0:00
an actual thae part of Bangkok we were I never saw if you name 10 things tour see in Bangkok I have seen none of them you
0:06
learned some Tha which I assume it's not an easy language you can't show up and be like well I'm not going to push okay
0:12
you're never leaving Street foot in Bangkok or a burger in San Francisco we
0:17
have two feet that in America are called feet and that's all they are in Thailand my feet are like weapons of offending
0:24
people speaking Thai fluently or mastering the art of Thai cooking so so after a while it's a
0:31
really fun vacation because you're allowed to stare at strangers welcome to this new episode of
0:38
expit experts today we have a fascinating guest with us Mike oppenheim
0:44
Mike is a writer musician and a podcast host who has spent years navigating life
0:49
between the US and Thailand unlike most experts who either retire in Thailand or
0:54
passed through as tourist Mike had a deeply personal connection to the country having being married to a Thai
1:01
American and spending significant time in both huahin and Bangkok today we will
1:07
dive into his unique experience cultural surprises and life lessons he took from Thailand so sit back relax and let's
1:14
explore these expert experience together so welcome to a new episode of
Guest Background & Expat Journey
1:21
exper experts um today we will dive into a unique experience uh it's a little bit
1:28
of cultural surprises but also some perspective from someone who lived in Thailand and did it as a local little
1:36
bit not as a tourist spot with a with a family in there so uh first of all
1:41
thanks a lot Mike for for accepting the invitation and for being here today
1:46
um I don't know without further Ado I would I would just like go directly into and to ask you why how did you arrive to
1:54
Thailand what was motivation behind it what what is your story like uh where do you come from and and and how did you
2:00
arrive to leave in Thailand you're back in the US though now I
2:06
think so yeah from the beginning you're originally from us correct uh yeah so I
2:11
was born in uh New York City of the United States but by the time I was three I was living in the San Francisco
2:17
area of California uh my parents are extensive travelers from before I was born so they definitely gave me the
2:23
travel bug as a kid uh my first time abroad was to Athens Greece um on I was
2:28
12 turning 13 and was life-changing I uh before that I'd only been to Mexico which Americans don't really call going
2:35
abroad because it's just like especially in California it's you know it's not a long trip um so I'd been to Mexico like
2:42
10 times I spoke some Spanish because of my mom as Cuban so I had like familiarity with like differences but
2:47
the trip to gree blew in my mind it was just incredible we went to Istanbul after and then we came home so I got to see the Turkish just the city of isul
2:55
but you know that representation of Turkish culture but in Greece we traveled with a local cele
3:00
she was like a talk show host it was popular in Greece at the time in the 90s and she took us to Corfu but then she
3:05
took us to a private not private a public Island that is only for like real Greek people it's not like a place
3:12
Americans even know about and don't get me wrong maybe now it's super po you know I don't know anything this is 1992
3:17
so but in 1992 I got to live you remember the name of the island um I have asked so many times I I could find
3:24
it but I don't remember I know it's near enough to Corfu that it's like within an hour's fairy ride from Corfu I I can
3:30
tell you that much I would love to find out though because we have you know email and stuff
3:35
I will find out and let you know for sure I don't think I can find out in the time we're doing this podcast but uh I actually didn't think I was gonna talk
3:41
about this but it is important to understand why I went to Thailand which is to say um while I liked Istanbul and
3:47
I liked Athens and Corfu the trip to the island is what sold me on traveling it was incredible to be in a real micro
3:53
culture and uh most Greek people speak enough English that as a 12 13y old it
3:59
was very easy would go in and order these like little 10-minute eggs I'd sit with all these old Greek men in the morning and they'd have coffee and I
4:05
would just sit there like wide-eyed indulging in the experience of everyone knows I'm a foreigner but they don't
4:11
care because there's not a lot of other foreigners so that's a precursor to um when I got older I started traveling all
4:18
over um especially Europe and uh I had no my strongest desire was to see all
4:23
the South America but for financial reasons um and especially politically when I was coming of age it wasn't like
4:30
the safest place to go at my age and to do like what I want to do which was a car trip because of Vos so it wasn't
4:36
that you can't go like fly to Buenos fly to these places but I wanted to do like a drive through Central America into
4:42
South America um and I I said I wasn't really interested in Asia Only to point out how weird it is that I ended up
4:48
living in Thailand a famous Asian City so um what happened was I was in graduate school in a language program
4:54
and I was an ESL teacher I taught adults English as a second language in America so I taught over 100 language groups
5:00
people from over a 100 countries and I did it um five days a week for nine years with about six days off a year um
5:08
it was an incredible experience I've me I've met and interacted at one point in my life I was spending more time with
5:14
people who don't speak English in America than people who speak English in America it was a very weird experience
5:19
and all throughout that I was courting and falling in love with a US citizen who was raised in Thailand by her Thai
5:25
parents she looks Thai she is Thai but she was born in America and she had full citizenship and she was also a teacher
5:32
so we were getting along and working together and we ended up falling in love and getting married and that's why I
5:38
lived in Thailand is I she wanted to live in Thailand I wanted to live in America she also wanted to live in
5:43
America I didn't mind living in Thailand but I didn't want to only live there so we started doing these experimental
5:49
trips we do like a month at a time then three months then six months and uh when
5:55
I would travel with her and live there we weren't living we were in Bangkok for most of it but in like an actual tie
6:00
part of Bangkok we were I never saw if you name 10 things toury in Bangkok I have seen none of them I have never done
6:07
like a white American Tourist trip to Thailand I also same with puket like I can't tell you what these popular
6:13
destinations are like I can only talk about hen and the parts of Bangkok I was in but I was immersed I did at one point
6:19
speak pigeon TI I would say like a five-year-old I I got pretty Advanced um T people were surprised by how much I
6:27
was able to do but also not like impressed and ready to talk to me like an adult so you know I was not not the
6:33
I'm not bragging is what I'm trying to say but it was that's most of what I want to talk about today is culture shock and how
6:40
hard it is to try to belong feel like you never belong and even with a family who speaks some English um they would
6:47
break into thae whenever they felt like it they would literally talk about me in thae um I could tell they were talking
6:53
about me I knew enough pronouns and words um it wasn't even like they were saying mean things it was just why would
6:59
we talk English which slows us down you know so it was like that constant feeling of frustration where you want to
7:05
take part in an adult conver you feel like for Americans watching you feel like the kid at the Thanksgiving kids
7:11
table like you feel like no matter where you go like you're just being told like you go over here where it's safe we'll
7:16
bring you food we'll bring you water if you need something kind of like make a motion and uh so yeah so that's I I
7:23
would say that's a good introduction to why I was in Thailand and so that was a period of um three and a half years
7:28
where I was living on and off in Thailand um and the longest like I said was about six months yeah it's it's really interesting
