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I hear you buddy. It has to do with the origins and not necessarily the typical view of people today. My wife was born in Sukhothai, but the family moved to a village in the province of Saraburi when she was a child. There is a range of different skin tones in the province, and some folks are pretty dark, or very tan. She describes her skin tone as dahm (black), even though she isn't. It's just the word she uses. And she's not the only one who uses that description. It's such descriptions, along with magazine models and movie stars, that keep skin whiteners a popular sales product. The idea is the notion that dark skin tones represent poor, unsuccessful farm workers. No question that there are plenty of Thais who are preoccupied with such vanity.
I'm not as fluent with the language as the Thais are, but do pretty well. I've had plenty of help along the way. I've known Thais for a big portion of my life. While I didn't always know what they were saying, the sounds of words became familiar to me. In a way, learning the language wasn't all that difficult for, but I do have problems with things like medical, legal and technical terms, probably because I don't use such terms that much. It does take frequent practice though and the determination to stick with it. Use it or lose it. One thing I've found that's sometimes helpful is if you have a hard time understanding the meaning of certain people, ask them to describe it in a different way or a little slower because I'm not yet an expert, and of course I add a big smile along with it. I have found that people tend to be helpful when they realize that a foreigner is trying to learn their language.
Another description I hear a lot for darker Thais is som (orange) and it's a common nickname. As far as speaking Thai, I know I suck with the tones, I test myself on Google translator and it ahrdly ever understands what I am saying. Still I'm understood by Thais. The written language seems formidable to me. Though I admit I have not tried to learn it and things like apps makes it harder to bother.
This topic is about comparsion of two cultures. Smiling is less prevalent in East Asian cultures(Chinese, Koreans, Japanese...)
Touristy places in Thailand, no problem with only English, and increasingly Mandarin. China was the largest source of international tourists in Thailand in 2013.
Less english and much more broken English in touristy places in most of China than Thailand.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ezrider62
Siam, means the land of smiles. Thailand is Siam. The people do smile alot and are very friendly. I know because I live here. If you live in the countyside and not in a large city you better know how to speak Thai. There is nobody that speaks fluent English at all out here.
I like both countries ... have been to both a number of times ... but I think the quality of life is a little better in Thailand.
I like the Thai philosophy of "sanuk" - to enjoy life by having a good time; and "mai ben lai" (or "mai pen rai") of not taking life too seriously and getting stressed about things - suits me fine.
Thailand based on the criteria posted. China, especially the larger cities, might be more developed than Bangkok but this development growth makes them more stressful rather than enjoyable. There is a rat race to flaunt wealth that I personally find sickening at times. People also still need to learn how to queue and other courtesy to strangers. And with the number of rich guys there, you definitely need to work harder to impress women and that also means the better ones are mostly taken as wives or mistresses by the millionaires already.
China also blocks facebook, google, gmail, dropbox, flickr, instagram, twitter, google play store, etc. that I lost communication with a lot of people outside of China when I visited. I have to learn how to use Baidu instead of Google Search, Google Maps and Google Translate :-(
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I hear you buddy. It has to do with the origins and not necessarily the typical view of people today. My wife was born in Sukhothai, but the family moved to a village in the province of Saraburi when she was a child. There is a range of different skin tones in the province, and some folks are pretty dark, or very tan. She describes her skin tone as dahm (black), even though she isn't. It's just the word she uses. And she's not the only one who uses that description. It's such descriptions, along with magazine models and movie stars, that keep skin whiteners a popular sales product. The idea is the notion that dark skin tones represent poor, unsuccessful farm workers. No question that there are plenty of Thais who are preoccupied with such vanity.