041: Why Thailand Loves This Foreigner (Feat. Thai Talk with Paddy)

Bangkok Thailand a tropical metropolis of over 10 million people Living in this vibrant city, I've met some pretty incredible people with even more incredible experiences. Now I'm bringing you all the real life stories, scams, triumphs, and temptations. Join me as we take a trip down the rabbit hole and find out what it's really like in one of the world's most famous destinations. What is up, guys? And welcome back to the One Night in Bangkok podcast.

If you guys are new here, my name is Eric. I come all the way from Boston, USA. I've been living here in Thailand for five years now and this podcast is all about bringing you the most interesting people that I come across here in Bangkok. If you are coming to Bangkok soon, if you're living here, if you're moving here, hit the subscribe button. There are so many people coming on the show that I know you're going to want to check out, especially the next few guests.

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I don't know. We'll have a good time doing it. Yes. Tonight, I have a very interesting guy I've seen on YouTube for quite some time now. Patty from Thai Talk with Patty, the YouTube channel. is back in Bangkok. Yes, I am. Good to be here, Eric. This studio is amazing and that introduction was very clean.

thank you we're just talking about how i'm like always nervous i'm gonna mess this up no you killed it so we were talking in the elevator on the way up i met you for about 10 seconds yeah but but it was at a meetup event About two years ago. About two years ago. And I can't believe it's been that long. It's crazy, hey. And it's kind of weird to think that we only met for 10 seconds, to be honest. That's the nature of those meetup events when you host something like that and you have...

There was a few hundred people there that night or whatever and you're trying to speak to as many people as possible and give as many people an ear as possible but it's just kind of hard. But yeah, it was awesome and it's great to be here. Yeah, so what's interesting about you...

compared to a lot of Thailand YouTubers is you don't live in Thailand. You live in Australia. Yeah, it's bizarre. Hey, like when you look at the channel, it almost... seem like I live in Thailand but my my my base realistically is Sydney but I do spend a fair bit of time here in Bangkok and other parts of Thailand as well yeah were you here like six months ago uh yes I was here about six months ago yeah and I was here for about

a month and a half, two months. So, I stayed for quite a long period. And for this time, I'm here for about three weeks, but- Actually, I'm on the way to Europe. I'm traveling through Thailand. I'm going to travel on the way to Europe after this. So, I'm just having a bit of a gap year, I guess, this year. Cool. And the flight from Sydney, how long is it? 10 hours.

yeah yeah that's longer than I thought well but for Australians that's actually super short like going to Asia from Australia is like considered a really really short flight because Europe's 24 hours and America's 17 or 18 hours it's kind of the same thing with the US a lot of people in the US don't

travel internationally that much yeah because you pretty much have to cross an ocean no matter which way you go yeah but that's not the same with australians because a lot of australians travel international they're just happy to do the 10-hour flight okay oh and by the way before we go any further we have earned back again

everyone's favorite resident thai i thought i tell you patty i thought it would be fair to have at least one other person that could speak thai well for sure that's great no pleasantly surprised i actually didn't know it was coming

So for people that don't know, maybe they figured it out already. One of the things that you're known for, your channel is known for is you speak, would you say fluent Thai? But you speak Thai extremely well, especially for... white guy yeah yeah I guess like I could see maybe if you're like I don't know Asian maybe it would be easier to speak Thai yeah as a native English speaker it's what can be quite a challenge

Yeah, it's a weird one. Hey, I guess the reputation my channel has become known for is because I'm a white guy who speaks Thai. But the reality is there are so many foreigners who live here from... white backgrounds, from Asian backgrounds, from so many different backgrounds that speak way better Thai than me and they just don't put themselves on the internet so you just never see them and you never meet them but there are people that I've met.

who have lived here for 20 years, 25 years, and their level of Thai is close to native level, but you just never know about it. But I'm happy. I'm glad I have a channel where the language, the culture is a center. point of the the channel and people and the audience um like that for that reason i think i think it gives it a different flavor than a lot of channels in thailand and i'm yeah it's it's a thailand's a special place for me because of that reason yeah it's definitely a unique thing

What I was curious about, and I was talking to Earn about this, is your audience mostly Thai people or mostly foreigners or both? It's a real mix. I think it started more with... predominantly Thai people, but these days it would actually probably be more foreign. So I think overall the Thai audience would probably be 30%.

And the foreign audience would now be about 70%, I would say. And the main countries of that foreign audience would be Australia, America, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, UK. Okay. And then... who knows because he's mostly into real Thai people and then like foreigner wanna like see like about

the will or the thoughts of Thai people yeah yeah there's there's definitely that but you do a lot of street interviews I do a lot of street interviews yeah yeah like you did one where you're asking uh Thai people in Australia uh i think you were asking them like why is there so much cheating in thailand yeah yeah i've done that i don't

like shy away from more difficult and more sensitive topics that's for sure it's cool to ask Thai people these questions yeah in Thai and hear their responses in Thai because I sometimes I feel like maybe there's a nuance that's lost when people like Thai people speak in English? I think they open up a lot more as soon as we start speaking and it's in Thai. They feel a lot more comfortable than perhaps speaking in English and you get the subtleties.

and you get an energy and as soon as you start getting into the conversation, it almost feels like the camera's not on them and they just open up. And you're just jumping and bouncing off each other, which is really interesting. And it's really nice, to be honest. I think you see a side to tie people in those interviews that you would never otherwise get. So, I love being able to show that. So, what I want to know, because I really don't know this answer, is...

Why in the world does a guy from Sydney, Australia know how to speak Thai so well? Yeah, it's a weird one. I... After school, between high school and university, there's a pretty typical thing for a lot of Australians to do and a lot of Europeans and Americans, I think, is to do a gap year and travel abroad.

And I had the opportunity to live in Thailand as an English teacher for about 9 to 10 months. And I lived in an area outside of Chiang Mai, a little village called Hoitong in two hours west of Chiang Mai. And it's actually home to the Karen people, which is an ethnic diaspora and ethnic minority group. And when I was there, I was put in a position where no one really in the village could speak English.

