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Mr. CANNOT and Mrs. NOHAVE

Monday, September 30th, 2013

OMG, it’s almost been a year since my last RTW! I am planning my next trip back to Thailand to get some teeth in November and to see my sons in Thailand and Hong Kong. I am beginning to anticipate…and remember…

An expat took his laptop battery to the computer shop opposite Makro in Samui to see if they had one or could order one from Bangkok. He approached the guy at the counter with his carrier bag. (There was no one else in the shop, and the guy was not busy doing anything)

“Sawasdee Krap”

(Silence)

“can you help me?”

(Silence)

“I have a laptop battery” (reaching into carrier bag)

“NO HAVE!”
(At this point the battery was still concealed in the bag)

“Can you….?.”

“CANNOT!”

“cannot what?”

“CANNOT!”

“Do you have……?” (producing said battery. He didn’t even look at it)

“CANNOT”

” I see…..Can you order from Bangkok?”

“CANNOT ORDER!”

“Are you saying that there is no shop in the whole of Bangkok where you can get a laptop battery?”

“CANNOT ORDER!”

Another expat:
“In Banphai there is a pharmacy, each time I go in, without looking up the man says NO HAVE. Hello I can see what I want on that shelf… NO HAVE…I go outside and get the [Thai] wife and she asks for the same item. He goes to the shelf and passes item to my wife 80 baht please. WTF.”

You may also encounter Mr. NONO and Mrs. SHOO-SHOO

I think there may be several things going on here.

Mrs. NOHAVE may not understand the request and don’t want to admit it to save face. Also may apply to MR. CANNOT, MR. NONO and MRS SHOO-SHOO.
Mr. CANNOT can not speak English in order to answer the request.
This may be followed up by Mrs. SHOO-SHOO
Mr. CANNOT and Mrs. NO HAVE, Mr. NONO and Mrs. SHOO-SHOO may be tired.
Thais are sick of dealing with farangs who don’t speak Thai
Thais are sick of dealing with farangs

Of course it may be true that they really CANNOT or NO HAVE.

In And Out Of Bangkok

Monday, March 17th, 2008

Have become familiar enough with Asia that the usual things you notice on the surface aren’t so eye-catching now. Am learning to adapt to surface cultural differences with less frustration. But adapting for a traveler briefly passing through is one thing. Another thing for someone spending significant time here. Much more difficult if you are having to learn how to navigate the unspoken expectations and assumptions.

“You eat like a monk,” she says. What do you mean, I ask, as I put my strawberries on the same plate where I have just eaten my fish. Monks are not supposed to enjoy earthly pleasures, like the taste and sight of food, she says. People earn merit by dropping bits of food into their begging bowls..food that gets mixed up together. So, not wanting to bother her for a fresh dish, I had put my strawberries on the same plate where I had eaten the fish. I had grossed her out. Caught again…unawares. I was shocked by the comment. And so it goes….

Other than that, have been spending time with mundane activites…dental appointments (teeth have really gone to pot recently) and great medical care at Bumrungrad Hospital…all details no one would be really interested in except me.

News in the Bangkok Post: Backpackers are furious for being blamed for a bed bug invasion. An entymologist at a local university says that Americans don’t like to take baths which has helped create the problem. Good grief! We are foreigners. We are dirty. Don’t we do the same thing to “strangers” at home…?

I spent five days visiting a Thai friend in her newly built home. She is a Professor of Fisheries at Kasetsart University and is encouraging me to accompany her to visit a field project in a small stream near the coast of the Gulf of Thailand…which I would love to do if we can coordinate our schedules. In exchange I am editing some research papers she is writing in English. Catching up on local politics, I mentioned that the Malay man sitting next to me on the plane to Bangkok had reminded me that the Prime Minister, unseated by the military coup last year because of corruption, did help the rural farmers. “Yes,” she said. “A piece of meat between the teeth!” This comment has added impact if you know that Thais take meticulous care of themselves…many using toothpicks after they eat…carefully covering their mouths with a hand so not to offend anyone. She and her university colleagues make no bones about their opinions of Thaksin and they feel that he will still be pulling the strings from the sidelines now that he is back in the country.

Son Doug and his Thai wife, Luk, flew up to Bangkok from Koh Samui to get off the island for a few days. We took a bus last Saturday to leafy Kanchanaburi…a couple hours northwest of Bangkok. Very hot and humid! The peaceful town on the Mae Nam Khwae River (River Kwai) belies it’s role in WWII as a Japanese-run POW camp where soldiers were worked to death building the “Death Railway.” You may remember the movie “Bridge On The River Kwai” telling the story of the brutal plan to carve a rail bed out of the 415km stretch of rugged terrain through the Three Pagodas Pass to the Thai/Burma border that was intended to be a supply route from Bangkok to Rangoon. Close to 100,000 forced laborers, captured Allied soldiers and Burmese and Malay prisoners, completed the railway in 16 months…only to have the Allied forces bomb the bridge across the river after just 20 months. The relatively small nondescript bridge has been reconstructed but you can imagine the planes careening down along the river…taking out the middle iron arcs. Tourists clog the bridge that is now just used by a short excursion train and pedestrians. Yes, it’s a bridge, says Doug when we visited it on a rented motorcycle. lol

I will take the one-hour flight to Samui on April 8 to spend a month there…after which Doug, Luk and I will fly to Kuala Lumpur for our “visa run.” This will be my first visit to Malaysia. Maybe there I can get away from the depressing news about the banking crisis at home…strange days…dangerous days…reverberating all through Asia.

