[Natashasuw]

Ever since joining thailandlife/thailandqa forums it has always been fine entertainment reading the views of Thailand from the perspective of other foreigners; on vacation, working, retired, studying or married to a Thai etc….

For this thread opener I’d like to ask the readers about ‘what their first impressions of Thailand were’ and how, if at all, those perceptions have changed other time.

Lets be honest, a lot of my first impressions of Thailand have changed over time, most for the better but a few for the worse.

Let me start with some examples of my own:

The first time I came to Asia and Thailand I was particularly interested in Buddhism and other religions of Indian origin. My first impression of the monks were that they were all true practitioners of meditation and the dhamma and had joined the monkhood to find the road to nirvana. Over time I found that perception to be….well, a little off track to say the least.

One negative thought I had of Thais when I first came here as a young lad was that I thought them to be ‘pretty superficial in thought’. I loved laughing about Thais ‘having an attention span of 7 seconds’. Pls don’t fault me too much though, I came here first thinking myself to be an ‘intellectual’ and was disappointed that none of the local people were interested in ‘intellectual conversation such as politics, Buddhism, modern history etc….’ Of course, I now see Thais in a far more brighter light!!

Sure, when I came here first I was not too chuffed at being called a ‘Farang’ all the time!

I have known many foreigners who first came to Thailand raving at how good every Thai was and within the space of a year or so had packed up their bags and went home. For other foreigners it’s like a statistical graph, the way they perceive Thailand, it goes up and down like the Dow Jones Index. The first year they love it, the second – tolerable, the third – the place is getting the worse, the forth – getting better, the fifth – they love it again!

If this thread goes well, it will be interesting to see your different first impressions of Thailand. Then for any newbies to Thailand it could be fascinating to see how their impressions differ from long-timers to the country.

Could be worthy of blog material too??