Action Figure Overload: How Accurate Are the Thai Versions of the Viral AI Trend? [S7.E67]

Greg 00:00:05 On this extra long episode, we have some fun critiquing the recent trend of Thailand action figures.

Ed 00:00:11 So if you've seen the memes or wonder what a doll created from Thai stereotypes looks like, you'll laugh at this episode of the Bangkok Podcast.

Greg 00:00:33 Sawa. And welcome to the Bangkok Podcast. My name is Greg Jorgensen, a Canadian who came to Thailand in 2001 on a Wii adventure, but in the ensuing years learned that the true adventure was in my heart the whole time for sure.

Ed 00:00:47 And I met Knuth, an American who came to Thailand on a one year teaching contract 24 years ago, fell in love with the idea that flip flops are socially acceptable footwear for almost any occasion, so I never left.

Greg 00:01:01 True.

Ed 00:01:01 True. I'm a flip flop guy. I like him. Yeah.

Greg 00:01:04 I tell you how. Years and years ago, I was showing some friends around town, and we wanted to stop at Sirocco at the top of State Tower. You know, the like.

Ed 00:01:10 Oh, yeah.

Ed 00:01:11 I yeah, I think I know where this is going.

Greg 00:01:13 Yeah. The dress code. Right. So you have to wear no shorts.

Ed 00:01:17 You can't wear flip flops.

Greg 00:01:18 There were no flip flops, but one of the group had a pair of flip flops on. And so we went up and we're like, well, let's, let's let's try it. So we went up and sure enough, they were like, nope, you can't come in. And I said, all right, we'll figure something out. So everyone else went in. So me and this guy, we went downstairs and we got in a tuk tuk and we bombed up to Pat Paul and we bought a pair of black socks. And then he put the black socks on, and then he put the flip flops on like overalls on the black socks. His flip flops were black, so they sort of blended together. So it looked like he was wearing.

Ed 00:01:50 Oh.

Greg 00:01:50 That's great shoes. And we went up again and they didn't even look at his shoes.

Greg 00:01:53 They didn't even notice.

Ed 00:01:54 Oh, funny. Well they're quite they're quite strict there. So listeners out there at the top of State Tower, they're quite strict. It's one of the it's one of the few places in Thailand you can't go with flip flops.

Greg 00:02:04 That's right.

Ed 00:02:05 Yeah. All right. We want to give a big thanks to all of our patrons who support the show. Patrons get every episode a day early. Behind the scenes photos of our interviews, a heads up to send questions to upcoming guests and access to our discord server to chat with me, Greg, and other listeners around the world. But best of all, patrons also get an unscripted, uncensored bonus episode every week where we riff on current events and Bangkok topics. On this week's bonus show, we chatted about my Songkran experience hiding inside from the water, Greg's Songkran experience in Shanghai, and some of the takeaways he had visiting mainland China for the first time, and discussions about using Google's new Gemini Live feature, which tells you what your camera is pointing at, as well as reads Thai text to you in Thai, which will hopefully be another tool that I can use to finally, finally learn to speak.

Ed 00:02:59 Tap. To learn how to become a patron and get all this good stuff. Plus full access to over 700 bonus and regular back episodes. Click the support button at the top of our website.

Greg 00:03:12 I gotta check that out. You let me know if it's good for helping learn Thai, and I'll follow in your footsteps. Ride your coattails.

Greg 00:03:18 And real quick before we start, I forgot to mention this in the bonus show where I talked about my trip to China, but I want to give a shout out to to our buddy Greg, who, spends most of his time in Cambodia, but who happened to be staying just a few blocks from my hotel in Shanghai. Nice. yeah. Long time listener of the show. And, so we we met up at McDonald's for a coffee and walked around a little bit. So always cool to meet listeners in different cities. And, shout out to Greg and.

Ed 00:03:41 McDonald's American Soft power in Shanghai.

Greg 00:03:44 Yeah. As his suggestion, I said, let's get a coffee.

Greg 00:03:46 And he said, I've noticed that Shanghai doesn't really have a coffee culture, big one. So he's like the honestly, the best coffee I found is at McDonald's. So let's go there.

Ed: That's great. That's great. Love it, love it.

Greg 00:03:56 We're loving it. We were loving it.

Greg 00:03:59 All right. On this episode, we are going to respond to something that you may have seen online recently, and that is all of those AI generated action figures for people, countries, jobs, identities, celebrities and random stereotypes, many of which that I saw on my social media were for Thailand. So to have a bit of lighthearted fun this week, we thought we discussed some of the more popular ones we've seen, talk about whether it's accurate or not, and maybe even pick our favorite. And of course, at the end we will discuss our own action figures, which we got AI to create as well. So, editor, you saw these going around like I did. what was your first thought when you started seeing them going around everywhere?

Ed 00:04:40 I gotta say, some of them I think are pretty funny.

Ed 00:04:42 That's that's why I want to do the show, to kind of critique. Some of them are, I think, a little bit lame, but a few of them, there's some insight going into them. There's really two there's really two things going on. The first thing is just knowing the stereotype, you know. So we've had we've done our own show on expat stereotypes or Thai stereotypes. So there's you need knowledge of Thailand and Thai culture and expat culture first. And then the next level is does the eye capture that? Like is this a good representation. So listeners out there, this is going to be a little bit of a tricky show. If you are audio only, you're going to have to listen to our descriptions of the AI generated images. But we will put the we will put the images on the website so you can actually check the images you want. But these are also very easily Google Google able. So we will.

