We've learned that we provide a little comic relief to the Thai nationals that we encounter. Whether it's asking for something that we don't have the words for and we fight through gestures, terrible drawings, or dictionaries that really don't have the words that we want. Or perhaps it's having people approach me assuming that I speak Thai, and simply start up a conversation that abruptly comes to an end with me saying that I don't speak Thai (in Thai). Occasionally it's people assuming that I speak Thai and laughing when I make Mike ask for something in his broken Thai. After getting our cell phones, my phone would set off the security sensors at the door, so I gave the cell phone employees a good laugh when I went back to "explain" that when I walked through the sensors, they went "beep-beep-beep-beep." Needless to say, we've learned to laugh at ourselves a great deal.
However, despite our many mistakes and all the times where we have made fools of ourselves, we have also had many small victories to take into account. For example, down the street there are many little restaurants where you can get a plate of food for about $1.00. One of the first nights I asked for "kow pat gai" (chicken fried rice), but evidently my speaking wasn't very clear, as I got "pat tai" (pad thai) instead. However, since then, I have asked for "kow pat gai" again, and actually got it! Yesterday we saved ourselves 10 baht (33 cents) when we didn't take the taxi all the way to the grocery store, but got off across on the other side of the highway and walked across the bridge. I am still amazed that we were able to convey that in words and pictures. Also, Mike is like a human GPS. He can get us back to school from the major shopping areas nearby, which is great since most taxis don't know exactly where to go because the area where the school is located is very small. So Mike is able to point to get us back to the school. We have also learned how to take the sky train to downtown Bangkok.
So we are slowly acclimating ourselves and learning our way around, and we are reveling in the small victories that we have each day.
Thanks for the fun stories. If you're laughing at yourselves, you won't mind if we laugh too, will you?
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Yeah, the language misunderstandings are funny. At a restaurant here in Belgium I asked for "een fles Coke" (a bottle of coke), but the server evidently thought I said "een vlees kroket" which to my dismay turned out to be some sort of deep fried meat log, not the refreshing beverage that I love so dearly. Anyways, glad to hear you are enjoying your time there, and cling to the small victories!
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