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Time and Thai waits for no man.

Time and Thai waits for no man.

There are many little habits common among Thai that drive farang crazy. Not social customs so much as peculiarities that many seem to share. One of the least popular is what is commonly referred to as Thai time. That’s when you agree to meet someone at say 7 o’clock and they show up somewhere around nine. It’s such a wide-spread habit that it makes you wonder why knock-off watches are such a popular item at night markets in Thailand. But then again no self-respecting local would be caught dead wearing knock-off bling. Any more than they would looking at their watch to make sure they were on time.

Personally, I have a bigger problem with their love of karaoke than I do with their time avoidance issues. Part of that is from having lived in Hawaii for so many years where Thai time is called Hawaiian time. Both use the same clock. Numbers not being my strong suit, it doesn’t hurt that I tend to avoid clocks and watches myself. I don’t get why there’s such a big thing made of time pieces being instruments of great precision when the traditional clock is anything but. When seven forty and twenty to eight mean the same thing you’re just asking for trouble. At least if you’re asking me what time it is. My biological family still likes to make jokes about my time telling capabilities. Like if we’re meeting somewhere at eight, they’ll go: So that’s when the big hand is on the 12 and the little hand is on . . . . They’ve been beating that one dead for so many years you’d think they were Thai.

So 7-ish makes perfect sense to me. That mean your arrival time for any social engagement is when there’s a seven anywhere on the face of your clock. Unless yours is digital. Then you don’t even have to show up at all. But that drives many visitors crazy. Which, since most are on holiday, doesn’t make a lot of sense. The only time you should be concerned with is whether you are booking a bar boy for a short-time or long-time off. Or how much longer you have to pick a guy before the bars close.

When  the big hand is on  . . .

When the big hand is on . . .

Nonetheless, and while I doubt it will help any of you chill, I’d thought I give you my thoughts on why Thais seem so unconcerned about the time. And that’s often because they are instead concerned with face. Uh, not the one on your watch. Thais go to great lengths to avoid setting up themselves, or you, to lose face. And setting a time to meet does just that. Believe it or not, they know arriving late is rude. But even if they leave home with plenty of time to arrive when they should, there’s no telling what will come up in between. They may run across a friend. Or two. Or there’s more traffic than they planned for. Or the local 7/11 was having a sale. Ya never know.

So everyone concerned is better off if you just agree to meet at an indefinite time. Like later. Or tonight. Then they won’t lose face for arriving late. And you won’t lose face for being upset that they are. Which is even worse. Because if you were Thai and understood the concept of face you’d know by getting mad you are not doing your part to protect them from the loss of face for being late. You just can’t beat Thai logic. At any time it appears.

There’s the issue of confrontation at work too. Thais avoid confrontations almost as much as they do face loss situations. And when it comes to time, there’s two confrontational paradigms at work. The first, obviously, is that there is a good chance they will arrive late and being a farang and not knowing better you’ll get mad and a confrontation will ensue. In which you will lose face. But even before that disastrous event, your insistence on setting a time to meet alone is confrontational. ‘Cuz the trifecta in the time conundrum is that Thais hate to say no. So when you say let’s meet at 7, they’re stuck. They can not say no. Even though they know there’s no way they can be there until 8. So it’s your fault. ‘Cuz if you were Thai, you’d know better.

Looks like 3 o'clock to me.

Looks like 3 o’clock to me.

Of course that’s assuming they even want to meet you. A Thai will also agree to meet you at 7 even when he has no intention of ever meting you. At any time. Because telling you that would be rude. And you’d lose face. Again. It’s the same principle at work when you ask a Thai for directions to somewhere he has no clue about getting to. He’ll still give you directions. Because that will make you happy. Later, when you are completely lost, he’s out of the picture so it’s no longer a problem for him. Ditto for when he never shows up for your date. He made you happy by agreeing to meet you at 7. That was the extent of his duty to you. What happens afterwards when he fails to show is up to you. And you’ll have plenty of time to deal with it.

Farang just spend too much time allowing a clock to dictate their life. Thais know whatever the time is, it doesn’t really matter. Farang rush to get out of bed in the morning to not miss out on their hotel’s free buffet breakfast. Thais know that if the buffet closes at 10 and they show up at 10:30, one of their countrymen will open the restaurant’s door for them. The important thing about their job as a bar boy is not that work starts at 8, but that they show up sometime before the show begins. ‘Cuz that’s when the manager really needs them. And it really doesn’t matter what time your plane is scheduled to arrive and that they convinced you to allow them to meet you. Because airlines tend to work on Thai time too. And even if they are an hour late getting to the airport, they know you’ll still be there waiting for them. Because despite the aggravation of their lack of a sense of time, it’s the time you spend together that you really treasure. And that’s what is really important.