THAILAND - Expat Contests

Expat Culture Shock

Culture shock: leaving made me want to go back

I recently read an article which described expat culture shock as being short lived. That was not my experience. I had been so caught up with the idea of moving to Bangkok that the reality of actually living there had not occurred to me. And at first life was exciting. We were eating out every night, trying new foods, expressing amazement...

Expat Culture Shock

Culture Unshock

I have been thinking a lot lately about culture shock. So its meant to be a feeling a foreigner gets when they are in a country far and different from their own, a feeling of confusion and of not belonging. I have spent a few days remembering every moment from the day we arrived here in Asia, first in Bangkok then in Luang Prabang, trying to...

Writing Contest October 2012

Finding our bliss in Bangkok

An expat acquaintance of mine was walking down a street in a Bangkok tourist area recently. She hailed a cab to get her to her office, but the driver, seeing she was a Westerner, quoted her twice the regular cost. She refused and got out of the cab. But she didn’t have to hail another one. The same driver who tried to scam her flagged one...

Education and International Schools

From snow days to sticky rice: An American boy’s take on school in Thailand

While expat parents may think they’re doing their child a great favor by hauling them off to a foreign country for a few years, the kids may not always see it that way. Add an international school and you may have a recipe for disaster – or you may have a beautiful new cross-cultural dish. Coconut milk mac ‘n’ cheese, anyone?...

Expat Blog Awards 2013

Ten Things Thailand Has Taught Me

Thailand. The football cheer and chant of trapezing travellers. An expat port of call, and a backpacker’s paradise for the budget and banana pancake minded. It’s many things to many people, but to me, it’s where my mother was born, my parents met, and my father died. It’s a place that has changed the course of my life, and it’s a...

Writing Contest March 2013

Top 10 Things NOT to Do in Thailand

While the country is sunny and smiley, it’s also a cultural minefield for unintentionally committing a social sin. Some are obvious while others are more confusing. It can also be tricky to tell when you’re doing something wrong because, out of politeness, people may not say anything. Take it from someone who has done them all (okay,...

Expat Blog Awards 2013

Top 20 Signs that you’ve started to embrace your inner Thai

If you had told me two years ago that I’d eat in the gutter off plates washed in a plastic basin, filled by a garden pipe, and prefer it to most restaurant meals, I’d have called you as mad as the hatter from Alice in Wonderland. Yet Thailand is just that, a country as wonderful and beguiling as it is perplexing. No sooner do you think...

Expat Blog Awards 2013

Top 7 essentials for a peaceful and harmonious expat life in Thailand

“All the burning bridges that have fallen after me All the lonely feelings and the burning memories Everyone I left behind each time I closed the door Burning bridges lost for evermore.” (Written by Dave Mustaine. Copyright: Mustaine Music) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doeJSspVL5Y The words and the music of the theme song...