Bruce in Bangkok wrote in
:

It will be pointed at the Marina and if they catch me I'll just say
I'm stealing from the foreigners - a traditional Thai custom :-)


And they'll say, "Wait a minute! You ARE a foreigner!"


--
Creationism is to science what storks are to obstetrics...

Larry

On Sat, 26 Jun 2010 02:59:43 +0000, Larry wrote:

Bruce in Bangkok wrote in
:

It will be pointed at the Marina and if they catch me I'll just say
I'm stealing from the foreigners - a traditional Thai custom :-)


And they'll say, "Wait a minute! You ARE a foreigner!"


NO, I just say "I live here - see I got a driving license :-)

Cheers,

Bruce
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)

Bruce in Bangkok wrote in
:

On Sat, 26 Jun 2010 02:59:43 +0000, Larry wrote:

Bruce in Bangkok wrote in
m:

It will be pointed at the Marina and if they catch me I'll just say
I'm stealing from the foreigners - a traditional Thai custom :-)


And they'll say, "Wait a minute! You ARE a foreigner!"


NO, I just say "I live here - see I got a driving license :-)

Cheers,

Bruce
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)


That didn't work in Bahrain....

They said, "Anyone can get a driving license in Bahrain, even me!", with
a big smile on their face.

They did like it when I wore the custom-tailored Arab dress I had made
with the Nehru collar and sleeves with big pockets in the ends.
Bahraini women used to stop me on the street to compliment me, an
American, on looking very nice in traditional dress. Then, they'd
correct my headwear to get the proper gullwing crease under the fan
belts....

The tailor I bought the clothes from insisted I wear it back to my
hotel. I was afraid the locals would be upset as if I were making fun
of them, but the exact opposite was true. I had grown a nice goatee and
moustache before coming over on that trip, which seemed to even please
the customs agent at Bahrain's airport. But my lilly white skin was a
dead giveaway in an Arab country.

I got many compliments. My own co-workers from the Charleston Naval
Shipyard didn't recognize me, though. I opened my hotel room door when
one of them knocked and he backed out apologizing profusely because he
though he had the wrong room....(c;]

The other Americans refused to eat with me in the restaurant when I wore
it. Americans are so queer in foreign countries. They were the same in
Tehran in the late 70's. They shied away from the Iranians, staying
pretty much to themselves. I wouldn't eat in a restaurant where they
spoke English. I was learning Farsi and needed the practice.

Do you speak and read the Thai language. That would be as hard as Farsi
or Arabic to me. My fav Chinese restaurant here keeps trying to teach
me Mandarin. They all laugh at my stumbling. "You just ordered a
girl!", she said to me blushing and laughing. I knew what I ordered.
She would do, the little tiny thing....(c;]

I used to get away with saying all kinds of horrible things in Farsi in
Iran, just because I was a "dumb American"....hee hee.

Whenever I had to sign something in the Iranian Air Force I worked for,
I signed my name in Farsi. "No, no!", the Iranians would say, "You must
sign in ENGLISH or they think I signed it!" I'd act all indignant as I
was signing in English. Iranian AF officers are terrified of being
blamed for something. That's what foreign contractors are for...(c;] I
spent millions of Rials on all kinds of stuff. It was like owning the
bank! I had my eye on a Gulfstream II to fly home on leave, but that
might have been going too far....unless I made a deal with the General
to come home, too...

--
Creationism is to science what storks are to obstetrics...

Larry

On Sat, 26 Jun 2010 19:20:16 +0000, Larry wrote:

Bruce in Bangkok wrote in
:

On Sat, 26 Jun 2010 02:59:43 +0000, Larry wrote:

Bruce in Bangkok wrote in
:

It will be pointed at the Marina and if they catch me I'll just say
I'm stealing from the foreigners - a traditional Thai custom :-)


And they'll say, "Wait a minute! You ARE a foreigner!"


NO, I just say "I live here - see I got a driving license :-)

Cheers,

Bruce
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)


That didn't work in Bahrain....

They said, "Anyone can get a driving license in Bahrain, even me!", with
a big smile on their face.

