How to Survive Bangkok as a Single White Female

1. Be Twitterific.
2. But try not to become an internet zombie.
3. Traffic and internet bandwidth will simultaneously bottleneck.
4. Get in the back of a Hoopdee.
5. Look Ma, No Hands!
6. Go ahead, flip him off if he’s tailing you.
7. Eat the street food.
8. You’re going to get sick, deal with it.
9. And the hospital may overcharge you. Go any way.
10. Tit jokes are the best.
11. Dance, lip sync, and be ridiculous with your iPod in public. Everyone is already staring, you’re a white girl in Asia.

1. How do you find out what’s going on in Bangkok, or elsewhere in Thailand? You might get some clue from the two English language news venues. But for the real down low, fellow expat’s twitter feed. Seriously. First responders.

2. You’re going to have to learn how to play work. Yeah, we actually work, but sometimes there are gaps. Very, very wide gaps. Which, when it’s functioning, turn into surf the internet time. Try not to let your brain turn to mush watching Lonely Island’s “Like a Boss” for the umpteenth time. No matter how much you laugh out loud. Though, I am curious to see how all the foreign teachers fare as SIMS living in the same house, as programmed by the South African teacher. Yeah our job rocks.

3. But, the internet won’t always work. And it’ll stop working in some sort of horrible synchronization with the ebb and flow, or dead standstill, of Bangkok traffic. And it is maddening. I understand why everyone here is constantly staring at their smart phone. That is their internet surfing unwind time, because it is so late by the time they finish their commute home.

4. Hail the ricketiest taxi you possibly can. He’s been around the block a few times, he knows his stuff, and he’s less likely to harass and/or molest you. On that note, get in the back, especially as a single white female. Screw seatbelts, unfortunately.

5. Yeah, motorbikes are dangerous. But they are efficient, fun, and hey look, he has to keep both his hands on the handlebars to drive! Bonus!

6. So you’ve got another guy tailing you. He’s not getting it. From a blog post I read the other day, even North Koreans understand a good clear, “F&$# Off!” and flash of the bird. Sometimes guys can’t take any other hint. Screw cultural understanding, there are limits no one should have to put up with.
On that note, after months of such advances from Thais and avoiding clubs, you might forget how to respond to being hit on by a white guy. Wait what just happened there? Did I ever actually know how to process that? Brain are the dumb.

7. It’s not just the street food that will make you sick. You might get sick from a restaurant, breathing the air, obviously working with students…stop living in a bubble. You don’t have to eat everything, but avoiding everything is overkill. Some of my best I’m sick comfort food is the Chinese style soup sold out of metal carts on the sidewalk.

8. You’re going to get sick. Or rather, I’m going to get sick. It doesn’t particularly matter what country I live in. As my colleague put it, “yeah, but everything makes you sick!” Don’t let that stop you. I waited long enough fearing I couldn’t deal with SE Asia with all of my health problems. Now I wonder why I waited so long.

9. The white person overcharge. It sucks, it especially sucks when you’re sick and don’t realize it is happening. But it’s not US prices, and if you really need to go, don’t spend 10 days hugging the toilet in denial that you need to go. On that note – that 7 kilos you lost was good health insurance!

10. When all else fails, remember, ‘This Is Thailand’ explains everything. And nothing. And everything.

11. You want to fit in with the culture. Well get over that. You are white. You are ‘sui,’ you look like baby, you are all kinds of odd observations, stereotypes and representations of all of the countries that white people hail from. But you are always farang. And singing along to your mp3 player, skipping and dancing as you walk down the street is certainly not the worst you can do to represent your fellow white man.

Immigration 3, Culture Shock, Seminar, Hospital

Today I went to Immigration for the third time. Best skirt, dress shirt and makeup I spent a fair amount of time applying. I skipped penciling on wrinkles. It didn't even take all day this time, and before lunch hour for the Immigration officers I had not only my one year extended stay permission on my visa but my multiple re-entry permit. I will still be researching to make sure the re-entry permit is correct (multiple and not single)- it's a stamp about half the size of a passport page and some of it is not inked very clearly. Without also having the proper re-entry paperwork; my visa is void upon leaving the country and must be remade - for any reason. Apparently you should also be sure you are stamped in correctly upon return to Thailand - stamp errors are common enough to have their own queue for fixing them at the Immigration office. It's been said to me Immigration is the worst part of Thailand. I'm happy to agree with that statement until proven otherwise, and I see no reason to hope to find worse - Immigration can keep the bottom spot. I'll refrain from getting on my soap box about United States Immigration - except to say for any country, this has got to be one of the most frustrating things about trying to move between countries.

