Life with the Thai Wife

[urleft]

My Dad and I were discussing my living in Thailand (he cannot understand how I gave up my job, home, and life in the USA to move to a third world country).  He asked me how well I was able to communicate with my Thai Wife.

 
I replied truthfully that it is really much not different than living with an American wife, we continue to fail to communicate, and women being women just naturally know how to disrupt men’s lives. 
 
I have a belief that men expect something to be in a certain place.  Women have the innate ability to move that object into a man’s blind spot.  This morning I was making coffee in my French Press and went to reach for the wooden spoon I kept there to stir the coffee.  It was not in the plastic container that is has been kept in since last year. 
 
I looked around and could not find it, so I went to the other room and asked the TW where was my wooden spoon?  She said it was in a bottle next to hot water, and when I rechecked  sure enough it was there.  Literally less than 10 cm from its usual location, but I did not see it when I first looked.  The wife instinctively located it on my blind spot. 
 
My contention is that women are women regardless of race/nationality.  And even if you have the same native language you will not properly communicate, so not sharing the native language is not really significant.
 
 

[Starman]

RCI at it's best. 55555555555555555555555555555555555555.

[davureborn]

Well that's that thread succinctly defined by SM, yet again proving his metal and the universality of his encompassing knowledge of all things. A true Renaissance spirit.
Just to prove that he hasn't quite managed to kill the thread stone dead:
I frequently had English and American customers in Switzerland that complained that their previous Swiss gardeners didn't understand what they wanted. As it quite often turned out, I often didn't understand them either.
As far as not finding things when your carefully organised (not immediately obvious but I know where everything is) workshop gets invaded by the wife who then puts stuff back on the wrong hook, I have been suffering from whatever the syndrome is called for 40 years.
555555555555555555 isn't that funny?

[Freddy]

Not so much a communication issue but on the subject of workshops and finding tools.
A few months ago I spent a couple of days completely clearing and organising a small workshop attached to our garage. All tools on hooks and easily accessible. Built a workbench, put up shelves and some racks to store longer items at ceiling level. Not anprogessional job by workshop standards but I was happy with the result and content that I was a little more organised than previously.

A couple of weeks ago I arrived home to find that my wife's brother had visited and delivered about 30 sacks of rice. Very nice of him I guess however I no longer have a workshop. I have a rice store. I have no idea if my tools still remain in the same positions behind the rice mountain or indeed, if they are there at all.

My wife's Mum eats the hard rice of which we have 20+ sacks. She's 90+ years and doesn't eat that much.m
The rest of us (3) eat the soft rice of which we also have 20+ sacks.

Yesterday I suggested that maybe we could give some of the rice to our poorer neighbours. Not sure why but apparently this is a bad idea?

Not sure when I will be able to access a tool again. Maybe never.

[olavhome]

Thais dont know the difference between about what belong to them and what belongs to other.
That seems spesially related to falangs in Family.
Guess they have discussed the issue With Your wife and all agreed on the storing was a good idea.
So then, why ask you ?? :-) :-)

[Freddy]

In fairness, the rice has been given to us and is not being stored for other family members. There is just far to much of it. Personally I would just like to keep what we will consume in a year and give the rest away.

[urleft]

Hope your tools remain safe.  Mine get legs even though I try to keep my private tool chest. 

[Freddy]

Safe as houses currently. No Bugger can get to them.

[mahdam]

In fairness, the rice has been given to us and is not being stored for other family members. There is just far to much of it. Personally I would just like to keep what we will consume in a year and give the rest away.

Freddy I am having difficulty getting my head around your Brother in law GIVING!! you some 30 bags of rice.
30 large bags of rice at approx 80 kilo's a bag is 2,400 kilo's if you took them for sale today you may get 9bht per kilo that's 21,600bht
This years crazy government rice subsidy scheme requires farmers to store the rice until a date possibly in April. Then they say they will pay IRO 14 bht per kilo.That increases the value of your rice to something like 33,600!! This is why the rice mills are almost deserted now, because everyone is storing their rice waiting for the subsidy price. I currently cannot get into my car port as it is full to the neck with rice from two family members who do not have storage facility's of their own. Just saying.

[Freddy]

Not sure why he gave so much this year. Double what he has given us previous years and we still had around 10 sacks when this latest lot arrived. My best guess is that it is his contribution to taking care of his Mum, a thank you to his Sister for the same. He only visits once a year, brings the rice and says hi to Mum.

[Freddy]

Oh, and they aren't 80 kilo sacks. Maybe 40 to 50 kilo.

[Freddy]

Can anyone advise why I have a cake image on my posts and how I stop it.

[Starman]

Can anyone advise why I have a cake image on my posts and how I stop it.

It's your birthday.

Happy Birthday.

[Freddy]

Thanks. Didn't know the site did that. It's made me want cheesecake.

[smoooth2]

Like the OP said, my Mum was horrified when she learned of my move to Thailand. She imagined I was going to be living under a sheet of tin in a rice field somewhere. Her knowledge of Thailand was zero, which was just a bit higher than mine at the time.

But for me, it was the great adventure of the unknown. I'd been chatting with several Internet Thai girls for months before I decided to jump off the deep end and fly to LOS to meet one of them. A Buriram lass as it turned out, but I could've ended up in any Province, depending on where the dart hit the Thai map.

I didn't know shit from clay about Thailand. First girl was a gold digger. Dumped her, but I stayed in Buriram, annoying my newly found several expat mates for company.

One of my farang mates had a Thai sister-in-law. hubba hubba. She was far better looking, and much more fun than my grungy farang mates.

(only joking lads .... for those that know me)

Anyway .... we've been together 4 years. Married 15 months. Being married to a Thai has changed many beliefs I carried all my life.

I'm much more tolerant, patient and humble now, and it's all down to the vast cultural difference between Thailand and Farangland. If I want to have a happy, peaceful and uncomplicated life with my wife here in Buriram, I simply have to alter the way I've always thought about, and done many things.

No big deal for me on most occasions, and my wife thinks I'm pretty cool for at least trying to go with the local culture and persevering with the weird ways of doing things. Not weird for her, but she knows it is for me.

Every day she does, or says something that really gives me a beaut laugh. Probably because she's a little zany. That alone is worth more to me than everything else. I'm happy.

Go with the flow and don't stress over the small stuff, or shit you don't understand.

Works for me.