Fed up of being pushed around on the skytrain while others stare at the TV adverts, contentedly exploring their nostrils? Or maybe you just don’t know what to do with those fidgety hands of yours? Fear not, the Thai Ministry of Culture is here to help with this handy booklet on Thai social etiquette:
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When I was a child we had this game made of chunky plastic called ‘Screwball Scramble’, where you had to navigate a metal ball through various obstacles.
Whenever I think of the game I vividly remember the parallel bars obstacle. It comprised of two metal rods on which the ball sits and by moving the rods apart with a lever, the ball could be made to roll forward onto the next stage of the game. However if the rods opened too far, the ball would fall through and you’d have to start all over again.
Last week I dreamed I was playing this game, but every time I tried to open the rods I’d panic and quickly close them again, forcing the ball to roll back. Then, in some sort of pretentious midnight epiphany, I realised that it wasn’t just a ball I was trying to move forward, it was my life.
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‘My biggest regret in life,’ my Dad told me one Sunday morning, ‘is wasting so many years worrying about what other people think.’
It was a typically English father-son moment. I leaned against the hall doorway in my dressing-gown as my Dad stood at the kitchen sink, looking out of the window and into the garden beyond. Little eye contact was involved but I knew he was trying to tell me something important and his words have stuck with me ever since.
Yet some five years on, a crushing cloud of anxiety still gathers around me whenever I meet new people for the first time. All the worry of what they might think of me turns my words into a mumbling gibberish and I walk clumsily as my brain tries to convince my body that it is capable of moving with grace and confidence.
They say the best way to overcome fears of a social nature is to go out and start a conversation with as many strangers as you can in one day. Now I’m in Thailand and my spoken Thai is still a work in progress, but what the hell, this could be fun. Here’s what happened when I tried it today:
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