If You Don’t Like It, Go Home

Back home, spilling a bloke’s pint or insinuating that his football team are a bit rubbish isn’t the done thing. It gets people’s backs up and you better be ready to deal with the anger that follows. As a result, most people avoid doing these things.

Out here in Thailand, different lines have been drawn over the years, and it seems that pointing out some home truths to your fellow escapers of rain is liable to provoke a lot of hubris and the expulsion of the blunt missive which forms the title of this piece.

Ya see, though Thailand undeniably has less precipitation than Salford and the local lasses are far less likely to sing along enthusiastically to Shania Twain, it also has deeply flawed aspects which are more than capable of, well, killing you.

But if you raise any concerns or attempt to voice your fears (road safety, plane safety, nightclub safety…safety in general really, draconian laws, two-tier pricing, broken contracts, late pay, corrupt and therefore useless police, the indoctrination of children, lack of protection for women etc) be prepared to hear some obtuse horeshit pour out of the rabble about how it’s just the same back home.

Your questions will be fielded by people so desperate to keep their bubbles intact, so horrified at the thought of returning to the dull town that spawned them and so hopelessly besotted with the notion of 200 baht taking care of the coppers that they will attempt to explain away the most heinous occurrences.

In my time here, I’ve had farangs swear blind that they’ve never witnessed a road accident or been on the end of monumentally incompetent service. I’ve heard them come out with gems like, ‘England is just as corrupt, but it’s institutionalised there.’

In an attempt to mock you, they’ll employ analogies so limp that they make a male, Thai-dance teacher look tough:

‘Imagine a Chinaman in England, yeah, going on and on about how terrible everything is. He can’t speak the language fluently but he reckons he knows one or two things that the locals don’t. What would you think about him? I’d think he was a complete wanker.’

This is the kind of poorly thought out prole-speak which sits side by side with classics like, ‘Black people can harp on about black power and their struggle, but if a white person were to talk about white power they’d be strung up!’

Where to begin with that one? Let’s see if we can settle it with one word, shall we?

Slavery.

The thing is, there are actual ways of measuring how good a country is. You input factors like press freedom, life expectancy, infant mortality, green spaces, road deaths, gun crime and obesity levels into a big computer, and out pops some interesting factoids…

Babies born in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Jamaica and Ukraine have a better chance of survival than Thai babies.

People live longer in Peru, Sri Lanka, Bulgaria, Vietnam, and Nicaragua than they do in Thailand.

Moldova and Kazakhstan (it’s nice!) are more livable, and when it comes to road deaths, only Malaysia can outdo Thailand.

Or to put it another way, Cambodia, Vietnam, Turkey, Pakistan, Lao, India and China have safer roads.

The ease at which one can obtain a blowjob for peanuts strangely isn’t one of the factors.

In the dim minds of many that reside here, the fact that the sun shines a lot and they can get their penis vigorously manipulated for the price of some M&S socks is reason enough to claim that Thailand is ‘doing quite well, all things considered.’

Be prepared to put up with the flippant, moronic chorus of ‘pack up and piss off’ should you ever wish to start lamenting Thailand’s shortcomings. Don’t be surprised when a deafening silence greets an announcement that your girlfriend is currently awaiting surgery or that you haven’t finished your M.A yet.

Be warned that attempting to rock the boat will lead to the adult equivalent of them covering their ears and yelling ‘I can’t hear you!’

Of course, if you’re an easily pleased twot who considers Ferrero Rocher sophisticated and thinks that the bum gun is right up there with the wheel for sheer genius, then you’ll probably wonder what I’m moaning about and fackin’ love it out here in Thighland! Wahey!