CRINGE: Tales of Trying to Fit in to Thai Culture & Failing Badly [S8.E3]

Greg 00:00:04 On this episode, we look back at the times we've tried to fit in to Thai culture but have failed miserably.

Ed 00:00:11 So if you've ever done something in Thailand that made you or those around you cringe, you'll love this episode of the Bangkok Podcast.

Greg 00:00:33 So what the crap? This is the Bangkok podcast. My name is Greg Jorgensen, a Canadian who came to Thailand in 2001 to ordain as a monk. But I'm not in a rush, so, so far I've only managed to get the haircut.

Ed 00:00:45 A pretty a pretty serious haircut.

Greg 00:00:47 Yeah, yeah. Right there.

Ed 00:00:49 And I'm Ed Knuth, an American who came to Thailand on a one year teaching contract almost 25 years ago, fell in love with the classic Thai board game. Is a coup d'etat impending or not, so I never left.

Greg 00:01:02 It's a pretty simple board game. There's only two squares. Yes and no.

Ed 00:01:06 It's a fun game, though. It gets it gets popular every few years.

Greg 00:01:10 That's right, that's right.

Ed 00:01:11 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 Greg's ongoing archery lessons, which saw him finally shoot an arrow after one year of practicing the proper stance. Patience, Greg. My surprisingly successful attempts at using AI to create an app that helps me learn Thai, believe it or not, and a discussion about a woman who was busted with 80,000 sexy photos on her phone of her with several senior monks throughout Thailand. Quite the scandal. To learn how to become a patron and get all this good stuff. Plus full access to over 800 bonus and regular back episodes.

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Greg 00:02:16 Right. And as always, if you have a comment, show idea, or just want to say hi. Head to Bangkok podcast.com and click the little microphone button on the bottom right to leave us a voicemail. We'll play that on the show if it's appropriate. All right, well, on this episode, we take a cue from one of our listeners who was chatting with us about our early attempts to learn about Thai culture and try to fit in, only to fall face first in an epic fail as our earnest efforts were rebuffed or otherwise thwarted. Now, I think we've all made our fair share of attempts to not stand out so much as foreigners living in Thailand. But sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you manage to miss the mark and make a complete fool of yourself. But as they say, success just means getting up one more time than you fail. So, dear listeners, we thought it might be fun to look back on a few of our biggest cringe moments to hopefully inspire any of you out there who are trying to keep trying until you succeed, or at least like it.

Greg 00:03:05 And I simply stop being embarrassed when you don't. And first of all, a caveat at the beginning here. I'm so sorry to the listener who ever suggested this, but I cannot remember who you who you are. I checked. Check this. This is the problem with having so many platforms here. I checked line, I checked discord, I checked Facebook, email, Instagram, Patreon.

Ed 00:03:21 And you can't remember where the suggestion came from.

Greg 00:03:24 I can't find it anywhere. I don't know where it is. So if it was you who suggested it, let us know and we'll give you a shout out on the next show for sure. Anyway, I think all of us have made this problem and, I'm sure you've got some epic memories, just like I do.

Ed 00:03:37 Yeah, well, there's no doubt I've had. It's funny, when I, when you suggested this topic. to be honest, when it comes to the big cringe things, I don't have that many. and I have a possible explanation for why, but.

Ed 00:03:51 But I think of it as thousands of tiny cringes. Like death by a thousand people. 30,000. Like small cringes. So I do have I do have I do have stories to tell. not not too many like just horribly embarrassing things, but, a lot of smaller. A lot of smaller things.

Greg 00:04:10 Yeah, yeah, I agree, it's not like I accidentally married a buffalo or something like that, but just just silly little things that you look back on and going, yeah, oh, what a new mistake.

Ed 00:04:18 Yeah for sure, for sure I got, I got it, I got those.

Greg 00:04:21 Yeah. What are some of the little ones that I think everyone has the small ones like just the, the minor ones that anyone can make like it's not so, so bad.

Ed 00:04:30 But it's funny when again, when you thought of this, I was trying to brainstorm stuff. And what I realized is a lot, a lot of my mistakes are just classic ones that are painful because they're they're all things that I actually knew already.

