This is another post that could be filed under ‘angry foreign rants’. So if you don’t want to read this, I warned you!
If you read some of my former “F-Word” posts you know that I usually state that I still appreciate everything here and even though I’m complaining that does not mean I hate it here but more that I try to point out things that aren’t working in hopes for finding a better understanding or a better way of dealing with it. So now that this disclaimer is out in the open, let’s start with the rant.
The other I went out to have lunch with one of my senior colleagues at university. Since it was quite hot I rolled up the sleaves of my shirt and my colleague saw the very end of the tattoo that I have on my left arm. She asked me what it means and I explained it to her. Parts of it states the word ‘honesty’ in different languages (the languages of my students) Lies in Thailand aren’t like lies in other countries (aha!) because people here do not want to say something negative (translation: they don’t want to lose face) to others. So they will say something that is not true at first (so it’s a lie while they are saying it) in the hope that it will become true later so it will not become a lie then. Only if it does not become true it might be a lie but because people don’t like to fight and remember the bad things from the past this is not a problem.