Ed 00:05:35 Talk about the image. And then you could always Google action figure, you know, whichever one it is, you know, yeah.

Ed 00:05:41 Expat in Phuket or whatever it is, you could probably find it that way. But mostly we're going to be describing images that we're we're looking at ourselves. And then, both Greg and I took the trouble to mess around and create our own figures. And so we'll talk about those. last.

Greg 00:05:57 Well, you you did that. And I got to say, I'm quite happy how mine turned out. He's a little bit more ripped than I am, but I'm not complaining.

Ed 00:06:04 Yeah, it actually turned out pretty well, considering I didn't actually use a photo of you. It was just a description.

Greg 00:06:09 There's not a lot to go with. Bald man with goatee. That's pretty much all there is. So let's let's go through here. We've got we've got nine to go through here. And we're just going to go through and talk about what they're what they're called. And the little accoutrements, the extras that the action figure comes with. That's right. And let me let me just start the first one here.

Greg 00:06:30 This one is called Patea, Old Boy. And it's a photo of a farang man with a balding head, a Songkran style Hawaiian flower shirt open.

Ed 00:06:43 He's got the flip flops.

Greg 00:06:44 He's got the flip flops, the green cargo shorts. A bit of a paunch punch. And, Yeah. What do you think? Do you think it's an accurate representation of the.

Ed 00:06:51 I gotta say, I think this is actually one of the better ones because he's because he's kind of middle aged and above. So he's balding. He's got the belly. he's got, I'm not sure. it's a good question. Kind of those wine style shirts. Are they that popular outside of Songkran? I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't be surprised. Being in a beach town. and then, of course, the flip flops. And then most of the action figures have three items with them. Some of them have more than three, but his three items are a Chang shirt, a Chang beer, and then an ATM machine now.

Ed 00:07:28 So I think that's not bad. I think Chang shirts are quite popular with the retired old dudes in Patea. Chang beer is cheap, so I like that a lot of these guys are on their pensioners or their guys. They're guys on a limited budget, so they tend to find happy hours. now the ATM. You know, I don't. Is that implying that there. You know, the ATM is there for, like, borrow money? I'm not sure exactly what the ATM is supposed to mean.

Greg 00:07:56 Oh, I got I got some insight into that.

Ed 00:07:58 Maybe that's. So what do you think the atom is supposed to symbolize?

Greg 00:08:01 Well, I think this is actually pretty smart. Smarter than than it first appears. Because this is a cash on ATM. Because it's green and red. I think I think classic ones are red, green and green and white.

Ed 00:08:12 Green and red. That's right. That's right.

Greg 00:08:13 That's correct. But you've probably seen it. There's a very famous I'm not famous, but it's a very.

Ed 00:08:20 Oh.

Greg 00:08:20 The meme often used photo that someone took of a nameless farang guy standing at a Corsican ATM with a Thai girl on either side of him, waiting for him to get money out.

Ed 00:08:33 With two Thai girls. Okay. So at least I was on the right track with with like the the implication. You're right. That is a very famous photograph.

Greg 00:08:40 So, so it is actually pretty insightful.

Ed 00:08:42 And it is. Yeah. So I gotta say, although it, you know, these are we are dealing with stereotypes. This is not we're not saying this applies to every old guy in here. So. So if you are an old guy and party that we know, this is, you know, this might be you, this might be this might hit close to home or it.

Greg 00:08:59 Might not say stereotypes come from somewhere. It's like when someone says, don't judge a book by its cover. I'm like, that's what covers are for. That's the whole reason for having a cover to judge what the book is about.

Ed 00:09:08 That's right. I gotta say, this is, I think one of the better ones. I think I think these guys really exist. This is not a great theory. It's not a myth.

Greg 00:09:19 That's right, that's right. You want to take the next one?

Ed 00:09:21 Sure. If I can get my internet work in here. Okay. Next one is a bit generic. but again, I actually like this one too. It's it's called content Creator in Thailand. Again listeners, if you're audio only you could Google this and I think you'd be able to find it. So if you Google action figure Thailand ChatGPT content creator, you'd get this one. And so this one is, kind of a generic looking foreign guy, but he's got the elephant pants, so that's a that's that's a thumbs up. That's a box checking thing. He's got, a vlogging camera that looks like some type of DJI like pocket thing, which is, which is very accurate. So these things.

Greg 00:10:01 Are. Yeah. It's a it's a pretty good little depiction of a.

Ed 00:10:05 Yeah. Like. Yeah like a small little camera you hold on a stick. So that's a thumbs up. And then you gotta love the toasty. So it's got it. It's got a ham and cheese toasty which I'm a huge fan of. Of course not. I don't eat ham but the ham and cheese toasty is, I think, classic foreign food, classic Frank Hamilton food. And what is the last thing is that the the nose stuff. What is that.

Greg 00:10:26 Yeah, it's the green. The green jar of, what do they call it? The stuff that you hold up to your, your nose and. Yeah.

Ed 00:10:34 Because, unlike Shanghai, we have a lot of car pollution and bad smells in Bangkok. So what do you think? I think this is another good one. I like the toasty. You know, the toasty. That's a nice touch.

Greg 00:10:46 I think it's pretty accurate because in recent months and even before that, I've seen many videos on Instagram and and other places that the content creators have done.