Ed 00:04:47 But when you're not in your culture just just intellectually knowing, oh, I shouldn't do X, it's not instinct, it's not habit. So I made a quick list of of classic just classic blunders. And I do think over the years I've done this many, many fewer times. But I remember, in the early days, the first couple of years where I was really trying to get the, the, the habit of lying people. And of course, I know you're only supposed to why people who are higher status are older than you. but I just remember just many times meeting someone and wanted to be polite and just instinctually lying them, and then their face looks really confused, like what's going on? Because I was obviously older than they were, you know?

Greg 00:05:32 So, okay.

Ed 00:05:33 So it took me a long time to stop the y reflex, you know, because I, you know, I'm trying to learn something new. I want to y people, I want to be polite. But, if you y a person who's just kind of obviously younger than you, it's not.

Ed 00:05:47 I mean, it's not. I guess it's a technically a type of faux pas, but it's not insulting. It's just confusing. And ty people, Ty people will look at you baffled and then typically they'll be like, oh, for wrong, you know?

Greg 00:06:00 Yeah. You feel like you feel.

Ed 00:06:01 They'll be like, idiot. Yeah. Idiot.

Greg 00:06:03 You see it at 7-Eleven all the time with foreigners, and they get the change and they, you know, they start winning guys. Why the clerk at 7-Eleven or something like that? Yeah, it's always a bit of a giggle from the clerk.

Ed 00:06:12 Yeah. Overwhelming. So it's an odd thing because you would think. You would think underlying would be the main problem. And I'm sure that happens a lot too. But but but it's it's a little bit odd because, Thai people sometimes especially dealing with terrorists, they don't expect you to y. So I think I think not lying is not that bad if you're, especially if you're a terrorist, even even though that goes against standard advice, I'm going to go out on a limb and say, not y it's not that big a deal as a foreigner, but as an expat like you and I are trying to trying to do as the Romans do.

Ed 00:06:46 I think if anything, expats over y what do you think?

Greg 00:06:51 Yeah, I think I think it might be the equivalent of the Western phrase If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. Like, if you're not sure about the why. Just don't worry about it. Just don't do it. So I think you're right. That's really that's a really good way to put it. Yeah. Underlying is more is preferable to overlying.

Ed 00:07:05 Yeah. More than you would think. I think so. So that's the classic mistake. Another mistake just has to do with, things that Thai people are sensitive about or like, personally sensitive, like you're not generally you shouldn't touch their head or anything like that or or touch their body with your feet. Right. And, I, I just had a distinct memory of this just because it, it at the time, I, I was thinking like, wow, this is actually a good little cultural artifact here. And it was just a woman I was with when I was dating.

Ed 00:07:38 And we were sitting on the couch together and I clumsily swung my leg around her, and she happened to be turning, you know, I missed she was turning into it. And I basically like basically, I didn't quite kick her in the face, but it's just like the bat. Like, basically, I like, slapped my. I slapped my foot into her face. It wasn't physically like, damaging or anything, but she was really pissed, you know? Yeah, obviously a Western girl would be like, you clumsy oaf, you know? Yeah, but she was like, why did you do that? Why did you touch me like that? And I'm like, I didn't know it was just an accident. Whatever. So it actually was very tie in that she. She was more upset, I think, than a Western person would be.

Greg 00:08:24 Interesting, interesting. I something just popped into my head, too, and it was a bit of a reverse because my wife did something to me in our early when we were dating, and I got a little bit pissed at her, and she didn't understand why it was a big deal.

Greg 00:08:37 So we had some noodles at some little street, street side stall, and at the end of it she just said, she said okay, pay. Oh, and it kind of hit me the wrong way. And I was just like, don't tell me to just pay for stuff. Oh, and she was like, why not? And I said, well, I said, because that's like, there's just such a cliche about men being the ATM card here, you know? And we were just like, you know, we were and we were just months into our relationship. We were just brand new.

Ed 00:09:01 Right.

Greg 00:09:01 Yeah. And she and it turned into kind of a big issue. Like she just didn't understand why it was so funny. Deal. So. Oh, funny. You know, like, it goes both ways too. For sure. A couple of a couple of my early ones were like when I was first living here and I was learning how to count. It took me months to learn how to say 20 and 21, because for for those of you who might be listening, who don't know the word 30 is Sam sip 40, sip 50 sip.

Greg 00:09:33 But 20 is not song sip. That's right. It's your sip.

