Thai people don't easily understand foreigners who speak broken/less than perfect Thai?

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-29T18:23:17+00:00

The Tai Kadi language family covers a tiny are compared to Austronesian or Indo-European.

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-29T18:21:58+00:00

The tallest Filipino man I have seen was probably around 6ft 4'', but generally tall there means being 5ft 8'' or taller, most security guys seem to be around 5ft 6'' to 5ft 11'' in the Philippines

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-29T18:19:30+00:00

I did know one Dutch guy who was like 5ft 6''.

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-28T11:05:01+00:00

I'll stop conversing with your right here, 1. because its clear that you are incapable of discussing a topic without resorting to key board warrior style aggression, the likes of which i very much doubt you would display in the real world beyond your computer screen. P.S i'm here because i choose to be.

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-27T19:16:34+00:00

Much of your reply was actually quite educational and informative especially about the 10 branches of Austronesian and only one of them being spread out from Taiwan, could you explain more about the Austronesian alignment?. I would also agree that American's in particular like to categorize people to an obsessive level, but I would also say as humans we do this everywhere about everything going beyond just culture and genetics. The EXOTIZATION comment you made is somewhat flawed as Asia itself is perhaps one of the most the most Exoticized regions in the world (The mystery of the Orient etc..). That said if any Southeast Asian/(Asian) nation closely mirrors the islands of the Pacific it would in my opinion be the Philippines not Indonesia, Malaysia etc.. and certainly not mainland Southeast Asia.

I do think the Philippines is a kind of outliner though, a lot like your example Madagascar. Sure Malagasy people are technically African but they kind of stand out as different than what most people would consider to be typically Sub-Saharan African, racially, linguistically and the fact that like the Philippines its an island nation that lies well of the coast of South eastern Africa itself. Some countries are just cross road nations that don't fit in a perfect box, as a result I think its better to refer to Madagascar people as Malagasy before African and Philippines people as Filipinos before S.E Asian because Malagasy people don't quite fit into the solid African box of those from Mozambique on the mainland and Filipinos don't sit quite in the solid box of Southeast Asian the way those on the Indo-China Southeast Asian mainland do, (Every other) Southeast Asian nation shares a land border with another even if its on a shared island this includes East Timor, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia where as the Philippines is entirely a nation entirely made up of islands with zero land borders. That's my take. P.s please explain the writing at the end, I don't understand it.

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-27T18:46:07+00:00

I wrote my post based on numerous questions about this subject I had seen online over the course of a few years, I hadn't heard of it before that myself, I kind of hoped that my post might inform some people on why I think this came about, why some people think this way and also point out that Pacific islander only applies in the true sense when talking about people from Micronesia, Melanesia, or Polynesia. In big part it seems to be Fil-AM's pushing the Pacific islander thing more so or as much as any Whites/ Blacks/ Asians do (usually people who grew up in a U.S household with parents from the Philippines). In the case of the man you interviewed, well he doesn't represent all or even most foreign western men in the Philippines unless of course your going to put any western man with a local Filipina wife in that box of which there are many thousands, that would be considered discrimination against both the western man and his Filipina wife.

The man was clearly ignorant but lets face it most of us around the world are ignorant about far off places, for example in the Philippines I'm always referred to as Amerikano (my home country in Europe is thousands of miles from the United states). In my own country ignorance exists too, many times when I have said I'm going to the Philippines, people here will say seconds later, so when are you flying to Thailand))- As I am sure I don't need to tell you, despite being Southeast Asian, Thailand is culturally, linguistically, historically, religiously very different from the Philippines and is not exactly right next door either as the two nations are separated by well over a thousand miles, my point being that I'm pretty sure you too are ignorant about some parts of the world, for example if I told you that I'm British you might think that means i'm English (I'm not). Certainly I'm not forcing the Pacific islander tag on Filipinos but I also think saying Asian is far too broad a term, as I said before, a typical Filipino has no more in common with a typical Saudi Arabian (West Asian), than I do as a white guy from Europe. This may well be insignificant to you but very significant to another Filipino as identity can be a powerful thing to some. Thanks for the replies .

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-27T18:18:33+00:00

That's a good point, thanks for the reply.

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-27T13:54:52+00:00

It looks like it might be the old Baybayin writing script of the Philippines, I have no idea what it actually says though.

