Friendship in the Land of Smiles

An anonymous poster asks whether I have any good friends who are Thais.

‘I have talked to other expats, [and ] besides their BF, they don't end up with any Thai friends because of the wide differences [between Thais and foreigners],’ he wrote in the shriek box.

I don’t have close Thai male friends in the Western sense. I don't invite anyone around to my place. I have no friends with whom I go out for meals. No one asks me to share his tales of woe or joy about girlfriend/work/family.

A woman from Esan runs a outdoors food place close to my condo. I have started asking her about her family (she has a teenage son, and a husband), and she has asked a few questions about me (‘How much is your rent?’).

I don’t know what lies in her sinews, so I wouldn't yet regard her a friend.

But where Westerners tend to be reserved until we get to know each other, Thais are more relaxed.

We can talk to a Thai, even a virtual stranger, about anything. It creates an illusion of family-style warmth and familiarity, which is similar.

In my first years here, I hoped fondly that the Thais I met socially would call me regularly, or invite me out with their friends or meet their family.

Experience put paid to that hope. The only people who tended to call were people who wanted something.

The others knew that if I wanted to see them, I could find them at our usual drinking place, or wherever else it was that we met.

These were young men from the provinces for whom Bangkok was not their main home, but the place they came to study or find work.

We might share a meal together at an eatery down the way, or go back to their place – usually a rented hole in a rundown apartment – to drink at 3 in the morning.

But I didn't want too much of that, as I am twice their age. I could have made more of their offer of friendship if I wanted, but I wasn’t interested.

Their closest friends tended to be Thais they grew up with in the same village, or with whom they went to the same school.

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My condo is popular with Thai families. Here, I can watch parents interacting with their children.

Yesterday, I saw a Mum talking to her son, who had just finished a tae kwon do class held at my condo. They were talking about his school exams.

I would have more in common with Thais of family-raising age than my old drinking friends, who were in their early 20s.

I don't know any Thai families at my condo yet.

I would be the 'ajarn' (teacher) rather than a family friend, as these are middle-class people, unlike the casual, working-class Esan folks I knew in the past.

We could get close, but not so much that I intrude in their space, as families are strange entities, and for the most part best left to themselves.

It’s too simplistic to say that we fail to bond because of our cultural differences, though those play a part.

Age differences are also important, as are differences in education and family background; all the usual things, in fact, which bind (or separate) people in the West.