They did like it when I wore the custom-tailored Arab dress I had made
with the Nehru collar and sleeves with big pockets in the ends.
Bahraini women used to stop me on the street to compliment me, an
American, on looking very nice in traditional dress. Then, they'd
correct my headwear to get the proper gullwing crease under the fan
belts....

The tailor I bought the clothes from insisted I wear it back to my
hotel. I was afraid the locals would be upset as if I were making fun
of them, but the exact opposite was true. I had grown a nice goatee and
moustache before coming over on that trip, which seemed to even please
the customs agent at Bahrain's airport. But my lilly white skin was a
dead giveaway in an Arab country.

I got many compliments. My own co-workers from the Charleston Naval
Shipyard didn't recognize me, though. I opened my hotel room door when
one of them knocked and he backed out apologizing profusely because he
though he had the wrong room....(c;]

The other Americans refused to eat with me in the restaurant when I wore
it. Americans are so queer in foreign countries. They were the same in
Tehran in the late 70's. They shied away from the Iranians, staying
pretty much to themselves. I wouldn't eat in a restaurant where they
spoke English. I was learning Farsi and needed the practice.

Do you speak and read the Thai language. That would be as hard as Farsi
or Arabic to me. My fav Chinese restaurant here keeps trying to teach
me Mandarin. They all laugh at my stumbling. "You just ordered a
girl!", she said to me blushing and laughing. I knew what I ordered.
She would do, the little tiny thing....(c;]

I used to get away with saying all kinds of horrible things in Farsi in
Iran, just because I was a "dumb American"....hee hee.

Whenever I had to sign something in the Iranian Air Force I worked for,
I signed my name in Farsi. "No, no!", the Iranians would say, "You must
sign in ENGLISH or they think I signed it!" I'd act all indignant as I
was signing in English. Iranian AF officers are terrified of being
blamed for something. That's what foreign contractors are for...(c;] I
spent millions of Rials on all kinds of stuff. It was like owning the
bank! I had my eye on a Gulfstream II to fly home on leave, but that
might have been going too far....unless I made a deal with the General
to come home, too...

Thai "traditional dress, varies from era to era but all wear a sarong
sort of lower dress. As a result that only place you see that amongst
men is on the stage or perhaps in a particular Thai restaurant. The
sarong in all it various versions is commonly worn though. Among
women, of a certain age, quite commonly as "full dress" and by the
commonality as every-day work clothes. Men frequently wear it as
at-home wear and almost certainly as night wear.

As far as speaking Thai I can get along pretty well in a day to day
conversation. The difficult part is vocabulary size as every trade
uses its own jargon (some of which is English) and there is a lot of
slang and Chinese words mixed in. Sizes frequently are in 1/8 of
something, using the Chinese, Hokien I believe, word for one eighth.

I tried, years ago to learn to read Thai and got to where I could
figure out where to stop on roads and which toilet to use, and then we
went to Indonesia for some years and I forgot most of it :-)

One of the problems is that English speakers simply do not hear the
tones and when you have a language like Thai that uses them, to some
extent, it makes it hard to remember. The work Kye (pronounce as in
"eye") for example can mean "about - approximately" as in about that
big, if you use a rising tone, but "kye" spoken with a neutral tone
means "sell". Even worse, "Kee Ma" can mean either "ride (a) horse" or
"dog ****" depending on the tone used.

Cheers,

Bruce
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)

Bruce in Bangkok wrote in
:

Even worse, "Kee Ma" can mean either "ride (a) horse" or
"dog ****" depending on the tone used.