Ed 00:09:37 That's right.

Greg 00:09:39 Our our friend Rick here could probably tell us why. I don't know why. It's just the way it is. Yeah, that.

Ed 00:09:42 Is a classic wrong mistake.

Greg 00:09:44 Right. So 31 is Sam sip, 21 is sip ET. And it took me months to not say yeah song. Yeah. I wanted to say 21 or people were looking at me like a total weirdo.

Ed 00:09:56 Yeah, that is a classic. That is classic. the other just basic mistake I made. And this is, again, this is something that even though I know you're not supposed to do it. I was at, I think it was WaPo, and it was one of those long days. And towards the end of the day, we were in one of the big temples, and they had some kind of ceremony going on. And I was, you know, sitting on my knees and butt for a while. And then I'm like, I can't do that.

Ed 00:10:24 And a bunch of foreigners had kind of moved to the total back of the temple and were just sitting there. And so I moved back there and I just sat down with him, kind of my back against the back wall, and then stuck my legs out like an idiot because my because my legs hurt. Because I was, you know, kind of sitting. I was sitting cross-legged and then so then, like, a guard had to come over and tell me not to point my foot like towards the. Yeah, which is such a classic. But I knew that, like, I know you're not supposed to do that, I just forgot. I just, you know, it's not it's not habitual, you know, like, you can intellectually know the right thing, but it's not habitual. So I consider those types of things just. That's classic cringe.

Greg 00:11:05 Yeah. They're not they're they're we're not even trying to fit in. It's just learning to adapt.

Ed 00:11:11 Yeah. Just doing dumb just dumb dumb mistakes kind of thing.

Greg 00:11:15 But but each of us have, have I have a couple of things down here that, that sort of stand out to us of, of things that we've, that we've sort of made an effort to do or have purposely done, but have turned out to not work out the way we wanted them to work out. So, you you want me to go first with this? Yeah, she's got a few here. Well, I don't know if you know this about me, Ed, but I love cereal.

Ed 00:11:39 I do know that I do know this about you.

Greg 00:11:41 Yeah. I want to open a restaurant called Serial Killer or whatever.

Ed 00:11:44 You and you and our our long time listener, Kelly. Serial people.

Greg 00:11:49 That's right, that's right. And I think a nice big bowl of cereal with really cold milk on a hot day would be like a perfect snack for for foreigners. I think Thais would think it's crazy. But anyway, in my my first apartment, I had to go and check it out with with bowls and cups and things like this.

Greg 00:12:05 So I went to, I went to Tesco and I was looking at all the bowls and I was like, I'd like to have a nice big cereal bowl, like, not not a punch bowl, but bigger than a little shits in your hands. So I saw some on the on the counter, some nice plastic bowls, and I picked them up, but that's about the right size. I took them home and I was using them for months with no, no issues. And then eventually I started dating this girl and she came over to my place, and I, she came in the morning and I was eating a bowl of cereal. And she looked at my bowl and was this look of horror and embarrassment and confusion came over her face.

Ed 00:12:40 So funny.

Greg 00:12:41 And unbeknownst to me, I had bought not a cereal bowl, but one of the plastic bowls that you use to scoop water out in the toilet to dump water.

Ed 00:12:51 Oh, the toilet scooping thing. Oh that's great. And those are kind of.

Ed 00:12:56 I could see that. That would be like a big cereal bowl. But you're a big guy.

Greg 00:13:00 Yeah, it's a normal bowl for me. It's not these little tiny thimbles at the rest of everyone drinks out, eat cereal.

Ed 00:13:06 Oh, that's classic, that's classic.

Greg 00:13:07 Yeah, but she's like, what are you doing? I said, I'm eating cereal. She's like that bowl. I'm like, what is the big plastic bowl? And it's not like it was used or anything. It was clean, but it was.

Ed 00:13:15 A plastic bowl.

Greg 00:13:17 It's just that cultural thing of, like, those aren't used for food. Those are used to scoop water in the toilet.

Ed 00:13:23 I love it, I love it.

Greg 00:13:24 Classic, classic. I was very embarrassed.

Ed 00:13:27 Well, I got a couple things that just stick out there. Not again. I don't have anything too embarrassing, but these just kind of stick out. I'm going to confess something. in general, I'm bad with names. No problem.