Greg 00:10:55 And it's like, you know, the popular one is when you show up in Thailand and it shows the guy holding the suitcase, getting off the plane, and he's running, and then he runs, you know, out of the airport. And then it cuts to him running down Sukhumvit, and then it cuts to him running down a soi, and then it cuts to him running into a, into a 7-Eleven. And then you see his hand outstretched and it goes through a few aisles and then goes right up to the toastie section.

Ed 00:11:17 Oh that's great. I've never seen that toastie. I love it that, you know, that could be me. Like like some nights when I'm hungry. You know, when I'm on my way home, you know, that's me. Like running into 7-Eleven to get the toasties. And the elephant pants are perfect. We've talked about how they have, oddly become almost a fashion statement among Thais, but they're still popular with with France. So I got to go thumbs up on the content creator.

Ed 00:11:41 The mini little DJI or the mini little vlogging camera is well done. It's a good touch.

Greg 00:11:47 Good one, I like it. Thumbs up. All right. Number three. The third one I thought I thought was a little bit, what's the word I'm thinking of?

Ed 00:11:54 Ooh, this is me. This is my favorite one.

Greg 00:11:56 Really?

Ed 00:11:56 I thought this might be my number one. We'll give our number one later. But anyway, so you explain what we're looking at.

Greg 00:12:01 Well, this one is just a pink package, and it doesn't look like it has a doll. Actually, the action figure looks.

Ed 00:12:08 More like an image, right?

Greg 00:12:10 Drawing. Yeah, but it's just called ploy, right? And the images of a of a cute girl with a couple of decorations in her hair, suspenders, a skirt. tattoos on both of her arms. And then the three little accessories that she's got in her package are a phone with a smashed, cracked screen.

Ed 00:12:29 I love.

Greg 00:12:29 It. A Louis Vuitton, what is probably a knockoff Louis Vuitton purse and a little buffalo with a bandaid on his head and a thermometer in his mouth.

Greg 00:12:39 A little sick buffalo.

Ed 00:12:40 Okay, I gotta say, I kind of like this one. the name ploy is very, very common. I'm. I'm gonna guess I've spent a little more time in, in the in the red light districts than you have over the years. I've been single for many years. Not that I hang out there a lot, but the name ploy is super common. Or I would say, statistically, I'm not sure I feel that nicknames such as Noack and Ploy are super common. Yeah, there's, like, there's tons of noise out there. A million or tons of Noakes out there. Noakes employees are the most common. So ploy is okay. And, the way she's dressed is pretty common for, like, a beer, beer girl or bar girl or whatever you want to call it. Those devil horn things. That's a touch. That's something that that is a pretty common thing. And those those arm tattoos, it's like a thing you stretch over your arms so they're not real.

Ed 00:13:35 So that's why it's got like the red. See, clearly you haven't spent as much time in these places as I have. These are the these are like the stretchy things on your arms. Right. okay. And then, I'm, I happen to be a big fan of that. The, the, the phone screen is cracked. That's, that's like a good that's what I'm talking about. Like, to make this meme work, you actually need knowledge. You need cultural knowledge. So the cracked phone screen, that is a thing. not all girls, but it's common. These girls work in these parts. Obviously, they don't have that much money, so sometimes their screen gets cracked and they can't afford a new one. Yeah. So a surprising number of them have broken screens. And then that particular brown purse is there's millions of them in Thailand. Yeah. Even some of them, even some of my students like the, the fake Louis Vuitton brown like plasticky purse. There's, there's millions of them in this country.

Greg 00:14:30 I think they're so ugly. I don't know why anyone likes them.

Ed 00:14:32 But I don't like him now. Actually, the thing I like least about it is the little sick buffalo. Now, this is supposed to be listeners. I'm sure most of you know this, but if you don't, you need to know it, because it's it's part of Ty Law expat ty law. Yeah. And the the the idea is you meet a girl in a bar and, eventually she asks you for money because her family's buffalo is sick.

Greg 00:14:59 Right. It's an old.

Ed 00:15:00 That's the old, myth. Like, I'm not really a myth, but the reason I don't like it is I. Is it really a thing? Still, I think I feel like this is a thing from the 90s. My family's buffalo is like. I feel I feel it's it's it's a it's a bit ridiculous now.

Greg 00:15:17 Dude, that's what I think. Whenever I hear someone getting ripped off by a gem scam or a suit scam, like, you're like.

Ed 00:15:22 People still, you're like a decade. Still people still still doing this. Yeah, yeah. So actually, the Little Buffalo character is kind of cute. He's got a thermometer in his mouth, like he's sick. So I don't know how they convince ChatGPT to put to get put a sick buffalo in there or this is a good if they use ChatGPT. It worked pretty well. So, overall I think we're three out of three. I think this is an accurate stereotype. This is an accurate stereotype.

Greg 00:15:49 I think it's accurate. It's a little bit I think it's bordering on sort of like lame slash offensive, but it comes from somewhere. Yeah, I think it's.

Ed 00:15:59 Well she's got a nice smile. She has a nice smile.

Greg 00:16:01 Yeah. And as a bit of a side note here, man flying back from, from, Shanghai, I turned on the old, rush Hour movies with Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, and I watched the first one, and, it was it was fun. A nice little nostalgic throwback, but the second one where they go to Hong Kong, dude.

Greg 00:16:23 And I am not some, like, social justice warrior, ultra left wing.

Ed 00:16:27 You're not a super sensitive right, dude?

Greg 00:16:29 Yeah. But man, the Asian stereotypes in that movie were so bad I had to turn it off. I was like, this is just not because I was offended. It's just because it was so lame. But God.

