Like 8/10 shopkeepers or hotel staff were orcs. 2/10 chill dudes. These were all in the normal shopping areas. No sketchy areas. I stopped keeping count after that because I started avoiding Indian-run shops. *Again, I had nothing against Indians before this trip*
A big Indian tour group came through Icon Siam I think it was, and their vibe was off too.
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I ran into maybe 1 Thai person who was a dick, out of the millions of Thai people. Out of the relatively few Indians, most of them were orcs. Y’all call it anecdotal if you want, but if my luck is this good (bad?) to run into so many slimy characters then I’m retiring with my soon-to-be lottery ticket wins.
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Also, took a tuk-tuk ride on a “tour of the local hotspots” where the driver was actually …funnelling… for a couple local suit businesses owned by – guess who — Indians.
I tried leaving right away at the first “stop” when I realized this wasn’t an honest setup he tuk tuk’ed us into. Result: Indian boss throwing insults. I was nice and upfront to the dude.
Tuk tuk driver hoped I could “stay a little longer and act more interested”. Felt a little bad for the dude, so I tried to tried to stay a bit at the second shop… talk to the shopkeeper, give some face. Result? Indian boss throwing words again.
Scummy. Fucking. Scammers.
Fuck that noise. We really don’t have to mix people. India (mostly) for Indians, Taiwan (mostly) for Taiwanese. Some cultures just really don’t mix very well.
Yeah, Bangkok tourist areas have lots of annoying people, but the Thais tend to be nice
I lived in Thailand for years, most of those places had no Indians. I do not miss working with Thai people
I work with a lot of Indians now, and other South Asians. As colleagues and service workers they are all lovely, but it is a higher class context than Bangkok tourist areas
The thing about cultures is that they’re not static, mummified in amber. They’re dynamic and always in a constant state of change - as is life itself. You never step in the same river twice. I’d assume that many Taiwanese are familiar with that philosophy from the Tao Te Ching, that the world is change. It’s the 21st century. We live in a multicultural, globalised world. Sipping Coca-Cola while watching anime on your iPhone and complaining about foreign influences staining your precious pure culture is beyond hypocritical.
A new spin on an old trick. I used to get ferried on tuktuks to jewellery stores or somehow meet Thais with fluent English at the temple who were super friendly and wanted to show me some deals.
I couldn’t find any specific quote, but I’ve read it several times (any easy feat as it’s only 81 pages), and the constancy of change is a theme that runs throughout the book. It’s presented as cyclical seasonal turns, though, as the modern Western idea of progress had yet to enter any ancient civilization’s worldview. One idea that definitely sticks out is that rigidity and inflexibility are akin to death. Be like water, ever flowing, not stationary as an unliving stone.
I don’t think it spells out change is the only constant thing in the universe for everything, physical or non-physical, even heaven and earth, like how Buddhism does it in just 4 Chinese characters, 諸行無常.
You can argue that by saying things will go the other way when it reaches an extreme, thus people have to be flexible, that Tao Te Ching implies change is built in to the system. I mean… maybe. It also says things like “天長地久。天地所以能長且久者…” implying that who ever wrote it felt heaven and earth are everlasting existences.
Anyway, not really related to the topic, but Chinese culture owes a lot to Indian arts and philosophies.
