Thais take their shoes off when entering a house or office. The King and Royal Family are beloved and must not be talked badly about.
Very few Thai people speak english and for those that do it can be very difficult to understand what they're saying. I feel like I'm constantly playing real-life charades.
There are a lot of street dogs. The city is smelly. A mixture of exhaust fumes, trash, and rotten food. There are squatty potties here, which are basically holes in the ground. They generally smell bad and are awkward to use. I get genuinely excited when bathrooms are clean, have running water, toilet paper, and/or soap. It's a rarity to find a bathroom with all of those things.
Thais don't eat breakfast food like we do in the states. Their breakfast is the same as their lunch and dinner. Buying traditional breakfast food here is always expensive because it's not in high demand. There are no food standards here, so when I come home I can eat anything and everything, anywhere. Thais love smoothies, green tea, fruit, rice, and noodles. Portions are small though and all of the foreign students struggle with getting enough to eat. We always are ordering multiple dishes.
The only items taxed here are cars and houses so they are outrageously expensive. Most Thais drive motorbikes because that's all they car afford. Motorbikes don't have to follow the road laws of cars so they drive on both sides of the road and on the sidewalk. Motorbike taxis are one of the cheapest forms of transportation, but I haven't been brave enough to take one yet.
Thais aim to have white skin and so Thailand beauty products are full of whitening agents. Why, you may wonder? People with dark skin work outside all day, which means they have less money and are of a lower social class. Thai girls wear a lot of make-up. Thais have long, complicated names so nearly every Thai has a nickname which to native english speakers are very unique and funny. Earth, Jeans, Moss, and Pry are a few examples of nicknames of students in one of my classes.
Ladyboys are boys that dress, act, and for all intents and purposes are girls. Many even get surgery to become a female. There are very popular in Thailand. Sometimes it is fairly noticeable that someone is a ladyboy, but often times it's not very easy to tell them apart. They often walk in a very feminine way and draw their last word ("ka" for girls, "krap" for boys) "ka" out more than a girl normally does. Most Thais are fairly tolerable of them because it has become so popular. There are a lot of ladyboy shows here, which from what I've heard are like drag shows.
Already I've become so accustomed to so many 'Thai' ways of doing things that it doesn't stand out to me as different anymore. It was rather difficult for me to write this blog post because I was struggling to remember what things stood out to me when I first arrived here. Still, I am always learning things about Thai culture that are new and surprising. I'll keep you posted.
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