Selective English by the locals

[JaiDee]

One thing that has driven me absolutely nuts during the high seasons I have spent in Thailand since 2000 is the way Thai people selectively use the English language only when it suits THEIR needs precisely.

Of course most Thai's we westerners deal with speak very good english, to their credit; from the girl at the 7/11 who rings up my Iced Tea and chips to even the newest foot massage girl just off the bus from Issan, and of course almost all the hookers and bar girls we interact with, their english is usually quite admirable and certainly better than the non-existent Thai which 99% of us visitors use while visiting their fine country.

But have you ever noticed how it can come and go? Mention words like; money, customer, farang, baht, food [Thai only], drink [any brand], visa, jewelry, travel, friends, bar fine, lady drink, help out your family, "want to come to my room and have anal intercourse for 2000 baht" and any other words or phrases like that and it comes through loud and clear.

Then we have slightly more difficult levels of english, as in "remember what we talked about last night?", "you have boyfriend?", "didn't we agree on X amount of baht and not Y amount", "where is Lek tonight", "You have to go to the hospital AGAIN to see a sick friend?" and similar questions which may make them a bit uncomfortable and suddenly their english goes right out the window! "Me speak english nid noi, sorry", whereas just a day or 2 earlier they could have applied for a job at Merriam - Webster. Quite strange.

I bring this up right now because my European landlord had to go back to his homeland for a few weeks, leaving me grudgingly in charge of the little compound of 4 homes we live in. He and his Thai wife of 20 years are separated now and she lives just 1/2 mile away with her parents, and despite the fact she knows THREE languages very well, her previous command of english now seems to be gone; again, quite strange. One of the tenants here is having problems with their stove, so I wrote to the guy and he says "I called Surinya to go help them, but we talked for a few minutes and she couldn't understand what I was saying so I sent her 3 SMS messages and she says she couldn't read them and she doesn't get what the problem is".

Cool.....so a 42 year old lady who has spoken english for 30 years and fluently for the last 10 all of a sudden loses that ability....this problem should be in medical journals somewhere. So the lazy renter who is now running the compound [me] has to do the leg work of finding a repairman, fixing the stove, and paying the bill, all because this lady has run into a situation she doesn't want to deal with; again, quite common amongst Thai's and something we all have dealt with if we have stayed here for a while.

LOF; Land of Frustrations

[pdogg]

Astute observation JaiDee!

555, my daily chuckle. :D