Ed 00:16:43 I remember seeing an outtake, from either the first or second movie, and Jackie Chan is making fun of Chris Tucker because he can't say one word in Chinese and it's just gold because Jackie Chan, he's got decent English, but was still an accent. And I think Chris Tucker was like teasing him for his accent. And Jackie Chan is like, dude, you can't say one word in my language. And then he's trying to get him to say one word in Chinese, and it's just horrible. It just shows you how Anglo centric the world is.

Greg 00:17:13 Yeah, totally. Totally. But if you want to, sort of a cringey throwback to how things were 20 years ago, check out.

Ed 00:17:20 The pre woke era. The pre woke. Right. Right. Okay. Number four. This one I think is a little bit lame I see where they're going. But this is the first one I think is under under executed.

Greg 00:17:32 So it's a bit simplistic.

Ed 00:17:33 Yeah. This one is Chiang Mai expat. They've failed to create a proper dial once again as kind of an image I see where they're going. So the ching of my expat is a guy standing there. He's got like a MacBook in his hand, which I guess is fairly accurate. You got a lot of digital nomads. Yeah, he's wearing a mask. Oh, that's a little bit of a good insight because Chiang Mai does have bad air.

Greg 00:17:53 Yeah.

Ed 00:17:53 So that's a little bit of a okay. So that's a good localization thing. Yeah. He's got a backpack. And then the three objects appear to be oh an inhaler. Oh I guess that's another call out to the bad.

Greg 00:18:07 I think that's yeah I think that's pretty good actually.

Greg 00:18:09 An inhaler yeah.

Ed 00:18:10 I didn't it's funny because I have an inhaler because I have allergies. So when I first saw this I was thinking, how do we know he's got allergies? Is that a stereotype that the Chiang Mai, the Chiang Mai ex-pats have allergies? But I guess that's another call out to the air. Then the other thing is supposed to be a little bit of book, a book and it says startup ideas, which which I guess is a reference to digital nomads.

Greg 00:18:34 Yeah. And I've had a little bit of exposure to the digital nomads scene in Chiang Mai. And it is hardcore, man. Like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yikes.

Ed 00:18:41 Everyone's got plans for making millions online.

Greg 00:18:44 Yeah.

Ed 00:18:44 Yeah. How you two can teach other people how to make millions online.

Greg 00:18:48 Exactly. Yeah.

Ed 00:18:49 Yeah. And then I guess the third thing is supposed to be Bitcoin. Like, I'm not sure what. What is the hidden image of it?

Greg 00:18:57 Looks like a water bottle for a bicycle but with a Bitcoin logo on it.

Greg 00:19:01 Yeah. Maybe it's like it's like merch for like your friend's latest.

Ed 00:19:05 Oh, that's.

Greg 00:19:05 A.

Ed 00:19:06 Good point or something. Yeah. Okay. That's an interesting thing. Maybe it's crypto coin swag or something. Yeah, yeah. So okay so this one. Okay. It's got. Okay. It's not bad. Maybe I was a little bit too harsh on it. It is. It's teasing. It's teasing the digital nomads. So if you listen, I know we got some listeners in the digital nomad community. This one might sting. It might sting a little bit. but I don't know. I feel like it's just not executed as well as the others. What do you think?

Greg 00:19:35 Yeah, I agree. I think there's the seeds of good ideas are there, but I think mostly the whatever AI generated, it didn't do a very good job in generating.

Ed 00:19:43 It because like a a book of startup ideas doesn't make sense. I think they had they had trouble how to how to visualize. Right.

Ed 00:19:49 The startup thing. but I would say okay, not not not horrible. Yeah.

Greg 00:19:57 All right. Moving on to the fifth one. This one made me laugh. this one is called white Guy in Pie Pie, but it's actually pronounced by. But you know, the little town up in Hong Kong province that's gotten a lot of press lately, right? And it's a dude wearing, this one really looks like an action figure. He's even got the little joint connectors on his arms. True action vehicles. And he's wearing, elephant patterned pants, although not the traditional elephant pants that we're more familiar with. He, shirtless, got a lot of muscles. He's got blonde dreadlocks.

Ed 00:20:28 That's pretty accurate, I think.

Greg 00:20:30 Pretty accurate. And he's, He's got two little accessories with him. One is an old style, old style acoustic guitar, and the other one appears to be sort of an elephant mask.

Ed 00:20:41 I don't know what that. Yeah, I don't know what that is. So this one I think is also a somewhat of a failure.

Ed 00:20:47 It's I feel like it's kind of half finished, like they should have done more iterations. So number one, I like the white dreads. I like the fact that he's kind of ripped. You know, I think I talked about this a few years back when I, when I did some Muay Thai, I was down in got got thou, there's a community of dudes who are on the one hand, they're kind of hippies, but on the other hand, they're into fitness. So it's a little bit weird. Normally you don't think of hippies as like, any fitness, but there is an expat That is like these like yoga dudes, or they do jiu jitsu, so they're kind of ripped, but they're huge stoners, okay. They're there. They're like. They're like tatted up, ripped hippies. And to me, I connected with that. Like that's I can relate to these guys. and so I think that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to. Yeah. Capture that. So the acoustic guitar is perfect for pie.

Ed 00:21:43 It's like classic artists enclave. But I don't know what the other thing is supposed to be. So this might be this might be so insider that we don't even know. So this might be some inside Pi thing. It looks like a mask of like a guy with horns or bangs or something.

