Cool link!
But but but...What would you have done differently?

I have the same question as above.

I'm not sure that I would have done anything differently. Even if I did, I would probably have made the same f**kups and mistakes that I did here. There's an English cliche, 'you lean by making mistakes...'

I've made millions of mistakes here but it's hard to think of specific examples... Here are a couple...

asking people (esp. guys) to go out with me alone, then getting really upset when I'm accused of dating someone else's bf/gf. In the west going to see a movie or drink coffee / beer with a male friend isn't a 'date' in the romantic sense of the word. It's OK to hang out with your close male friends, even if they are seeing someone else. Here, its a definite no-go area.

pestering friends for opinions about contraversial things, or teasing them about their sheep mentality

The biggest one is probably assuming that people that smile are happy... (though... even though I now know that in Thailand smiles don't equal happiness, after a week in a very cold, grey and gloomy England I can't help looking at people here and thinking that they look much happier than people back home. I guess cultural beliefs, engrained since childhood (smile = happy) are hard to shake...

If I'd seen this before, I would probably have been more careful in the way that I behaved towards my Thai friends.

I think the pictures hightlight just how big the differences between the 2 cultures actually are. I like that fact that the artist presents them as total opposites. As an English person, it's very easy (and wrong) to assume that, just because someone speaks good English, (and most of my Thai friends in my 1st year here spoke fairly fluent English... as my Thai wasn't good enough to be able to communicate with anyone else), likes English movies, western styles and trends etc... they also think the same way as you too.

Its a very dangerous assumption to make and its sooo not true. Sometime people who speak excellent English, hang out in western places can be very, very conservative in their way of thinking.

I guess it also shows how wrong I am to expect my Thai friends to be able understand the way that I think and feel, or, to be able to think the same way that I do.

The last sentence didn't copy/ paste...

I would have been much more tolerant of my Thai friends.

Kerrie,
Looks like you didn't "just learn by mistake", you learned the hard way too....Well.. all the f**ked up stuff...just part of growing up and getting to know their way of life...'Their'<<< I am Thai...But I have been living in the UK (Brighton mostly) since 1989 I could say that I know both cultures and I totally understand what you have been going through...I don't know what you do but judging from being in Thailand for 3 years, came back home and back there again, you're probably work there. I hope it gets easier for you ...'smiling =! happy' aside you get the sunshine more often than here.
and the glorious food!

As to football...I am not a great fan. I don't have the team I support...may be I want Brighton and Hove Albion to do well and get somewhere but I don't really follow closely. I do watch England matches and feel the same as you and Tony do...the different is there must be someone watching the telly to report what's going on so I do some surfing on my laptop in front of the telly during the matches...hee hee.

Have a nice day and have a nice weekend.

I might just add your blog to mind, hope that's alright.

Ta

sure.. go ahead.. will add yours too... I like the way you write (in English.... can't read the Thai bits very well....)

This one's pretty similar...

//www.funenclave.com/fun-stuff/german-culture-versus-chinese-culture-13076.html