My situation with visa and work permit is not uncommon - it is a rather run of the mill story as far as Thai Immigration goes, and I actually obtained legal status. Many just go without or are in a perpetual state of border running. The rare situation is not having trouble with this in some way. I also received my January salary properly. I'm finally in the system and not stepping on someone's toes to get my pay. Even my attempts at trying to go about this within cultural bounds still enlivened intra-school rivalries I wasn't aware of through the way things were subsequently handled. Lovely. Advice that I've heard now, of course, is bring several months worth of income to support yourself (if you can) while all these glitches occur. No really, several, not just a couple. I'm grateful to the co-worker who loaned me money last month, and reminded me she started off just the same - on a shoestring, borrowing and dealing with confusing school interactions that aren't sorted out easily.
I'm grateful for Ming, one of our resident alley cats for coming to visit on nights when it's most needed, even if she does insist on being let back out at 5 am sharp. I'm sure she prefers the corner of the bed to her options outside.

So about culture shock. There are many things about it, obviously. Awhile back I was asked, "well what are you having culture shock about?" And I'm really not entirely sure how to answer that question. Saying "everything," is overkill. Saying "nothing," is fooling oneself. But categorizing each daily interaction into the binary of yes, culture shock or no, not culture shock - doesn't take into account any of the other factors of daily life. It's frustrating trying to explain culture shock to someone that hasn't experienced it. It's frustrating when you realize you're having a culture moment (or worse yet, finally realize one from awhile back) - but still don't know where to turn to move forward; or at least, not in a positive way forward. And it's most frustrating when you perceive you are receiving the criticism of 'you should know that already,' or 'why didn't you find that out already?' in some shape or form. Right. I'll continue asking 'Ajarn Google' and hope I find something. Ajarn = teacher/college professor. I'm directly quoting foreign teacher Thai culture training by saying - "ask Ajarn Google."

This past Friday, Saturday and Sunday I attended a 'foreign teacher Thai culture' seminar - 8 hours a day. I'm not sure how recently this was made a requirement for foreign teachers, but it's within the last three years. While it sounds alright in theory, and some parts were alright - it's rather new, and like many newly implemented things has a lot of bugs to be worked out. I was the youngest in the room, one of my colleagues who was also required to attend the next youngest - most attendees were older western men. I think the most I got out of Thai culture training was a clearer picture of the gender/age makeup of foreign English teachers in Thailand. And some Thai proverbs so full of cognitive dissonance I'm simply going to pretend I didn't hear them for now. Apparently that's how to survive in Thailand any way. Oil. Water. Brain is fried by that statement. Nod. Smile.

On Friday after the first seminar day, I embarked on my first visit to a Thai hospital to obtain a chest x-ray. I did this on my own to be sure I did not have pneumonia. Half the school has whatever this is - several students have been hospitalized (though I'm told they do precautionary hospitalization much more here). I filled out an intake form and got through triage by pointing to words in my Thai English dictionary. The doctor spoke English well enough. I went to a public hospital, not a private hospital. Bit more language barrier, but otherwise no reason not to go to the closest place for a non-emergency. Chest x-ray: 170 baht. No pneumonia, just bronchitis. I took a ziplock bag of all the medications I was taking or could possibly take to be sure (as best as I could) there would be no medication interaction for anything prescribed. The look of puzzlement on the doctor's face was priceless - you have all this medicine I don't know what else to give you! Well how about something to get this cough to stop, not just placate it? Believe it or not my main intention was not obtaining pills. She then proceeded to show me about each drug she prescribed via Google - the language barrier was a little shaky for that part. Thanks Ajarn Google. My total visit took less than two hours, I had very little waiting - and it cost me around 26 US dollars including four medications, chest x-ray and doctor's fee. Granted, my U.S. Passport and cash were my passes through. I think the most valuable part of that trip is the inhaler that is now keeping my lungs from running away to the countryside. I'll try to get to the park this weekend and out of the smog for a bit. Yes, we do have a few of those in the city still.