Greg 00:22:02 Big ears or it's like it's like a elephant human hybrid or something.

Ed 00:22:06 Yeah. So listeners, maybe you can figure out white guy and Pi. So I see where they're going. It's got it's got some parts. I would call this a partial success. It's kind of half baked. Half baked.

Greg 00:22:19 Good. Yeah, exactly. Half baked idea. All right.

Ed 00:22:23 Okay. Number six. Number six. This one. I like. This one I like. it's called British Lad in Phuket. and this guy is, kind of slim and trim. Younger dude, which makes sense. he's got he's shirtless, which is pretty classic. I always feel weird when I see foreigners without shirts, even though, you know, if you're close to the beach or on the beach.

Ed 00:22:46 All right. But if you're walking down a, you know, a row of bars, right? It's it's not really a Thai thing to to. Only foreigners do that.

Greg 00:22:56 Put a shirt on.

Ed 00:22:57 That's right.

Greg 00:22:58 So read the room.

Ed 00:22:59 That's right. Read the room. and he's got the fanny pack. Which, Which. It's funny. Or something like a fanny pack. It's not quite a fanny pack. It's kind of a strap. And I think that is a younger guy thing.

Greg 00:23:10 Yeah, well, you see that in all the Thai street vendors and stuff that like the fanny pack, except it's going, you know, around their the shoulder, around their torso. That's right. I think it's hilarious. I think it's very accurate. I've seen that a million times.

Ed 00:23:23 Yeah. and there's a sign for Bangla Road, which is like the main strip. And then you're gonna have to help me out with this stuff. There is a suspicious looking white powder in a little packet and that I'm guessing.

Ed 00:23:35 I'm guessing that might be accurate. So I'm not sure exactly what the white part is supposed to represent, but I think that's not not inaccurate.

Greg 00:23:45 You're you're you're the more social, one of us than I am. So. But yeah, I think that's pretty accurate. A lot of people come to, to Phuket to let off some steam, and sometimes that includes a little bit of stimulants.

Ed 00:23:57 Yeah. Some party. Party drugs? Yeah. And then what? What else do we got here? What?

Greg 00:24:01 They've also got that. That specific hat. Yeah.

Ed 00:24:04 It's like the cap. Yeah.

Greg 00:24:06 Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to describe. I know what it's trying to represent. I think it's trying to represent. Sort of. I'm probably dating myself here, but, like, rave culture or dancing. And oh. A black cap with a brim that sort of. Comes down over the eyes and goes, oh, that's right, that's right. Right around your.

Ed 00:24:21 Head. I think that's accurate.

Ed 00:24:22 I mean, I have no idea if that's still a thing or how hip it is now. What's the thing on the bottom supposed to be?

Greg 00:24:29 It looks like. Oh, I was gonna say it's a water bottle. But now I look at the cap. I think it's eyedrops.

Ed 00:24:35 Oh, shit. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so the drug. Like a drug.

Greg 00:24:40 Yeah.

Ed 00:24:40 Yeah, yeah. So if you're a British lad in Phuket, we apologize. But this is strongly implying the the ingestion of of party drugs and the attempt to hide such ingestion, I think.

Greg 00:24:55 Oh, and I just looked up the script on the, on the little eye drop bottle says Maro maro. But I type that into Google and it gives me a brand of eyedrops called Muro.

Ed 00:25:08 Oh, I see, so it's okay. I didn't know anything about that. Okay, so this is partying British lads in British. I'm guessing. I'm going to guess. It's not my world. I'm guessing this is fairly accurate.

Ed 00:25:22 I wouldn't say it's super insightful. So to me, this is kind of middling, but not it's not not inaccurate.

Greg 00:25:29 It's not an accurate, but it's not particularly clever either.

Ed 00:25:32 Agreed. Agreed. Kind of. Kind of. On the nose. On the nose. All right, number seven. This one is a bit dark. it's soy six bar manager. So I'm guessing this is a reference to pot of soy six. So, I think soy six and partier is is often considered kind of the the center of the seediness. There's there's there's a lot of there's a lot of seediness in here, but I think soy six is often considered the epicenter. You know.

Greg 00:26:01 The oh, I was thinking Bangkok soy six. I'm like, what? What's on soy six? There's condos.

Ed 00:26:06 This is supposed to be patio soy six. But this is supposed to be the bar manager guy. So he looks. He looks like a, he is a frog guy who looks like he he hasn't slept in days or is extremely hungover, and he's kind of tatted up.

Ed 00:26:22 He's got a t shirt that says Night Wish, which I guess is supposed to imply that could be a bar name.

Greg 00:26:28 or it could be there's a there's a really awesome metal operatic metal band from Norway called night. Which night?

Ed 00:26:35 Okay, that could be cool. You're okay. That's the positive thing. And then, the three things that he's got, which are a little bit sketchy. One thing is a bottle of one thing is a bottle of saying so, which I guess is, that's probably accurate. Cheap whiskey, popular with, foreigners. and then, some pills, some pills that are labeled azithromycin, which is an antibiotic, so.

Greg 00:27:00 Oh, is it okay.

Ed 00:27:01 Yeah. And then what is the middle thing? Just a credit card.

Greg 00:27:04 Let's say a credit card. Yeah. Oh, and it says the name on it is E beggar crow or something like that, but the middle one is beggar.

Ed 00:27:13 I don't know what that means. Maybe it's supposed to indicate that he's he's he's hitting the ATM, or he's living on credit, I guess.

