The Trip to Thailand: Part 2

0:00Hi, it's Sean. This is the three month vacation and this is part two of the trip to Thailand. We're just telling stories so there's no need for summaries. Instead, let's go to that little beach place called Praanburi. When we travel, we do enormous amounts of walking every day. But if we go to a country like India, we almost never go for a walk with our sunrise. It's not because we need to sleep in while on holiday. It's just because of stray dogs. Most tourists come to India expecting to see a lot of cows in cows are a plenty. However, so are stray dogs. And in this fishing village of Praanburi, I was keen to get to the water, to the beach, but not at all happy to encourage the sleeping dogs. And packs of stray dogs, they're the worst. All it takes is for one slightly aggressive or nervous dog.

1:00He gets started and then you're the bait. In a car, you can be disdainful of them. On a motorbike, you still have acceleration on your side. But a bicycle is practically useless as a getaway vehicle, which is why I'm a lot egear when I approach the dogs. Luckily for me, the dogs in Praanburi, were sleepy. Some raised their heads as I passed, a few barked a tiny bit. And to my good fortune, the brakes were loud and they squealed a lot. If a dog so much as approached, I'd turn the bicycle in the direction of the dog and repeatedly hit the brakes. And there was this squeal that jolted them. This confrontation and confusion was usually enough for them to back away. It meant that I could ride peacefully to the village and watch the fishing boats coming.

2:07The fishermen went out at six in the evening for squid, working through the night, and there were hundreds of boats in the dark. In all of these returned at about six in the morning to a specific point at the beach. And that's where I wanted to be every single day with my camera. However, I was not the only one with that idea in mind. Sometimes there were other tourists. They would show up, stand in front of the boat, and take selfie after selfie. And then the posing would begin. They didn't want to take pictures of the fishermen, just more pictures of themselves. They're mugshot on their phone. The fisherman didn't object. However, for me, this was a real annoyance. Who goes to see something amazing and then takes pictures of themselves? Apparently, everyone does. Anyway, in time, the fisherman realized that I was not there to take selfies, but instead pictures of them, pictures of them as they worked.

3:10This made a huge difference. And despite the language barrier, and I'm saying barrier, but we couldn't communicate with each other at all. They still invited me into their boats and they let me take as many pictures as I wanted. So there I was, four or five days in a row, taking pictures. But then one morning, there were no boats. I waited for over an hour. There was nothing. I guess fishermen have a day off as well. I stayed anyway. And that turned out to be the better morning. Instead of the boats, I found the fishermen on the shore. They were on their scooters, unhurried, talking with their grandchildren in that early morning light. And by then, the dogs had joined us to playing happily on the shore. There's just one more story to tell and you've heard this story for. It's one of chocolate. As you know, we traveled with chocolate. Three, four packets of chocolate, about 50 bars.

4:18The people of the reception got chocolate. We leave some for those who cleaned the room. At this time, it went to a roadside vendor. Here's how it all unfolded. We were hungry one afternoon and we saw someone who was serving noodles. So we stepped up to her and we asked whether we could get some of whatever she was selling. But we wanted to make sure there was no fish sauce, even by mistake. Remember my doubt problem? So we did what most tourists do, which is we start speaking in English. And she could not understand anything. So we sat at the counter. Hoping that we would find something. But there was no menu. Five minutes, ten minutes of back-end for trying to communicate about fish sauce. And eventually, she pointed out to the fish sauce in everything she was selling. No drama there.

5:19We went some other place for lunch. But later in the evening, Renuka gave her a bar of chocolate. And we went our merry way. After which, we could not pass that location without her drumming up a whole milkshake. The first time we passed, she had two mango milkshakes ready for us. She wouldn't take no for an answer. So we had two milkshakes. We passed another time. Once again, mango milkshakes. Refused to take any payment. There was a massage place next door, a time massage. I'd go for a massage. I'd step out. Two more milkshakes. These were huge milkshakes. We couldn't drink them. I mean, one of them was too much for both of us. So we started giving away the mango milkshakes to somebody else, staff at the hotel, etc. Hoping that somehow the Thai culture, the Thai, warned all of that giving back didn't come back from the staff as well.

6:24Luckily, it didn't. They were still happy and friendly and yeah, warm. But we were safe finally from getting more gifts from Thai's. But once we got back to Bangkok, the gift giving started again. We'd meet people for lunch and they'd bring a gift. They'd take us out to dinner. They'd bring a gift. And this is how older cultures work. There's no splitting of bills standing in line saying, I paid for this and you ate that. Instead, they play the host and you are the guest. And yes, sometimes it becomes a bit claustrophobic being the guest. But it's what I prefer anyway. It's the way I grew up. And this brings us to the final section in this Thai trip, which is a note on names. Before I finish there is something worth knowing about Thai names. At some point in Thai history, the King decreed that every family needed to have a unique last name.

7:25King Ramadhas VI implemented the surname act to modernize the country. He mandated that no two families share the same last name. Because the registry required every family to have a distinct name, citizens began compounding long, meaningful Sanskrit or Pali words. These last names somehow included power, prosperity or honor, but also remained distinct from others. The Thai monarchy would also bestow long honorary surnames to families in return for loyal service. When Chinese immigrants moved to Thailand, they were forced to adopt formal Thai surnames and chose ever expanded grandiose names to emulate those of the nability. Almost as a counterweight to this, Thai's shortened their first names. Parents give their children pet names before they are born. They're often quite simple, such as tune, toy, tip, tap, top, R2D2, CD, pop-eye, Google.

8:33Pretty much anything you can think of. These are the names that people actually use in day-to-day life. You may spend an entire week with someone and never learn their real name, only their pet name. Their formal name exists primarily on official documents, and you're unlikely to know their real names at all. Which seems funny, until you're in the position that Renuka was in, we had a workshop and about a hundred people signed up, all with their real names because real names are part of the email ID. But in person, when asked for their name, they would give the short version, after trying for a while, to figure out the pet name with the real name Renuka gave up. Anyone who showed up to the event was given entry. And that's how it rolled. And that brings us to the end of this Thai version. We'll go to Greece next, because that's on the agenda.

9:33And with that, let's find out what's happening in PsychoTactics Land. A couple of years ago, I wrote a book suddenly talented. You might have already read it, if you haven't. Well, here's a nudge. And following suddenly talented, here's the next one. And this time, it's called Teacher vs. Preacher. It goes into a lot of detail. And because of the detail, it's no longer a book. It's a course. It is a system that you can use when you're learning something, but also when you're teaching somebody. But instead of just another information dump, you give them a skill. There's a big difference between information and skill. And what people really want has always been information. No, they haven't. They've always wanted skill. No one cares about information. They want to be able to do something, to change something.

10:35And this is what Teacher vs. Preacher is all about. So I'm hoping that you'll get on the list. Another list is the Pro2J program. That's going to start up next year. For just a few people, it's going to be about six months long. And we'll help you with your strategy. But also with the whole art of storytelling. How do you story to sell your products, to sell your services? But also to sell your ideas through books and whatever it is that you're using to get the word out. That brings us to the end of this podcast. I'll say bye for now. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.