Wow...what a mess. Iran is a mix of languages that have intermingled,
too. Persian (Farsi) has lots of street slang used every day, even in
the best of company, that has infiltrated the language. The Kurds live
all over Tehran, and their language is so different even the Iranians
can't understand them. Most Kurds speak Farsi, but resist it as a
matter of Kurdish pride. We had a guy that came with the new apartment
building. He was a huge Kurdish man, about 40-something I'd guess. His
Farsi was worse than mine but he and I managed to communicate in it.
The Iranians used to tell me my Farsi sounded like Kurdish, I think
because of it...hee hee. I must have caught some accent. His favorite
words upon seeing us arrive from the base all hot and sweaty was "Ab,
Niche!", NO WATER, to take a shower. Fed up with that, 3 of us found a
huge commercial water pump noone wanted on the base and brought it home,
plumbing it into the furnace room next to the big fuel-oil-fired hot
water heater. (Fuel oil was about 2.2 US cents per litre from a guy
with an open tank on a pickup you had to measure with a stick and
negotiate price.) We literally sucked the water out of the Tehran water
system after that and had plenty of pressure, about 70PSI. No more, "Ab
Niche". The big Kurdish guy, whos name I've forgotten but did know,
thought we were geniuses. He sprayed water over the lawn for weeks
afterward. He cut our lawn with shears by hand. It looked like a
putting green. We felt sorry for him living in our garage and he was
very handy for carting anything upstairs for tips, so we brought home a
truckload of Air Force plywood and built him a room in the garage he
heated with his little oil stove and slept on his prayer rug, praying 5
times a day. NOONE, and I mean NOONE, ever thought about stealing
anything with this huge Kurd in his silk pajamas, the only clothes I
ever saw him in, standing guard by the front lawn. The little thieves
gave him a wide berth.

I loved Iran. I'd go back in a heartbeat. Iranians don't hate
Americans, they hate our Zionist government...and know the difference.
Whenever confronted I used to tell them I had as much control over the
US Government as they did the Shahanshah. That always defused any
misplaced hatred quickly. Working for the Shah, with my military ID as
an "engineer" was like a passport to the country. We were very accepted
as part of Iran, not as foreigners because of the soldiers on the base,
conscripts for 2 years, that told the people how wonderful we were and
that the Air Force couldn't survive without us. I ate breakfast in the
Army mess tent with those kids almost every morning. Iranian flat bread
full of tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, shaved beef from a vertical
broiler, loaded with butter and rolled into a burrito. Pak milk to
drink (Cow's milk from the Pak Milk Company. The Shah bought a whole
dairy package from America in Florida one trip. Milk was one of his
favorites so milk was very plentiful and very cheap, like the cheeses
the Shah loved. We ate the finest French cheese for pennies on the
dollar. Cheese was everywhere in the food stores.

Speaking of grocery stores, have you ever seen Barf in a box?....(c;]

The first time I saw it I just had to laugh. An Englishman noticed I
was new and told me why. Barf means snow in Farsi. I sent my mother a
big box of Barf. She was afraid to open it...hee hee. There are other
crazy language comparisons to English like that. I dated, then lived
with, an English teacher from Christchurch whos name was Anne, nothing
funny about that, until you get to Iran! In Farsi, Ann means ****! I
learned very quickly to never call out her name in a crowded Iranian
restaurant....(c;] There'd be gasps all around, then, after we
explained that was her name in English, there'd be hooting and
laughter....before my outburst got us thrown out...(c;]

It's like an Englishman coming to America and telling Americans he's
****ed...a totally different meaning here...hee hee.

--
Creationism is to science what storks are to obstetrics...

Larry

On Sun, 27 Jun 2010 14:17:15 +0000, Larry wrote:

Bruce in Bangkok wrote in
:

Even worse, "Kee Ma" can mean either "ride (a) horse" or
"dog ****" depending on the tone used.


Wow...what a mess. Iran is a mix of languages that have intermingled,
too. Persian (Farsi) has lots of street slang used every day, even in
the best of company, that has infiltrated the language. The Kurds live
all over Tehran, and their language is so different even the Iranians
can't understand them. Most Kurds speak Farsi, but resist it as a
matter of Kurdish pride. We had a guy that came with the new apartment
building. He was a huge Kurdish man, about 40-something I'd guess. His
Farsi was worse than mine but he and I managed to communicate in it.
The Iranians used to tell me my Farsi sounded like Kurdish, I think
because of it...hee hee. I must have caught some accent. His favorite
words upon seeing us arrive from the base all hot and sweaty was "Ab,
Niche!", NO WATER, to take a shower. Fed up with that, 3 of us found a
huge commercial water pump noone wanted on the base and brought it home,
plumbing it into the furnace room next to the big fuel-oil-fired hot
water heater. (Fuel oil was about 2.2 US cents per litre from a guy
with an open tank on a pickup you had to measure with a stick and
negotiate price.) We literally sucked the water out of the Tehran water
system after that and had plenty of pressure, about 70PSI. No more, "Ab
Niche". The big Kurdish guy, whos name I've forgotten but did know,
thought we were geniuses. He sprayed water over the lawn for weeks
afterward. He cut our lawn with shears by hand. It looked like a
putting green. We felt sorry for him living in our garage and he was
very handy for carting anything upstairs for tips, so we brought home a
truckload of Air Force plywood and built him a room in the garage he
heated with his little oil stove and slept on his prayer rug, praying 5
times a day. NOONE, and I mean NOONE, ever thought about stealing
anything with this huge Kurd in his silk pajamas, the only clothes I
ever saw him in, standing guard by the front lawn. The little thieves
gave him a wide berth.

