Return of the Psycho Ex-Pats (*snore*)

Despite my many attempts to ignore, tolerate, or work around “Mafia Boss,” he still keeps coming back. Like 99.9% of expats in Bangkok, I work as a teacher. I enjoy this most of the time, despite difficulties such as cultural conflicts, miscommunication, unreliable or insane employees, or nitpicking parents. But by far, the biggest pain in my lovely ass is the Mafia Boss. He goes by many names, not all given by me, but I have yet to hear one that is particularly flattering. He’s surely one of a kind though. For someone who works in a school, he has an amazing knack for making people feel like they’re “in the Cold War,” “working in a cutthroat business, not a school,” "working for a tyrant," or "like being with a tempermental 6 year old."

This man’s for real. I was thinking of writing one of my usual blogs about him. There’s enough information to go on and on, but now that I’m writing, something I normally love to do, I find myself getting tired just by the thought of discussing him again. Anytime I try to describe him, my lips spill out unbelievable hyperboles which I’m sure only takes away from my validity. No one is this bad. No one is “out to destroy you.” “Dynasty” was a soap opera, not a reality-based tv show. But oh baby, people like this DO exist. They are dangerous (though they achieve much more in the area of drama than they do in pure results). They care more about their own image and recognition than they do for the welfare of their employees and the children they teach. It’s all about image and power. This is what’s so depressing. I spend SO much time trying to improve the school I’m a part of, which is often an uphill battle as it is, that trying to fight some slob who wants to be king of the world, and sees you as an obstacle in his way, is absolutely exhausting. How to get rid of someone who the school keeps because he is loyal (though they admit, flawed), but who causes pain, anger, and chaos around him?

Okay, now I’ve already written more than I thought I would (it helps to be watching “The West Wing” on the side and coming back to this on commercials).

In other news, the cool season is here finally *HOORAY* I went swimming and it felt really good. A charming ex-boyfriend is in town (and brought a nice pair of shoes!), and I have fantastic teachers working for me in our school. Now, if we can make it to the end of the school term alive and intact (end of February), then maybe, JUST maybe, there really is a god.

But probably not.

Psycho Dan, the Ex-Pat

“Oh yes, I know you have friends here too, but it’s not the same thing. We’re all from different towns, from different social levels. We’re friends just because we’re all the same thing – planters, assistants. It’s like prisoners or exiles. We drink together, we have fun, and that’s all.”

-- referring to the Dutch of the rubber plantation community in East Sumatra, Indonesia in the 1920’s. Taken from Graham Saunders’ book, Tropical Interludes: European Life and Society in South-East Asia.
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Well, some things never change. Ex-pats are still thrown together and find nothing more exciting than getting shit-faced. This reminded me of the most shit-faced of them all, Psycho Dan.*

You know, in my blog about psychopathic ex-pats, I had originally written an example of a teacher we had in our school who was the most fucked up ex-pat to date (his drug taking and booze swilling ways catapulted him to super-asshole status). Psycho Dan. I had hoped, as I’d heard, that he’d left the country (psycho ex-pats like this always end up moving to a new country to deposit some more of their human pollution), but no! He has returned again, like a bad (is there a good?) case of herpes.

Seems that Psycho Dan came to the house of a friend of mine, who lives just down the street from me. He repeatedly rang the friend’s doorbell. After no answer, (meaning of course, the people are not home or asleep!), he climbed the stone fence surrounding the house (complete with barbed wire), and jumped inside. Luckily, the friend had a protective dog inside those walls, who immediately went after Psycho Dan. Psycho Dan, armed with his shirt wrapped around his arm and a mop, (and apparently a good deal of drugs and alcohol in his system), was fending off the dog and screaming to the friend to punish his dog. Seeing as how the dog had done its job and kept Psycho Dan from entering the house (WHY did he enter if he thought no one was home?!), the friend gave his good dog a hot dog for reward. Though this behavior alarmed me, it didn't totally surprise me. An extreme example, but still an example of some of the ex-pats here. It’s not Thais that would make me want to leave Thailand, it’s the ex-pats! My social community. Eegad. Anyway, moving on….