Ed 00:13:40 A lot of people are, but I. You know, I've gotten better over the years. But when I first got here and I was teaching, not not at my university, but somewhere else. I'm just going to plead guilty. I could not tell my students apart. I know it's the classic thing. Like, if you're a Westerner, is all Asians look alike. What I'm going to say, I'm just going to confess. I'm just going to plead guilty. Like, I, I well, like, when I got here, it's like my joke was like, all my students are, are skinny, cute with long black hair. It's like all of them. And then there's one guy, you know, and it's like, you know, it's like. And it's just like, I mean, I, I, I mean, I think I've gotten better over the years and I know it's not really an excuse, but the first couple of years, I was just like, all of these girls look alike.

Ed 00:14:23 I'm just going to plead guilty like that. I really was like, they all look alike.

Greg 00:14:27 No, you though your your students at university, they wear street clothes or uniforms.

Ed 00:14:32 Oh, well, at my university. So this is actually what pre university. But my, my faculty is unique in that we don't have a uniform requirement because we're supposed to be Western style. So. Okay. So my university it's easier because they're they dress differently. Yeah.

Greg 00:14:47 Yeah because when I was teaching, I couldn't tell my students apart either. But they were all wearing the same uniform. Brutal. They had the state's state mandated haircut. Brutal. yeah.

Ed 00:14:57 Well, I was teaching so to. So. So the bottom line is I'm already bad with words on top, on top of this other factor. Right? And, I was doing a bunch of different teaching. I, I was, had two different teaching jobs. actually, at this point, I actually had started teaching that at my current university of a different university, and I'd already been in Thailand like 3 or 4 years.

Ed 00:15:18 So I, I had a whole bunch of different students. And, I was at a party, and like a bunch of foreigners, a bunch of Thai people there. And this girl came up to me with that, like, look of recognition, like, hey, you know, that thing? And her face totally looked familiar to me, like, totally familiar. And I'm, like, just trying to place it. I'm like, I was teaching a bunch of different places that are already been a few years. And so I so I said, did I teach you Saturday like two years ago? And she looked at me and she goes, I was in her TOEFL class last night.

Greg 00:16:06 And I just.

Ed 00:16:07 I was just like, oh, shit, oh, shit, that's bad. But I mean, I was like, she was so familiar, but it was like from the night before.

Greg 00:16:16 That's so funny.

Ed 00:16:17 I was like, I was trying to be clever. I'm like, well, you were in that class, weren't you? Like two, two years ago? Something I was like, so.

Ed 00:16:24 So I was like, so far off.

Greg 00:16:26 I'm just kidding. Of course I knew that.

Ed 00:16:29 Yeah, that's like to like, do that. so it's bad, you know? So now I, you know, whether it's the film club, the blues bar at the university, you know, you know how people joke that, like you, you know, someone's vegan because they, they tell you when they meet you, you know, I right?

Greg 00:16:45 They stand next to you at the urinal and go, hey, I'm vegan.

Ed 00:16:47 Now I'm just like, hey, I'm bad with names like that. I just confess, as soon as I meet people, I'm just so I don't even try to to remember names anymore.

Greg 00:16:56 You should turn that into a little bit. So. Hey, I'm Steve. Hey. Nice to meet you, Rob. Just let you know I'm real bad with.

Ed 00:17:00 The names, I basically do. I'm more or less do that. Or or, you know, there'll be people at the film club who I've been seeing for years, and I just.

Ed 00:17:08 They know that I don't know their name, and I don't even try anymore.

Greg 00:17:11 That's funny. That's funny. Well, my second one, was something actually, it was actually was potentially a little bit more serious than that. And, this was back when I was teaching and I was at a summer camp with a bunch of other teachers, and we had to put on a skit for the students. Teachers had to put on a fun little skit. Oh, cool. And yeah, I was like, me, like me and 2 or 3 other foreign teachers, and then 3 or 4 other of the Thai teachers and I had gotten to know, this, this one girl. We we had worked on a project together, this one Thai teacher, and we had become quite friendly and we were having a good time. And so we did this little skit on stage and there was, you know, 50 or 60 kids in the audience from all ages from like, you know, grade three all the way up to sort of mid teenagers, teenagers.