7:35
because at the end nowadays like what you get from Thailand no like the images that you get from Thailand especially
7:40
now I don't know back then I assume it has been always a super touristic destination at the end uh if not the
7:46
most touristic place in in South Asia probably and yeah and now this whole
7:52
since some years you also see this whole bunch of digital Nomads living there uh but not being really connected to to
8:00
probably what it's the real Thai experience or like being a local in there no but in in the way that you say
8:06
it also you you had difficulties even though you were having the option of like being part of a family and being in
8:14
a non touristic area more like a local spot in Bangkok as you said um it it was
8:21
difficult for you I assume like the the the connection with the people it's not only the language it's also like they
8:27
try to protect you a little bit maybe or they what how how was your first
8:32
impressions when you arrived there like that's how really um I mean I should I should full disclosure I am divorced
8:38
from the woman I married uh we do not talk anymore uh we have a son who we share and it's not a great situation I'm
8:45
not going to get into it because it's not Point there's no point to it and I hold no animosity her family was always
8:51
fine with me but they already um I think I think my son would be okay with him watching the Sunday and hearing this
8:57
they're they're weird they're not normal type people people in Thailand would tell me that they would tell me that about themselves they were um uh most
9:04
Thai people are extremely social and they were not very social so um they had their they're very normal in the Thai um
9:11
tradition of being family oriented and having a large family and always being welcome but they were not um there's a
9:17
big class divide in Thailand and they were on one side of it and their side uh this I don't mind saying because it's my
9:24
opinion they were on a political side I would not be on if I lived in Thailand so like as a US citizen who's dealing
9:30
with the political stuff going on here which everyone knows what I'm alluding to I I would not have been on the side her parents were on in Thailand which
9:36
was a similar side as this it I'm also notown In America which is preserving
9:41
wealth and class and like keeping that division pretty hard and for those of you who understand Thailand and like the
9:47
history of it I was there in 2013 to 16 so it's after they had a prime minister get caught for bribing the public he was
9:54
thrown out and so it was like very hard as an American because the person they threw out was a scumbag the person they
10:00
replaced him with was a scumbag um this actually I was going to say this at the very end but I will bring it up now
10:05
because I think it's important it's a kingdom uh so I was living in a kingdom which is not what you think when you
10:11
hear an American talk about a kingdom it was not like uh oh the England has a figurehead named Queen Elizabeth no no
10:17
no their King had real power and you stand up and you like pray to him and like and like it's very different as an
10:25
American there's no free speech none whatsoever um so to answer to go back to what you said uh they weren't protecting
10:32
me uh but they were like very dismissive of like if I asked a question uh
10:38
anything that even came close to politics they would like we don't talk about that like no matter what like
10:44
never I couldn't get one word my wife she talk about it like all as much as I wanted but she wasn't uh politically
10:52
educated nor did she care she had like no concern she was raised in a class where that's like not her job it nothing
10:59
to do with sexism she just didn't care um so servants who were the kind of people
11:07
I would normally get along with and like want to know but they were not allowed to talk to me either for a different
11:13
reason about that kind of stuff um and um and they yeah so like at restaurants
11:19
they would order for me but that was actually awesome like like the best like we go to hen and they would order like
11:25
off the menu things that only Thai people know how to ask for um never once said like make it not spicy for the um
11:32
you know the Gin the like the white guy the what do they call
11:40
us come to me or not papaya but uh there's a fruit
11:45
that's white and that's what they called us oh yeah Mak sense which is also funny
11:50
uh I do like to bring this up to I think a Europeans and Americans have this idea of like nobility and cultural respect go
11:57
live in an Asian country and you will see no cultural respect for the European or or Western cultures but not in a mean
12:04
way just in a like it's pretty normal to be dismissive of the other and like I think it would do better for Western
12:12
people to understand that when they're dealing with Asian countries um and in other countries because I think um they
12:19
expect us to have dictators and leaders who are strong that's like a part of
12:24
most Asian cultures so it's not that they like it but they expect it uh and so like when you come in and you're like
12:31
everyone share your feelings let's like talk you know that's not that doesn't like work so as far as protecting me and
12:37
how that went uh it was more like just um you do what you want but don't break
12:44
any rules that would embarrass us like that's the best way I could say it okay so so there is a lot of an strong sense
Biggest Challenges & Surprising Moments
12:51
of like rules and and ways of doing that are not only laws but they are also
12:57
cultural related uh to to how Thai people does
13:02
things yeah I even had a note to talk to you about feet just how hard that was just dealing with like I have two feet
13:09
that in America are called feet and that's all they are in Thailand my feet are like weapons of offending people
13:16
they're like um they're like these instruments that you need to be conscientious of at all times and like
13:21
where you place them what direction they face um if the per you need to know the age of people in a room so that your
13:27
feet aren't like offending the older people and if like there's all old people you might want to like tuck them
13:33
like there's just like and and no one's going to tell you these things they're just going to say uh I really wish I
13:38
could remember the word they called white people because it was what I was called all the time it'll come to me but they would just say like oh he's that
13:44
and like that's why he's doing it but it wasn't like that's okay it was like that's really rude he didn't take the
13:50
time to learn our culture and so I did take the time but the first time I didn't point my feet the right way is
13:56
when I started learning all that like learning by by finger pointing at you
14:03
you know probably yeah I see I see um you said something curious though that's
14:08
that's a funny thing like everything started with the trip in Greece and in an island no for yourself and like
14:15
trying to like it triggered also you said like your parents were well traveled which I think it's something
14:21
that also marks a lot if you travel with your parents when you're a child and then you start sparkling this curiosity
14:28
of seeing um were you though interested in living abroad like or it was oh I
14:34
want to travel and like be a tourist and discover as many places as you want to
14:39
discover but was it an objective in your life to be leaving abroad really like U
14:44
the end it happened but a very strong one and I still I don't have regrets and
14:51
I don't want to go back I have a beautiful family I have three children two with my wife and one with the woman we were talking about and uh I love them
14:58
and I'm glad that my life worked out the way it did but I did always want to live in a foreign country and uh now that
15:05
I've done it I still would want to do it if I was young but I would not want to
15:10
do it at my current age or older because um it's when you're young it's easier to
15:17
be alone and deal with the feelings of loneliness I think whereas when you're older you just know how much that sucks
15:23
and you don't want to like so it would be like much harder to move somewhere and also if I moved somewhere with my wife who speaks English we wouldn't be
