Didn’t your mother always tell you that life isn’t fair?
After a week of eating good food and exercising I expected that I would lose weight! WTF?
Have you ever gotten involved in a relationship to find out they didn’t live up to YOUR expectations?
As I make my way around Thailand I am learning the differences in how people offer hospitality to foreigners from all of the places I have visited so far.
I began my travels in India I was welcomed into home-stays and families with open arms. It was almost a little uncomfortable at times for me to receive all that love and attention to my comfort and well-being. A wonderful experience to have to settle myself into. To receive. To receive like that from strangers. Without the obligatory feelings of having to give something back. It was a pleasure for me to go shopping at the markets and be able to pay for the food that we were cooking and participate in that process.
When I was in Nepal, I was purchasing food and cooking at a home-stay and feeding people there. I was dealing with some internalized negative thoughts in me that thought I should be getting something back more than what I was getting. Was I giving with a closed fist? I felt I wasn’t getting the appreciation that I thought I should be getting. There was this hidden expectation inside and eating away at me. I wasn’t going to let those internalized thoughts in me keep me from offering what I could to the people around me. But, at times they kept creeping in.
There is something happening for me here in Thailand. After experiencing the ways I was welcomed into people’s homes at the home-stays I was staying at in India and Nepal I had this expectation that it would be like that in all my travels. Was I wrong.
There is this disdain towards white, middle aged, westerners that I am experiencing here in Thailand. They call them “Farang”. Here is a good explanation of what I am talking about here. I’m taking the next two paragraphs from this article because it fits the message of what I’m trying to say.
A farang is in the unique and often uncomfortable position of being judged according to three very different standards of conduct: that of Thais, that of Westerners, and that of farangs, and a certain amount of maneuvering if not outright deception will be required to satisfy all three. On the other hand, farang morality can be profoundly liberating — as, in some sense, it is no morality all, but instead boils down to whatever you can afford so long as it keeps you out of jail. (And what’s more, staying out of jail may boil down to what you can afford — in terms of bribes.)
Sadly, the fucked-upness of farangdom is not something to which the Thais are entirely immune, and indeed they sometimes display an uncanny ability to adopt or at least imitate the worst, because most conspicuous and alien aspects of Western behavior. But because the Thais are more grounded than their farang counterparts, whose ideas of what is right and wrong have been so assaulted by rapid social change that they are all but nonexistent, the reverse is more often than not the case, with farangs coming to embrace values in Thai society that they see dying in their own.
Whatever irritation or disappointment I may be experiencing is not a reflection of the Thai culture. It reflects some hidden expectation or issue inside of me that is keeping me from being open and loving to all around me. Why is it that I need for someone to be nice and welcome me here? They have been here all along and I am the one invading their space. I am creating this inner conflict inside of me all by myself.
So, I write. I write to get this stuff out. To allow whatever kind of time it will take for me to develop the skills I need to be at peace with what is, where ever I go during my travels (and even when I get home). I will not allow things hidden in the shadow of my life to get in the way of me offering the best I am to the people around me and to the world. Thank you for showing me where I need to grow!
Where are your hidden expectations lying that are keeping you from offering the best of yourself to your relationships and the world around you?
A deep appreciation to C3 and Sparkle Pants for the inspiration to do this writing today!
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