Thailand

Sexpats, Thai Stereotypes, and the Pleasure in Avoiding Them (the Stereotypes)

There are always tons of stereotypes for any situation/person/country, and even the best of us can’t help but fall victim sometimes. Indeed, I'd be a lot more nervous going on Jeopardy! if I was up against an Asian kid with glasses than I would against an unshaven dude from Alabama wearing a wifebeater. (Let's be honest, I'd probably lose to both). But in a country like Thailand, where political correctness has yet to take hold make an appearance, stereotypes are everywhere, and most have to do with ‘the sexpat’. Often times, they’re true, other times, they’re anything but. I know, because I’m (thankfully) a freak when it comes to many of the stereotypes in Thailand.

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:35+00:00Asia, Bangkok, Culture, Thailand|19 Comments

A Visit to Bangkok’s New One Stop Immigration Office

Keeping on top of Thailand’s ever-changing visa and work permit regulations can be a pretty tiring job. Rules often vary from office to office and border crossing to border crossing, and updates, amendments and changes to the rules and overall system are hard enough to find in Thai, let alone English. Thankfully, there’s a small army of dedicated locals who like to post no-bull advice on their experiences, and this is the gist of this post – a visit to the One Stop Immigration office at their new location on Rama IV Road.

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:35+00:00Bangkok, Thailand, Travel|7 Comments

Five Great Non-Christmas Christmas Movies for Expats

thumb Christmas is a special time for everyone who grows up in a western country. For me, it's a time of chilly nights, warm fireplaces, heavy snowfall and quality time with family and friends. I love Christmas; it's my favorite time of the year and has been since I was wee. But when you're living overseas, it's not as easy as simply jetting back for a few days; plane tickets are expensive and in many places, such as Thailand, December 25th is simply a regular workday in a regular week. So, what's the best thing to do? You want to avoid overloading yourself with reminders of what you're missing but still get a taste of home. With that in mind, I picked five of my favorite Christmas movies that give you a healthy dose of Christmas cheer but distract you with other movie goodness so as to avoid leaving you a wine-soaked lump of homesick wretchedness.

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:36+00:00Asia, Culture, Holidays, Thailand|0 Comments

The Realities of Beach Fashion

thumb It's the classic image of paradise - blue water, swaying palm trees, and white sand stretching back into a gorgeous sunset. Throw in a couple of ladies massaging your feet and/or cooking you freshly-caught seafood and you've got pretty much any beach in Thailand... well, most of them, anyway. But I saw a picture about a year ago - not specifically about Thailand, but beaches in general - and it's been bugging me ever since. It cropped up again today and I had to vent, so please excuse the release of a little bit of steam.

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:41+00:00Print Media, Thailand, Travel|0 Comments

Ten Commandments for Living in Thailand

thumb Every place has rules - from your school to your job to your girlfriend's apartment, there are just certain tenets you need to follow if you don't want to get a boot to the curb. Countries work the same way. Some rules are legal, some are moral, and some belong to that long and growing list of unwritten rules that govern different parts of our life (such as the one saying that male friends can't touch knees in a movie theater). Below are some of the rules that you need to live by if you plan on staying in Thailand for any length of time. Of course, my list is by no means comprehensive, but it's a start.

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:42+00:00Bangkok, Culture, Language, Pop Culture, Thailand, Tips on Visiting, Travel|0 Comments

A Trip to Amphawa by Train, Boat and Bike

thumb The good thing about having ambitious friends is that you often get dragged along on trips you wouldn’t ordinarily take on your own. This was the case last week, when my good friend Scott arranged a bike/train/boat weekend out of the city and into Amphawa, a few hours southwest of Bangkok and a hundred years behind. While I do like staying in Bangkok for the sheer, joyous laziness of it all, it’s great to get out and remind myself that there’s more to Thailand than bad traffic, tourist traps and concrete love.

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:43+00:00Biking, History, Thailand, Travel|0 Comments

Why Does Thailand Keep Tripping Itself Up?

scale Before I get started on this little rant, let me assure you - as I have before - that I dearly love living in Thailand and revel in absorbing the vivacious mix of wonderful and awful, inspiring and depressing, beauty and ugliness that it offers. The people are great, the landscape is beautiful, the quality of life is superb, the history is dense and the food kicks ass. But I read something recently that got me thinking that it will be a long, hard slog if Thailand ever wants to reach its full potential. No matter how hard it strains to be the great force it could be, there's one thing that the effort always trips on - greed.

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:44+00:00Bangkok, Culture, Politics, Thailand|0 Comments

Thais and “Shit”

thumb The longer you live in a place, the finer the details you begin to notice. My first year in Bangkok was all about learning how the street food system worked, tuk-tuks, social etiquette and the language - things that you notice every day. But after a while, I started noticing the smaller details, the things that you only pick up on if the bigger stuff has become second nature. One of those things is the Thai immodesty when using the word 'shit' and the way in which it's utilized in everyday language.

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:45+00:00Culture, Language, Thailand|3 Comments

A Few Things Thailand Has Perfected

check As with most foreigners in Thailand, I sometimes get upset with the many ineffective, inefficient quirks that Thailand has; the type of day where you say "Well, they did it this way in my country, why don't they do it that way here?" The correct answer, of course, is "Then go home, whiner." But while Thailand often lacks a certain refined efficiency in many areas, there are plenty of other areas - some of them creature comforts that we're used to getting at home - that are done far better than they ever were in the Motherland. Of course, I don't mean to dis Canada, but I think it's a fair representation of most western countries. Here's some of my favorite differences.

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:45+00:00Culture, Movies, Music, Pop Culture, Thailand|0 Comments

The Yin and Yang of Thai Comedy

yinyang Before I go into a rant here, I want to preface this by saying that, as a guy with some stand-up comedy experience under his belt, I fully understand that comedy is an extremely subjective topic. One guy's knee-slapper is another guy's groaner; one girl's howlingly funny anecdote is another girl's highly offensive gutter tale. So, if anything I say in this post comes off as offensive, keep in mind it's nothing more than my opinion of a highly subjective topic. That being said, Thai comedy, specifically Thai television comedy, is an offense to the word comedy. It's not just bad, it's staggeringly awful. But amid the gloom is a bright light - the unparalleled genius of Thai commercials.

Greg2016-11-17T15:48:46+00:00Culture, Pop Culture, Television, Thailand|0 Comments