15:30
living in a foreign country we would both be like talking to each other in English all the time going out and like
15:37
feeling like these people don't get us you know it' be like it's not I've never heard a good story of like a couple who
15:43
moves to another country in that like way you know you have to really it's a Young Person's move in my opinion so um
15:50
but I did I always wanted to live in a foreign country I wanted it to be a Spanish speaking country because I had a leg up on that because I grew up
15:56
listening to my relatives so I had a good ear for Spanish um and also I'm attracted to the Latin American like
16:04
Vibe like that kind of like my mom is part Cuban and from Tampa Florida so I just kind of like the um span you know
16:11
it's from Spain but I like that architecture that Vibe um you know I don't uh I never had a specific country
16:19
but I know that that was like my dream and then uh I've spent a ton of time because of the school I work for they
16:25
would fly me to London a lot in England and I would go to Ireland and other English speaking countries
16:31
Canada and that would sounds like
16:41
annoying did you consider at some point staying more permanently in Thailand
16:46
without this back and forward I mean you you increased no you start with one month three months six months whatever
16:53
it was a it was a moment where you were saying oh maybe I live here for oh no we
16:59
were rest of your life or not so we got married in 2013 the very end of it it
17:05
was literally December of 2013 and we had a plan we had an agreement my wife and I we were going to move to Thailand permanently in
17:11
2019 um so what happened was we started going to Thailand 2014 2015 2016 by the
17:17
time 2016 rolled around she started hating living in Thailand Okay so it was like like but
17:25
she also didn't like living in America more so um uh I mean this is something I will admit about my divorce um I didn't
17:31
live with a happy person she didn't like Thailand she didn't like America and it started to become obvious to me that her
17:37
problem was being happy not like the location is what makes you unhappy and I you know I could get into this more but
17:42
it's not important but I do think people should consider this that if you're unhappy moving is never going to make
17:48
you happy uh a better person coming in or out isn't really going to help it's like happiness is a condition you remind
17:54
yourself of you have to like look at life differently you have to learn your own personal and brains and moods and
18:00
you have to like forgive yourself when you have days where you hate everything you just have to like that's a huge part of growing up I'm in my 40s and like now
18:07
I get it like there's just days where I'm not going to wake up and I don't feel like being a human and um and so
18:13
with that said uh I actually started to really enjoy the experience and I was getting ready to move there but I'm not
18:20
going to lie I felt like I was being told where to move told how to live because she wanted to live an upper
18:26
class life in Thailand and I don't like um I will just say this it's rude but I don't really like hanging out with rich
18:33
people in any country um I just don't it doesn't mean I don't like wealth I don't like money and I don't respect people
18:39
who have money but there is a type of person who self-identifies as rich I
18:44
don't want to be around them this family would just point out how expensive things were they would tell me like how
18:49
poor other people were we would drive through the countryside and they would like say like oh those those poor people
18:55
and I would look at them and say oh those people who have no rights no vote and like who are second class citizens
19:01
working for a king you know like my brain is going like American all over so um so yes I did want to live there
19:08
longer and I did and I would Thailand is a really cool country in culture uh speaking the language opened up a huge
19:15
Wide Window of like opportunity they are it's called the land of smiles and it's
19:20
not fake and if you're an American and you love smiling which is what we're famous for like British people don't
19:26
smile Canadians don't smile as much as we do austral come close but you know it's like we are
19:31
famous hate us as much as you want but we smile a lot and we kind of need it Thailand is your place it is the only
19:37
Asian country where it's appropriate and nice and and rewarded to smile at others and it's like it is a great feeling it
19:43
really is a warm culture um they love making fun of themselves and you which I love it's a very like sense of humor
19:50
driven culture um so and would say again at the risk of even my future flights
19:56
there and going there um you do have to take your American uh First Amendment right to
20:03
speech and like all that and just throw that away if you're going to Thailand that is a country that will throw you in
20:09
jail and they don't need to call a lawyer and they don't need to tell your family like you need to like really get that through your head if you're going
20:15
to Thailand I would just say that to any Young American that makes sense I mean that
20:21
happens in a lot of places actually not yeah well that's what uh going back to
20:27
my experience in the school that was I would really learn that Americans are full of warm navity like it's a very
20:34
like loving naivity and I gets mistaken for being stupid and idiot and ignorant it's actually a cultural thing that we
20:42
like say like assume the best out of people put your hand out when you meet someone smile get to know them like we
20:48
just have this built in and uh yeah and so they Americans W would push back a
20:56
lot from me and say like that's not true Koreans wouldn't say that about I'm like no no you don't get it like all these
21:03
countries don't like immigration all of them they don't want you there they have very strict laws Thailand doesn't even
21:08
allow it they hav an O visa for adults over 55 but I can't I had no opportunity for citizenship never not once no I am
21:16
not welcome I am not allowed to join their culture ever and I'm not saying this in an anti-immigration sense I'm
21:21
just saying Americans have a really weird idea of like Statue of Liberty open your arms like it is yeah as you
21:29
know and as you just said so uh you
21:34
maybe moving a little bit to the to the language barrier part because you said that you learned some time which I
21:40
assume it's not an easy language to learn at all uh how how how was that
21:45
experience how how much time did it take how did you do it uh is it easy to to to
21:51
use it at all I don't know the language at all actually so uh how how was the
21:56
experience for you with the language yeah so I I I speak French and I speak Spanish at a level of like cultural
22:04
fluency is what I call it able to get a buy I can like I could move to France tomorrow and no one would want to have
22:10
like a deep conversation with me but I would have no problem getting groceries you know I could talk to a police
22:15
officer if I did something wrong same with Spanish but a little lower Tai um as someone who studied language
22:22
and taught language so Tai is a tonal language much like Chinese and Vietnamese unlike uh chines chines which
22:28
has four tones and unlike Vietnamese which has six Tai has five so the hardest part for me and what will always
22:34
be the hardest is hearing and saying tones correctly because the difference between like wh and the difference
22:41
between uh like uh mountain is a tone it's not like the word so in Spanish you
22:48
can just memorize like KO it means how and if you say KO there's only one o sound oh that's Spanish Spanish say five
22:54
vowel sound so when you study languages you look at phoning sounds so English has 41 phones we use 40 because we don't
23:01
make the H sound anymore but we had 41 for most years um I forget how many
23:07
italian has and Greek you know but every language has a set number of phonemes Tai has 72 phonemes and multiple uh
23:15
characters that make the same sound but depending on the king's rules for writing so the writing system is almost
23:23
