living in said culture of choice? Wouldn't it be pertinent to one's existence to exist in an atmosphere that you might be comfortable and "at home" in?" This question was actually once raised in another thread It's usually a mix of several factors. - aren't comfortable with themselves, won't be comfortable anywhere. - can't go home, for whatever reason. - didn't fit in at their old home either. - inability to adapt or be assimilated in to the new environment - superiority/god/missionary complex - they like some of the things in their new home but also want the 'good' things they had whence they came - just plain clueless and being the jerks that they are. - can't admit that they are wrong or didn't know any better. - would have been beaten senseless whence they came for same attitude. - taller than most people here but the shortest guy back home. - delusional, thinks they are going to change the Thais....

    • 6 replies, 17,968 views

    Domestic / cross cultural issues - Thai / Foreigner concerns

    America bashing at Esplanade Mall

    By gohmer, Created on: 09/05/2010, Last updated on: 11/06/2011

    » I putting this post up because it is related to international relationships with American citizens living and visiting Thailand. It illustrated to me that little is known about America by most people in Thailand, in fact, I think that few in the world truly understand what America is about and how...

    • gohmer commented : [quote="Hard_done_by":10fbydsk][quote="gohmer":10fbydsk]... [/quote:10fbydsk] Interesting posting gohmer, You have one foot back in the states, and the other in thailand - now, I'm sure readers might find some humour if they try some targeted imaginery, but the point is that you seem to have your values mixed up a bit - utube carries images banned in thailand, yet freely available in the us and yet you raise no objection here - the us flag is burnt as an expression of free speech in the us, and you accept it, but having straddled the pacific, you come to oppress a small t-shirt seller for doing something which would be completely legal (distasteful or otherwise) in your own country - you might see that your actions are precisely why americans earn the reputation you speak of. [jefferson, you are expressly excluded from being classed as an American with such a reputation][/quote:10fbydsk] Americans have earned the right in their own country to do that, it is our constitution and bill of rights. If a Thai person comes to America and does that, he can. But if I burned a Thai flag, what would happen? What rights I believe in are American rights and privileges I own in my country, as does every person, citizen or not, in America. But when the country I'm visiting, working in, or a permanent resident of doesn't hold the same values, I see no reason to apply American values and principals to them, I should only have to apply their own values and principals, unless you just say what the f, and accept such hypocrisy.

    • gohmer commented : [quote:2krlayiq]we dont get up in arms over a T-Shirt.[/quote:2krlayiq] Oh yes, I forgot to ask...then why are people dying in Thailand over a simple color of t-shirt let alone what it says?

    • 119 replies, 154,424 views

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