Greg, Author at Greg to Differ

Thai Wedding Costs – The Cold, Hard Facts

As many know from listening to my podcast and reading my rants comments on Twitter, I'm getting married at the end of this year. For some reason, the gods have smiled on me, as I have somehow managed to navigate the minefield of finding a bride in Thailand, emerging on the other side with a girl who is beautiful, smart and funny, has a great job, speaks English at a near-native level, and is not reliant on me for money (which is a very good thing for her). So, yeah, marriage seemed liked a good option. But now we have to deal with the wedding, which is both a monumental headache and a joyous blessing. I thought I'd write a post about what the costs are looking like at this stage, both as a service to the many gents who get married here, and also as kind of a way for me to look back in ten years and laugh at what a n00b I was.

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:20+00:00Culture, Religion, Thailand|37 Comments

A Helpful Letter From My Condo

Dealing with condo management is an ongoing ordeal in any country, and Thailand is no different. Throw in the language differences and you have a recipe for either disaster or hilarity – thankfully, I was faced with the latter choice a few years ago. I could have sworn I put this up on my blog a long time ago but can’t find it anymore; at any rate, as I’m moving out of my apartment and into a new place at the end of the month, I thought I’d post this again as a send-off to the wacky management of my old condo, and an example of how awesome it can be when frustration gets channeled through a language barrier.

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:20+00:00Bangkok, Language|0 Comments

Thoughts on The Hangover Part 2

The unique-ness of Bangkok is evident to anyone who's spent even a day here, and it offers some of the craziest and most unique experiences one can have. It's no wonder, then, that a movie like The Hangover - which drew the weird and wonderful out of a crazy and dangerous city - wanted to have a sequel set here. Much like any place, it's big news when a bigtime Hollywood production comes to town. Stars get glimpsed, script details get leaked, set photos get passed around, and it seems that everyone knows someone who works on, in, or around the production. It's always fun going to see the final product, so tonight I went to see The Hangover Part 2, and here's what I thought.

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:21+00:00Bangkok, Movies, Pop Culture|2 Comments

Bangkok Podcast: One Year In

Well, that was a long stretch with no updates – again. Freelance assignments are taking most of my time these days (not to mention a video game I downloaded against my better judgment), but it was a memorable week for another reason too – the one-year anniversary of the Bangkok Podcast. If you don’t know about that, well, click on the little box to the left and check it out. My buddy Tony Joh and I recorded our first show on May 17, 2010 and have done a show every week since then. It’s been a good time and we’ve had some pretty interesting guests. To celebrate, we decided to have a party, and with the help of some friends and sponsors, it was a great success.

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:22+00:00Bangkok, Current Events, Food, Music, Video|0 Comments

Meanwhile, in Bangkok: Elton John Vroooom!

There has been a lot written about Thai truck drivers putting artistic mudflaps on their trucks, usually with pretty awful paintings of Al Pacino in Serpico. Sylvester Stallone in Rambo, or even Clint Eastwood in one of his many awesome spaghetti westerns. Supposedly, the idea is a message to cops that the driver is not to be messed with, man, because he might just FLIP OUT and make you sorry you ever pulled him over! By doing what, I don't know, but in the Red Bull-addled brains of the truck driver, it will probably be heroic and bullet-y, because that's a better story than bribing your way out of a triffic ticket. But I digress! I saw this lovely little piece of vehicle art the other day and wondered what kind of message it would give a cop if he pulled you over.

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:22+00:00Meanwhile in Bangkok...|0 Comments

A Bangkok Zombie Apocalypse

From time to time I have extra time, and those are the times when I start thinking about stuff that I don't normally have the time to think about. Most of those times are in the back of taxis or watching the city zoom by underneath the BTS, so I think about the makeup of Bangkok a lot. I'm also a giant nerd, so I have eclectic tastes, and sometimes those two things mash together and I end up wondering what I'd do if Bangkok/Thailand/Asia/the World was overtaken in a zombie apocalypse. One of the things I love watching about zombie movies is seeing how the people survive - where they hide out, what they do, how the protect themselves - so I thought I'd write down a few ideas as to what I'd do if I found myself alone in Bangkok when the dead started to walk the Earth. This post is pretty esoteric and a bit long, so only read on if you're a fan of zombies, a fan of Bangkok, or a fan of both.

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:22+00:00Bangkok, Fun Stuff|0 Comments

A Perfect Songkran

Good lord, it's been three weeks since I posted last. Well, it's been a busy few weeks, plus I had a case of the lazies for a while, but it's a good thing they're over, because next week is all about: sleeping in! That's right, it's Songkran, the Thai New Year. I'm not going to write a post about the history of Songkran or its background or customs. It's a huge-ass waterfight for four or five days that pretty much shuts the country down. Think Christmas/Thanksgiving but it's 38ºC and everyone has a water cannon. But Songkran becomes a bit tiring once you've done it a few times, so this year I'm doing what I do best - staying in and ignoring the whole shebang.

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:23+00:00Bangkok, Culture, Holidays, Pop Culture|0 Comments

Bangkok from A to Z

As a writer, I have come to kind of adore the maddening twists and turns of my mother tongue (uh, English). While I would never proclaim to be anything more than average at writing, I do have an extreme fondness for the dark corners and covert flexibility of the language. For instance, I am able to rattle off both pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis and floccinaucinihilipilification without pause, but look to George Carlin as somewhat of a patron saint instead of Shakespeare, Milton or Chaucer (you'll see why below). At any rate, one of the things I like to read is poetry, but I'm not very good at writing it. That's why I found it interesting when I had the thought of writing a blog post about "Bangkok's A to Z" what I started writing came out as a poem. So I decided to run with it...

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:23+00:00Bangkok, Fun Stuff|3 Comments

Marriage Advice in a Bangkok Bookstore

While browsing the local Kinokuniya the other day - in my humble opinion, the best English-language bookstore in Bangkok - I came across a couple of gems that I knew I had to put on my website. There's a famous old saying in Thailand that in a marriage, a man is the front feet of an elephant and the woman is the back feet; they are both responsible for support, but the front feet lead. (I often joke that in my case, I'm the front feet and the back feet, and my girlfriend is the guy who sits on top and beats me with a pointed stick, but I digress). At any rate, the battle of the sexes certainly isn't a foreign concept here, and although these books are written with a western relationship in mind, I'm curious as to how a Thai would view them.

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:23+00:00Culture, Fun Stuff, History, Print Media|0 Comments

Meanwhile, in Bangkok: Star Wars Protest Graffiti

With all that's been going on over the past year or so in Bangkok, it seems that protesting has supplanted takraw as the national sport. I would list it as simply a passtime and not a sport, but when it's 36ºC outside and you're marching for several kilometers to hold up heavy signs and/or burn down a shopping mall and/or shut down an airport, protesting turns into a tiring, logistically-complicated event. That's why I made a special trip to take a picture of this sign I saw from a taxi last week. With a whiff of Banksy and a schmitz of George Lucas, I'm not

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:24+00:00Meanwhile in Bangkok...|0 Comments

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