And if I didn't learn to speak Thai, then I wouldn't have any friends and I'd feel completely isolated and completely lonely. So I made it my mission that year to become as fluent as possible in Thai so I could become a part of the community, adapt to the culture, understand the place properly.

and have friends. And I, to be honest, back then there was no internet signal in the village. iPhones and smartphones were hardly a thing. So I remember like I would call my parents once a month or maybe once every two months. And I had all this time and I used that time for good. And I just went hard into the study and hard into the books and in the end got to the end of the nine or 10 months after a full immersion experience and felt...

pretty comfortable communicating in Thai, getting around, good read and write. And from there, I grew to love the country and I grew to love the place. What was your level of understanding before you started that? Zero. like literally could not say but when i when i landed in shengmai airport i had no idea how to say

Wow. Yeah, yeah. And at the end of the nine months, like obviously, I'm sure you kept learning after that, right? I'm still learning. To be honest, I would not even call myself close to fluent. I really want to get better and better and better, but maybe like 50%, 60%.

yeah but at the end of that nine months did you have any problem communicating or having a conversation with somebody uh not not anything that wouldn't be more academic or a little bit more complex to be honest like anything getting around exploring

More than a conversational level. What about reading and writing? Reading and writing, by the end of the nine months, I could read and write decently well. Oh, wow. But you learn all by yourself or with a high teacher? I didn't... studying any classes or anything i just studied with friends in the village and had some really close friends who helped me out a lot and uh i just was really obsessed when i was there i just wanted to learn to yeah every night i would

go back to my room and I'd open up the Thai dictionary and open up my phrase book and learn for two hours, like just study for two hours by myself.

I'd go out to clubs and stuff in Chiang Mai and I'd bring a dictionary and a phrase book and I'd be writing stuff down. I just became fully obsessed with wanting to learn the Thai language. And beforehand, I'd never been interested in languages at all, but I saw... this ability to be able to like what we were talking about with the interviews like people would be more raw with me people would treat me differently they'd be they'd have a different approach to conversation with me and I got to

have these insights into Thailand that you never would otherwise have. It's like having it, it's unlocking a new world. And yeah, I put all, every ounce of effort into trying to learn Thai that year.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I remember my first trip to Thailand. I remember landing at the airport at Sawanapum. Yeah. And we're walking through the terminal and I'm seeing the signs in Thai. And, you know, as a closeted American. i'm not used to this normally everything is just english or maybe english and spanish and i was thinking how can anybody learn this language that wasn't born here i would feel that it would be so hard yeah it's weird and i sometimes feel like

become this like like the token guy who just has been able to learn and speak thai and whatnot but it honestly it's not as rare as you think obviously the majority of expats who come here they come and move to bangkok with which is a fairly cosmopolitan city so

straight away they're here and a lot of people like earn for example speak really good english so they don't feel like it's necessary but i was just lucky that i was put in a situation where i had no real choice and yeah and my my position was

If I'm here, I want to adapt to this place, become a part of this community and try as much as possible to be seen as not so different to them. But obviously you're never going to be able to achieve that fully when you look like this in a... did you know or learn any other languages never never at school because i i took spanish in high school and spanish was like the easiest language to learn after english and i did awful

yeah right so and what was funny though is during covid i got i was i was living here but i went back to the u.s during covid and i got stuck and you know being stuck during covid time was not a fun it was it was a really rough time yeah and that's actually when i discovered your channel right and i discovered you and um what's the guy in new york city that speaks chinese uh xiaoma

And I thought, like, if these guys can do it, I can do it. Even if I could do it 5%, you know? So I ended up getting, after watching a bunch of your videos, a bunch of his videos, I ended up downloading... the Pimsleur Thai course which is like an audio only thing and by the way sometimes people ask me how to learn Thai and I really liked that because I don't like the book stuff as much because

i don't know it's hard to understand like the tones and everything but when i did the pimsleur course it's all audio so you can really hear how to properly say words like the tone inflections things like that yeah but for people to ask you

Like, I want to start learning Thai. What's the best way to get started? What would you say? Yeah, I know. So many people ask me that. And in a really strange way, I kind of almost feel like if you're going out of your way to ask that...

This is going to sound almost mean and a little bit greater than thou, but I think if you're already going out of your way to ask that, then you're kind of in the wrong mind headspace already. I honestly believe if you want something enough, you will make it happen.

I truly believe that. But if there are any practical tips I would give to first-time learners, the first thing is that if you're very serious about it, you have to learn to read and write. You honestly have to learn to read and write because the secrets of the pronunciation...

in the reading and writing system. That's very true because I did the audio only thing first. I did no reading or writing. And although I felt like I had a grasp on it, once I started learning the reading and the writing and I understood what...

tones are actually in Thai, what sounds, what consonants, what vowels are in Thai, it made it a lot easier to speak and to understand. For sure. And it means you can become totally immersed in it because you see signs everywhere. You go on social media and there's...

Thai alphabet everywhere so you're reading it so you're constantly learning all the time as opposed to if you're constantly using romanized script it's not correct pronunciation and it will not lead you in the right direction I actually because I took a Thai class here in Bangkok and they often used the english letter version and i actually think believe it or not it's easier to learn to speak thai if you learn the thai letters and then you get grasp on that and then you start learning

Because it's a very specific sound and you're not trying to turn this English letter into this sound. A thousand percent. A thousand percent. And do you have any suggestions for that about how to learn to read and write? A few. I think that... you always get told that it is 44...

consonants and like 22 or 20 odd vowels or whatever uh the reality is a lot of those 44 consonants you never really use or you never see they're kind of like dead characters so you can if you want to kind of bypass that there are a few more that are uh are used more often so don't be too scared about about that and then i don't know just repetition hey you just got to chunk it down into small blocks and just

go through it, go through it, go through it. It's just rote learning. Unfortunately, there's not too many secrets to this kind of thing. It just takes hard work. It's about practicing. I have a little tip for this because I'm a very bad learner.

