Connecting With the Locals

[californiabeachboy]

I have a question about connecting with the locals in Thailand. I am looking at spending a few months in Thailand (either Jomtien, or Kata Beach in Phuket) and I don't speak any Thai. While I realize some locals in tourist areas speak a little English, I assume most do not speak very much. I am curious as to how any expats who don't speak Thai manage to have local aquaintances when spending time there. Do you just hang out with other English speakers? The reason I ask is that I lived in France for several months, and I speak a little French so I was able to find locals to communicate with, but I still found that there was a real separation between me and the French (language based, not cultural). It would seem to worse in Thailand, since I speak no Thai. If you have spent time in Thailand, I would be interested in knowing how do you connect with locals, either as friends or in terms of day to day conversations - coffee shops, etc.? Or do you just hang out with other English speakers?

Thanks.

[frogblogger]

Another obstacle is being unable to read Thai either. At least some words in French make sense to an Anglophone even if he doesn't speak the lingo - those with common Latin roots. I'm bilingual French myself, and have lived there many years, so know what you mean. You get so much more out of the experience of living in a foreign country if you can communicate at least reasonably well with the locals.

Communicating with local Thais - it's possible as some speak English, but conversations are usually pretty basic. I very rarely see Westerners myself, but seeing as I have a Thai partner who speaks pretty good English, communication isn't a problem. However it has hindered my attempts to learn Thai.

[californiabeachboy]

Thanks Frogblogger. I have traveled to many countries in my advanced age, and if I never go in another museum/church/temple for the rest of my life I am okay with that - for me it is the cultural differences that I enjoy, and for that you need to talk to (or have a drink with) the locals. I am going to try to figure out how to do it in the Land of Smiles.

[Bobr]

I've decided that learning Thai or "running" Thai on my brain is the equivalent of trying to run Apple software on an IBM style computer. It makes no sense to me, the explanations make no sense to me, the letters all look the same to me. Guess this dog is too old to learn a new trick.

[Oneman]

Originally Posted by californiabeachboy

I am curious as to how any expats who don't speak Thai manage to have local aquaintances when spending time there. ... I would be interested in knowing how do you connect with locals, either as friends or in terms of day to day conversations - coffee shops, etc.?

That's an excellent question for new expats here, and worth discussion.
At first, I wondered the same.
But now, after five years in Thailand, I've learned that Thais don't really have friendships as we do.
They don't just meet people in restaurants or bars as we might.
They rarely associate with other people just because they enjoy each other's company.

Instead, Thai friendships are based on some other factor: work, school, home neighborhood, family-connections, or coming from the same district up-country.
If they have connections like that, they are automatically friends.

Two examples to help explain:

When my Thai girl friend changed jobs all her "friends" changed, too.
Hardly any mention of the girls in the previous job, all her friends suddenly changed to be her new work-mates.

My Thai teacher takes his car for repair to a man who comes from the same district up-country.
I've seen the repair shop -- it's a total mess -- but there is a connection to "home".
I asked, and was told, "He comes from my district. If I go to a different shop, how do I know I can trust them?"

As a foreigner here, I've learned the easiest and quickest way to make Thai friends is to "hire" them.
That's right, I pay them to be friendly with me.
Sometimes directly, but, in some cases, in subtle or indirect ways.
I will explain:

I hire a Thai woman to help me learn to read the language.
Because of that connection, she started considering herself my "friend", with suggestions about restaurants I might enjoy -- of course with her company.
And when I needed a lady companion for a social event -- and my regular girl friend had to work -- the language teacher was very happy to be my "friend".

A man who works in the apartment where I live is always "friendly".
One day he asked where I wanted to go sightseeing in the region.
Thais almost never ask a question without having a very good reason.
So when I told him my sightseeing destinations, he offered to drive me there in his car, on his day off, and act as my guide.
I didn't pay cash -- should have done so, but that was soon after I first arrived here and still had much to learn.
Of course, fuel and lunch and a few other items were on me.
But his main payment was in "face" with the other employees in the building, that I had selected him to be my guide for sightseeing.

A man about my age is manager of a foot massage shop in the mall.
Yes, I'm a customer of the shop, but, more than that, whenever I go in he is eager to talk with me, in English, in front of his staff.
Sometimes his English words don't make sense, but I nod and smile, and agree with everything he says -- and that gives him huge "face" in front of his employees.
He, too, considers himself my friend, and helps me with my language homework.
The money involved there is nothing more than the price of a foot massage, but I also "pay" by giving him "face".