I loved Iran. I'd go back in a heartbeat. Iranians don't hate
Americans, they hate our Zionist government...and know the difference.
Whenever confronted I used to tell them I had as much control over the
US Government as they did the Shahanshah. That always defused any
misplaced hatred quickly. Working for the Shah, with my military ID as
an "engineer" was like a passport to the country. We were very accepted
as part of Iran, not as foreigners because of the soldiers on the base,
conscripts for 2 years, that told the people how wonderful we were and
that the Air Force couldn't survive without us. I ate breakfast in the
Army mess tent with those kids almost every morning. Iranian flat bread
full of tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, shaved beef from a vertical
broiler, loaded with butter and rolled into a burrito. Pak milk to
drink (Cow's milk from the Pak Milk Company. The Shah bought a whole
dairy package from America in Florida one trip. Milk was one of his
favorites so milk was very plentiful and very cheap, like the cheeses
the Shah loved. We ate the finest French cheese for pennies on the
dollar. Cheese was everywhere in the food stores.

Speaking of grocery stores, have you ever seen Barf in a box?....(c;]

The first time I saw it I just had to laugh. An Englishman noticed I
was new and told me why. Barf means snow in Farsi. I sent my mother a
big box of Barf. She was afraid to open it...hee hee. There are other
crazy language comparisons to English like that. I dated, then lived
with, an English teacher from Christchurch whos name was Anne, nothing
funny about that, until you get to Iran! In Farsi, Ann means ****! I
learned very quickly to never call out her name in a crowded Iranian
restaurant....(c;] There'd be gasps all around, then, after we
explained that was her name in English, there'd be hooting and
laughter....before my outburst got us thrown out...(c;]

It's like an Englishman coming to America and telling Americans he's
****ed...a totally different meaning here...hee hee.


Did you ever know a fellow named "Jim Wright" while in Iran? He worked
on the radar site project and must have been somewhere on the power
production side of the project, Certainly not on the electronic? Drank
a lot, and fairly continuously all day. It would have been, say 1975 -
1977, about that period.

He worked for us in Indonesia, off and on, but we finally had to let
him go as his drinking reached the point that he couldn't function
after lunch.

Cheers,

Bruce
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)

Bruce in Bangkok wrote in
:

Did you ever know a fellow named "Jim Wright" while in Iran? He worked
on the radar site project and must have been somewhere on the power
production side of the project, Certainly not on the electronic? Drank
a lot, and fairly continuously all day. It would have been, say 1975 -
1977, about that period.

He worked for us in Indonesia, off and on, but we finally had to let
him go as his drinking reached the point that he couldn't function
after lunch.

Cheers,

Bruce
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)



Sorry. The time is wrong. I was there at the end, 77-79. I don't
remember hearing that name. I made my own power for the lab. We had
air-cooled Deutz diesels driving big overkill generators for stable
power with some serious underground tankage. I ended up in the electric
company business on the side as the base power at Doshen-Tappeh wasn't
anything to brag home about...(c;] More load and circuits kept being
added on as the place would be in the dark...except for my lab standing
out like a lighthouse in the dark...hee hee.

We'd walk out of the lab into total darkness...not good. "You boys
wanna run a drop cord to one of my gensets? I got a couple of hundred
KW we're not usin'.", I'd quip.

Deutz makes great prime movers, albeit a little noisy for a boat being
air cooled with that monster fan blowing air over the cylinder jugs....a
hot diesel is a happy diesel!



--
Global Warming and Creationism are to science what storks are to
obstetrics...

Larry