Butter and Cheese
By Caveman
Indonesia Hotel Guide • Hyatt Regency Hotel Surabaya • JW Marriott Hotel Surabaya • Mercure Surabaya Hotel • Narita Hotel Surabaya Back in 2005, I had a breakup with my Thai girlfriend at the time while on my 5th trip to Thailand. The story went something like this, as documented in my Thai Journal 5.
Let’s call her Ann. She booked us a trip from BKK to Surin, her home town, to meet her parents and just spend some time together. I gave her the cash and asked her to just to book the flight, as I thought it would facilitate things with her speaking fluent Thai in dealing with Thai Airways. Driving around in one of her girlfriend’s cars the day prior to our “planned” departure, she dropped the bomb on me (Envision hearing Rod Serling's voice, "You're now entering the twilight zone"): She uttered the words, "How will we get back to BKK tomorrow?"
"Arai na?" I replied.
We went back & forth with this a while until the reality dawned on me that, incredulous and inexplicable as it seemed, she had actually PURPOSELY booked a one-way flight for us instead of a round trip ticket, all the while knowing we had to be in BKK the following day. For the longest time, I thought she was joking, but finally the reality sank in. I shook my head in utter disbelief. Then I asked the obvious question, "Why did you book the trip one way?!"
No answer.
Asked again.
No answer.
As I continued to ask, she physically put her hand over my mouth to stop me, which only succeeded in irritating the dog shit out of me. It is said that you should not push Thais too hard on things and stay laid back regardless of the circumstances, but my take is that sometimes you just have to dig in your heels and TAKE NO PRISONERS. I asked the question as many times as it took, as this farang was getting a response one way or another. She continued (very rudely) trying to physically put her hand over my mouth to stop me from talking, not wanting to face the discomfort of the situation and just trying to make me shut up. Well, it didn't work, and I began to lose patience. Finally, as an answer, she said the words "ting tawng", which basically was an admission that she just spaced out and simply had a brain fart. Wow, that one was a real stinker, Honey. Heck, we were scheduled to depart BKK for Mae Hong Son the following day. How the hell did she expect to...my head was spinning over this one. How could someone ever be so...??!! Of all the... What she had done reflected the mental agility equivalent to a f*****g woodpecker as far as I was concerned. OK, next challenge: we now needed to quickly arrange transportation back to BKK. I explained to her that since she had caused the problem, it was her responsibility to fix it. I therefore insisted that SHE pay for the return one-way trip for both of us: cost was 3700 baht for both of our one-way tickets back to the Big Mango. She didn’t like this one bit and refused, simply saying "I cannot". I told her that if she refused, I would indeed pay for the tickets, but would consequently cancel our trip to Mae Hong Son we had planned the following day (and thereby get back my 9500 baht less small cancellation fee). Her friend Wan was in the car with us, and they began chatting back & forth with one another quickly in Thai, ratta-tat-tat fashion. Wan’s English was superior to that of Ann. Wan then asked me, "Are you joking? Will you really cancel the trip to Mae Hong Son?" After my reply, Ann realized I was shooting real bullets: incendiary rounds, in fact. She booked the flight back to BKK using her cell phone, and I then requested the funds immediately, IN HAND. She had to visit an ATM to get that much cash. Afterward, she hesitated giving me the cash and even tried to negotiate the figure of 3700 baht downward, trying to save herself some money. I felt like I was dealing with a damned used car salesman, the way she treated the whole thing, which only aggravated me further. She finally relented and forked it all over.
Aw, shit, you gotta' love it. Women...can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. The moral of this story is that Thai women have no sense of planning whatsoever. The more I think of it, the more I believe that the concept of planning itself is alien to Thai culture. They simply live their lives like grasshoppers, not ants. Most (but not all) of them don’t save money: this would constitute planning. It’s not the way they’re raised. They literally live in the moment, like most of us do as children, not wondering what was coming next, but only savoring the moment at hand, never failing to stop and smell the flowers. Come day, go day. This is the way they live their lives. The mai pen rai attitude dominates.
The straw that broke the camel’s back came the next day.
We spent the evening together on Saturday night at dinner with her family and then with a couple of her friends. The plan, if there can ever be such a thing with Thais, was for her to pick me up in Wan’s car the next morning, as I was staying in a local hotel there in Surin, and to catch the plane back to BKK, and thence onto Mae Hong Son. She informed me that she would arrive at 10:00-10:30, and promised to phone me prior to arrival. Morning came and I waited in the hotel room for her call. 10:00 came with no call. 10:30 came and still no call. 11:00 came, 11:30: NOTHING. No call, no show. I began to boil. My attempts to try to call her found no answer, and I started my attempts at about 9:30. She either failed to answer her cell phone or had it turned off. The checkout time of 12 noon came and went. I was literally stranded in Surin at the hotel with no way back to BKK. I had no place to go and no way to get there. I had no car or any other means of transportation except to take a taxi. Smoke was coming out of my ears.12 noon came along and I waited a bit more, calling her again, but she still failed to answer the phone. Finally, I decided that she had neglected me quite enough and caught a samlor to the train station and took a train back to BKK. By the way, the 6-hour train ride was completely miserable. Had she somehow caught me at the train station prior to my departure, I was probably sufficiently angry to tear off her head and shit down her neck.
