|
o no u dih ant
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 02:07
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 01:59 |
|
|
ReindeerF posted:o no u dih ant Yeehaw pardner. I just got home from eating at Hill Country. Which is actual Texas barbecue in NY (at NY prices, of course :/ )
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 02:09
|
|
|
ReindeerF posted:Dude, the one you took me to was awesome if it's what we went to that time. Moo Ga-That is like mystery meat on a hot rock. You literally can't even identify it. Nah not that one, although that place is one of my favourites too. I do mean the places that have the little barbeques in front of you for cooking the meat, noodles etc - it's got quite popular with tourists in Siem Reap. Although to be fair the places I've been to have had fresh cuts of beef and really tasty dipping sauces, mystery meat sounds less appealing. Also it's name in Khmer basically means "cow goes up the hill", which I find oddly amusing.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 03:03
|
|
|
I'm looking for experience in a developing country. I've studied international development a lot in college, and it's something that I want to have some real contact with to see for myself. This doesn't mean that I need to go live in a mud hut in some rice fields, rather I want to at least be exposed to how globalization and development is changing people's lives. I do want to go off the beaten path and more "unspoiled" places. I'm looking to jump into something completely new and unfamiliar to me. I'm pretty interested in Buddhist culture, so that's also a consideration. I am interested in going to a country where the experience and possible language learning could open doors in the future beyond just English teaching. Everyone is telling me Taiwan is the best bet because "you could learn Chinese!" but I'm not sure if I want to subject myself to that, when alternatives like Vietnamese (not easy either) or Thai exist. I've studied language before (Finnish and French, proficient in the latter). If I choose Vietnam, my native friend at school offered to teach me a bit of the language during my last year at university before going - he has family in Hanoi who would make good contacts to have. Thailand, well, it just seems amazing. I suspect that the Thais are more open to foreigners. I'm sorry if I seem so indecisive and vague. I've never been to this region, and I'm excited to go. But, I really don't know what I'll be facing till I actually get there. Gumog fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Jun 26, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 03:19
|
|
|
I see your point now. If you don't have to *do* anything to make an income while you're here, I'd recommend going to Yangon in Burma (though at the speed they're growing you might wander into a great opportunity with some company looking for anyone on the ground to work). If you really want to see the development process at work, that's the best place to be right now. It's just about to open up and the speed with which it's changing already is staggering. I expect Vietnam would still be pretty interesting as it's considerably younger in the development curve than Thailand. Thailand got a big development upgrade when it let America run its foray into Indochina from here, basically, and has grown like wildfire ever since, while Vietnam got a concurrent and inexplicable development downgrade at exactly the same time (don't mention the war!). The big advantage to Thailand is that it's in the middle of all this, so you can go see Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Vietnam and Malaysia - as well as Thailand itself - from a central point. Still, if you want to live the development process, Cambodia or Burma would be my choices. I would say Laos, but nothing ever happens in Laos :P Of your list, Vietnam would be the best to see development in action, though they've just started to hit the slowing down/inflation point from what I gather.Tytan posted:Nah not that one, although that place is one of my favourites too. I do mean the places that have the little barbeques in front of you for cooking the meat, noodles etc - it's got quite popular with tourists in Siem Reap. Although to be fair the places I've been to have had fresh cuts of beef and really tasty dipping sauces, mystery meat sounds less appealing. Tytan posted:Also it's name in Khmer basically means "cow goes up the hill", which I find oddly amusing. ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 03:53 on Jun 26, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 03:47
|
|
|
Vietnam is probably your best fit given that you speak some French (good for old Viets) and want to see more development happen. Thailand would be fine too. However, if you want to see development happen before you every day (every hour really) and be in a place where your French is vaguely useful Cambodia is the grade A choice in the region. Why did you rule it out? I might add that Cambodia is way more buddhist than Vietnam. Taiwan is not a good fit. It's as developed as an island nation can get really, short of adding enough propellers that it can also fly. Not very Buddhist. Learning Chinese because OMG CHINA is also the worst reason to learn Chinese. raton fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Jun 26, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 04:07
|
|
|
Sheep-Goats posted:Vietnam is probably your best fit given that you speak some French (good for old Viets) and want to see more development happen. That's what I thought before arriving here but in fact, I've met maybe 2-3 Vietnamese speaking French, and they're usually Việt Kiều who came back here. Maybe Hanoi is different though. I must admit that I don't meet a lot of really old men in a normal day. Compared with PP, where a lot of street signs are still in French and this old man working in his convenience store talked to us in French without problems, it was surprising.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 04:14