Greg 00:27:20 Yeah. Yeah. To to to me, the whole vibe of this one just screams guy who got in way over his head, with an investment in Patea.

Ed 00:27:30 Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. Yeah. Guy. Yeah. In over his head would be a good way to put it. he looks like he's barely holding on, but he's got the thumbs up. I actually like his thumbs up. so this one, this one again, I'm going to go middling. Not so. It's a bit depressing. This is the darker side of the expat world. But yeah, again, not not totally inaccurate.

Greg 00:27:52 I also do like the touch too. I think it was a mistake on the I like he's wearing sandals and socks, but his toes are sticking out at the end of the sandals, so his socks only cover his his like shins and his heels, but not his toes. That's funny. That's good. All right. Going on to the next one. Number eight. This one is called White Girl on Companion.

Ed 00:28:15 I like.

Greg 00:28:15 This one. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. It shows, just an average looking girl with brown hair. She's wearing a blue bikini. Blue elephant pants. she's got a tattoo of what looks like an elephant on her left arm.

Ed 00:28:27 The, you know, the bikini top with the elephant pants and the bare feet on the beach. and then maybe in the pearl necklace. She looks like she's kind of got dreads. Almost a little bit. Almost. That's, So I, I like that this depiction. Yeah. And what are the objects?

Greg 00:28:44 The three little, action accoutrements she has with her from top to bottom. A yoga mat? Yeah. Yeah. a purple crystal. Which.

Ed 00:28:55 Right. Which is kind of a New Age thing. Yeah.

Greg 00:28:58 Yeah. I used to have a friend here the one time she was super into Reiki, and, she put this crystal in my hand, and she's like, can't you feel the vibrations? And I was like, no, I can't feel that.

Greg 00:29:08 And I'm like, no, it's a rock. And she got really mad at me. She thought I was lying. Oh, funny. And the last thing is as a bowl, a brass bowl, which I guess is like a meditation bowl.

Ed 00:29:19 That's right. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. So essentially, this is new age yoga girl on Pentagon. So I think this is accurate. I think the, the, I think the flaw in this one is the three items all relate to the same theme. So the right the superior ones, the three things are each different. So this is essentially yoga slash new age chicken Pangong which is a thing. So I mean actually all the island, the islands are super popular with yoga people, yoga chicks, yoga dudes. so I think this is accurate. but it's a bit kind of one note, like.

Greg 00:29:54 A bit boring.

Ed 00:29:55 Yeah. It's a it's it's like the last one. It's kind of on the nose.

Greg 00:30:00 Yeah, yeah. All right.

Greg 00:30:01 On the last one. What's going on?

Ed 00:30:03 Ooh. last one I like just because it's so cute. So this relates to, this relates to a popular meme. and this is another thing you can Google. So if you Google this, you might see the original meme, or then you might see this, action figure dial based on it, and it just says Thai Street Sweeper. And it's a picture of a very cute girl dressed as a street sweeper. And what this refers to is, apparently a real Thai street sweeper that became a viral kind of star because she happens to be very pretty with, like, a super cute smile.

Greg 00:30:43 Yeah. She's gorgeous.

Ed 00:30:44 Yeah. She's a basically a, Thai worker, literally a street sweeper, who then became, I don't know if she became a hit on Instagram or or TikTok. You know, I'm not. That's not my world. But. So the items here include, makeup, a camera, which, I guess, indicates that she is a viral star and then a red dress.

Ed 00:31:06 So maybe maybe in her Instagram role, she's kind of dressed up, dolled up. I guess what I'm trying to.

Greg 00:31:14 Say there's there's actually a bit more subtext here too. And the story behind this woman who was found, you know, on the street, sweeping streets, some some guy took her photo and uploaded it to some social media, and people were commenting about how beautiful she was, and it kind of took off. And then then she was photographed by, like, this super famous Thai photographer who dolled her up.

Ed 00:31:35 Like, oh, I didn't.

Greg 00:31:35 Know that. Yeah, yeah. He like, put her in like a costume, like all this cool makeup and like, a sultry dress and stuff like.

Ed 00:31:40 Oh, shit, I didn't know that. So she got, like, a real gig. A solid modeling gig from it.

Greg 00:31:43 Yeah. And the last I read about it was. Which was about a week ago now, as of recording. But like, she had quit her job as a street sweeper and she was pursuing this, like, modeling thing now.

Ed 00:31:53 Oh, awesome. I did not know that. I didn't I didn't know she she this actually led to her hitting it big. So this is good. We're promoting her. We want her to succeed. We want her to hit it big.

Greg 00:32:03 Right? So if you go on Google and just search like Thai Street Sweeper, professional model or something like that, you'll come up with the story and see your photos. But yeah, that's what it's referencing. And then the little camera and then one of the other little, little, accoutrements things here is, is looks like a stick. I don't know what that is.

Ed 00:32:19 Yeah, I don't.

Greg 00:32:20 Know what that is. Stick of the eye. Maybe. Maybe a stick. So she can just, like, whack away all the men who are going to be chasing her now.

Ed 00:32:25 Yeah. That's right.

Greg 00:32:27 She's a model.

Ed 00:32:28 But I got it, you know, overall. So we did nine different ones. They're honestly not bad. They're not bad, you know.

Ed 00:32:35 You know, these are the kinds of stereotypes that you and I might talk about on a show. This has some knowledge. I would say at least half of them have funny little insights, and I don't I don't know why, but I'm kind of tickled by the ploy one and the and the. So it just has, I think, funny little twist that it's got some insider knowledge. Yeah. A few of them. A few of them. A few of them have insider knowledge.