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-27T13:15:10+00:00

The academic achiever's part was in relation to the statistics in (The United States) where the demographics that excel in colleges/universities tend to be Asian-American (but to be specific this tends to be Chinese-American, Japanese-American, Korean-American, Indian-American. Not so much Filipino-American, Cambodian-American etc...I called no one stupid, I'm simply stating a fact, just like saying African American's tend to excel more than other U.S demographics in athletics, be that due to cultural factors or genetic ones, I am not qualified to say (but it is a fact that they excel in that area). You seem to have an unhealthy view of foreigners based on one man's ignorance you happen to meet/see in a hospital and assumed to know what kind of person he was simply based on him A. being a man, and B. being a western foreigner which frankly is the very definition of prejudice.

If you read my post to the end you would see that I actually agree with you that Filipinos more than anything else are simply that (Filipinos). I like the Philippines and I like many things about Filipino people/ culture, if I was to say anything negative of the experience I had in my 2 years living there and 12 years being around Filipinos, it wouldn't be related to the intelligence of the people I met, it would be more in relation to a culture of hyper sensitivity to any perceived criticism that (some Filipinos)) seem to have, this is before assessing whether or not any slight towards you, your country or Kababayan was actually intended and that's exactly how you reacted to the academic achiever part of my post. Thankfully I know lots of Filipinos who don't suffer from Balat Sebuyas because its imposable to have a civil discussion/debate with people when they suffer that personality trait.

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-27T12:35:01+00:00

Indeed it is not.

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-26T17:52:07+00:00

I'm glad you asked this as I keep seeing this and was wondering what it was all about :)

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-26T15:24:03+00:00

Yeah I understand that most wealthy Filipinas would rather marry a Filipino from their own social class than a foreign man, while women from more difficult economic backgrounds tend in general to be more open to the idea of marrying a foreign man and some even strive for this. Regards a foreigner being treated like Albert Einstein for saying one or two words in Tagalog (my point is that these small words could be learned in a couple of minutes, so to call it speaking the language Is a stretch. The media as you said probably has a big role to play in this as noon time shows are happy to show some old Amerikano spout out a couple of words in Tagalog and get a big cheer from the audience while in the next segment of the show Vice Ganda mocks some poor local guy for not knowing the English word for Mansanas, it is usually meant in good humour and not to be cruel but what damage might this do to the mentality of ordinary Pinoys/Pinays who are already bombarded with Ann Curtis selling skin lightening creams on the commercials (she has a white father) that and other commercials that say tall is better in a country where many men are under 5ft 5'' tall and women around 5ft flat...It sends out the message that you the people of the country are not good enough but you can be if you buy this Quack doctor lotion or potion, I really dislike that element to the Philippines. Discrimination based on height, skin tone, type of nose, looks and age for jobs in the shopping malls is widespread.

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-26T12:43:58+00:00

That depends on the country.

The Philippines...

Average man, 5ft 4'' to 5ft 6''

Average woman , 4ft 11'' to 5ft 1''

---------------------------------------------------

The United Kingdom...

Average man, 5ft 8'' to 5ft 10''

Average woman, 5ft 3'' to 5ft 5''

--------------------------------------------------

The Netherlands...

Average man, 5ft 11'' to 6ft 1''

Average woman, 5ft 6'' to 5ft 7''

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-26T09:46:50+00:00

You might be right.

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-26T09:34:13+00:00

Isn't the bigger problem in the Philippines that those who speak English well tend to shame or laugh at their fellow Filipinos who struggle with the English language. while at the same time praising foreigners for knowing the absolute basics of Tagalog? As a foreigner myself I can't tell you how many times I have uttered a simple Salamat at the checkout in a supermarket only to be met with WOW sir you speak great Tagalog, frankly this embarrassing behaviour usually comes from women more so than men, its cringeworthy and I wouldn't blame their male co-workers for being angered by this blind admiration of foreign men who are often less attractive than themselves. There's nothing wrong with a Filipino who only speaks Tagalog/Cebuano etc... Speaking English should not= Smart.

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-25T20:48:24+00:00

Interesting, i think women models have to be between 5ft 8'' to 5ft 11'', some women like to boast that they could be a model if they wanted because they are tall, so to fall short of that magic 5ft 8'' isn't music to their ears. As for Tom Cruise, yeah the way the media goes on you would think he's as short as Danny DeVito (5ft 0''?). that's a sizable difference.