How long did she expect me to wait? This was one of the rudest, most ignorant, most inconsiderate things anyone has ever done to me. Here I was, in a town where I had never been before, in a country 10,000 miles away from the US as her guest, and this is the type of treatment I got?! I didn’t care what her excuse was, this is unacceptable behavior. I would never in a million years treat anyone this way and don’t tolerate it myself.
This comes back to the aspect of planning, which concept is quite alien to the Thai culture. Nothing ever seems to matter much. The mai pen rai attitude has its attractive aspects, but one of the drawbacks is the resultant attitude held by most Thais that nothing matters. What the hell, we’re all going to die some day anyway, so why make a fuss over anything at all. They take the concept to extremes. This leads to acts of rudeness, lack of consideration for others, extreme lateness for appointments and dates, and just simple EXTREMELY lackadaisical behavior in general.
Another interesting aspect of this all was that, with our email contact later (we never spoke personally again after this fiasco), Ann seemed to consider ME to be at fault by virtue of the fact that I called her on her shit instead of just letting it ride and pretending nothing had gone awry. There seems to be some sort of concept in Thai culture that the person who lies, steals, or in some way abuses another is not at fault, but the person who objects, rightly raises a stink, complains and causes that person to lose face is, in fact, the one at fault. This is completely lopsided in Western culture, or by any measure of logic. Wait, what the hell am I saying? Thai culture defies logic. There are certain patterns, but Western style logic? Nahhhhhh.
Here in the US, I now have a Thai girlfriend who lives here on a student visa. In short, she is completely alone, as her closest relative is an 85-year old aunt. Her parents were killed tragically about 2 years ago in a traffic accident, and she has no siblings. I find this highly appealing, as that means that if things develop, I’ll never be asked for money to support the family, as she literally has none. In fact, she has refused to ever accept a dime for anything. She does not fit the stereotype of the destitute Thai, as she seems to have some cash in the bank as well as having inherited the estate, to include a house, from her deceased parents. Also, the fact that she was able to acquire a visa good for (I think) 5 years tells me she has some coin stashed away. And by the way, the house happens to be located precisely in the area of Thailand in which I hope to retire: in the North near Chiang Mai. And she’s a Thai masseuse, and works locally in a massage shop (a “legitimate” one, as I have verified with much scrutiny). Anyone who’s read my last few journals will know my predilection for massage, and so it seems I’ve hit the jackpot. She is a clean, demure, well mannered, somewhat shy, pretty, thin young woman of 34. Not gorgeous by any stretch, but jusst “cute”. Good enough for me. I would never really want a stunner anyway. The price tag is just too high.
To cut a yarn, over dinner one night at a local Thai restaurant, we were discussing the Thai word for cheese. She stated that the word is “neui”. Now we’re not talking about a westernized Thai woman, but one practically “fresh off the boat”. She’s been in the US only about 2 months and barely speaks the English language. In fact, my command of Thai is better than her English. Knowing some Thai, my thought was that the word “neui” is the word for butter, not cheese. She then retorted that the words are the same. “Neui” can mean either butter or cheese. I protested, stating that the word for cheese is “neui khaeng”, even showing her both words in my Thai dictionary and therefore, to my thought, proving my correctness. The waitress came along, a cute, young Thai princess, and nonetheless agreed with my girlfriend. The remainder of the conversation is what really stuck with me. Both of them claimed that Thais don’t make much of a distinction between butter and cheese. That means that the same word could be used to describe either one, depending on the context and what the speaker intends. Butter, cheese, what’s the diff? Beam me up, Scotty. Does that mean that if I ask for a cheese pizza in Thailand, they’re just as likely to put butter on it?
Imagine the implications of this, and you begin to tap into the nature of Thai culture. Nothing seems to matter much. Butter, cheese, what the heck? Oranges, apples...heck, they’re both fruit. But you gotta’ love it, eh? Would we (Stickmanites) have it any other way? It has its positives and it has its negatives. Precision is not in their nature. But heck, Honey, just let those slender, little brown hands do the walking across Daddy’s back. I need neither cheese nor butter anyway. Giddyup, y’all.
Stickman's thoughts:
Chuckle, chuckle. Thai is a very imprecise language...but I would say that it is your definitions of the words for cheese and butter that are right. In commonly used or colloquial Thai, what they say might be the common usage, but technically, you're right.
The author can be reached at cromagnon9669@yahoo.com.
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