impossible to like Master quickly reading is really hard they don't separate words with space
23:29
um and then uh you ask questions by putting a question marker tone at the end so you don't know if it's a question
23:36
until you hear the very last word but if you study language you know humans don't hear words in orders we hear like a
23:42
block and then our brain like sorts it out so that's why it works so um I'm I'm
23:49
trying to explain to people who do learn languages and don't learn languages at the same time so if you're learning a language what's important is that you do
23:54
not translate that's the that does not mean you're learning a language so if you go I am Hungary and then you go yo
24:01
Tango ombre like that's not actually speaking Spanish that's translating from your native language into another
24:07
language and then speaking it uh to speak Spanish correctly you have to think yo Tango ombre like you have to
24:13
think the sentence so I never got like good at the thinking tie part but I got
24:19
very good at like memorizing words I would carry these flash cards around and I would study them relentlessly and at
24:25
one point I knew a thousand tie words like well like I could really get them out and if I said them five times the
24:32
person could figure out the tone so my output got high enough that I was
24:38
actually pretty confident I was able to like explain who I am where I'm from that I have children that I'm married
24:44
that I uh I like sunrises more than sunsets like I could get that advanced
24:49
you know I could like talk about um like likes and dislikes and things uh mo more
24:54
less like uh you know issues of um uh like modulation like changing a degrees
25:01
of how much you like something so I was getting like pretty good like that but as far as like going from one language
25:06
to another they what they study is uh language a to language b is all you have to know so there's no correlation
25:12
between like you speak Italian or you speak Greek or you speak whatever language and then oh like now you learn
25:17
languages better it's just like English and German are incredibly similar so it's much easier to learn German or
25:23
English if you speak either much easier if you're an English speaker and you want to learn one foreign language German you know and then if you speak
25:29
Spanish obviously Italian or French like there's no brainer so knowing Spanish helped me learn French and vice versa
25:36
and it it it confuses me sometimes because they do have like weird not meeting things you know but as you know
25:42
so um so Tai is kind of a breath of fresh air because there's no confusion you're never gonna like worry that you
25:49
said like an English word and Tha or anything like that um but it was it took
25:54
three and a half years to get to a level that I think I could have that in one year in Spanish but and it's entirely
26:01
because of tones um I still have so much trouble with two of the tones they just sound the same to me it's just it's so
26:08
hard there's five I can easily get like the two really weird ones and I can easily get the main one but the three
26:15
that are like around the main one they just all sound the same to me a lot um you also have to get used to speaking
26:21
like a cartoon character like if you want to make a high tonal sound you have to make a high sound and that sounds
26:27
effeminate in English like no matter what you sound like a girl would talk
26:32
and that's not how a man would talk and this is independent of gender and code switching and and trans issues this has
26:38
nothing to do with that this has to do with like everyone in America doesn't speak like a little girl would be for a
26:45
reason because you adopt like your tone but that's not true in Thailand to get the high tone everyone gets the high
26:51
tone and you need to arrive to that tonality so it's also required for for speaking it's not that
26:59
you need to to do it but well that's very interesting actually like um maybe
27:04
one last question before we we jump to the next section uh I would ask you what about the daytoday challenges like I I
27:12
assume like the rhythm is another between us and Thailand things happened at another speed and because I don't
27:18
know I lived in Germany I lived in in Greece and between Germany and Greece for example things Chang and it's still
27:24
Europe but life in Greece it's much more calm much more relax everything happens
27:29
and if it needs to happen it will happen while Germany it's a little bit more like Rhythm and structure or whatever
27:35
maybe not structure but in the sense like things needs to be promoted to happen in gree everything it's like if
27:42
it happens if it happens it's not not um I don't know how is the day daytoday like life in Thailand is it more like in
27:49
the relaxed side of it or it's more like in the hardcore lifestyle um that's a
27:56
really good question and I have to separate hen and Bangkok again so hen is the if
28:02
you're in Thailand it's famous because it's where the king built his Palace um and I forget which king but I think I
28:08
think the most famous King Chong Alor uh who went to the west and modernized the
28:13
Thai government Parliament to it he's he's their hero
28:19
their is named after him um so if you go to chorn university in Bangkok that's
28:25
like you know the number one school and uh and really is cool I've read a lot about Thai history because that's part of when I decide to learn a language I
28:33
think it's equally important to learn the culture along with it because I was a language teacher and that's how I taught English to people is well you got
28:39
to understand why we say like the cats out of the bag like you can't just teach someone an idiom you got to like explain
28:44
it you know um so uh and so
28:50
hen had a tourist vibe to it it was like a very like we're here to um allow Thai
28:58
people and Western people to have like an interesting vacation there's like a big shopping mall and stuff like that
29:05
Bangkok is like we're competing with other cities we're competing with uh
29:10
Tokyo we're competing with like um you know the major cities uh and and it's
29:16
like an industrial city and it's the same size as New York it's 12 million people it's got a similar amount of like
29:22
Skyscraper like it it has a very New York City Vibe to it very um here's where I would say is very different from
29:30
uh like as I've been to big cities in every European country every you know I've been to enough that I would say the
29:36
biggest difference is the approach to food um it's much
29:43
more it's much like food is like really important still
29:50
I don't like it's very hard to explain this but like they're not overweight it's not the way Americans like overeat
29:56
and like food is very important it's not like a messaging on TV thing it's like a real like the way you show love the way
30:03
you receive love is like food so like sharing food ordering uh in any
30:08
restaurant or environment in food like you just order tons of food you grab as much as you want it's okay to take like
30:15
every single one out of like the Bowl before anyone else has it because you just order more like it's uh that didn't
30:21
change in either City so I I would prefer to talk about that because that's like a answer to like Thailand whereas
30:28
otherwise much like America has 50 states with like even in a state you could go to like North California and
30:33
see how different it is from South California um so I would say that like uh Bangkok is a big industrial smelly
30:43
fast uh don't cross the street at the wrong time like motorcycles everywhere
30:49
uh people like bicycling just like totally reminds me of New York City totally does not remind me of Tokyo does
30:56
not remind me of like clean uh you know like Korean C like Soul like like that Eastern Asia is very
31:05
different from I would say like Thailand and Vietnam are much more similar um I have not been to China but I know enough
31:12
to know that it's you know a different kind of place so I I always warn people like you already said it you said South
31:18
Asia like most people who travel to Asia know to start referring to parts of it there's no Asian monoculture so Tai what
31:25
separates them I would say is a sense of humor uh which in turn affects like the way you share food and buy food and and talk
