Let's get some things straight first. Yes, this blog is written in English and no it is not my mother tongue. But there are far more people who understand English out there. I write this blog as "the happy farang", farang is the Thai word for foreigner and it has no negative connotation contrary to the word foreigner in many other languages. If you want to know more about the origin of the word and all that I suggest you consult Wikipedia or something of the likes. So we are clear on these points now. Let's continue the rant.
Four months ago I boarded a plane heading for Bangkok. I was gonna take a small vacation and then start looking for a job. The first part went really well, the latter is still going on.
Most farang who come here take up a job as an English teacher, which is the easiest way of earning money in this town. I was keeping this as a last resort, I didn't want to be just another English teacher among all the other expats. I applied for many a job and contrary to Europe, if they are not interested in you, they just don't reply to your emails. It's a real bummer when you get an email starting with "We are sorry to inform you...", but it is actually more depressing when you don't get any replies at all. And if you get a reply it takes them so long to send it. Apparently it is even worse in South-America, but I'm not applying there, so I don't care.
So after not receiving all those replies I thought I'd give the English teaching a go. What I didn't know was that people from English speaking countries seem to have a monopoly on these jobs. Yes it's true. Apparently you have more chances of getting struck by lightning within the next ten seconds. But I don't give up. I have to enforce my resume. So I take an English proficiency test, known as the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication), Google it, which proves me with the knowledge that my English is near perfect. And by near perfect I mean 99.9%. It always feels nice when English folk ask me "whereabouts in England are you from". I'm not from old Blighty, I resort from the continent. No one ever guesses where I come from. We don't have a specific look or a specific accent. We could be from anywhere. ALthough when I meet some Germans, they always ask me if I'm from Switzerland, maybe I have some accent in German, although I don't use any Swiss vocabulary, apart from muesli.
Nevertheless, Australians tell me they cannot understand Englishmen from the north and Americans from Texas have trouble conversing with Kiwis. But everyone understands me and I understand everyone. So I will crack the monopoly. Just a little more time is needed.
In the meantime I landed a job teaching Dutch in a multinational company. Everyhing is possible in the Big Mango.
People know, or think they know, Bangkok and Thailand from watching "The Beach" and "Bangkok Dangerous", but that is Hollywood. Nothing from what I have seen in those movies I have seen here. This is a different movie, it's called "You are in Bangkok and you will enjoy it". You can do whatever you like as long as you keep it legal. You don't want to end up in prison here, read the book of Warren Fellowes and you'll know what I'm talking about.
So, I hope you liked my introduction of this blog about the land of smiles. More to come soon.