|
|
|
Yeah, watching Cambodia develop has been insane. I go back frequently now, but I used to go about once a year - maybe twice - from 2003 on (with a gap in 2004) and it's just amazing. Every trip was like, "Woah the streets are paved now." "Woah there are ATMs now." "Woah there are traffic lights now." "Woah there's an overpass now." "Woah there's a 40 story building now?" I know that's all physical infrastructure, but it's still amazing to watch. Unfortunately, I don't live there and interact with a lot of Khmer people enough to observe the human development, but the most significant thing there that I've watched happen is what seems like the first generation of newly-educated Khmer emerging. Tytan could talk much more about this, but it's such a huge leap. When I first went I joined a listserv that was just then working on Khmer language packs for Firefox and OpenOffice and things as no one had made a Khmer language pack for anything. Now I go and there are all these Khmer people under 25 sitting around on facebook, chatting on Skype and so on. They're wearing moderately fashionable clothes, they get international level discussion and so on. It's still an incredibly poor country and this is a tiny minority of the country, but the fact that there's this sort of emerging middle class (however emerging) is just great to see. It's my favorite other country in the region, so I'd recommend it too, but I don't want to slag off other choices like Vietnam. I'm sure you'd get a lot out of living there in terms of what you're looking for. Senso posted:That's what I thought before arriving here but in fact, I've met maybe 2-3 Vietnamese speaking French, and they're usually Việt Kiều who came back here. Maybe Hanoi is different though. I must admit that I don't meet a lot of really old men in a normal day. ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Jun 26, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 04:20
|
|
|
ReindeerF posted:I have a real fear that someday, some Thai reporter is going to start translating ThaiVisa and printing it as a feature column in Thai Rath to explain how farangs feel about Thailand and there's going to be a rash of hate crimes against anyone who looks foreign. I wouldn't blame them after reading it, heh. The thai forum pantip does take farang comments/activities around the interwebs and make the occasional thread about it. That forum has been in the news and high profile people do visit it from time to time. So if you want Thai outrage go read that forum it's rather amusing. Last time I visited was during the whole lady gaga controversy. Thai commentary was fairly rationale about the whole thing. I think some Thais already assume the worst though from foreigners so it's not like it's surprising to them or anything. I've been sorely tempted to take some pics of degenerate farangs around Sukhumvit and make a thread there just to see what sort of comments I get.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 05:10
|
|
|
ReindeerF posted:It's still an incredibly poor country and this is a tiny minority of the country, but the fact that there's this sort of emerging middle class (however emerging) is just great to see. I think even amongst all the development in Phnom Penh, this is what really stands out for me. Our staff are basically made up of middle class Khmers in their 20s and it's amazing to see how in touch they are with technology, and how much more aware they are of what's going on in the world compared to the older generation. Obviously a big part of this is internet usage becoming so widespread (it still amazes me how many places here have free wifi). Of course Phnom Penh is developing far more rapidly than the rest of the country (too rapid for itself even - they really need to sort out basic stuff like power, traffic etc), but it's still an exciting time to be living here.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 05:20
|
|
|
Unfortunately I can't yet read Thai (I know, I know), so Pantip is a mystery to me, though I do kind of keep track of its significance for professional reasons. The main thing it comes up for other than general gossip seems to be food. Thai friends are always forwarding me Pantip threads full of food pictures, recipes and restaurants, heh. The fact that that forum is still so popular is amazing, because it is the ugliest, least user-friendly forum I have ever seen. I mean, Jesus, it makes SA look positively futuristic. The only time I bothered to translate a thread and figure it out there was when I ended up on it. Back during the Big Cleanup Day after the red shirt protest/massacre/hootenanny, I turned up really early with gloves, sponges and poo poo and just sat down in the middle of a street and started scrubbing graffiti off of statues and pillars and what not. You know, while the ThaiVisa forum was 26 pages into a discussion about how it was illegal to go participate and how you'd probably be deported. Anyway, Thai people were taking all kinds of pictures and I was on some TV program, so I ended up all over Facebook and, as it turns out, somewhere in Pantip. Friends were sending the links to me. I mainly translated it because it didn't occur to me at the time, but the act of a foreigner scrubbing political graffiti away after a brutal crackdown on a months-long protest might not be well received symbolically by all and I wanted to see if anyone was pissed, heh. Fortunately, most people there are Bangkokians, so it was just NARAK and LOOK FARANG.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 05:25
|
|
|
Anyone know the etymology of farang? I have to wonder if it comes from farangi and was left by the Muslims moving east.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 05:39
|
|
|
Thanks for the advice. It was helpful despite that it broadened my selection, I'll consider Cambodia too now - despite that the pay is much less. Is teaching English in Myanmar a serious option?