31:32
about food which in turn affects like even the way you drive and like deal with like car accidents and things like
31:38
that but Bangkok had like a a pace that was very Western to me like very like
31:45
you know move go where you're going uh very like economically driven buy bye bye bye byy lots of stores
31:53
yeah cool sounds very interesting I need to go I I've never been in it's it's one
31:58
of the places that I have in the least the food is the reason to go I won't lie just like high food is the best it's
32:05
like amazing yeah I know that's that's I think there is a question from one of
32:11
the audience later talking about food so we will get into that a little bit more
32:16
um so maybe just to close this first part uh sure what would be the hack
Expat Life Hack & Advice
32:22
advice that you would give to someone who is willing to move to Thailand not as a tourist but really going there
32:28
uh on the first place like what is the number one advice that you will give you you already give some tips so that's
32:34
that's very nice but uh what what should you recommend to someone who is willing
32:39
to move as a real move to D um yeah I would recommend go slow go
32:46
easy and don't expect fast friendships it's not like uh our cultures you don't
32:52
make fast friendships you don't trust as quick you get um the iceberg theory is true in every country in my opinion but
32:59
in time warn people that getting to know people and asking personal questions is below the iceberg and that's not below
33:06
the iceberg in a lot of other countries so it would be okay for me to ask you like are you married have you been married but like if you give me no
33:12
indication that you want to talk about marriage I should shut up in Thailand like I should not ask that question in the first place um and I I can ask you
33:20
about your favorite foods and very like superficial things but no one wants to have a serious conversation it's
33:25
dangerous to talk about politics so that would be my first warning is like you're not going to go to Thailand and have
33:31
like like you're not going to meet your best friend and then start traveling the country with them and even with relationships I would caution you that
33:38
they're in like open sex culture in a way that we're not but that's not an open relationship culture that's not the
33:44
same thing so now I've never I had one partner I met her in America so I've never dated in Thailand I'm not speaking
33:50
from experience but I I know that part of it well enough from just um and while Bangkok is famous for the sex side and
33:57
the red lights and all that it's not what I'm talking about just to be fair I'm talking about the actual like uh
34:03
there are women in Thailand who hopefully marry a person who has wealth
34:08
from the outside to escape their classism they will happily do that it's not like weird or out of the question
34:16
but I would warn you that you're not getting like a real partner in that situation you're getting someone who
34:22
wants like access you might fall in love it might work out I know Americans who brought women back from Thailand and it
34:27
worked out I also know a lot who it didn't my case has nothing in common with that so but that would be something
34:32
I would tell people is just like don't expect to get close like I could meet you on a train because we're from like
34:39
Western cultures and we could actually get close and end up traveling and exchange home listings and you could come visit me in Phoenix like that's
34:45
very possible on a trip to Europe uh I I would not tell you I would tell you that's there's never GNA happen in
34:51
Thailand maybe with a guy to a guy like there's like a weird case where it could but it's not gonna be common so so
34:58
probably someone who has been living abroad also who is a who Liv outside has a different perspective on
35:06
that yeah I get it um well with I would say that with this uh Part close a
35:13
little bit on knowing your story we can we can do this second section that I like to call like a little bit of mini
35:20
gamess but it's a little bit more like in a cultural dive deep dive and finding funny stories funny comparisons of uh of
35:27
between your case USA and and and Thailand but also finding a little bit more about myths uh culture shocks Etc
35:36
that might come hey there everyone I hope you're enjoying this episode so far remember that the best way to stay tuned
35:43
with the latest episodes of the podcast is by clicking on subscribe in YouTube and in your favorite audio platform for
35:49
extra content and information follow like and comment on our social media and visit our website exp exerp podcast.com
35:57
thank you thank you for supporting our podcast and let's continue with the episode the first one that I wanted to
Cultural Deep Dive & Fun Comparisons
36:02
to do to with you today is this or that very easy I would give you two options
36:08
and you need to argument why uh why you would choose that I think the first one
36:14
you already pretty much Define it and I think which option you will choose but street food in Bangkok or a burger in
36:21
San Francisco street food in Bangkok every day for the rest of my life please meat
36:27
on a stick I don't even need any sock just just any piece of meat on a stick from any stand in Bangkok is better than
36:35
almost anything I could get in my six million population city of Phoenix right now America
36:42
crazy um riding a motorbike in Thailand or driving a car in the US I don't know
36:48
if it's a good thing or a bad thing in that case story which is my grandfather who
36:56
passed before I was born he a heart attack nothing you just but I never got to meet him he ran uh he worked in an
37:02
auto shop he repaired cars and he said I never repaired a motorcycle for someone who lived so the only thing he told my
37:08
dad was you should never ride a motorcycle and the only thing my dad ever told me is you should never ride a motorcycle I love driving love speeding
37:16
I respect the don't drive a motorcycle policy so I will choose driving in America but I will also say I suffer
37:22
from road rage and I hate driving in America more than anything it's the thing I hate the most so
37:28
great question nice no just I was just thinking on these videos in Tik Tok and
37:33
Instagram and all of these people of the beaches with people full of like the covers from going without proper
37:39
Protections in Thailand and felling down with the motorbikes so with going with the bikini only and and then you end
37:48
burnt cool the next one I don't know if you've been but uh Sr festival or fourth
37:55
of July um [Laughter]
38:02
s San is my wife my ex-wife's uh least favorite thing in the world because she
38:08
hates being sprayed with water and sron is a holiday where
38:14
children are allowed to spray adults with water like as much as they want so I'm gonna Sho s Con in in uh T
38:21
but out of extreme like funny mean but just like picturing my ex-wife how much
38:27
she hated and would talk about it like she wanted as hard her only rule for
38:32
when we lived in Thailand was like we please not be there the first week of April when sron happens I don't want to
38:37
be in in Thailand when sron happens so it's so funny that you would ask that um meanwhile Fourth of July I'm a dog owner
38:44
and it's the worst like our dogs hate fire so I hate I hate the fourth July America these are great so I'm gonna go
38:51
ahead and go with sron um any holiday tyl's a very kid oriented culture very
38:56
like like yeah children sleep with their parents in the same bed until they're 10 in some families it's uh and then this
39:03
is funny too at 12 you're like not a kid anymore and they're like you grow up like so like if you're a 10-year-old and
39:09
you're crying and you're a boy like your mom will hold you and hug you for like an hour and then if you're 12 it's
39:15
like no go like you know so it's like it's really abrupt but songon is just
39:21
wonderful because you get to really see how much High people will let kids feel Joy which is beautiful it's beautiful
39:27
really cool so and this one I didn't have it write down to be honest but I will put
39:34
it because you mentioned that you have Spanish or Kuban uh family and
39:41
