We have lived in Thailand for more than two months! In some ways, that’s really hard to believe, but in other ways, it feels like we’ve been here for a long time. Like everyone who is experiencing a new culture for the first time, we’ve had a bit of a cultural adjustment. For those of you who have lived abroad before, this will be a familiar feeling.
[If you’ve never lived abroad or traveled abroad for an extended period of time, you might find this explanation of cultural adjustment from Princeton useful: https://www.princeton.edu/oip/practical-matters/Cultural-Adjustment.pdf ]
Every person experiences cultural adjustment (or as others might call it, culture shock) differently, and each period doesn’t necessarily have a defined beginning or end. You might also revisit a period briefly, depending on your situation. Hence, I can only tell you my experience as an individual. If you want to know how Scott and the kids feel, you’ll have to ask them!
For me, I think the honeymoon period was brief. I really love my job and could not be happier about working for IJM, but our house was a bit of a disappointment. It was pretty dirty when we moved in and the outdoor kitchen with oven, which I had been ecstatic about before we arrived, was not as awesome as I had expected. That, coupled with the fact that we did not have a vehicle for our first week here, made our living situation less than ideal. We also realized how tragically useless our Thai language knowledge was, and for me it felt a bit overwhelming to try to communicate with people when I had literally no idea what they were saying.
That paragraph might’ve been a little depressing, but trust me when I say we are so happy here! The point of this post is to say that Thailand is starting to feel like home. We have adopted the attitude that we are going to be here for a year, so we might as well learn to live here and not worry about the differences so much. Here are a few differences that we’ve embraced lately:
- Bugs
In the States, I did not tolerate bugs in my home. If they wanted to live their life outside, that was fine, but once you entered my house you were probably not going to live very long. In Thailand, bugs are inevitable. The houses are not sealed quite as well so bugs can get in everywhere. There are also tiny ants that swarm your kitchen and dining room if you leave a speck of food anywhere (you can imagine how easily that happens at our house!). So, I’ve had to adjust to living with a few more bugs than I would like. We obviously don’t let them get into our food or bother the children, but I am less maniacal about killing every bug that I see.
- Lack of Air Conditioning
Central air is just not a thing here. We have individual air conditioning units in our bedrooms, but the other parts of our house do not have air conditioning. The weather is not too hot right now, so this really is not a big deal (ask me again during hot season and I might have a different answer). It does mean, though, that we can’t set the temperature of our living spaces, and sometimes I am sweating just watching tv. Sweating while cooking or washing dishes is a given. Many restaurants and other public spaces do not have air conditioning, so you might be sweating while eating, shopping, or working. Again, it’s only in the 80s here, so no one is in danger of heat stroke, but it has pushed us out of our American 72-degree comfort zone.
- Thai Language
Learning foreign languages is something I prided myself on before we moved to Thailand. I speak Spanish and have learned small amounts of Mandarin and Italian in the past with relative ease. However, Thai is a whole new ballgame. We tried to find some good resources before we moved for learning the language, but there just isn’t much available (or at least, we didn’t find it). Thai is a symbolic language, so reading signs was impossible. It’s also a tonal language, so you could say the same word with a different tone and have a totally different meaning. We didn’t have a Thai tutor our first month here, and it was very frustrating to try to communicate with other people when we had no idea what they were saying. As you can imagine, we resorted to a lot of hand gestures and grunts in the first few weeks! Now, however, we have an excellent Thai tutor and have begun to pick up the language. Admittedly, we are limited to conversations about food and shopping, but we have made a lot of progress.
- Being Barefoot
In Thai culture, it is disrespectful to wear shoes indoors. This is particularly important in places like temples, but also applies to a person’s home. We don’t wear shoes at our house, which is not such a big change since we did the same in Indiana. My office also leaves their shoes outside, so I spend the vast majority of my day barefoot. I knew this would be the case before we came and I thought it would be weird. However, it now feels totally normal to teach without any shoes on. Sometimes I almost feel strange wearing shoes for more than ten minutes. :)
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