The Day After The day after my birthday that is. Everywhere is very quiet, and everyone, except a trader in a van selling watermelons. She’s beeping the horn every few seconds and it’s loud. I haven’t seen her yet, but I’ve been able to hear her for ten minutes. I don’t have to see her, …
My Birthday It’s the fourteenth of August again – the day Japan ended the Second World War and my birthday, although they didn’t occur in the same year. I came along nine years after the war. No, party this year though for me. I’m not keen on them, but my wife has insisted on having …
Thai – A Succinct Language I have been living in Thailand for eleven years, and learning the Thai language organically from day one with the help of a ‘Teach Yourself’ book and a wife. However, I am still not there yet, which makes Thai the hardest to learn of the eight languages I have studied. …
Mothers’ Day Today, August 12th, is Mothers’ Day in Thailand. It also happens to be the queen’s birthday. I don’t know whether they shifted Mothers’ Day onto her birthday or not, but I suspect so, since Fathers’ Day is on the king’s birthday in December. It is also the day that I went home after …
University Degrees in Thailand My stepdaughter came home from Bangkok University for a fortnight today; it’s lovely to see her again. This is her fourth and final year in Business Studies, so then it’s off into the business world of Thailand. I say Thailand and not the whole world as many of them would like, …
Visa Renewal I woke up with a funny feeling about my visa this morning and when I checked, it has to be renewed on August 14th. Actually, it’s not the visa itself that requires renewal, it’s what we call our Ninety Days. You have to tell the police where you are living every ninety days. …
Holidays – Khao Pansa Today is the eve of one of Thailand’s biggest annual holidays in the original sense of the word as a holy day. Khao Pansa is the start of Thai Buddhism’s Lent. It is one of the four holidays that I can remember when people living away make a serious effort to …
Being An Expat Summary To those of you who have read the first five parts to this series, I would like to say ‘thank you’. I don’t know what impression of being an expat I left you with except that it is a truthful one as I see it. This last article then is the …
Being An Expat (part five) Etiquette, Loneliness and Coping Often how you should behave, etiquette, as an expat depends not only on which country you live in but also where you live in that country as well. This is usually because city-dwellers tend to be more cosmopolitan, more used to foreigners, than rural people. Therefore, …
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Being An Expat (part four): The Financial Aspect The financial aspect of being an expat boils down to always having sufficient funds to satisfy your requirements, which will vary throughout the year. For example, in Thailand, I need to have either 800,000 Baht (for a retirement visa) or 400,000 Baht (for a spousal visa) in …
Being An Expat (part one) The Personal Aspect Being an expat is a strange feeling. I have lived here in northern Thailand for eleven years and I lived in The Netherlands for nine years until 1982, so I have been an expat in two countries on two continents in two radically different parts of the …
Water! Water Everywhere… Yes, friends, the water is back on and flowing in great abundance. From every house you pass can be heard the strains of old washing machines already on their second or third load of the day. My wife had actually arranged for the baby to go and stay with her other grandmother …
Today’s Thailand This is going to be a collection of random observations about today’s Thailand, because not enough has been happening in my life in the last twenty-four hours to fill even a short post such as this series, which you will find listed under the category ‘Diary’ on this blog, should you wish to …
Improvement I now know what those twelve-inch concrete pipes are for as they have dug up the two access points to my house – storm-water drainage, as I think it’s called, as opposed to foul-water drainage. Whoever would have thought they would bother with our little lane? However, it will be a big improvement, and …
Publication of Asian Shorts The day has dawned for publication. I’ve read through the whole manuscript for the fifth or sixth time, attached the authors’ contact details, assigned page numbers, formatted it and written the blurb for the back cover. I had designed the front cover last month, so ‘Asian Shorts’ will be submitted to …
Our Village Yesterday I went on a pub crawl around our village. It is my romanticised way of saying that I walked around the village and had three pints in various shops. That’s all right, it gives me a connection with my past. Anyway, the last but one ‘pub’ (shop), was near the house and …
First Edition of Asian Shorts I am inordinately proud to announce that the first edition of ‘Asian Shorts’ will be available as from tomorrow, June 18th – Yay! On the negative side first, it is only 74.4% (see update below) of the length that I wanted it to be, but perhaps I was over-ambitious in …
Storm Not Monsoon Yesterday, late afternoon, black clouds could be seen on the horizon, then a wind appeared from nowhere and suddenly the clouds were overhead emptying their contents all over us. When I say suddenly, I mean, I knew what was going to happen, but I didn’t have time to finish my half a …
