Westerners in Thailand who employ Thais know what a challenge that can be. And conversely, Thais working for Western expats often find relating to their direct reports is sometimes more difficult than the job itself. The beauty of John Paul Fieg’s A Common Core: Thais and Americans (1978, ISBN 0-933-662-80-7) is that it examines core […]
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Why can’t bad-smelling foreigners smell themselves?
The Good Manner: Advice on Thailand from WoWasis’ Pa Farang This week’s dilemma: Bad-smelling foreigners can’t smell themselves Dear Pa Farang, In a recent blog post, it seemed as though WoWasis ripped through the farang community, somehow saying that the majority of us smell bad. What wasn’t said was that many deodorants and anti-perspirants have […]
Read the rest of this entry »Toilet Trucks in Bangkok: business is good when business is crappy
Need to go when you’re on the go? Then Bangkok Municipal Administration’s fleet of 31 toilet trucks can help. These aging green mobile giants sport four toilets and six urinals, and are used as public conveniences during protest activities and public events. Each truck contains 2,000 litres of water, enough for 500 flushes. Detritus is […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis Book review: Timothy Hallinan’s ‘Queen of Patpong’
How does one really judge the entertainment value of a book? Timothy Hallinan’s book in the Bangkok Fiction genre, The Queen of Patpong (2010, ISBN 978-0-06-167226-2), caused us here at WoWasis to ask, and here’s why. We finished this 312 page book, the latest update in the ongoing saga of travel writer Poke Rafferty and […]
Read the rest of this entry »Thai Prisons: Inside the belly of the beast via the ‘Thai Prison Life’ website
Bangkok’s Samut Prakan Prison One of the more fascinating museums in Bangkok is the Mahachai Prison Corrections Museum, but of course, prisons are only fascinating to those that aren’t living in them. We recently ran into a remarkable website run by Richard Barrow, who has befriended many prisoners in Thai prisons, most notably Panrit “Gor” […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: Kaowai & Robinson’s ‘In Grandmother’s House’
Visitors spending any time looking into the culture of Thailand will run into thousands of folk traditions and beliefs, and Thais are always impressed when a foreigner wishes to know more about them. Understanding these concepts is empirical, as one thing inevitably leads to another. We at WoWasis are still learning. And that’s why we […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis introduces Krasue, Thailand’s most feared ghost
Thailand is a country obsessed with ghosts, known as phii. Here at WoWasis, we’ve learned never to joke about them, because joking about them is considered to bring on bad luck to the speaker as well as all listeners. And never joke about a ghost before your girlfriend enters the shower, especially at night: everyone […]
Read the rest of this entry »Bachelor in Bangkok: Khun Lee on American wives and sponsoring Thai women
Recently I have started to think that perhaps I need to work on my people skills. Now, I have to say that I have never been the most diplomatic guy, and one of the things that I love about living in Thailand is the total lack of political correctness that is so pervasive in the […]
Read the rest of this entry »Thousands flee Surin as new Thai-Cambodian skirmish erupts
Early Friday morning, in the sleepy Thai village of Kopcheung, some 500 residents awakened to the thunderous sounds of rocket fire and machine guns as Cambodian and Thai troops fought nearby. It’s a new skirmish, but the same old story, this time taking place 150 miles west of the disputed territory encirling Wat Preah Vihear. An […]
Read the rest of this entry »Another man lives in my apartment with me and my girlfriend
The Good Manner: Advice on Thailand from WoWasis’ Pa Farang This week’s dilemma: Another man lives in my apartment with me and my girlfriend Dear Pa Farang, My Thai lady and I are still getting used to each other, even after living together for a couple of years. Last month, I got a surprise: her younger […]
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