But what I try to do is chunk things down and do a tiny, tiny bit every day. Exactly. So I found on YouTube a channel called Tide Pod 101. And they have each lesson is about like seven or ten minutes. And they cover like... two letters like two consonants and a vowel in each lesson and i would just do one of these every day every day 10 minutes every day 10 minutes every morning and after like a month two months

Now, all of a sudden, I look at the signs. I start to know what they say. And my girlfriend is shocked. She thought I was cheating because it's very rare, I think, for foreigners here. even if they can speak some Thai, for them to be able to read and write at any kind of competency. So if you're interested in learning to read or write and it's intimidating, search on YouTube or Google ThaiPod101.

do one lesson per day for like a month it's like 10 minutes every morning i do it and i guarantee you by the end of the month you'll be shocked at

the progress yeah it's not as hard as people have made it out to be over the years what's up guys i just wanted to jump in here really quick because after this episode was filmed i knew a lot of people would be messaging me on instagram or leaving a comment down below about what the best ways are to learn Thai in 2025. And so I talked to my friend Chris from Retired Working For You.

And I want to let you know that he has a new program called the Thai Language Challenge. And what's interesting about this program is it kind of blends the benefits of learning online or through a podcast or at your own pace with the benefits of learning in a classroom environment, which is good because of the structure and the accountability, but oftentimes it can be a little inconvenient because you have to show up to a certain place at a certain time.

You're in a group with other people and it might not be the pace that you want to go at. So the Thai language challenge is a virtual classroom environment. You can do it at your own pace. It's got structured lessons. It has a real life teacher, Kru Fa, who is very nice and she makes.

it very easy and fun to learn and what's cool is that they have different packages available and they tell you exactly what you'll learn at the end of each package so if you only want to do the 10 lesson package you'll be able to describe to taxi drivers where you want to go you'll be able to count you'll be able to start a basic conversation with Thai people but if you want to do the 20 lesson package or the full 100 lesson package you'll be able to learn so much more and if you do

the 100 lesson package which you can do at your own pace by the end of that you'll be able to have a full 10 minute conversation in thai so it's something that i really recommend if you're going to be here for any length of time whether it's a few months or if you're looking to move here

permanently. I think this is a great option if you want to get better at the language and be able to communicate better with the locals. So Thai language challenge, I'll leave the link down below. Check it out and let me know what you guys think. All right, let's get back to the chat with Patti. I feel like...

maybe 10 years ago or 20 years well 10 years ago when i was first learning thai there was none of these resources online and every foreigner i'd ever met in thailand was just like ah don't even bother it's too hard you won't even you won't even be able to do it and I'm lucky. I'm really happy that I kind of just ignored that advice and took my own journey because it...

it's led to some incredible experiences over the years because of being able to understand Thai. I have a memory from my first week in Bangkok. I met up with this foreigner named Jacob. Shout out to Jacob. I don't know where he is now. I think he's living in Rayong.

But he's from Czech Republic, and he had been living here for a few years already. And we were out on the street doing some photography stuff, and we were going to buy some water from a street vendor. And I'll never forget this. He walked up to the cart.

and he said like like can i like give me uh two bottles of water and i thought like holy shit how does this guy know how to say this crazy and i mean it's also it's like the most basic phrase ever right sure but but that blew my mind and it's another one of those things that i thought well if he could do it i could do it yeah i mean it's also crazy that we talk about this as like australian australians and americans as something that's so impressive because he's

earn here and she speaks perfect english and you go to europe and they speak like two or three languages and it just so happens that i speak thai and it's like this incredible thing that this white guy speaks thai amazing amazing it's like it's actually

not that impressive there are so many people around the world who speak different languages yeah it is kind of sad when like the americans are always like oh i know how to say three words yeah because and earn by the way when i met her i almost didn't believe she was thai because i thought her English was so proficient. I thought she must be like Filipino or something.

Yeah, I mean, she's sitting here on a podcast doing something like this. Also, the people say like that, are you Filipino or mixed? I said, no, I'm Thai. Wow.

yeah it's incredible like i don't think i would be able to sit on a podcast and feel that comfortable doing a whole podcast in thai or at least i'd really struggle before we were saying because i feel like uh uran doesn't really have a strong thai accent when she speaks english but we were thinking like oh maybe she could do the whole podcast in like Thai accent yeah like we were talking about the buffalo I can't speak English with Thai accent my buffalo is sick yeah so

So you lived up in the north for like 10 months, you said. You learned a lot while you were there. It's kind of a cool experience being separated from the rest of civilization at that point. Really cool as well. And I was also 17 or 18 at the time.

which and it was my first proper experience overseas living in a new place and something as foreign to me as thailand was just this earth-shattering experience it was like what the hell there is this whole world out here 17 and 18 just learning the ropes of life and came in with a pretty naive attitude and pretty fresh and was just soaking in every experience. And to be honest, I think it wouldn't matter what country I would have gone to at that point.

It could have been, I mean, Thailand, it could have been India, China, parts of Europe, anywhere that was speaking a different language and it had a completely different culture. I probably would have soaked in that country and that culture and that language the same way. I just had this attitude of...

Like I'm here and I'm hunting new experiences and I'm abroad and I just want to make the most of my time here. So, but I'm so glad it happened to be Thailand. Why did you choose Thailand? I didn't really choose it. It was just that my high school at the time had a connection in Thailand and I lived with his house mother there.

that allowed me to have all these experiences and had the connections with the schools and whatnot. It was super ad lib and super like rough as guts experience, to be honest. When you think back, it was just on the fly. It wasn't a super organized program at that.

point or whatever and i uh yeah that's so i didn't really choose it was just completely coincidental okay and then after that you went back to australia after that back to australia and just did normal did my studies there went to university uh After I finished university in commerce and IT, I worked at a global consulting firm and I worked there for four and a half years. And in my first year as a graduate there, I felt that...

my creativity and my love of language and my love of meeting new people and culture and all those kinds of things was going to waste a little bit. So, on a limb, I just started doing YouTube and I started a YouTube channel interviewing Thai people in Sydney because there's a huge... Thai community in Sydney, Australia. Not thinking that the channel would go anywhere. I was just like, whatever. I probably will quit this after two or three months, but it...