Greg 00:33:01 I agree, and I got to say, my favorite is probably the soy six bar manager, simply because the look on the guy's face like this guy just says his life has just beaten him down.

Ed 00:33:11 So he's got thumbs up, he's got a thumbs up.

Greg 00:33:13 I like him, he's like, I can still do this. This is living the dream. Even though I got to take penicillin and medicate with saying so that's great. That's great. Yeah, I think they're pretty good. I think they're pretty funny.

Greg 00:33:24 Now to finish it off. And and I also went in there and we got our or I put our eye skills to use and we made action figures of ourselves.

Ed 00:33:34 That's right. We try to be as specific as possible. Now in my case, I had used my eye to create a custom character of me by uploading 20 pictures of myself. So my action figure actually looks like almost a photo of me. Yeah.

Greg 00:33:51 It doesn't look like a doll. It looks like you've been shrink wrapped.

Ed 00:33:54 That's right. So it's not it's not perfectly accurate, but it is identifiable as me. Whereas when I created Greggs, I was I just typed in a description of him as opposed to having an actual picture.

Greg 00:34:05 Bowling ball with goatee.

Ed 00:34:07 Yeah. It's not. It's actually not bad. so these will definitely will make sure listeners you guys have access to. So, why don't I describe yours and then you can describe mine.

Greg 00:34:18 Oh. Good idea. Okay. Go ahead.

Ed 00:34:19 Okay. So I'm looking at the Greg action figure it says from podcaster with action figure on the top shrink wrap.

Ed 00:34:29 And, you see a gentleman in a black t shirt, which is very, Greg.

Greg 00:34:33 Very.

Ed 00:34:34 Accurate cargo shorts, which, you know, that's a Greg thing. Now, is it is it always. It is a Greg thing, I.

Greg 00:34:39 Guess, whenever I can do it. Yes.

Ed 00:34:42 And then, of course, flip flops or sandal type things, which, you know, you and I are both big on it. This is one of the advantages of living in Thailand. And then the three objects are perfect. now, we didn't get the particular microphone I wanted. I wanted Greg's a fan of these big condenser microphone type things. So. But we do have a podcaster type mic there with a mic stand. So I like I like that effect.

Greg 00:35:08 It's gigantic. It's about as tall as I am.

Ed 00:35:10 Yeah. And we've got some comic books, which is a callback to to Greg's upbringing and his identity as a comic book fan and movie fan nerd. And, and then, the third thing is they did a pretty good job on the Tim Hortons coffee cup.

Greg 00:35:27 Yeah, I think it sums me up pretty well. I like talking into microphones, reading comics, and dealing with pop culture. That's right down some Timmy's.

Ed 00:35:34 Yeah. And plus, the guy is, more ripped. You know, I gotta be straightforward. More ripped than you really are. So you gotta. You got a positive interpretation.

Greg 00:35:42 Hey, man, if you get an action figure made of you, I would be like, hey, guys, can you just, like, make it a little bit slimmer? I mean, this is my one chance to to immortalize myself.

Ed 00:35:51 All right. Now you can talk about mine. I kind of look like a zombie or something. My arms are, like, strangely stiff and sticking out.

Greg 00:36:00 I think it's pretty good. So this one also says foreign podcaster on the top. And, it's a it's a, it's a basically a add. stick it.

Ed 00:36:10 Out. It looks like a miniaturized version of me.

Greg 00:36:13 Yeah. You're wearing chucks, which I don't think you wear chucks, do you?

Ed 00:36:16 I do wear jeans, but it's not.

Ed 00:36:17 Oh, you mean chucks? The shoes? Yeah. The shoes? Yeah. I think I typed in black tennis shoes because that's what I wear every day. I wear all black tennis shoes, and I. I typed into the eye all black, but it doesn't catch all the details. So. Yeah. So the shoes are not totally accurate.

Greg 00:36:33 Okay. And then you're wearing blue jeans, and then you're wearing a gray t shirt that says Blues Bar across it, which I think is very accurate.

Ed 00:36:39 Yeah. I couldn't get the, the, I couldn't get it to put the name of the bar. Like I said, I is very odd. You type in a paragraph with a lot of specific details and then it gets about half of them.

Greg 00:36:53 Right.

Ed 00:36:53 Yeah. You know. Yeah. So. So I'm glad it says Blues bar. It didn't it didn't get the name of the bar.

Greg 00:36:58 But right now your three little items that come with the action figure, are a bottle of maple syrup.

Greg 00:37:07 Because you're a big fan of maple syrup. I mean, I guess I should have probably in mind because I'm Canadian. But you still love your maple syrup.

Ed 00:37:12 I talk about it more than you do, man.

Greg 00:37:14 You might. You might have a point. the second one is what looks to me like a pipe for smoking various herbs and.

Ed 00:37:20 With some suspicious looking green, plant material.

Greg 00:37:24 I guess so, yeah, yeah, a little pipe. It looks like the pipe that that, what's his name pulls out in Inglourious Basterds, the gigantic grandpa pipe?

Ed 00:37:32 Yeah. It's not really a proper, it's not really the type of pipe I would normally use, but I like it. It's got a little bit of style.

Greg 00:37:40 Panache. And the bottom one, I don't really get this one, but it's a passport.

Ed 00:37:44 Oh.

Greg 00:37:44 Oh, you are famously a non traveler.

