linguistics and culture

Back from a fabulous trip to the beach with the girls! I'm tan again, and managed not to sunburn anything but my knee caps and scalp. Pretty good I'd say.
The beach we went to happens to have some of the best sand in the country as well as the largest population of prostitutes. The guide book said there have been estimates between 6000-20000. That's a pretty big range. I wish I could say it was mostly invisible, but along one of the beaches I'd say there were prostitutes standing at intervals of 3-4 inches for at least a mile. We had a great time, though, and went to see a totally fabulous drag show complete with pasties and tall feathered hats. Good stuff. We declined to attend the Man Show, however, though the dude on the sidewalk was insistant that they were *well* worth viewing.... An interesting side to this country, and sorta glad to have experienced it, but feel no need to go back.
After that I was off to another beach on the other side of the bay for service training two, where I delivered my sage advice to the newest group with all the clarity and grace of a lemming. I blame the caffeine. But I said what I went to say, I guess. I just felt really disorganised. Oh, well. They didn't seem to mind a quick session.....
And now for something completely different.
I've noticed as I struggle with fluency in Thai that speech patterns here and very simply stated and tend toward the positive statement of facts as opposed to American. We tend to speak in metaphor and convoluted double negatives, where Thais are much more up-front and practical, verbally speaking. This is interesting to me, mostly because it seems like the opposite of how people behave towards one another. What I mean is that Thais are so obtuse and secretive with their feelings and true thoughts, yet speak so plainly, while Americans are the opposite. A simple example would be this:
English thoughts: I haven't been able to be home for a long time cause I've been running everywhere doing trainings and I'm really tired and glad to be home, so I'm going to go in now.
What I actually (literally) said in Thai: I travel often right now, and happy be home. Thirsty.
OR
English thoughts: I really hate speaking in microphones cause it makes me nervous, and frankly I just don't have the time to prepare things to say every morning when you could do just as well yourself.
What I actually said in Thai: I'm shy about talk with big groups, but you speak English very well.....
Mostly, it's just a simpler grammatical structure, but it's interesting in that we speak about things we haven't been able to do, while they speak in terms of what they can do. It's sort of a good way to learn to interact with people, actually, especially for some one like me who tends to be beud peuy, painfully blunt, about things. Also, there is no past perfect tense in Thai.
Another interesting factiod with exceptional cultural relevance is that in Thai clocks are said to walk, while in English they are said to run. This is not simply a semantic difference, but a way of life. Cool, eh?
Anyhow, that's the cultural lesson for this week. Thanks for coming.