Diamond Jubilee Of His Majesty

Thursday, March 16th, 2006
His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand will celebrate his Diamond Jubilee in Bangkok in June 2006. The King of Thailand is one of the most highly respected spiritual leaders in the world in the last half century. In ... [Continue reading this entry]

“Letters From Thailand”

Wednesday, March 15th, 2006
"Letters From Thailand" is a lovely novel wrtten in 1969 by "Botan", a pseudonym of the Chinese-born Thai female writer, Supa Sirisingh, and recently translated into English by Susan Fulop Kepner, an academic on Southeast Asian studies from UCLA. ... [Continue reading this entry]

Hope For Thailand

Wednesday, March 8th, 2006
Thousands of people have been demonstrating for several days and nights in the streets of Bangkok calling for Prime Minister Thaksin to step down. One hundred university and business leaders signed a letter pleading for the King to appoint ... [Continue reading this entry]

Visa Run Misery

Wednesday, March 8th, 2006
Burma.gif Every month my son Doug has to cross into Burma and come back into Thailand to get another 30 day stay in the country. If you are late it's a $12 fine per day. ... [Continue reading this entry]

International Night On Koh Samui

Saturday, February 25th, 2006
We're back on Samui and I have rented a brand new furnished one bedroom house for $12.00 a night at "Solitude Resort" on a mountainside about a mile from Doug and Luk's bungalow. The first evening we were welcomed by our ... [Continue reading this entry]

Now…Not Later

Sunday, February 5th, 2006
It is typical for Thais to think only about what to do now...not some time in the future. So when Doug was showing me houses to buy next year, we asked Luk where she wanted to go next...her answer ... [Continue reading this entry]

Third Culture Kids

Monday, October 17th, 2005
Third Culture Kids are children of expatriate families who live for a significant proportion of their lives in a culture other than their own, where they travel to many countries other than their own passport country. This results in ... [Continue reading this entry]

Thainess And The West

Sunday, July 17th, 2005
The July 2005 edition of the slick upscale magazine for English-speaking foreigners called The Big Chilli ran an article with interviews of prominent Bangkok residents to get their views of what constitutes Thai culture. Two were Thai and two ... [Continue reading this entry]

What Is A Farang?

Thursday, July 14th, 2005
Or what does "farang" mean to the Thai people. It has been said that the word derives from the French. It is also the Thai word for guava so you hear farang-eating jokes. To make it work ... [Continue reading this entry]

“Oh New Shoes Lost Me!”

Monday, May 16th, 2005
1wXSp3CkNsDoJl3s0SgHmw-2006171163517229.gif After a flight from Bangkok on Bangkok Air, I have been enjoying my 26 year-old daughter-in-law on quiet Khlong Muang Beach in Krabi Province the last couple of weeks while my son Doug is ... [Continue reading this entry]

Inconsistent Thai Values

Thursday, April 28th, 2005
After nearly a dozen visits and about six months time in the city, over the last several years, we have gotten to know Bangkok a little. In this city with a population of over 9 million people we can ... [Continue reading this entry]

Vibrant Bangkok

Friday, March 11th, 2005
Bangkok Air From Koh Samui to Bangkok again. Not a pretty city but it's vibrant. The populace, as with much of Asia, lives outdoors-almost all 10 million of them. It is increasingly cosmopolitan and this year seems ... [Continue reading this entry]

Bob’s Thai Village Visit

Saturday, December 28th, 2002
While Jana and I were playing with Chinese teenagers in Ruili in the south of Yunnan, Bob spent some time in an ethnic village in the mountains in Issan Province southeast of Chiang Mai in Thailand. The people were Thai ... [Continue reading this entry]

Expatriates

Tuesday, August 6th, 2002
There are many expats in Bangkok who love this city and it's people for many reasons. One day I struck up a conversation with a Brit woman sitting next to me on the SkyTrain who worked for an international ... [Continue reading this entry]

A Bit Of Thai Culture

Tuesday, August 6th, 2002
Thai people are usually friendly, warm, charming and hospitable. Sanuk, the Thai word for fun or enjoyment is paramount to the Thai�s way oflife. For something to be worthwhile it must be sanuk. If it is not sanuk ... [Continue reading this entry]

Thai Food!

Tuesday, August 6th, 2002
Our favorite in all the world! In Thailand a fork in the left hand is held upside down and used to push food onto a large spoon that is held in the right hand (reverse for left handers of ... [Continue reading this entry]