absolutely then you know Mexican food from from San Francisco probably and from the area in California common so
39:48
proper Mexican foood uh spiciness of Thai food or spiciness from Mexican food
39:55
thai there's nothing uh Indian and TI are like in competition in my mind I've had both have made me sweat at this spot
40:01
of my head so that's like when you know like when you're sweating up here it's a weird feeling and in Thai like so my
40:10
Thai family explained this to me and I think it's true I do believe them Thai food is not why people love Thai food
40:16
sauces is why people love Thai food so it's like they just understand something about sauces and they put like very few
40:23
ingredients in each one and that's the magic of Thai food it's very simple most Tha dishes have like five ingredients
40:29
it's not a complicated big procedure with like 35 things so um the spiciness
40:36
has to do with that because they they know how to like slice the pepper how much to put in it's like very scientific
40:42
um but if you go to Thailand and you're like not spicy like they just like look at you they're like well then you didn't want Thai food like what are you like um
40:50
they have yeah that their salad this this papaya salad that's famous there is like
40:57
it you'll just it'll blow your mind like you're like this is a salad I'm sweating I'm like covered like my armpits are
41:03
like dense like it's crazy so yeah Tha cool uh last one Speaking Thai fluently
41:11
or mastering the art of tha cooking I think it's easier to master
41:18
the art of Thai cooking um and I would love to master that I I
41:24
cook and I love cooking and I'm good at it um and taii is the one area I never
41:30
got into because uh the family I was with had servants and then when you go to restaurants the kitchens are in the
41:35
back so I've never like seen someone make fresh Thai food so that actually
41:40
you just got me really interested in that nice I would love to know how to
41:46
cook proper food I would be on that side also um so I would go to the next mini
41:53
game uh and looking a little bit on the time I would jump to the Thai superstitions and myths uh if they are
42:01
true or false I also will combine it a little bit with the previous one which is if you have any experience or story
42:09
related to that Superstition if it's a true one uh I would love to hear it uh
42:14
but basically I will throw you a couple of superstitions or myths and you can
42:20
tell me if you be if you know for sure that they are true or or they are false
42:25
um there is theorically a Thai Superstition saying that whistling at night invites
42:32
the ghost into your house I've never heard it that specific
42:38
but I know that um much like Koreans have uh major issues with fans um Tai
42:44
people have and again when I say Koreans just for people listening I'm not talking about like every K I'm just saying cultural history of Korean
42:51
culture as a thing with fans and the number four like these are things you can research but uh in Thailand
42:58
they're they like really believe in ghosts and yet never talk about it but these are true like there's definitely
43:03
this like thing and I one of the most famous American movies is an adap adaptation of a thae like horror movie
43:10
about ghosts um I think it's called Shutter Island or something but um anyway yeah they're they're really into
43:17
like ghosts but they don't like I said yeah you won't meet people and have them start talking about it you
43:22
know nice pointing at someone with your feet is considered very rude I
43:30
think you already talk about this I mean I talked about and this was a I did make a list of things that I can bring up if
43:36
we have time and you want me to I made like a short list um it's from my travel log like when I used to like write notes
43:41
so I went back through all of them and preparation for this which thank you by the way it was fun I hadn't done this in years um and I'd forgotten about a lot
43:47
of them but yeah the uh I mean the feet thing was scary it's like literally scary because it would be like uh let's
43:53
say you come from a country where whenever you itch your nose you do this like you know and then you go to America
44:00
and they're like people are just like like yes and and people don't get it
44:06
they're not like oh this Fong by the way that's the word for white people Fang f a r a n g um this Fong doesn't know
44:13
about feet no they don't care you just gave them the finger you just like made a gesture that is like vulgar you know
44:18
there's like other ones in Italy I could do you know I but the point is that's weird for me it's not weird all of any
44:26
cultur offense is weird if you look at it you know isolated but uh yeah it's
44:31
very true and it would be the other thing I would warn someone who's moving there is I would say like really learn that rule and pay attention to it and
44:38
take your shoes off when you go in a place and like be really respectful with your feet wash your feet my wife used to
44:43
wash her feet three times a day every day even in California where you wear shoes all
44:49
day cool I have the last one and then I I let you share a couple of of your own
44:56
because for sure you have better input than me so I read that seeing a gecko in the morning it's but luck for the rest
45:02
of the day that's weird I never heard that one um and I don't even remember
45:07
seeing geckos but I did see a ton of lizards they probably are geckos I'm probably just thinking like too
45:13
specifically I don't remember that but also I I just want to reiterate the
45:18
family I was with was super weird they like really just weren't into some of
45:24
these things so I would based on all my interactions with Thai people of which is more than
45:30
that family I would say yes that's probably true I would just guess I would air on the side of guessing yes nice um
45:38
so yeah definitely I I think we have some time for for you to to bring your own ones instead of me finding ones that
45:45
I found in on the internet so if you have any on on your list I would love to hear them yeah uh I'll just these are
45:53
just like things I observed that Americans would find fascinating and I think most Europeans would like I think
45:59
it's we're close enough yeah true um so like I said I stayed in hen a lot which
46:04
is the King's vacation Palace and what I thought was really weird about Thailand
46:09
is I saw a movie in hen and I saw a movie in Bangkok so I know that this is not like that one theater but when you
46:15
go to a movie in Thailand um be like when you go to a sports event in America you have to stand and do the national
46:21
anthem I'm pretty sure European football clubs do this too like I'm pretty sure yeah um but I don't know for a fact but
46:28
in America it is like a fact that when you go to a game you're you're supposed to stand up put your hand over your
46:33
heart and sing or at least like say the words or pretend you have respect for the flag and you stare at the flag so in
46:39
all TI movie theaters there's like a scene where it shows the King on the screen and everyone stands up and you
46:46
sing the national Tha song you don't put your hand over your heart because that's not what they do but uh that was scary
46:52
weird scary and weird for me it was never normal it never got normal and I just kept thinking in a very bigoted way
46:59
like I'm not proud of this you people are brainwashed you people are brainwashed you know but then in America
47:04
when I see a bunch of us stand up and sing the stupid national anthem I'm like you people are brainwashed you you know
47:10
so it's like that's why I'm saying like it's just like version of The naal Anthem yeah of course um and then uh so
47:17
that was the the most jarring thing for me um the lack of care about the environment isn't like fake or funny to
47:23
me like they literally don't care it's not like uh like they're it's funny to
47:28
throw trash out the car and it's funny to like have trash everywhere and there's a reason that companies sell
47:34
their plastic and all their crap to Thailand like that country is just like welcoming garbage from around the world
47:40
and they're putting it in landfills and they pay people to like break it with hammers um and again this is like look