* I'm not changing his name to protect the innocent (*laugh scoff*), but to protect myself from this true psycho.

The Ugly American...and Canadian...and Australian...

Why why why are there so many Psychopathic Ex-patriates here in Bangkok!?!?

So, I've been here about a year and a half, and sometimes it feels amazing and wonderful, and at other times it feels like an extended and mutated form of boot camp. Living abroad is at the very least, challenging -- especially in places that are so completely different from where you come from. And Bangkok is a big, dirty, smelly city with not much in aesthetic value. It takes sometimes hours to get from place to place, and the traffic never lets up. Never. I think you have to be kind of tough to live here.

If you have to be tough, do you have to be difficult?? Can being 'tough' make a generally happy or content person miserable? I still go through my silent rages at things I deem as inefficient and incompetent around me. And truly, I find a part of me saying, "It wouldn't be like this in the U.S.!" Ha ha! Whatever. There's a lot of good and bad in a new country, because you feel yourself standing apart from it, analyzing every single gesture, custom, more, protocol, attitude, etc. with a magnifying glass, and comparing it to what you believe it SHOULD be. This is never a really good thing, because I think it's one of the root causes of those ex-pats who are bitter about everything and constantly say things like, "I fucking hate it when The Thais......"

But what I really want know is...Where are all the NORMAL ex-pats?? And if I think I am one of the only ones, am I actually the pyscho one? I've met quite a number of "ex-pat's," and by and large, they're a big group of druggies/alcoholics and/or angry/bitter/violent people and/or clinically-Depressed-get-me-some-Zoloft-now! people.

Do they come to Bangkok this way or does Bangkok do this to them??? Why are so many of these people so incredibly fucked up? It seems everyone I meet has a personality with an extreme quality about it. Extremely mad, extremely thirsty (for beer), extremely manipulative, even extremely cruel, extremely paranoid, extremely bitter. An American friend of mine said the other day, "You know, Thailand sends its best to America, and America sends all its trash to Thailand." But it's not just Americans. Before I came to Bangkok, I had a great opinion of the Australians I had met in the United States and in Europe. They were fun-loving, friendly, and of course, they loved their beer. Here it seems different. Sure, they still love their beer, but now I encounter men who are macho, sexist, and antiquated in their thinking. They're the kind of men you always hear about, but you really never meet. These men DO exist!

I've met Americans who cannot wait to take minutes away from your life, that you'll never get back, in their ranting about how absolutely horrible the United States is. And yet, it is these same people who cannot seem to find their niche in Thailand.

I've met English who turn up their nose at everyone and anyone, and proclaim proudly how they were "bred to whinge." Good luck trying to be silly and goofy around these people -- they'll look at you as if you're a fucking idiot.

The one group I can honestly say I have no complaints about are the New Zealanders. I've met several, and they always strike me as the most laid back people on this Earth. Rah rah Kiwis!

But that's the thing. Extremes! I meet Americans who either LOVE America *wave the flag* or HATE America *burn the flag and spit on it*. People who LOVE Thailand, thinking everyone here is "soooo nice" and who HATE Thailand, thinking "everything
here is so fucked up!" It gets a bit depressing after awhile. It's hard to be friends with Thais, since it's very difficult to find Thais who speak English well (and after a year and a half, my Thai isn't anything to write home about). And when you go out with other ex-pats, you find that it involves two things a) more drinking of whisky in one sitting than you've ever had in your life and b) more bitching and moaning in one sitting than you're ever done in your life. As one man put it, "That stuff is contagious" (he was talking about the complaining). They both are. It's like this moody, bitter group you get sucked into. You think you feel better by venting it all out, and in the end, you're all just as mad as you were before. You just feel better that others are mad too (a la Aesop's "Misery loves company").

I just want to meet people who are relatively happy, and who like to laugh. To avoid those whose only recreational activity involves a bar and endless bottles of whisky (and no dinner! That takes up too much room in the stomach!). To find people who enjoy eating, who like to go to movies, who don't mind exploring a city of 10 million, etc. I know like THREE of you. As for the rest of you....where are you!?!