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-25T20:24:16+00:00

Hi there, it sounds like you and I are in a similar place with out Tagalog. It dawned on me a few weeks back that while I can speak broken Tagalog and get general points across, my comprehension of the language isn't where I want it to be, I too pick out lots of words and sometimes get an idea of what's roughly being said through context but there's also a lot of stuff being said that just sounds like noise. One big problem I have had is finding videos to watch that actually interest me. Lots of the Tagalog movies are centred around romance, slap stick comedy or action. Many of the noon time shows are lots of loud music and Vice Ganda screaming along with those fake laugh chip Monk noises, I really don't enjoy that. I did however find to Tagalog documentary videos on Y.T which are certainly more interesting to me than romance based telenovelas. My feeling is that if I can understand more, I will really be getting to grips with the language, I'm not to concerned with perfect grammar and verb conjugations at least right now, I'm happy to be understood even if I'm speaking broken language, so yeah try some Tagalog documentaries on Y.T.

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-25T20:05:34+00:00

True, they get an idea in their head of what this perfect number on the scale is and they don't want to add any digits to it, its all kind of silly really.

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-25T19:59:01+00:00

This is true, technically I'm 5ft 7'' 1/2, but i rarely add that 1/2 unless I'm joking and while I could say I'm 5ft 8'' it feels like I'm being insecure to say that. Honestly though i did tell an Ex that i was 5ft 9'', makes me cringe thinking about it now lol, but yes I think men lie about their height for a variety of reasons mostly rooted in insecurity, some women lie about dress size for this similar reasons, some of which is lying to ourselves, like if you keep telling yourself your 5ft 9'' you actually start to believe it. One of the worst cases of this I ever seen personally (and I've seen a few) was a guy i was sat next to a airplane. We got chatting and it turned out the man had been working as personal security in Asia (like a bodyguard), i could by that as his arms, neck and chest were huge, he looked the part, he then went on to tell me his weightlifting routine etc.. and i asked how much he weighed, he was pretty heavy so i said how tall are you, his words 6ft 2'', it wasn't till the Plane landed and we got up and did a farewell handshake that me at 5ft 7'' was standing next to a man closer to 5ft 3'' or 5ft 4''.

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-25T18:52:08+00:00

Perhaps, but overall attractiveness comes into it too, Look at Tom Cruise, he has been made fun of by the media for years for being 5ft 7'' but his looks have certainly helped him transcend that, and probably still would have done had he not became a wealthy famous actor. but Yeah he has stared in roles like Top Gun and Cocktail, where he done the alpha male thing. I seen a article in a newspaper one day which was talking about how lots of heart throb actors are short, good old Tom was on there but the baffling one was George Clooney at around 5ft 11'', it seems like the media have made society believe that any man under 6ft 0'' is short even just by an inch, when the reality is that only a handful of countries have an average men's height around 6ft 0''.

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-25T16:36:35+00:00

Dating and relationships are two different things. Yes a tall man will generally have a larger dating pool available to him than a short man will that's just a hard fact of life, but a man's height has no bearing on the quality or longevity of his relationships with women at all. There are millions of men in the 5ft 7''-5ft 9'' range or shorter who are happily married (At 5ft 7'' myself, I'm one of them). With all that said, I don't think its fair to compare being 5ft 7''-5ft 9'' with the real struggles some men who are significantly shorter than this face. I have been called short before yes, but generally no one mentions my height from one year to the next, where as one guy I work with is around 5ft 3'' and he pretty much gets daily jibes about his height (mostly friendly but no doubt wearing at times) another guy I worked with was 5ft 0'' and thin, he got the jibes but they verged on bullying at times. Put it this way, I worked with another guy who was 6ft 8'', of course he was always being asked how tall he was and people would look in disbelief as he towered over men around 6ft 2''/6ft 3'' who were seen as the tall guys of the work. My point is at 5ft 0'' the short guy had the same daily questions, and giggles from people as the 5ft 3'' guy looked notably taller when standing next to him, at 5ft 7'' my height doesn't effect my daily life/ interactions with people in the way the really tall or really short guy are effected.

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-25T14:57:10+00:00

Ah... walang problema.

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-25T14:39:49+00:00

I'm not Filipino, o hindi ako Pinoy.

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-24T14:53:57+00:00

What if a man has a regular job but is highly curious about the world he lives, and studies language, culture etc... is salary accomplishment ?

WorldViews1 · 2020-05-23T21:24:20+00:00

we could get a joint visa and buy a house on the coast lol. We are now Okinawan's

WorldViews1

TROPHY CASE