Ed 00:37:48 No, the passport is there. This was. This was on my mind because on the show last week, I was talking about being a rule of law guy.

Ed 00:37:55 And I said, I actually carry my passport with me everywhere I go.

Greg 00:37:58 Oh, I see okay.

Ed 00:37:59 Remember that. So this is a so listeners, you've you've heard a lot about my penchant for following the law. but I think it was only recently that I, I outed myself as a passport carrier.

Greg 00:38:14 Yeah. Okay. That's very specific to the to a specific show, but.

Ed 00:38:17 That's right. This is insider. Some insider stuff.

Greg 00:38:20 That's funny.

Ed 00:38:21 I do think the fact that the fact that it's it looks like a real miniature me, mine is much spookier than yours. Like, yours looks kind of fun.

Greg 00:38:31 My, mine looks like mine is clearly plastic, but.

Ed 00:38:33 Mine looks like I've been embalmed.

Greg 00:38:36 Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, that was fun. we'll put those on the website, underneath this episode's show notes. And, of course, we'll send them out to patrons in the patron email as well. So yeah, I think there's some good stuff in there.

Ed 00:38:49 That was fun.

Ed 00:38:50 That was fun.

Greg 00:38:52 All right, let's get into some love. Loathe to live with where one of us picks a particular aspect of living in Bangkok, which we then discuss to decide if it's something we love about living here, loathe about living here, or have come to accept is something that we just have to learn to live with, no matter how we feel about it. Ed balls, in your court. What do you got?

Ed 00:39:07 Okay. This is something you're definitely going to be aware of. I don't off the top of my head. I don't remember talking about it before. We might have mentioned a little bit, but, this is something that just happened to me, so it's stuck in my head. So I want to ask you about the neighborhood vendors. I feel that they're often selling fruit or vegetables seems to be the most common thing, but they they will go up and down your soil with a megaphone announcing what they have. And, This just happened to me very recently where they woke me up.

Greg 00:39:50 You know? Okay.

Ed 00:39:51 You know, like, coming down because I have a very, a very narrow. So I'm not on a normal soi. I'm almost. I'm on, like, a little bit of an alley, and it actually dead ends. So, like, when they. So when they come down my street is, it's right outside my window now, it's not actually right outside my bedroom window, but from my bedroom you can I can easily hear what's going on outside my window. Right. And, listeners out there, it's these are basically hawkers, but they, they often have like megaphones and it's it's it's fairly loud.

Greg 00:40:23 Yeah. I, I don't mind the noise, actually, to be honest, I kind of quite like them. I wouldn't say I love them, but.

Ed 00:40:32 Have you ever bought one thing? I think in 25 years, I can't remember. I do sometimes buy fruit on the street, but have you ever heard one of these hawkers on the megaphone? and then you go, you're like, oh, they're, they're selling fruit.

Ed 00:40:46 And you run down and buy like. Like it's the ice cream truck.

Greg 00:40:50 Yeah, right. Like I need a broom or I need a tomato.

Ed 00:40:52 Yeah, yeah. You're right. Brooms are another common one. Am I wrong? I feel that, like, fruit or vegetable seems to be the most common.

Greg 00:41:01 But no, I don't mind them. I think they're quite cool. And they just remind me that I'm living in exotic Asia and that I'm not at home, so I don't find them too loud. And I quite enjoy the fact that they remind me that of this sort of like side economy that exists in Thailand, where you're doing stuff on the street.

Ed 00:41:21 Okay, I would not say I'm a hater, but maybe because I just never utilize them or I never buy anything. Yeah, I like I just tend to have a negative impression because it's another example of, you know, we have talked before about the type mentioned at markets to play music to loud. Yeah, yeah.

Ed 00:41:41 And I feel that. I feel that this is megaphones. Whatever they're using, I don't know what it is. It's not really a megaphone. It's. It's someone with speakers and a microphone, I think. Yeah, it's to me, it's just too damn loud.

Greg 00:41:54 Yeah. It's sometimes it can be not pleasant, especially when they got a bad quality one turned up too high and it's very.

Ed 00:41:59 Yeah. That's right. Sometimes it'll be, it'll be crackling and tinny or feedback.

Greg 00:42:03 Yeah. It sounds like an airport pa like for sure.

Ed 00:42:07 That's right. So I gotta be honest here, as we said last week, lovely weather. Live with us about, my emotion. So I gotta say, I'm a mild loathe.

Greg 00:42:19 I'm a I'm a I'm a mild love.

Ed 00:42:22 Wow. Interesting. Yeah, but you're right. My attitude should be that, hey, this is just a quirky aspect of Bangkok. That that should be my attitude.

Greg 00:42:32 I also wouldn't mind if they turned down their speakers a little bit.

Greg 00:42:35 Wouldn't take any of the quirkiness away.

Ed 00:42:37 True that.

Ed 00:42:39 Alrighty, Already a final thanks to our patrons who support the show. Patrons get a ton of cool perks and the warm, fuzzy feeling knowing that they're helping and are never ending. Quest for cool content. Find out more by clicking support on our website and connect with us online. Wear Bangkok podcast on social media. Bangkok podcasts on the web or simply Bangkok Podcast at gmail.com. We love hearing from our listeners and always reply to our messages.

Greg 00:43:06 That's right, you can listen to each episode on YouTube. Send us a voicemail through our website. We'll feature on the show. Hit me up on blue Sky at Greg. Thank you for listening, everyone. Happy Songkran and we'll see you back here next week.

Ed 5 00:43:17 No doubt.