There was more success out of it than I ever really expected. And it's been since then almost a five-year journey on YouTube. So it's pretty awesome. so you must have thought at some point or you must have considered maybe moving to thailand yeah and i have many times and even when in that year i met you in 2022 actually i spent close to three months in thailand

And that was my testers to see if I would like to live and move here. And for a number of different reasons. And I think a lot of people watching would be so confused by why I don't live here. Honestly, it seems just like an obvious thing to do. It was just a personal decision at the end of the day that I don't know if I wanted to do YouTube potentially full-time and live as a digital nomad full-time in Thailand. And after the three months of living in...

Bangkok and going all around Thailand during that period I got kind of fatigued and I just felt like being able to travel between Australia and between Thailand was probably my preferred option at at this stage and it's still still that's still what i've been doing and i don't really have much of a plan going forward i just kind of roll with it and see where it goes goes next but

It's amazing because it means every time I come back to Thailand, it feels like another holiday almost. I get like psyched up again. And by the end of the time here, I'm like, oh, like I've kind of adjusted again. But then I go back and I come back and I feel like pumped again. I get to like Suanapum airport and I hear the... the audio in time I'm like shit yeah this is fucking hectic like and then like after like 30 days or 60 days or whatever however long I'm here I

yeah i i think a lot of people can relate to this but you know when you are walking down the jetway to get on the plane to go back to thailand yeah there is like it is the best feeling in the world when you arrive at swanapum and And you see like the picture. Even it's me. I'm tired. I was like, oh, my home. Yeah, yeah. It's awesome. The food. Yeah, exactly. That's waiting for me. Yeah, yeah. It's amazing. So what's on your itinerary for this trip?

To be honest, I was sick the whole first week, which was really, really annoying. Yeah, because we were going to do this last week and you messaged me and were like, oh, I'm really sorry. Yeah, I actually came with...

Tourism board the Sydney office the tourism board. So I'm actually doing a project with them here So I'm actually only in Thailand this time for just less than a month total and then after this I'm going onwards to Europe Which is kind of a bit of work and a bit of play I plan on doing some videos over in Europe and I've been in contact with some like Thai communities and Thai diasporas over in parts of Europe, which I think would be a really cool thing to do a few stories over there.

I mean, I started doing it in Sydney and I've done a lot of my channel in Sydney. And something I really find interesting is kind of like the migrant journey and the stories that you hear from people who have moved abroad. And it's really Thai people. They work so hard. They're so entrepreneurial. They're so good with business.

So there's so many people, different people that I've been able to find in Australia who have really, really neat stories. Similar like foreigners coming over to Thailand and doing cool stuff. There is that exact same thing the other way around. And I've found a real passion in kind of...

chasing those stories and meeting those people because I think you often don't hear about them. So I really like doing those kind of things. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. Where are you going in Europe this time? I'm landing in Barcelona and I'm just having a bit of fun in... Barcelona and Portugal for a bit, but then I'm spending a fair bit of time in London, Germany and Denmark. But we'll see. I've got a pretty open itinerary.

Wow, that's a lot of traveling. Yeah, there's a lot of traveling and I don't know how I'll go with it, but I've also got a lot of friends over in Europe that I'll be staying with and hanging out with a lot. So, yeah, I don't know. I'm not working at the moment. I'm just doing YouTube. I quit my full-time job last year.

After just four and a half years of working in a corporate consulting company, I just felt like, let's go off and just do YouTube full time for a bit and give it a go and not too much. put too much pressure on it, but just enjoy the journey. Yeah, because like you kind of alluded to before, doing the YouTube thing is not easy. No. And it can definitely be a blessing and a curse. Yes. Because although you might not be restricted by like a desk job, there is a lot of pressure.

to put stuff out, to perform well, and then it might not become enjoyable anymore. Yeah, and that's what I found, to be honest. I actually have found in many ways, as soon as I've... had to try and monetize youtube there are really some fun aspects of that and there's some fun business aspects of that but suddenly when you combine those two aspects of like art and creativity and then having to make money and having to produce youtube videos all the time it actually becomes

pretty tiring and sometimes it took the fun out of it for me in some ways i um and that's ultimately at the end of the day why i decided to kind of live between australia and thailand because For me, yeah, well, like money, first of all, and stability of work. And sometimes when I'm going back, so I do a bit of, I'll do a bit of contracting, IT contracting work when I'm back in Australia and balance the YouTube with that. And, and yeah.

I don't know, I still have my closest friends and family and stuff in Australia, which keeps me pretty grounded and stuff. And sometimes when you're here in Bangkok and you're doing YouTube and you're meeting up with people who do content in this world all the time, it's like this pretty... What's the word? You'd almost call it like a bit of a bubble in some ways and you're constantly having to think about doing YouTube videos all the time and doing that and it's not...

100% me as a personality all the time doing that kind of thing. So I actually kind of like having the balance of being able to live between the two and float between the two places and have a bit more freedom. A lot of people might not see it that way, but that's just how I've come to the conclusion.

Yeah, I actually, I'm kind of smiling when you're explaining that because I was at... like a youtuber event a few weeks ago with time kettle yeah this company time yeah yeah the one who do instant translation they make like a translation device yeah honestly when i first saw it i was kind of skeptical i'm like why would you get by this if you can use

Google Translate. The device is amazing. I was shocked at how you just speak into it and then it spits out whatever on the other side and it also has the writing on the screen. Very helpful, I think, if you're brand new to a country. This isn't sponsored, by the way. But it was very, very helpful if you are brand new to a country and you have no idea how to speak the language or if you even want to get better at the language. Because for me, sometimes even here in Thailand, like I'm...