Greg 00:17:57 And at the end of the skit there, we did a little dance. So we're jumping around on stage and we're wearing silly costumes and stuff and waving our arms around like that. And just as the song ended, I thought it would be really funny because the part of the skit was that, like, it was a bit of a flirty dance, like the guys were flirting with the girls and making jokes about it, and I thought it'd be really funny to give the girl, like the girl that I knew. A little kiss on the cheek like a peck like, oh geez, like that. And, I sort of, I don't know whether I was. I was just way bigger than her or I was too excited, but I sort of grabbed her and essentially just, like, pulled her and almost, like, violently towards me and kissed her cheek.

Ed 00:18:36 Oh, shit. So it was more awkward than you expected it to be.

Greg 00:18:40 It was very awkward. And afterwards I didn't notice it at the time because I didn't.

Greg 00:18:45 I didn't know, I thought it was just like a cute little kiss on the cheek, and I was caught up in the moment. And then afterwards, another teacher came to me quietly and they're like, yeah, you know, that was actually really, really bad and embarrassing for her. You shouldn't have done that. And I was like, oh sure.

Ed 00:18:58 Yeah, man. Like public displays of affection, especially.

Greg 00:19:00 Like, not.

Ed 00:19:01 Especially, you know, with kids around, you know, where they're going to be very or they're going to be very concerned about maintaining status.

Greg 00:19:09 Yes, exactly. Exactly. They do not fly here. And I had no idea about any of this contextual stuff. So I just I like for the rest of the two weeks I was there, I was just like so ashamed, and I didn't I couldn't face this woman, and I just sort of hung my head whenever I walked around. I felt terrible, brutal. Because it was it was it was almost like to the point of, of like violating her personal space and.

Greg 00:19:32 Right, publicly embarrassing.

Ed 00:19:34 Well, you were being spontaneous. You were trying to be creative.

Greg 00:19:37 I guess I, I was it came from a good place, but culturally, mega fail. Mega fail.

Ed 00:19:42 Brutal. Brutal. Yeah. Well, mine is, a Thai language mistake of. Of which I have many, of course, but they tend to be small, like we've talked about before. but this one was, I just remember it being particularly painful because I, I, like, tried to stand my ground and argue that I was right. And, you know, you know, because I do think sometimes, you know, we we actually talked about this before. But I do think sometimes the mistake is not necessarily a bad mistake. The other person is a bad listener. I think that's possible. You know, as the as a foreigner, you should always take the burden and assume that the Thai person is right. You should do that. But yeah, but I, I was stubborn, and this was a particularly embarrassing thing because I was I remember being very insistent about this, and I was completely, totally wrong.

Ed 00:20:34 And actually, the mistake is huge because the the two words I was confusing, although in English, if you spelled them out, they would look similar, like the tones are opposite. Like one of them is like a falling tone. The other one was like a rising tone. So they they sound like completely different. But I completely screwed it up and like, stood my ground and like, stubbornly argued that I was right. And so it boils down to this. I was hanging out with a girl who was from. Umpqua. Umpqua. Umpqua. Yeah. Now, Umpqua is famous for a whole bunch of things. but I did not know this at the time, but it's actually famous for fireflies at night.

Greg 00:21:16 Sure, I've seen them.

Ed 00:21:17 Yeah.

Greg 00:21:18 very, very underwhelming.

Ed 00:21:19 I think I saw them with you when we did a bike ride down there. But this was before that. This was. So I didn't know anything about this. And this girl was from Umpqua, and she was talking about the fireflies.

Ed 00:21:32 And now this is actually a quite difficult thing, and I can't I won't be able to pronounce it correctly, so completely ignore my tone. That's the whole problem. But a firefly is something like. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi.

Greg 00:21:45 Okay, okay. I think I know where this is going.

Ed 00:21:47 Yeah. and I just heard Hoy, which is similar to the Thai word for, like, a shellfish or like a clam or a mollusk. Sure. And I so I, I kept telling her that I like to eat those. So this is what this is when I was, eating, eating meat and seafood. So I was like, chop skin, you know, chop skin. And she's like, no, no, no, it's not a clam. Like, I'm not talking about clams. I'm talking about like, fireflies. I'm like, you know. But she's trying to do it in Thai. And I'm like, no, no, no, I chop and I really like eating fireflies, you know? And, so, listeners, I'm going to, have Mr. Greg, who usually does the editing.

