Commentary

Back home, spilling a bloke’s pint or insinuating that his football team are a bit rubbish isn’t the done thing. It gets people’s backs up and you better be ready to deal with the anger that follows. As a result, most people avoid doing these things.

Out here in Thailand, different lines have been drawn over the years, and it seems that pointing out some home truths to your fellow escapers of rain is liable to provoke a lot of hubris and the expulsion of the blunt missive which forms the title of this piece.

Ya see, though Thailand undeniably has less precipitation than Salford and the local lasses are far less likely to sing along enthusiastically to Shania Twain, it also has deeply flawed aspects which are more than capable of, well, killing you.

But if you raise any concerns or attempt to voice your fears (road safety, plane safety, nightclub safety…safety in general really, draconian laws, two-tier pricing, broken contracts, late pay, corrupt and therefore useless police, the indoctrination of children, lack of protection for women etc) be prepared to hear some obtuse horse-s**t pour out of the rabble about how it’s just the same back home.

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In many so called developing (read: underdeveloped and hopelessly corrupt) countries the police can be most unhelpful, lazy, dishonest and hostile. In tourist areas they sometimes have Tourist Police which was established with the sole purpose of protecting temporary visitors from being ripped off, swindled or assaulted.

These, while not very efficient, are much better than the regular police force as well as the whole judicial system there. To many of the local cops, a foreigner is either a nuisance or a cash cow and they are rarely, if ever, on your side. Unless, of course, you are a big shot exec or a high-ranking diplomat. Not if you are a Joe Expat living on a $1200 a month pension in a tropical “paradise”.

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As an expat, you will often be living in certain places where your presence alone may attract uncalled attention from a variety of unwanted elements. Jealous locals, fake business partners, women that want to take advantage of you, prejudiced people who do not like your race or nationality, corrupt police looking for bribes, etc. One has to be on guard at all times as one is not at home and may not know the ropes in a foreign land.

I am by nature a very gregarious, open and friendly person; and I like having many people around me, host noisy parties, have a whole bunch of guys and gals hanging out my house all the time- all these things make me happy. However, after having lived in places where people were of a different race, different culture and different values and modes of behavior, I have learned to appreciate the value of privacy, discretion, low profile and introversion.

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In the guilt ridden West there is now a movement supported by leading scientists that claims that race does not exist. All people, they say, belong to human race and then they show DNA tests that some human groupings that look alike have less in common in their DNA’s than people who look different. Some of my British friends, who are now reeling under the weight of colonial remorse, come up with all kinds of liberal theories that claim that people simply have cultural mannerisms and clothes but if we remove those, some 50% would look very much alike.

However, living as an international traveler or a PT makes you highly aware of at least the visual aspect of race and convinces you time and time again that it is a very real thing.

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