47:47
America is built on Sweatshop labor in foreign countries so it's not like we're
47:52
any participant and using a laptop I am aware
47:58
of f so I'm not like here to lecture anyone but I will say that uh I don't
48:04
throw trash anywhere except in the trash I pick up other people's trash in America I am a California raised hippie
48:11
I just am I love like clean ocean so it was very hard to live in a country that
48:16
uh shows you its lack of care and doesn't lie about it in America we lie about it we hide it we lie we're just as
48:23
bad and we all know it but they're like the toxins the river are like visible
48:28
like you don't eat fish out of a certain River like you know that kind of stuff so that's one of the notes um this was
48:35
like this is in most Asian countries I think but uh they have dead chickens for sale all over the streets and they
48:40
always have the heads attached and I always thought that was interesting just because in America we don't even call uh
48:46
a dead cow cow we call it beef you know like we have like fake words for everything that's another thing about learning Tai is like what's the word for
48:52
beef what you mean cow like you just call it cow you're eating cow the kids know they're eating like that's you know
48:59
there's no pork it's just pig cow chicken so um so that was a little like
49:05
interesting I think this transitions yeah because in Europe depends where you go you always see with the head and the
49:12
pork open at least in Greece is absolutely normal for example if you go to the market everything will be hanging
49:18
around so it's it's very I think the Easter you
49:24
go the more that animal culture you have like you see it as a normal thing like
49:31
okay you need to eat something so you buy it well I don't uh I typically don't eat
49:37
meat and for years I've been this way but I'm not um I don't tell people about it I don't advertise it and I don't care
49:43
I'll cook meat for my children it doesn't like I'm not an activist but I just have personal reasons but I respect
49:49
more the culture that shows the dead animal like I want to make that clear to people like I I I think it's um
49:55
dishonest and unhelpful to pretend that you're not eating a dead animal I think you should respect that something died
50:02
and it's to feed you and that's the only thing I want to say about it but I I so I actually love that they do that in Greece
50:08
um going quickly through these but oh it's interesting coming so California
50:13
was the first state in America to ban cigarette smoking outdoors and indoors
50:18
yeah and uh so you can smoke in like certain areas but it's not allowed near an entrance of a building you know
50:24
there's a lot of rules um and uh Thailand it's just like a smoking
50:30
culture and it was just crazy to see like you can't smoke in movie theaters like they have like one rule basically
50:36
but it was like very interesting to see adults smoking holding it down below their waist where kids can like smell it
50:42
and like no one would like wave smoke away you know people just blowing it everywhere so that was just interesting
50:47
because you know you can see that in movies but um I didn't even grow up in a place where I saw that in the 80s in
50:53
America um no one moves out of your way and ever and you have to push people and
50:58
you have to it's not a choice so you can't show up and be like well I'm not going to push okay you're never leaving
51:04
you'll just be stuck in a shopping mall while everyone goes around you like you need to literally push your way through
51:10
people that includes children and the elderly you do not not push the elderly or children you push anyone if they're
51:17
in public they know they're going to get pushed so you wouldn't let your kid be in public if you're worried about your kids you'd hold them up high and if
51:24
you're worried about your grandma you'd leave her in the car you wouldn't bring her in a p environment so that was um
51:30
very hard for me space issues are always hard for Americans because we are like you know one person in one car like yeah
51:37
and we're just like so big things um they don't have Amazon the
51:42
company which I know sounds like so silly to a certain portion of your audience but no no Greece doesn't have
51:49
Amazon either so oh it's like it's just weird like you feel like helpless like
51:54
my printer broke and I work from home and I needed it and I was like oh I'll just order one and have it shipped and
51:59
and I couldn't and I had to like drive to a shopping mall and then I had to try to find a printer it was like very just
52:05
interesting because uh everyone says how much they hate Amazon here and everyone complains and complains and complains
52:11
most of those people still use it when they need it like so you know it's like a very fake thing so yeah that was
52:18
interesting um everyone stares at you this is the same in Cuba I just want to because I've been to Cuba um so this is
52:25
uh very popular Latin American countries too but I was not expecting it in Thailand because since they care about
52:30
feet and since they care about like you know how you like hold food and pass things like I thought they would care
52:37
about staring but they don't so I was stared at relentlessly um not because they never see white people just because
52:43
they're staring at me and so uh okay what's weird though is you're allowed to stare back
52:51
so after a while it's a really fun vacation because you're allowed to stare at stranger like you can study them um I
52:59
wouldn't take out a notepad like that would be a little weird and I would definitely not photograph them but uh
53:05
but yeah you could just stare at someone you could stare at an ugly person an attractive person uh this person or that
53:10
it doesn't matter Like There's No No One's Gonna care No One's Gonna accuse you of staring you are staring they are
53:17
staring it is okay to stare so that was yeah very nice this is the second to
53:24
last one um I don't know what it's like the cultures you've lived in many cultures so um but uh in America when
53:31
you sneeze people are supposed to say something uh what they say changes some people say God bless you some people say
53:37
bless you some people say gazuntite but the point is it's this weird stupid thing where but you're used to it and so
53:44
in Thailand they don't say anything and it's very weird to say something because then you're calling attention to the
53:49
fact that somebody sneezed which would be rude because why would you say that so I had to like when someone would
53:56
sneeze and then meanwhile when I would sneeze I'd look around and be like what come on like you know nobody's giving me
54:02
Health yeah so yeah no one's G me it you're so funny it's awesome um and then
54:08
the last one I brought it up but I want to read how I wrote it because I wrote it right when I live there um so I'm
54:15
just going to read what I wrote this note when you order food you order enough for everyone and then when the food comes you serve yourself as much as
54:21
you want so you take the dish you ordered for the table but you take it first and you take as much as you want
54:26
and then if that runs out you just ask if anyone wants more and if even one person wants a little more you order an
54:32
entire another order um you can use any utensil you want to serve food including the one you're eating with which is
54:38
according to Americans disgusting and how germs spread but also they had like less covid problems than we did so I'm G
54:45
to go ahead and throw this out there maybe we don't know everything we think we know I don't know I don't know how to explain it but they didn't actually have
54:51
the same problem we had and they are a culture that pushes and shoves and I think it's because
54:57
wear masks when they're sick and they're used to like yeah so but I'm only poting this out because when I tell Americans
55:02
that you can take like your fork and then serve someone else rice with it they're just like that's disgusting and it's stupid and they must be sick all
55:08
the time and I'm like no um and then like I said you never ask if you can take the first or the last of something
55:14
it's weird to ask and it's always okay to use your hands so you can if you don't like using forks and knives you