Ed 00:22:25 He's going to upload a very short, quick clip for you guys. and it's just going to be the the two hoys next to each other. okay. Since I can't do it properly. So here's the audio clip.

Ed 00:22:40 Now back to back. They really sound nothing like each other. But that just shows you how bad my tie was and maybe still is. And. And then I stood my ground that I really like to eat fireflies.

Greg 00:22:51 Well, there's another potential layer of embarrassment there, too, because of course, you know that Hoi hoi is a slang term for something.

Ed 00:22:58 Something intimate. Yeah. So there's that. Also that, so there's multiple layers of embarrassment, when, she was just trying to say like, oh, yeah, we have a lot of fireflies where I'm from.

Greg 00:23:10 So you're not only mansplaining to her. You were.

Ed 00:23:14 Man, I was, I was explaining. That's right. Yeah. It was just a disaster all around. And, it just shows you, no matter how sure you are, you should you should defer to someone in their native language.

Ed 00:23:26 That's just a golden rule. Just do it.

Greg 00:23:29 That's what I've said recently, man. Many, many times now it turns out I complain about something or someone. Why can't they do it this way? This is so stupid. The system is dumb. And then it turns out I'm the idiot more often than not, the problem is with me.

Ed 00:23:41 Well, that's the. That's this show. The Korean show. So there you go.

Greg 00:23:45 Well, I think we're only gonna do two each. But, dad, do you mind if I do one more bonus one here to finish things up.

Ed 00:23:50 Go for.

Greg 00:23:50 It. So this is something that that I. I was, a victim of back in my early days again when I was teaching. And you'll notice a theme here, listeners, a lot of these things happened in our very early days. So I guess that hints that Ed and I have successfully integrated to a greater degree than we used to. So I guess the data shows that we're on the right path because we haven't had too many recent cringes.

Greg 00:24:12 Correct. But, but this was when I used to wait for a bus down at ratchet station. I caught the number 16 bus up to bunker Bu, and, one morning I was sitting there and sometimes the bus would come right away. Sometimes I'd wait five minutes, sometimes I'd wait 30 minutes. It really depended on the traffic. So I was one day I was sitting there and I was brand new. I'd been in Thailand about or I'd been in Bangkok about three months at this point, and I was sitting there waiting for the bus and this random homeless guy ripped clothes and covered head to toe and dirt. His hair was all messed up smelling. He random homeless guy came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder, and he and he was motioning for me to stand up, and I just sort of was like, no, no thanks, whatever. I'm not interested. And I just sort of ignored him. And he became very insistent. And he kept tapping my shoulder. And he was.

Ed 00:25:01 So he he was like, coming from behind you.

Greg 00:25:03 Or he walked right up to me on my side. I was sitting on a little bench. Oh, okay. He walked up to me from my right hand side and he was looking around. And he was he was trying to find like someone to talk to or point something, and he was pointing at the road and he was pointing at me, and he was trying to get me to stand up. And I'm like, like, well, this guy's crazy. Is he want money? Does he want, like, leave me alone. Go away. Homeless guy.

Ed 00:25:22 Yeah, right.

Greg 00:25:23 And, it was a good minute of this of this guy getting increasingly agitated. Right, right, right. And I'm kind of wondering, like, is this guy mentally disturbed? Is he gonna pull out a knife and stab me or something like that? So finally someone came up to me and in very broken English, said that the royal motorcade was about to pass right in front of us.

Ed 00:25:42 Oh, jeez.

Greg 00:25:44 And and this this this guy was just trying to do his duty as a Thai citizen, like, stand for the royal motorcade. Yeah. And I was like, leave me alone, idiot. Leave me alone. And I kind of wondered what would happen if I had. Just like they drove by and this lone farang was sitting down. Can you imagine? Just.

Ed 00:26:05 Well, that's a mistake you don't want to make. But again, you know, it's funny. I have some sympathy for us. Even though we're we're clearly in the wrong in all of these cases. It's just hard. It's just hard when it's not your instinct.

Greg 00:26:18 Right, right. Exactly. Exactly like my wife and telling me to pay. She didn't know that there was an extra level of context.

Ed 00:26:24 That's right, that's right.

Greg 00:26:25 Might be taken out of out of turn. So there you go. Correct. Anyway, listeners, we we know we're not the only ones. So if you feel like it, send us.

