There’s little cultural differences like not wearing your shoes inside or not putting your feet up on things. But a big one is the slower pace of life in comparison to Boston in particular. The country is way more chill and less worried about things being on time or done in a timely manner. Most kids showed up 10 to 15 minutes late every day to class. Most busses or even planes depart 20 minutes after the time it says. You might have plans to do something, but think again random stuff pops up. One thing I find comical though is that the Thai people are relaxed and soft spoken, but are by far the most aggressive drivers I’ve ever witnessed. Bangkok is an explosion of cars, motorbikes, and traffic. You can’t go a second without hearing honking.
Another huge difference is Thai people as a whole are usually very soft spoken, shy people. I don’t mean this in an offensive way, but most don’t have many opinions on things and tend to believe anything they are told. A couple Thai girls told me that this was the case. One even said that if a doctor told them to eat a cookie for every single meal because it was healthy that they would do it and wouldn’t question a thing. That’s beyond interesting to me coming from a country where everyone questions everything. I asked these girls why that was the case and one responded that they’re just really chill people and things like that don’t bother them as long as they’re happy and content with their life. It seems like ignorance being bliss works from them, but that’s not a way a life I could ever get behind. Accepting things as is when they don’t make sense isn’t something that sits right with me.
Honestly, I don’t think I ever experienced culture shock per se. Sure, I missed my friends and family from home and sometimes not having a comfortable home-base was hard. But I never felt as if I truly wanted to go home. I have absolutely loved my time in Thailand. There was too much to be seen and do to ever being angry, upset, or sad here. I know kids who couldn’t handle the language barrier or the slow pace, but for me I found it very rewarding to be out of my comfort zone and experience life in a different way than what I’ve been used to. I think it’s extremely important to see the world from a different perspective, so instead of allowing the cultural differences to bother me I learned from them and was able to reflect of the difficulties in a positive way. This isn’t the case for everyone though, so if you do experience culture shock wherever you go, that’s completely normal and most of the time it will pass.