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 05:46
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:Anyone know the etymology of farang? I have to wonder if it comes from farangi and was left by the Muslims moving east. The word farang is used in Hindi too. So I assume it's just one of the remnant language/cultural influences from India. Aside from that India also gave Thailand Ganesh the multi-armed elephant god of money.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 05:51
|
|
|
Wikipedia claims it is descended from farangi. That is cool language exchange if true.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 06:40
|
|
|
I can only see it in regards to Vietnam in the OP but what shots should I be getting for Vietnam, Cambodia, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore? (I assume KL and Singapore are safe and I don't need anything for there?).
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 06:51
|
|
|
Brimmy posted:I can only see it in regards to Vietnam in the OP but what shots should I be getting for Vietnam, Cambodia, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore? (I assume KL and Singapore are safe and I don't need anything for there?). You dont need anything for Singapore apart from a huge injection of cash into your bank account 
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 06:57
|
|
|
Got that part covered and I'll only be there for 2 or 3 days. Going to be sad when I see my balance when I leave
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 07:07
|
|
|
No kidding. Hit me up for a pint when you arrive though 
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 07:11
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:Anyone know the etymology of farang? I have to wonder if it comes from farangi and was left by the Muslims moving east. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terms_for_white_people_in_non-Western_cultures Gumog posted:Is teaching English in Myanmar a serious option?
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 07:43
|
|
|
One of my friends is teaching in Mandalay now and seems to enjoy it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 07:46
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:One of my friends is teaching in Mandalay now and seems to enjoy it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 07:58
|
|
|
ReindeerF posted:In Laos I kept seeing these people who were clearly Lao-French, speaking French and Laos alternately and it hadn't hit me until then how odd it is that I had never seen this before. French is still the second official language in Laos, my temporary import form for the Minsk was Lao/French only. I actually had better luck reading the Lao  I'd still say French doesn't come in very handy in any of the former Indochina countries. Every blue moon you can really make an old person's day, that's probably about it. Also, studying Thai as a native English speaker opens basically zero professional opportunities, I wouldn't bother. Grand Fromage posted:Anyone know the etymology of farang? I have to wonder if it comes from farangi and was left by the Muslims moving east. Yeah, it's because we rolled in there and started making off with all the bars of gold-pressed latinum.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 08:04
|
|
|
Pompous Rhombus posted:Yeah, it's because we rolled in there and started making off with all the bars of gold-pressed latinum. If I visit Thailand I expect one of you to greet me with a hearty QUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARK!
