The Proudest New Member of the Local Video Store

My current life is made up of everyday activities that, because of being in a new city with an immense language barrier, become “events.” Each day has a new “event,” which is how I am choosing to look at things. If I successfully complete one such event (which is often an adventure, sometimes into absurdity) in a day, then I can be pleased.

My Sunday night event, after arriving back from Ban Phe on the bus, was to get a membership to the local video store, so I can rent movies. The first part of the event was locating the store, but I had cased that out last week, and so that was the easy part to check off. The next part was to make sure that at least some of the DVDs at the store were in English or had English subtitles. Check.

But the third and final part of the task was the difficult part—the stumbling block that would challenge my “jai yen” (Thai for “cool heart,” i.e. keeping your cool). I chose two DVDs (Sex and the City and Match Point) and took them up to the counter. The man behind the counter made me understand that I needed to have a membership card to be able to rent. Fair enough, so how can I get this magical membership card? He just kept repeating a few key phrases: “membership card;” “you cannot, no membership card” over and over again. I held my ground, though wondering if there was some sort of “Thai-only” rule for membership. I kept repeating variations of my own key phrase, “How can I GET a membership card?” We went around and around like this for at least five minutes, with me wondering what was so difficult. What would be the next logical step in this situation? Perhaps he was perplexed because most farang are not actually living in Chonburi, but just passing through. (On a separate note, Tim, a fellow TEFL-er was in Chonburi one weekend and he said he finally bumped into a group of farang women at one point—right outside a plastic surgery office!) I FINALLY FINALLY got him to give me an application and, although I still don’t know the street address of my apartment (that is a whole other story), I was able to show my credit card and secure a card for myself. Sweet victory . . . sweet relief!

Of course I canNOT, am not ALLOWED, to get angry at people for not speaking English, although I’ve seen some entitled travelers do so. It is not their fault that I cannot communicate with them in their native language in their own country. But sometimes, when people speak a little bit of English, I am lured into believing that they will actually understand what I am saying, but this is often a stretch, especially in Chonburi. Many people DO understand a few words here and there. Just enough to be dangerous. Just enough to completely misinterpret and/or miss the point of what I’m saying. I need to spend more time studying Thai . . .

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