I have a situation where I want to say something and I know like part of what I need to say, but not everything. And if I had this device, maybe it could help me fill in the holes I have in my language game. Because I'm not always with a Thai person to ask them like... How do you say this? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And as soon as you, to be honest, it's interesting, hey, like the topic of language learning and learning Thai in Thailand is a really interesting one for me.

Because, like, I don't like coming at it from a greater than thou perspective with this, like, superiority complex of being like, I speak to you, blah, blah, blah. It's not really like that. But I get shocked because being able to... be not speak thai and living here for such a long period of time definitely restricts your movement and the places you can go here like freely um and being able to get around really easily like to me i was i was in like korea last year for

just for travel for a week, for two weeks and just straight away like getting out a little bit outside the city or in places where people don't speak English that well and feeling like really restricted, really frustrated me. It felt like a lack of autonomy.

And if I was doing that and living like that in Thailand for such a long period of time and having to always go through those experiences, not like a tourist, but as someone, as a resident who lives here, I think that would really frustrate me after a while. But I guess if you'd never...

kind of make the first steps to try and learn in the first place, then you can kind of get away with an ignorance is bliss attitude, which I think a lot of people resign themselves to, which is like okay, but like I kind of, the whole point of my channel is really to try and promote.

people wanting to learn time it's not as hard as it's made out to be sometimes yeah and I think it opens a lot of doors and a lot of many situations that you might not even like Just a quick example, like here in Bangkok, they used to do this a lot, police checkpoints. They used to do this all the time, every night. I don't see it so much anymore, but what they'll do is they'll...

They set up a checkpoint on Zuhumvit Road. And if they see a foreigner in a taxi, they'll tell the taxi to pull over. And then they pull the foreigners out. They ask them all these questions. They search your pockets. you know if you can speak even a basic level of thai to them and show them like one that you're not it's not your first day here yeah two that you kind of respect their culture and yes you know even if you can just say oh swati cop yeah bang con america yeah

They say, how long have you been here? They always start laughing and looking at each other and they go, okay, okay. So that's just, you know, simple. thing or like even in your case um you did a video uh taking taxis in bangkok yeah yeah taxis have a very not so great reputation here yeah because they tend to uh you know try to get more they try to take the juice out of foreign yeah um but what i've noticed is if

someone like you or even not that i'm anywhere near your level but even someone like me if they can get in and just speak tied to them say basic things be polite to them yeah there is a way higher chance they will just oh yeah whatever meter they're happy to talk to you

Like it's a whole different experience. Yeah. I mean, I so rarely, I don't know. It'd be interesting to hear what you think. And I so rarely have issues with taxi drivers putting on the meter. They always do it. It's like not even as soon as I just say exactly where I want to go.

I don't even really ask them usually. They just straight away. It's an assumption. So, I don't know. They seem to have a bad reputation. Even amongst my Thai friends, they all say, like, the taxi drivers are scammers and stuff. But I don't think they're as bad as...

it's made out to be online and stuff like that. I don't know. Well, I think it depends, one, where the location you're in. Sure, sure. And two, I mean, if you're a foreigner and you're just communicating in English or something, I think...

That is your prime target. Yeah, exactly. I mean, and I guess fair game to them in a way. But I was coming home at 1.30 a.m. last night. Like, it wasn't a big night or anything. I wasn't drinking or anything, but I just happened to be back late and I straightaway got in the taxi and I was thinking like...

He might take the piss here a little bit, but he didn't at all. I just got in and it was easy as that. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. I don't know. But I think a lot of things are like that here. Like it's almost, I don't want to make it sound negative, but if you can't speak any Thai. it's almost like you're a second-class citizen here. It's like you don't get quite the same treatment as everyone else. Yeah, I think...

There's elements of that, but there also has been, I mean, there's statistics around this with, I think, foreigners who don't speak Thai on average.

earn more and and so people use these statistics but it's just like for Thai people it's like I never heard that yeah yeah if you guys speak like a little bit of Thai for Thai people like oh you're so cute yeah like treat you better or even give you discount if you can speak a little bit of thai yeah but for thai girls if it comes to um dating thing and then if you speak thai thai girls maybe like

Okay, you learn from who? Let's talk about this for a second. I wanted to ask you about this. One question that comes up or I get sometimes is like, Do you think that speaking Thai helps with dating life in Thailand? Do you have any experience with this? To be honest, like, yeah, people want to hear the juicy stuff here, but I'm pretty tame with this kind of, with this kind of topic. I don't date that much.

when i'm in bangkok to be honest purely because i'm here for like a month or two months usually and if i go out and go on dates or whatever then it's like well i'm i'm off in two months anyway so I don't usually like lead, I don't like to lead people on too much in that scenario but I feel like when I go out to venues or places and start speaking with people.

building a rapport is a lot easier with women for sure for sure but i i'm not this guy going out on the prowl all the time i'm actually like i'm pretty tame most of the time so i don't really go out that much and and um Yeah, but yeah, I think on the whole it has to help, surely, right? Well, it helps in some ways and hurts in others. Yeah, but it depends on the type of people you're also looking for, right? Like I think if, yeah.

More internationalized ties and people who speak English, maybe they might not. I don't know. Earn probably has more of a better impact. And, Earn, tell me what you think about this. So, what I've experienced is... If a girl can see that you can speak any level of competency with Thai, there's like a little warning flag that goes off because she knows...