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 08:09
|
|
|
Pompous Rhombus posted:I'd still say French doesn't come in very handy in any of the former Indochina countries. Every blue moon you can really make an old person's day, that's probably about it. Pompous Rhombus posted:Also, studying Thai as a native English speaker opens basically zero professional opportunities, I wouldn't bother.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 08:15
|
|
|
It's the same debate I have with myself about learning Korean. I live here and should, so I do, but it's completely useless unless I plan to be a lifer.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 08:17
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:It's the same debate I have with myself about learning Korean. I live here and should, so I do, but it's completely useless unless I plan to be a lifer. EDIT: Also you can be a tour guide in Siem Reap. In spite of how rude some Korean group tours are, I did get pulled into a restaurant by one group one night and forced to hang out, dance and sit at the table clapping in unison and drinking. It was bizarre, but they were very nice (I was being treated as the dancing monkey, of course, but in a nice way). ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 08:32 on Jun 26, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 08:21
|
|
|
Hey sheep goats, we visited everywhere in your list except for the Chinese joint since we've kind of had enough of that. I took pictures too, but posting from my phone it's kind of hard to upload. Chang massage was pretty great, Indian joint was good too as we've only had that style of Indian food once before in Singapore, I think your place was better. Tuktas fantastic food stall was ok, but a little bit of a letdown for me, I had huge hopes. Still good though, I think I am just not as big of a fan of the two dishes with rice prepared dishes as I am of fresh cookin. I barely spoke to Tukta herself but spoke a while to what I guess was her son, he was a nice dude with good English, I told him my friend from NY sent me so hopefully the message goes back and brings a tear to her eye. She has aged a lot from your pic though, grey hairs rolling out here and there. The street with her stall is pretty good though, nice variety of dishes down there. Wat khek was possibly the busiest temple I have seen with people actually going in to pray Reindeer, we are gonna follow your non bike guide I think. The bike one does sound cool, but we just can't imagine riding bikes in this heat, Jesus. Also, the moo ga ta has me somewhat intrigued, I can't lie. Invisible Handjob fucked around with this message at 10:28 on Jun 26, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 09:41
|
|
|
Oi, here's a great place I forgot to recommend: https://sites.google.com/site/goldbayleaves/ Basically, go here. Take BTS to Punnawithi station (Sukhumvit line toward Bearing) and take Exit 2. Go down the stairs, grab a motorbike taxi or real taxi and tell them "Soi 101/1" which is like "bai soi neung roi neug tap neung" so maybe "bye soy noong roy noong taep noong" otherwise just motion ahead and then tell him to turn left when you see the streets sign. It's about a 3-4 minute drive. You can walk it in about 15 minutes if you prefer, it's not a bad walk. Once you get to Soi 101/1, turn left onto the soi and walk down about 500 meters. On your left you'll see a restaurant with absolutely no sign and some tables and chairs on the patio. The walls inside are painted a pale yellow and it looks like any other shophouse. Has an LCD TV on the far wall usually playing soccer. Menu on a stand out front. Place is a total hidden treasure. The chef is some kind of 5 star hotel chef who decided to open his own low profile joint. He cooks great Thai food, some excellent Western food and some awesome fusion - like Fettucini Penang, for example. If it weren't 100% on the other side of town for me I'd go weekly. EDIT: Forgot to mention for anyone out there, the iTranslate Voice app for iPhone is insanely good. If you speak "street one hundred one slash one" into it, it spits out almost exactly the Thai you need. ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 10:23 on Jun 26, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 10:17
|
|
|
Invisible Handjob posted:Hey sheep goats, we visited everywhere in your list... Wat khek was possibly the busiest temple I have seen with people actually going in to pray If you want to see active prayer try the Erawan statue, Thailand's most consistent wish granter. The faithful killed an interloper in 2006 when he vandalized the statue. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erawan_Shrine raton fucked around with this message at 10:34 on Jun 26, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 10:31
|
|
|
I had a good chortle imagining ReindeerF being a Korean tour group's dancing monkey in Siem Reap. Thanks for that! PS I had assumed "farang" just came straight from "France" or "French" but I see that it's way older and way more indirect. That's pretty drat cool.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 10:42
|
|
|
When I was in Thailand nobody knew where the word came from. Thais are the worst for etymology. It doesn't help that nobody wrote anything down there until the 1990s. Did they manage to figure out "mai pen rai" yet?
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 15:36
|
|
|
At least they don't argue. I had a seemingly endless argument about the word arubaitu from a Korean insisting it was an English loanword. It's a German loanword, arbeit, by way of Japanese. Guy would not let it go. I'm like, I speak English and German, I loving know where arbeit comes from. Why are you even asking me if you're not going to listen?
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 15:44
|
|
|
See? Koreans are the loving worst. Ugh.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 16:47
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:Wikipedia claims it is descended from farangi. That is cool language exchange if true. Farang does come from farangi, which is Arabic for "Frank" (as in Charlemagne).