55:20
can just use your hands in Thailand no one cares um I love that I'm a very relaxed person and I just just think
55:26
when you're eating you should just have fun so Thailand is the most fun place for an eating trip like you know Italy
55:34
and Thailand if you can pull it off where you go to those two I would just say that's it and then maybe a third stop in Japan I would say those are my
55:40
three favorite food stops I've ever been to cool thanks a lot for all of that
55:46
information that was incredible and thanks for preparing it um yeah just uh
55:51
taking a quick look into the time uh I will like to uh two a couple of
Audience Q&A
55:58
questions I receive a little bit more but we don't really have the time for it from a couple of listeners who I asked
56:03
sure whatever you want for the questions for it and albertian through Instagram
56:09
sent me a question uh what is the weirdest word or phrase that you know In
56:15
tha uh gosh oh I wish I'd prepared for this I was going to review my
56:20
vocabulary I I have to go with I think just for wrong because it's blatant open racism I just think I'm
56:27
one just because it's like I was in Japan and they do the same thing guys in foreigner like you know it's like if in
56:32
America we we referred to people the way that these countries refer to us uh we would be like you know well maybe we'd
56:38
be president I don't know but the point is um sorry I had to go
56:44
there but the point I'm trying to make is it was just weird to have like that open thing but the the one of the things
56:51
I would always tell my students in America so now I'm talking about teaching Americans as a American teacher
56:57
um is Asian people don't feel like a minority in Asia because not only are
57:02
they not a minority but they literally are two fifths of the world's population by most estimates so uh like one fifth
57:09
of the world is probably black one fifth is white and two fifths is Asian so they outnumber all other races by their
57:16
perspective so that's part of why they don't mind hegemony and like um and so that that would
57:22
be nice so maybe the second question that I would take it's uh from uh
57:27
technique seek 43 uh in YouTube YouTube names are always weird uh what is your
57:35
favorite non-touristic food in Dand or what do you miss the more uh foodwise in
57:40
the USA from Dand um you can get it in the United States but uh I I would like sticky rice
57:49
the actual just thing that is called sticky rice While You Can Get It in America it's so like unique and
57:55
interesting the way you use it eat food in Thailand so I would say that's something I miss in America like that um
58:00
and then as far as like specifically in America you cannot get good Eon food
58:06
there's like one place in a part in San Francisco I found that is in the most dangerous section of town because like
58:12
the immigrants who moved there are like very poor and it's all they could afford I'm sure it's closed by now it was like
58:18
barely staying open in the 2013 there's uh Eon is the Northeast region that borders LA and uh that's all Tha
58:25
people's favorite food is Eon food um Central Bangkok food is like a laughing
58:31
joke to them and that's what Like Pat Tha is so I've never in my life ever seen Patti on a menu in Thailand let
58:38
alone seen anyone talk about it or order it it's like they don't even get it they don't even think it's famous for some
58:44
reason whoever came to America and popularized Tha food thought Pad Thai would work um the Drunken Noodles pretty
58:50
similar in both countries if you like that one uh but yeah I missed the Eon
58:56
like it just is it's Unique and it's flavored and it's spicy different and I
59:01
get I have to be careful I get good food in America by Thai people but I'm
59:07
convinced that because we don't grow Thai food like plants the way they grow it there I that's the problem and that's
59:14
what I read about everything that's like even Italian food here like unless you get the same grains that weren't
59:19
Monsanto seeds you know what I mean like there's a big issue with production and Monsanto and all these things that I
59:25
think is actually why Thai food isn't as good in America so makes sense so Mike before we wrap up
59:34
a little bit uh of course I want to give you the floor to where people can find
Guest Promotion
59:39
your work if you have any project that you want to share with the audience and uh even if they want to contact you
59:45
because this conversation has been very interesting so I suppose there will be some some people interested in knowing
59:50
about your life uh where where can people find you or or find your projects
59:57
uh yeah as I hope was obvious through this interview I'm a happy friendly nice person who loves to help people um I was
1:00:03
a teacher I still love teaching so if anyone wants to reach me uh I have a website mop.com it's a combination of my
1:00:10
first and last name so mi ke y o p.com and if you go there not only can
1:00:16
you subscribe to my like free service where I send a once a week email which is usually an essay or a non-fiction or
1:00:22
fiction story um but I also host a podcast called talk where we talk about the meaning of death which is how people
1:00:29
think death works and then how that affects how they're living um but also to to your point if you just have a
1:00:35
question you don't need to subscribe or anything like that you can just write me I'm like I said always happy to help
1:00:40
someone so I do have a career I do want to promote my career so please do if you like me and like the way I talk but with
1:00:47
that said it is not rude to contact me with just a question hey I'm going to Thailand blah blah blah so both are fine
1:00:52
with me but I can't be reached at Mikey up.com and uh I am thrilled to have been on this podcast I I go on a lot of
1:01:00
podcasts you care more than most people you try harder and you do a great job and I just want to thank you it's it was
1:01:06
really nice I felt like humbled and also excited to come on your podcast today you actually cared you sent me like an
1:01:12
outline you asked good questions I ended up doing research so keep doing what you're doing it does
1:01:17
matter thanks a lot Mike I really appreciate it of course for all the audience the the website will be
1:01:24
available uh on on the description of the episode um do you have any funny or
Funny Story & Wrap-up
1:01:30
unexpected story quick one for finishing the episode with uh before we
1:01:36
close uh yeah something that you come in mind yeah I think it would be um the
1:01:44
time I was I was learning Tai and they didn't think I was learning it well the
1:01:50
family I was with and we were on a long drive and they started talking about me and I knew what they were saying and I
1:01:56
knew it wasn't nice and so I said in like a very fluent thae phrase I said I
1:02:02
understand you and that wasn't nice and I've never seen people get scared like that in my life and it was the most
1:02:09
thrilling powerful moment of my weird life there ever because I felt like they
1:02:14
deserved it like I really think it's mean to talk about people in front of them I just do and like I was that's not
1:02:20
a tie thing that's not uh something they did a lot I'm not saying they were always doing it but on that trip they
1:02:26
were doing it a lot and I didn't like it and so that was my funny story is like it worked um and so my tip to someone
1:02:32
would be is memorize how to say that even if it's not true just like for a taxi cab or anything else just memorize
1:02:39
how to say I understood all of that don't do the second part because you have to know if it was nice or not they might be saying nice things about you
1:02:45
just to warn you oh but if you say that I understood everything and they said nice things
1:02:51
they will laugh and that's it the the effect would not be bad so that's okay
1:02:57
um well Mike that is an incredible insightful conversation I love talking
1:03:03
with you uh I really really enjoyed this episode I hope our listeners uh also did
1:03:09
uh as always uh don't forget to subscribe share this episode check uh Mike's work out and until then keep
1:03:18
exploring stay curious and see you in the next episode