The Thai people

So it's been a little while since my last blog, but I have been learning a lot. I have learned just how important looks are to the Thai culture. I always felt like it was bad living in Los Angeles with all the plastic surgery that takes place, but in Thailand, I feel much more self conscious than I do in the states. I have been told on several occasions by my Thai friends that I eat TOO MUCH. I have been told by any young girls here that they need to go and get there acne removed once a week and they try to eat one meal a day. They want to be slim like pencil thin. So me weighing in between 120-130 could be considered obese here. Also there are mirrors everywhere. They are always looking at themselves and very conscious of the way they look on public. I find it interesting because even on my flight over here I wanted to look at myself while I was sitting on the plane and I tried to hide my mirror. In the US I feel like we try to hide the fact that we want to be conscious of the way we present ourselves, because it might be taken as we might have low self-esteem. I also must say I miss the importance of hygiene. There is not a whole lot of that here. I was given a bowl last night with two ants crawling on the outside of it. Normally in the US if we saw that we'd be demanding a free meal, but here it's normal. They have no sense of time management here as well. Everything is Mai Pen Raj or Hakuna Matata. No worries! So if you tell a Thai friend to meet you at 2:00PM, they may be there at 3:00-3:30PM so yeah it can get kind of frustrating if you are one of those people who is always on time or keeps to a very strict schedule. I planned a party for my birthday at 10PM, but my Thai friend didn't pick me up until around almost 11PM and we still had to drive a good 15-20 minutes and other people had already arrived. So these are few things for me I find a little difficult to deal with, but I am learning and that's what matters most. I also had to learn how to wash my clothes in a bucket of water, and I got my first hair cut here. That was interesting. Have you ever gotten your haircut by someone who didn't speak your native language? Yeah it can be hard to get exactly what you want even when they can understand you, let alone when they speak very little English. I didn't get what I wanted, but I was happy with what I did get. It's all about learning, and maybe next time I'll know what to ask for :)

However, they are some of the most generous people I have ever met! They bought me drinks for my birthday, drove me to and from the club, they bought me a birthday cake, the sang to me...as much as I hate to admit it... I am not sure many people in the US would return the favor if a Thai came to study in the US. The circumstances in the US are different though. Here if you are a foreigner they know just by seeing your face, but in the US we have all kinds of different cultures that we wouldn't know if they were just visiting or if they lived here unless we tried to get to know them. Something to think about...until next time.