You either have already had a number of Thai girlfriends that probably taught you, or because you can speak Thai, now you have access to so many other people that you can be risky. Wow. Aaron, what do you think about that?

for me i'm pretty sure like 90 that you learn from girls like or if you say something more like more like natural like um if you say something like not like not like too formal if you can speak more like local people i would say that okay you might learn from local people but i think the guys the best way for them to learn that is from dating with thai girls so i assume or most of the girls of tiger assume that

Okay, you might have many Thai girlfriends before. Personally, I've learned probably 1% of my Thai knowledge from Thai girls. Yeah, right. But that's always the thing. Anyone I meet, if they hear me say something and tell the taxi directions, they always make... this assumption that it was like a tiger that taught me and that that's not true yeah for some well i guess i hope i'm breaking the stereotype then

Because, yeah, I guess you don't have to learn via having a Thai girlfriend. There are other ways to be able to learn Thai. But I have another friend here that's been here for 10 years and speaks like a very good Thai. Like I would say similar level to you. Very good. And I know you said you don't date a lot. Well, I date, yeah, but I don't like go on formal enough dates to be like, this is my track record. Yeah. I was going to say he, you know, he's around a lot.

yeah yeah and um i think that's that he is the example of what the thai women are afraid of yeah because so many doors are open he knows everybody he knows he could go to like any bar and yeah you know we're in downtown bangkok and he's probably gonna run into someone he knows and i think that a lot of thai women

don't appreciate that. Yeah. I mean, that's an interesting insight. I've never even thought about that. You go to the bars, meet Thai people, and then you seem like you know them for so long. I was like, okay. Where's that? Yeah. I mean, you also don't want to turn into one of those foreign dudes who thinks they're the king because they speak Thai and they're rolling around and they're acting like...

They're the shit and stuff like that and flirting with girls. I don't even know people. Do you know many foreigners that speak very, very good Thai? No, like, yeah, but they're all a bit older. Most of them I know are like 50 or 60 and they've been here for 30 years and they're like a jans and stuff like that. I think that's why people are surprised when they see like Paddy speak Thai because he's like young and like young farang and then you can speak Thai well because...

Mostly I've seen just only like pretty old and then they can't speak Thai because they'd be living here for so long. Yeah. There are some amazing Thai speakers. Like if you ever see a guy, Stuart J. Raj, he's on YouTube. He's like... the king of the thai language he's like one of my linguistic heroes he's amazing he understands all the different linguistic roots of the thai language and where it comes from this and that and and how you have to

Use your mouth structures and different vocal cords to make this tone and that. It's insane. There's some absolute gun speakers. What's his name? Stuart J. Raj. Yeah, I would recommend anyone who's actually seriously considering learning the Thai language to look him up and look at some of his videos because he goes into some serious detail.

it's almost too much detail sometimes but that's the nature of it if you want to get to a certain level okay but yeah Where have you traveled in Thailand? I'm sure you've been to, you know, the basic places, Phuket. Yeah, yeah. Maybe obviously Chiang Mai. But where have you been that's lesser known places that you think would be really cool for someone to explore? That's a pretty good question. To be honest, one, I mean, this isn't hardly a hidden gem, but like, what do I say?

That's a hard question. I spent most of my time in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai. And when I was there, I wasn't really a tourist and I'm not really good with the touristy stuff. So whenever people ask me stuff, I actually know a fair few good things in Bangkok. Like if someone comes here as a first time tour, so I'm always like...

go to like or something like that we were just talking yeah i'm like it's such a really cool first first time experience um you can get like a local insight explain what is because you did a video on it we watched and i also have been there can you explain what it is

And yeah, it's probably whenever someone asks me and they're a first-time tourist in Bangkok, where should I go that's a little bit different, that's a bit off the beaten track, but still is good enough for first-time tourists to be able to explore. I always say to go to Bangga Jiao, which is the green lung.

which is an area uh i think it's a man-made island to be honest but it's one of the only green spots where all this fort foliage is in in bangkok and you take a little boat across the jaupriya river if you're living on the this side of the river And you can just like hire a bicycle and ride around. And they have these like old school bikes. It's so beautiful. My dad was actually visiting Bangkok last weekend. He happened to be here. And I was like, let's go there. And I took him there.

He's usually a guy who kind of stays in the city, in these big cities, and he does a lot for work and stuff. And I was like, let's go into a bit more like a local place, local community. And it's still very, very accessible to tourists. And they have a cool market there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. which is um which is awesome

But yeah, I wish I had a better answer for you, Eric. What about outside of Bangkok? Have you been to Isan or have you been to... Never been to Isan. Like more central... Never been to central Thailand. I've spent most of my time up north. I've spent a lot of time in. I've spent a lot of time in... So Mei Hong Sun, two years ago, actually it might have been shortly before I met you.

i went on a motorcycle trip with a friend actually the same friend from before jacob the one that ordered the two bottles of water yeah um we went we did the may hong song loop which is a driving route through northern thailand and you basically started chiang mai and you go all the way around towards the border of myanmar yeah yeah and back to through bye is it yep bye is that how you say yeah yeah not pie no pie bye bye okay

see i'm learning uh and uh and then back to chiang mai and i have to say this was one of the greatest experiences of my life because not only was the driving aspect of it cool out in nature and the mountains and like completely undisturbed areas of the country. But the people you run into out there, there's no foreigners. And to have those experiences where you meet these local people and you just see what their life is like.

Like in some of these small towns, it's like the middle of nowhere. And it's just very cool to see how local people live.

It's crazy how different it is to Bangkok. They're literally two different countries. You go to these places and especially up in those areas, there's a lot of like ethnic minority groups and people who have been like living almost nomadically for... hundreds of years and it just so happens that the borders of countries that were almost arbitrarily made up or whatever have meant that they've landed in Thailand, but they have completely different cultures, completely different languages.

But they have like Thai residents and they're comparable to people in Bangkok somehow. If you don't know the geography well, Northern Thailand is up against Myanmar. Laos, right? Yeah, Myanmar, Laos, the Golden Triangle. Yeah, and then, but even China's not that far away. Yeah, no, it's not far. And then to the southeast, Cambodia is there. Cambodia.