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 19:10
|
|
|
Any suggestions for a nice aqua quiet beach in Thailand to bring old people? (Like 60+) ?? Would be flying out of Vientiane.. preferably with airplane access. If bus is required, would prefer a not too ride. (Less then 4 hours from Bangkok) Budgetting a bit so won't have unlimited funds for the trip if we do.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 19:51
|
|
|
I'm in Koh Samui and a couple more old people would fit right into this particular sliver of Lamai where I'm staying. Especially if they are fat and Russian. It's also got an airport. The advantage of Samui is that you can pretty much pick your flavor, the island is massive and there's about a dozen beach towns with varying levels of crowding and infrastructure. It looks like it might get a bit hellish in the main Lamai/Chaweng beaches during high season though. Koh Lanta was a lot quieter, but the whole island essentially closed for low season, so I might have a distorted impression. You can't swim on the cheaper beach (Khon Khlong) because it's too rocky, but there are some more mid-range options around a couple of really nice beaches down at the south end of the island. You can get there by bus or fly to Phuket and take a ferry by way of Koh Phi Phi if you want to island-hop a bit. edit just to chime in late about Vietnam, I found it generally pretty nice - very friendly random locals, a good variety of things to do, some really gorgeous Chinese-influenced temples up north and ubiquitous 24-hour sandwich ladies with the most amazing fate-tempting tupperware containers of unidentifiable meat. On the other hand their tourist industry is among the worst I've ever encountered, I've never seen such a brazen you-people-are-cargo mentality anywhere on Earth. I liked Hoi An best, and Dalat was actually pretty fun too despite not having much in the way of actual sights. Nha Trang was basically Miami but the Venpearland theme park was pretty great, $15 for unlimited arcade freeplay time, an almost A-list aquarium and a respectable mid-sized waterpark. Anyone visiting Saigon should definitely go to the Reunification Palace, it's something straight out of a 1960s spy movie complete with a swingin' disco penthouse and you can play apocalypse panic with all the working old telephones, PA system and interconnected offices in the bomb shelter/basement. I went to the tunnels too, but even as a not-particularly-patriotic American I found the "  here's another way we horrifically mutilated those dumb American bastards " undertone to the displays really off-putting. The War Museum handled it with a lot more grace.
duralict fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Jun 26, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 20:16
|
|
|
Well, it turns out that I have connections to Myanmar as well. Just asked a Burmese foreign student at my school about his home country - he's putting me into contact with Americans who already live there. I must say, the more I read about Myanmar, the more interested I am! This may be "the one." Going to do some more research into Cambodia and Vietnam though. As cool as some of these countries might be, the wages offered is going to a deciding factor - student loans to start paying!
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 22:17
|
|
|
lol internet. posted:Any suggestions for a nice aqua quiet beach in Thailand to bring old people? (Like 60+) ?? S Thong Nai Pan Noi on Phangan should do the job nicely. Plane to Samui, boat to Phangan, drive to Thong Nai Pan Noi. Sounds complicated but it's not. There's a few places to eat, a few places to drink, a range of different accommodation (I liked Thongtapan, at the northern end of the beach) and even last year during one of the most enormous full moon parties, it wasn't at all crowded. 
Finch! fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Jun 27, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2012 00:19
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 01:59 |
|
|
ReindeerF posted:I'd debate this a bit, but I agree that it's useless in most cases in Bangkok and that it's only useful if you plan to make your money from the Thai market somehow. For me it's just something I need to do because, you know, it's pretty silly when you can't read the notice from the post office telling you where to pick up your package, heh. poo poo like that. Dude we learned the alphabet in three weeks, get on that poo poo. Grand Fromage posted:At least they don't argue. I had a seemingly endless argument about the word arubaitu from a Korean insisting it was an English loanword. It's a German loanword, arbeit, by way of Japanese. Guy would not let it go. I'm like, I speak English and German, I loving know where arbeit comes from. Why are you even asking me if you're not going to listen? It just means "work" in German, right? I told my German friend that it meant part-time work in Japanese and he laughed and said that's what a full-time job in Germany must look like to a Japanese person lol internet. posted:Any suggestions for a nice aqua quiet beach in Thailand to bring old people? (Like 60+) ?? Full Moon Party.
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2012 01:00
|
|