Living in Thailand: What I Learned My First Year

I’ve been visiting Thailand for more than a couple of decades, and I relocated several years ago. This may be a blinding glimpse of the obvious, but there is a profound difference between coming to Thailand for a holiday and making Thailand home.

When vacationing, you’re focused on having as much fun as time and budget allow. When you move here, there’s still much to enjoy, but there are also the routines of everyday life—negotiating with landlords, getting prescriptions filled, applying for a driving license, and a host of other tasks that often require climbing a pretty steep learning curve.

As I settled in, I wish I had someone help me understand how things really work in Thailand. It may have saved me from many mistakes that cost me time, money, and more than a bit of embarrassment. Sure, things got easier over time, but in this video, I’m going to give you the three insights I wish I knew from the outset, in the hope that you’ll be able to adjust more quickly to life in this amazing country.

So let’s jump in.

First: how you go about things here really matters. Smile, be patient and polite, and try to speak a bit of Thai, and you’ll get that positivity back—along with a “พูดไทยเก่ง” (“You speak Thai so well!”).

I also learned that the opposite is true. Exhibit impatience, exasperation, or worse yet, anger, and whatever you’re trying to accomplish will get sidetracked.

My favorite nonverbal example of this is horn honking. In LA, New York, or Cairo, it’s the driver’s language of choice. In Thailand, a frustrated horn honk will often prompt the car in front of you to slow to a glacial pace, communicating very clearly what they think of your impatience. That’s why when you walk along the busiest streets in Bangkok, you rarely hear a car horn.

Now, in America and many Western countries, communication is mainly about achieving an end result. There are no points awarded for style so long as the intended outcome is achieved. However, that type of directness can be perceived very differently here.

There’s a central tenet of Thai social and cultural life called kreng jai (เกรงใจ), meaning “considerate heart.” In essence, it means being deeply respectful of another person’s feelings and striving never to embarrass or burden them.

And this applies to every interaction—whether it’s the waiter at a restaurant bringing you the wrong dish, the neighbor playing loud music, the police officer pulling you over for a traffic infraction, or applying for your driving license at the Department of Land Transport.

All of these interactions can be stressful, but it is expected—and considered a sign of emotional intelligence—to keep smiling and get through the interaction as courteously as possible, even if it means eating a dish you didn’t actually order.

This may take some adjustment for Westerners, but I’d encourage you to think of it like this: the restaurant staff save face, and you get to try a new dish.

What this has meant for me is getting into the habit of checking my energy and intentions whenever beginning an interaction. It’s an opportunity to practice the Buddhist virtue of patience and build my self-awareness muscle.

Now, I’m still a long way from becoming an enlightened being, but over the years I have gotten better at this. As a result, my communications and relationships with the Thai people I see every day have become not only more productive, but more enjoyable.

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Now, the second lesson is the importance of the group over the individual—and this starts with family.

In America, family interactions are typically centered around birthdays, holidays, and other milestones. Parents don’t usually intercede in their adult children’s decision-making.

Here, things are quite different. When marrying a Thai person, you are also becoming part of the family. And in many Thai families, the parents’ perspective carries tremendous weight. There is no hesitation in offering advice—or influencing decisions—about where to work, where to live, and other major life choices.

There is also an expectation of support from children, not necessarily limited to financial help, but also assistance with healthcare and other needs.

For instance, my Thai language instructor lives about 400 kilometers from her hometown. However, if her parents have any issue of any kind, she’ll drive several hours and stay with them for days, weeks, or even months until the issue is resolved.

Does she miss her independence and the home she chose? Of course. But as she and many others have explained to me, there is really no choice.

And this importance of family and group extends beyond biological relatives to the workplace, the village, and even service providers with whom you regularly interact.

One of the most treasured perks of a job at my company isn’t compensation, but company trips where the team spends a few days together strengthening bonds beyond the office.

Some of my staff even call my wife “Mae” or “Mom.”

For me, this meant shedding the Western notion that individual freedoms, choices, and rights always come first, and instead approaching situations at home and at work with a better understanding of the deeply relational nature of Thai culture.

Third and finally: land has an intrinsic value here that is quite different from the way I thought about residences or property in the US.

There, land ownership is mainly a way to build wealth, and selling the family home to move into a retirement community is a pretty common story.

Here—especially in rural provinces—land represents family stature and heritage. It is the family’s domain. That’s why families often hold on to land ownership even if the land isn’t being put to productive use.

I learned this lesson when I thought I could simply offer a premium price for adjacent lots in the rural village where we built our home, only to discover that the owners were unwilling to part with their family’s land heritage.

Only when we were approached by someone who had already decided to sell—and this is often a family decision, not an individual one—was a deal even possible.

This value placed on land also means that ownership is a privilege reserved for Thai nationals. As an expat, you can buy condos or arrange long-term leases, but simply purchasing land outright is not lawful. You may want to seek additional advice if someone is suggesting otherwise.

Over the years, I’ve learned many other lessons through trial and error, and through my firm’s work helping hundreds of expats settle here.

If you’re interested in taking a deeper dive into making Thailand home, I’ve included a link below to my book, which I hope will help you make more informed decisions and better understand the unique customs and culture of Thailand.

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