There's a lot of countries that kind of intersect in this area. Yeah, and they've kind of changed borders a fair bit over the years. I'm not 100% sure of the history, but I know there's been a lot of change. Probably the most crazy place I've ever been to, which is not something I would recommend to tourists, was... And I actually filmed this video. It was about two years ago. At the Golden Triangle, I went over the border into Laos where the...

like a Chinese lease of 99 year lease has been put on the country there to build all these casinos up. And I went into this place and it was honestly the oddest vibe I've ever been into a place. I went into this casino. I ended up gambling in this casino, which I...

Look back on it, I'm like, that's weird. But then I looked up after about this region and it's like, obviously the Golden Triangle, it's got this reputation, but it's like known for all the human trafficking, drug trafficking, animal trafficking, forced prostitution, all this kind of stuff. And I'd been there with two of my- thai girlfriends who were there i was like fuck like these places are like that was pretty wild and even at the time like i mean people might be like oh no no but it was

The vibe, the atmosphere was so bizarre. Obviously, not something I'd recommend to tourists, but... I had to do it to extend my visa. I ended up in this place, which would look like a mini China. That's how you did a visa run. Oh, my God. I was like, went across on this little boat across. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, that's crazy. Yeah, yeah. Have you been to other Southeast Asian countries like Cambodia, Vietnam? Yeah, I've been and spent a bit of time in Vietnam. Parents used to live in Singapore, so I spent a little bit of time in Singapore, but that's kind of just like big city vibe. What's like your like...

quick impression of Cambodia or Vietnam compared to Thailand? Never been to Cambodia, to be honest. Vietnam, I think obviously the culture has more influences of China, whereas Thailand has probably more of a combination of like... Indian culture and Chinese culture combined, depending on what region of the place you're in. Thai people are probably a bit softer, I would say, on the whole than Vietnamese. I would say a bit more gentle.

especially people who come from areas like Isan and stuff like that, are very soft, very gentle, and that's probably some of the main... Differences, but it's hard. I mean you can break this stuff down and I mean you can stereotype these countries as well I think people like to stereotype these countries and be like like Thailand's like this and like

Vietnam's like this and Japan's like this or whatever. But the reality is they're just like any other country and people are different. People have different personalities. And once you do, going back to like the point of learning languages. Once you do learn the local language and do start to meet different people, you realize this a lot more because they're more natural and they're speaking in their natural tongue. And you're realizing that these...

People just like in America and just like in Australia have all different personalities, all different opinions, all different perspectives and trying to like put them into the same box of a country of 70 million people is completely ridiculous.

Yeah, like earn... used to she did like a two-month study work program in america i asked oh where did you study and work in america and she said las vegas i was like wait so your impression of america is las vegas that's like people coming to Thailand and they go to Pattaya. By the way, since we're on the topic, Patty, can you please tell me what is the proper way to say the name of Pattaya? Pattaya. Pattaya.

okay there's a lot of argument over this a lot of argument like two million or a million views on instagram about how to say let me give you one more ready the island with the full moon party go yeah how do you say it I think it's hard to say ngongu because your letter in English I always say like you so say like And then use thing and say how you would pronounce thing. And then just add like an ooh after. But then just try and isolate that sound at the end.

being moo and then moo moo means snake right I think it's the hardest one. It's really hard. But this is a great example because I know the letter. I know the letter. If I see this in writing and I know this letter is this sound, even if I can't say it, I know...

It exists. That's why if you're trying to learn Thai, learn the basic alphabet. It's going to help a lot. I've been here five years. First four and a half years, I've never been there. Because, you know, I just heard... Has a reputation, right? But I also, it was kind of weird to me because I would see Thai people like say, oh, we're going to Pattaya for the weekend or whatever. And I thought that was kind of weird. But I guess a lot of Thai people like it there for like...

a beach town or just chill doesn't mean they're going to walking street i mean earn went to walking street to party but yeah also has like yeah you know jump ten beach yeah that's what i mean you know like it doesn't have to be walking straight or there's some hidden beach we should sell like

just touching me squid thing and like it's really peaceful not that many farang yeah i do think it's a cool spot to just go if you can ignore some of the other stuff sure sure just get on a motorbike and drive around the food is good everything is much

less expensive than Bangkok it's got that like yeah I don't like talking shit if I haven't been to a place to be honest but I like but I went to like it's not my not my style like yeah even to be honest parts of a lot of parts of like I made a video recently about like 12 things I hate about Thailand, which was like controversial. Give me some of them. Well, like one of them was like lowest of it. Like I honestly cannot stand.

like just walking through like nana area no no no not this area i'm more like this is yeah the ekamai is this this up this area is better but like even like nana i saw all those areas i just don't i don't know i go there and i just don't like it i know assault is like more shopping it's not for you that's just not for me exactly and i don't like like acting like that but it's just my my thing but yeah we yeah i made a made a video that got a bit of yeah

People didn't like it? Ah, no, most people actually, like, I've received pretty favorable reception on the most part, to be honest. I think, though, if you went to Pattaya with... a friend for a weekend yeah i bet you would like it yeah because you would get there and realize like oh

it's this whole other thing as well that you don't really hear about it's just you have to ignore some things yeah like i yeah there's a lot of i was going to go into this but then my friend's going to yell at me there's certain types of people that frequent frequent Pattaya and, you know, I don't know. You can learn to...

Yeah, block it out. Blocking them out. Sure, sure. But it is a cool place beside that. It's something I've really, actually, in a really weird way, had to get used to a little bit going to these places, especially like now doing YouTube a bit more and I end up going to these more spaces that attract foreigners and...

tourists before because back in the day when i was living here originally i was just living in the middle of nowhere and that was my first initial understanding of thailand so trying to get used to the other thing has actually taken

taken a bit of adjustment for me in a really strange way. Can you explain that? What was your initial impression? Well, like I was living in literally in the middle of- so you kind of did it reverse yeah yeah exactly so i just i i didn't go to bangkok or anything like that i didn't go to any of these places and i just landed in this like random place in the middle of nowhere where there were no foreigners and no one was

Like it wasn't an international place in a cosmopolitan city or anything like that. And I wasn't going to tourist areas. And I learned pretty quickly on that. I actually liked that a lot more, being able to like hang out with locals and go to these different places and all that kind of stuff and trying to have to learn the opposite by, especially through doing YouTube and meeting up with different people and getting in more international crowds. I've had to like...

