Speak English?
My boyfriend spent Saturday interviewing tourists for a school project. He borrowed one of my cameras to take photos of them. His own digital camera was missing the memory card.
Chalerm’s target group was Europeans. He came back at the end of the day and said:
- Why people Europe no education? Why can not speak English?
Chalerm thought that all farangs had university degrees and spoke perfect English. I had to explain to him that English was the language only in the UK and Ireland. On the continent people speak something else. Even so, argued Chalerm, they should have good education and speak English. He had ran into a whole bunch of Russians and none of them spoke English. And in groups of French and Italians only some could speak.
I suggested he would be better off talking to Australians.
- I no understand what people Australia say, said Chalerm.
- Americans?
- Same. No understand.
Luckily he met an older woman from the UK who spoke Queen’s English slowly and clearly.
Chalerm said that Thai people expected everything to be better in Europe than in Thailand. I explained that most things were better, but not in the way Thais think. Thais believe Europeans are like the Thai upper class. One of the people Chalerm interviewed was a Belgian baker. Chalerm thought this was low class work. But someone has to bake the bread, I said, and in Europe being a baker is not a poor person’s job.
Chalerm is in for a shock the day he comes to Farangland and he can see we have beggars and homeless people.
- Where country this? asked Chalerm and pointed to a hand-written entry on a form.
- Latvia, I said.
- Where? Europe?
I showed him on a map.
- Russia is Europe or Asia? asked Chalerm.
- Yes, I said.
- ??
- Both.
I showed Chalerm how Russia began near Scandinavia and kept going to Japan. He was impressed.
- Big country, said Chalerm.
February 24th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
SF, I love how you capture the Thai version of the world through Chalerm’s eyes.
February 24th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
God bless him. When I brought my Thai ladyboy to the USA for the first time, she honestly thought everyone dressed like movie stars and we lived in huge houses. She was so depressed after learning the truth. But as she discovered the incredible fabric of life in America, she grew to love the place. Now I can’t get her to leave the USA for our annual six months’ stay in LOS. Amazing.
February 24th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
I have taken a delight in introducing SE Asian guys to the delights of Google Maps and satellite views of the Earth. Esp their own cities and countries and places they would like to see and/or visit.
With Google Maps I can quite clearly see my apartment block in Klongsan. This astounded my partner when I showed it to him.
Similarly, an Indonesian guy living here was amazed at views of Jakarta and Phuket (after a holiday there).
Your have your super-beaut new Mac … use it with panache.
Best wishes. Yraen.
February 24th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
I am Belgian and well, I speak perfect english (more or less lol) but I know in my country, there are not a lot of people like me. And don’t even ask about France… But, in Germany or the Netherlands, you could have had chances to find a lot of people speaking english.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:21 am
Back when I used to be responsible for the electronic equipment on merchant ships many’s the time I’ve had to explain to an Indian crew that the TV wasn’t broken just because the newsreader wasn’t speaking English.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Actually i agree with Charlem
I am from Germany, and it sometimes is hard for me to believe how difficult it is for some students, that had English for 5 or more years at school, to freely talk in that language. English is all around them. Games, Internet,….they should know better
Well, my dad (65) for example uses a weird mix of languages and hand gestures, but somehow he still gets along pretty well with that, haha
February 25th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Ah … the Thai education system. You gotta wonder what they actually do at school every day for 12 years. Not only do they not know anything about the other side of the world, but they don’t know anything about countries around them either. If an American - particularly one about to graduate from college - asked such questions, I doubt we’d think it was cute. I feel sorry for Chalerm, and angry at the people responsible.
February 25th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Not everyone is interested in being like Americans or Europeans. Some people value different things, a different knowledge. Aboodle makes it sound like Thai people are (kept) stupid… I disagree, it is all dependant on what one sees as wisdom and knowledge.
But it is rather typical for a lot of Europeans and Americans to be so confined in the “western mind”.
That is MY motivation for wanting to be away from Europe… That and the bad weather… lol
February 26th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Hmmm…..every country has its own parochial characteristics. You’d be surprised how many Americans (or maybe you wouldn’t be) and not a few of my fellow countrymen (Australians) are largely unaware of the wrold around them. I’ve been commended on my excellent English in America though I suspect the person thought I was from Austria rather than Australia (let’s hope).
February 26th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Though my typing still needs some work.
February 26th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Wouter, it’s got nothing to do with being like Americans, Europeans, Westerners, etc. It’s got to do with learning something, anything useful in the years that most Thais spends at school.
If you don’t believe that poor Thai people are “kept” stupid, you don’t know much about the Thai education system.
And then the people who kept them that way have the gall to complain that poor Thai people aren’t smart enough to understand their responsibilities in a democracy and just vote for whoever pays them the most, like Thaksin / PPP etc.
If you think that poor Thai people learn useful things in the years they spend at school, please enlighten us as to what they are.
February 26th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
One really strange thing was the other day I put Goldfinger, the ‘64 James Bond movie on. Intermittently, I’d be asked by my Thai partner, ‘Things like that 40+ years ago? … the Miami Fontainebleau caused a long stunned silence.. let alone the realisation that Thai TV music had a rather long pained {secret} history…
By the by, today, Samak the Thai PM commented that he didn’t mean to suggest that Thailand go to a fixed exchange rate, like Malaysia. So far no one has the courage to tell him that Malaysia stopped this in 2005, so no, on balance it’s fair to say that Thai’s are not well informed about the world that surrounds them.
Regards