Living in Bangkok with Two Lurchers

I would say the three main things to do in Bangkok are visiting temples, ambling around a market, or eating/drinking. But when you live here the novelty of those activities begins to wear off. You crave a pastime with more meaning, more purpose. You actually need to head no further than the Royal Bangkok Sports Club (RBSC) for the horse racing. It's conveniently located right in the center of Bangkok. On two Sundays per month (but sometimes Saturday instead) the horse racing is held at the RBSC. It normally begins at around 12:00 and then I think the last race is at around 17:30. But it's a pretty casual affair so you can wander in whenever you feel like it. And nobody will bat an eyelid if you've had enough and want to leave before the end. There are normally ten races, generally of around the same distance, so it gets quite repetitive. Prawn Sandwich Brigade We've been to the horse racing in Bangkok on two occasions. On our first visit, we were with an RBSC membe...

All I Have to Do is Dream A few weeks ago I had an incredibly vivid dream that was so packed with symbolic objects and actions, it would have been a treat for any dream interpreter to decipher. Chris and I were at a train station, hoping to get a train somewhere. The problem was that we couldn't find anywhere to buy tickets. We instead stumbled across a supermarket and went to buy some food. Whilst we were in the supermarket I was attacked by two pigeons. They dug their claws into my head but I was quickly able to remove them and shoo them away. Then whilst Chris was in the queue for the checkout, I was attacked by two crows. They proved more difficult to remove and I remember struggling to get them off my head. When I did finally manage to extract them, I threw them on the ground outside the supermarket. But their legs were entwined and they struggled on the floor to pull apart from each other. I went inside to find Chris and by this time we had definitely missed the tra...

Workplace gossip is pretty common. There's always a rumour floating around about what someone got up to at the Christmas party. But in my experience it's normally harmless fun and indulging in a little gossip is a nice interlude. In Thailand, it's so much more than this. It genuinely seems to determine the effectiveness of your entire team. No matter what you're doing to manage workload and engagement,  the complexities of the individual relationships actually make the real difference. There is so much going on behind the scenes that Farang managers will never know about, nor understand. Right now, there are so many people within my extended team who are not speaking to each other I'm surprised anything is getting done! A Little Respect... From what I've observed so far, it all seems to boil down to respect, or lack thereof. As a Farang, I feel somewhat protected from the 'respect' conundrum in Thailand. During the  Cross-Cultural Management cour...