Greg 00:26:33 Send us your faux pas.

Ed 00:26:34 Yeah. Let us know your cringe thing. The more you talk about them, the better you'll feel. It's therapy.

Greg 00:26:39 That's right, that's right. Free therapy. All right. Let's get into some love, loathe or live with where one of us picks a particular aspect of living in Bangkok, which we discussed to decide if it's something that we love about living here, loathe about living here, or have come to accept as something that we just have to learn to live with no matter how we feel about it. This weekend, what do you got for me?

Ed 00:26:57 All right, Mr. Greg. So I'm not sure you've encountered this. I've encountered it several times, and it's not an issue now for me because I'm vegetarian, but I'm a little bit. I'm a little bit surprised at how many people eat this. I do think it's more of an Esan thing, but what do you think about. Essentially it's essentially it's it's basically eating rats or what? Like, I remember my buddy who brought who brought some of this to a barbecue.

Ed 00:27:27 I'm like, I'm like, dude, what? I'm like, dude, what? I'm like. You know, it was like, stretched. It was like, stretched like between the twigs, you know? And I'm like, yeah. I'm like, dude, what is that? He goes, it's a field mouse. And I'm like, you mean a rat? I'm like, it's like it's a field mouse. He's like, you know, and like, you know, who's my girlfriend was like, oh, this delicious like Elroy Mac. And you know, and it's it's basically a rat. Do you eat rat?

Greg 00:27:55 I never have.

Ed 00:27:56 Oh, you never have.

Greg 00:27:57 But I.

Ed 00:27:58 Ask.

Greg 00:27:58 Your wife.

Ed 00:27:58 Say no. I bet your wife has. I'm not saying anything about your wife. I'm just saying she's Thai. Thai people eat everything.

Greg 00:28:05 Well, she hasn't eaten any fireflies.

Ed 00:28:08 Not that you know of. She. You never know. She might be a firefighter.

Greg 00:28:12 We've all.

Greg 00:28:12 We've all got secrets. I've never knowingly eaten it, but I wouldn't say no to it. I also wouldn't go looking for it.

Ed 00:28:20 well, I can say, when I was eating meat and I was offered rat, I was not down. I'm actually not a very adventurous eater. Maybe that's why I ended up being vegetarian. So even when I, I mean, I loved eating meat, but I was not one of those guys who was like, hey, let's eat the scorpions on cows on the road. I was not that guy.

Greg 00:28:37 I've eaten the grasshoppers. The worms. The.

Ed 00:28:39 Oh, you have. There you are. Jesus, you. You're. You are one of those.

Greg 00:28:43 I am one of those. Yeah, I've eaten. I when Scott and I were in, in Japan, we ate. We went out for an epic meal one night. We ate, chicken ovaries. Oh, jeez.

Ed 00:28:50 No. Yeah.

Greg 00:28:51 No sashimi?

Ed 00:28:52 Nope. Nope. Okay. Yeah. Totally different.

Ed 00:28:55 Even when I was eating meat, I just I was eating chicken, pork, beef. Like. Like a normal person. Like a normal person.

Greg 00:29:03 Yeah. I wouldn't like if I saw a stall on the side of the road, I'd have to be pretty hungry to stop and eat it. But if someone gave it to me and said, try it, I would.

Ed 00:29:12 It's basically a rat stretched between twigs and it looks like a big rat.

Greg 00:29:17 Yeah. Yeah, I see if there's anything else to eat first.

Ed 00:29:22 It tastes like chicken though, Greg. I'm sure.

Greg 00:29:24 Everything does. Yeah. So that was, that would probably be a live with for me. Bordering on loathe.

Ed 00:29:30 So. All right. Loathe for me.

Greg 00:29:32 Yeah.

Ed 00:29:33 All right, I found out, follow. 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 or bank our podcasts on social media, Vanguard podcasts on the web, or simply bank our podcast at gmail.com.

Ed 00:29:56 We love to hear from our listeners and ours replied to our messages through that.

Greg 00:30:00 You can also listen to each episode on the YouTube. Send us a voicemail through our website that will feature on the show. Hit me up on blue Sky on BCC. Greg, thank you for listening, everyone. We'll see you back here next week.

Ed 00:30:10 No doubt.