It kind of sounds weird, but it's something I've had to almost adjust to. So, like, if you told me back in the day, like, you have to go to Pattaya, I'd be like... oh no no i do not want to go i mean i'm not saying it's the greatest place but i'm just saying like for a weekend yeah it's like a chill beach town yeah i think you would enjoy it yeah yeah for sure for sure yeah um

Do you get a lot of people commenting in your videos or writing you messages trying to tell you like what Thai people are or what Thailand is? They're trying to tell you.

oh, what you said is not true. It's really this, this girl with her sick buffalo. Do you get those messages? Yeah, all the time. Everyone wants to be an expert on Thailand. Yeah, but the thing I've, and I've been... talking to earn about this recently because obviously we get a lot of comments about all kinds of different things I think when people send like very strong comments like that there it's kind of close-minded but it also shows

what experiences they have and i think the problem is those people have had a very small set of experiences for whatever reason probably some some of them negative yeah and they think that's that's thailand exactly and they they will not believe that there's this whole other side that they've never experienced. Yeah, for sure. So I think I would, just like you said, I would encourage everyone to get off the...

main tourist areas like the Phuket, the Bangkok, the Pattaya. Go out into the middle of nowhere. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I 100% recommend that if you have enough time and you've got some energy exploring parts of... Like, it's a pretty obvious thing. It's not...

It's not, but a lot of people come here and they'll just kind of stick to the main tourist track. But if you even just get off the road a little bit and just try and communicate, you don't have to know tyre or anything, just going out and just trying to communicate with people and using sign language and stuff and just seeing how...

there's so many kind people in this country yeah there really are and again not sponsored but if you got one of those time kettle devices yeah yeah exactly and you went out into the middle of nowhere thailand and just use that to help you through. I say that because I feel like that's a barrier for some people. They want to go explore some of these places, but in a lot of these rural places, maybe English isn't very common. It actually is really scary.

To be honest, if you're a tourist here and a foreigner and you even go to some like local areas around here and there's like a restaurant that looks kind of good, like the food looks good, but the signs are all in Thai. All in Thai. And everyone's speaking Thai. For a first time tourist here, that is...

Super scary, to be honest. It's scary. And you don't know what's on the menu, but you're looking at something and it looks good, but you don't know how to approach it. And there's like Thai people just there sitting next to each other and speaking. But a lot of those things are the golden. the gems of this country but it's really hard to access it which is another reason why um you should

Try and learn Thai for a bit. A little bit at a time. So learn Thai, everybody. So what do you have left on your trip here? How much longer are you staying? I stay here for another 10 days. Oh, okay. Yeah. And what do you have planned? To be honest, not much of a plan.

really like I've actually done most of the filming that I needed to do for the the tourism the Sydney office Thailand tourism board and uh for the rest of the trip I'm just hoping to catch up with as many people as possible explore do whatever and just just hang out so Yeah. And I saw on Instagram yesterday, you were with Paul Lee, who was here a few weeks ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's an American that came over to Thailand. Yes, yes.

A few years ago? Not that long ago. Three years ago? Four years ago? Not sure. Yeah. It's weird how we all meet. Yeah. It's really nice, to be honest. And you kind of meet people, and you kind of gel with some people, and you don't gel with others, but you...

You kind of understand each other's journey. It's really nice to have other friends who are kind of in the same world doing the same thing, understand the challenges of it, understand the positives of it, and you can relate to each other. It's really nice, to be honest. But Thailand in particular has an exceptionally large number of content creators. Wide cast of characters. And wide cast of characters, which is what makes it...

an interesting place to be. I think a lot of people come here not planning to be a content creator. They fall into it. They end up doing it. Yeah, but it's just like Thai people love to watch like, you know, Frenners. what they think about thailand yes and that's the reason i also like to watch that kind of stuff too yeah yeah for sure makes sense you know i first moved as i came on two holiday trips here

But my initial idea was to come to Thailand for 30 days. And I was going to do this series called 30 Days Away. 30 days living in a different country at a time. Make a thing out of it. I came to Thailand. and that I loved it so much, I just stayed. So that went out the window. I think the thing about Thailand, which is the reason why it does attract so many different characters.

from all across the spectrum is that like thai people are extremely accommodating like in in a way um they they're very malleable to other people and and they're very easy going and that can mean that Some people can exploit their hospitality and you do see elements of that, but it means that people feel like they can kind of be themselves here. I think there is definitely an element of that. And that's why there's such a diverse amount of characters here, both expats and...

and whoever else, digital nomads and whatever. Well, I know for sure a lot of people love watching you because you are clearly very passionate about Thailand and the culture here and the people. If people want to find you online, where can they find you?

So, yeah, the main source is my YouTube channel, Thai Talk with Paddy. I also have an Instagram, Thai Talk Paddy. Yeah, I've been doing YouTube for a while now. It's been a five-year journey, so we'll see how much longer I hang in there. But I'll see how I go.

Thanks for having me on, Eric. Thank you for coming. I'm glad we could catch up again. And maybe the next time you come, whenever that is, maybe we can host like a little event or something. That'd be awesome. And thank you, Ern. It's really nice. Sorry, I feel like I didn't like, I should let Ern speak a little bit more. It's okay.

everybody's gonna yell at me in the comments about that so you don't worry yeah yeah yeah thank you guys for watching if you want to see more of what's happening here in bangkok if you want to learn to speak thai better If you want to go to Pattaya with Patty, hit the subscribe button, drop a comment below, and we will see you in the next one.