
Since I have been studying in Bkk, I’ve found my English very useful. Foreigners just bump into me with questions themselves especially foreigners asking which train to get on the sky train always.
I’ve met and and listened to many types of questions from funny one like
“Do Thai people just learn how to park in order to get driver license??,” asked my American teacher everytime he experienced heavy traffic on his road home.
or a bit silly plus funny like,
“Do you have to ride on an elephant to school everyday?” and
“Do you wear national costume (with lots of gold and heavy stuff) everytime you go outside?”
Some quite piss me off;
“Is being prostitude very popular there?” “Are you planning to be one?!” – -”
Or even questions from a guy my age..sort of flirting me lol!!
“Ey, can I borrow your mobile?”
“What for?”
“To give you my number so we can contact later” and etc.
But those are just simple to me..I can remember one question with a face of person who asked so well..
“How can you trust your king?” asked American teacher in Japanese school.
I was quite shocked. Well, if you’re Thai, you will understand my feeling. King’s somebody high here who we cannot cite in ordinarily daily conversation that much. We talk about him (King Rama 9) sometimes, anyway, but only about good things he’s done and given his people. I knot my brows and still kept quiet.
“I mean, you know, in America, we are able to talk and criticize them if we see there’s something weird going on or if he’s behaving badly”
“How can you know for real if all medias and monarch institution themselves ignore to be open for everything?..no medias are allowed or most are scared to criticize them, am I right?”
I wasn’t feeling like my country and my king have been insulted or anything. I totally understood that ..it’s all because ‘we’re different’ so I decided to say something,
“Yeah, you’re right, man. It’s said in the constitution that we cannot cite his name indiscriminately because we’re just normal people.. we are likely to lack of careness. We may unintentionally say bad things about him which can be misunderstood that it leads to disparagement.”
“And so far, have you ever seen or heard anything bad about him? I know medias aren’t that brave to investigate or widely spread the news but all of us, Thai people, have seen is his careness, hopefulness and generosity. He’s done such good things for us like fake rains for farmers in barren areas, for instance.”
He still kept asking, “Well, yeah..but that’s because you really don’t know anything for real about him and his royal realtives. Medias just spread only good news about them, right?”
“Actually, according to your knowledge about my country and my king, I guess you must have known that we’re democratic country, too. Although, we’re unable to criticize our king but if there’s something really wrong about him and his royal family. If they’re behaving badly..taking advantages from his people. Noone’s going to be silent for sure, I believe.”
And I left to present my speech because it was my last day in Japanese school. I’m quite sure he might have lots of other questions to ask still :p
Anyway, there’s nothing wrong in this whole round world. C’mon man, stuff is right or wrong depends upon what criterias the society and the world use to judge. We’re just born in different places.
PS. I’d still love to hear and reply all questions by the way!
17 responses to “Questions from foreigners”