Bottom line is that I've found it very easy to "hire" Thai friends by always thinking how can I make it worthwhile for them, either in money or some other way, such as in "face".
That approach has worked out very well.

But just casually meeting Thais in, say, a restaurant, and then becoming "friends" as we think of it, no, I don't see that happening at all.
In order to be "friendly", first there must be something in it for them.

-- Oneman
Chiangmai

[frogblogger]

Yes I agree to an extent - friends tend to come and go. And friendships resume as easily after a long break.

The fact that family is number one priority by a long way in Thailand, while in the West family ties are less valued (I'm referring to adult children/parent relationships here in particular), has something to do with this I reckon.

[blue eyes]

Oneman,
What you say does ring true with what I have learned in my time in Thailand.It seems that the Thais friends are for the moment and not for the long hall.Unless it is family or the neighbor from the village that they grew up in.I think when it comes to the people that you "buy"as friends it is more that they look up to you as some where between, on the scale from low life farmer to hi-so.You may be just above them, so to others they do gain face by being your "friend".If you understand what I am trying to say.

[californiabeachboy]

Thanks for the perspectives on connecting. I have lived in France and Australia, and it is always interesting to me how different cultures interact with foreigners. In France it was very difficult to make friends simply because, in my experience, most French make their friends very early in life and tend to stick with them. As they said in Seinfeld "I am not interviewing for friends now". But their friendship bonds are very close.

In Australia, it was very easy to make new friends, as they to be so social (sorry for the generalizations in this). My Australian girlfriend was very social, and we would be constantly invited to dinner parties - not the chit-chat, eat, and go home type, but the long, coma-inducing dinner parties that would go on for hours, with many false endings just to tease you.

Actually the situations described by Oneman sound okay to me - more business relationships than friendships, but they work for both parties. I just want to avoid the situation that has occurred sometimes when I am solo and don't speak the language, where I go for days with little human interaction throughout the day. I would assume many expats in Thailand end up hanging out with other expats, unless they have a girlfriend/boyfriend.

[frogblogger]

I'm a bit uneasy about this much stereotyping of a very complicated issue. I suspect the (East-West) differences may not be as great as someone might be led to believe on reading the posts above. Yes I agree to an extent, but to take CBB's France as an example, the more I got to know the place, the greater the similarities I discovered between France and the UK.

Basic survival in Thailand is something most of us in the West have the luxury of not having to deal with. No government social support safety net in the Land of Smiles. This directly affects the relevance of friendships - they simply have to be mutually beneficial on a basis other than 'just getting on well'. On a cultural level family ties are stronger - because they have proved their worth in terms of survival benefits, this being reinforced by cultural responsibilities, and the sheer size of the extended family.

In the West increasing material wealth has led to the weakening of family ties for a large sector of society. Both parents and adult offspring can maintain independence without the direct financial support of the other. Yet an evolved drive to seek out useful close relationships still exists, hence the importance of friendships when there is a relative lack of family ties.

To take Oneman's gf as an example, when changing job. In a less affluent society, it is more useful to strike up new, mutually supportive relationships in your new work environment, than to maintain links with previous friends. The 'transactional' side to relationships is not specifically Thai - it's just more open and obvious in less prosperous nations (and poorer sectors of society within richer nations). Human nature, to sum up. No big difference between 'us' and 'them', in my view.

The 'mutually useful' relationship thing is equally obvious in Africa, South and Central America, as well as throughout Asia. In fact if we look closely at our our own friendships in the West, we can find both superficiality as well as relationships that are mutually useful for some reason or another. It's not for nothing that we have the expression "blood is thicker than water".

Back to the original point - making friends boils down to being able to communicate and having the nous to know which acquaintances are out to exploit you without giving a fair return. The former is not easy in Thailand for obvious reasons, so either you can content yourself with more superficial contacts with locals and a certain amount of solitude, or you end up as part of an expat circle, or you have a Thai gf/spouse... or some combination of these. Mine is more 1) and 3) - I'm something of a loner anyway, and I didn't come here to end up in a British-style pub, having British conversations about soccer and the next elections, etc etc etc.