I work in a hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. I’m Thai, but was born in the USA, and while all of the concierge staff are perfectly fluent in English, I’m usually the one who’s assigned to help our more ‘interesting’ guests.

A woman in flowing white linen pants and sandals drifts up to the concierge desk. I remember checking her in less than half an hour ago. I remembered her as she didn’t stop mentioning that she’s a Buddhist and how enlightened she is, and that she’s here to similarly enlighten all those around her.

Customer: “Hi. I think there’s negative energy in my room.”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am. Can you explain what you mean?”

Customer: “It’s just… heavy. The vibrations are off. I’m very sensitive to these things. I’m a practicing Buddhist.”

Me: “Is there a problem with the air conditioning? Noise? Smell?”

Customer: “No, no. The room itself is fine. It’s just… spiritually hostile.”

Of course it is. I check the system.

Me: “I do have another room available, but it isn’t the suite you booked. It’s a smaller room on a lower floor, and it faces the interior atrium instead of the city.”

Customer: “Oh, absolutely not. I didn’t fly all the way to Thailand to stare at… walls. I’m a practicing Buddhist, and that’s bad for me.”

Me: “Then the suite you’re in is the only one available tonight.”

Customer: “Why is the hotel so heavily booked?”

I point at the calendar on the counter, which shows it’s the last few days of the local year.

Customer: “Wait. Why does this say the year is 2568?”

Me: “That’s the Buddhist calendar, ma’am. In Thailand, it’s 2568 BE, or Buddhist Era.”

Customer: “That’s… weird.”

Me: “Yes, ma’am. Anyway, Songkran starts tomorrow.”

Customer: “What’s Songkran?”

Me: “Thai New Year. It’s a big part of the Buddhist calendar.”

Customer: “Well, I don’t really follow the numbers part. I’m more about the philosophy.”

Me: “Yes, ma’am.”

A moment of silence.

Customer: “You know… maybe the negative energy is the city.”

Me: “Possibly, ma’am.”

Customer: “Fine, I’ll stay in the suite. I’ll cleanse it with incense.”

Me: “Of course.”

She leaves.

Coworker: *In Thai.* “Is my English getting worse, or did she fly all the way to Bangkok, claim to be Buddhist, but have no idea that she’s visiting during Songkran?”

Me: *In Thai.* “I’m surprised she didn’t notice that the room prices are double what they normally are.”

Coworker: *Looks at her customer details on my screen.* “Oh, she’s from California. Buddhists from there can be Buddhists because they have all the money to do yoga in the daytime at expensive gyms and drink $20 jasmine teas. She can afford to stay here.”

We both smile (a little pained smile) at each other and go back to checking guests in, most of whom know they’re here for Songkran and didn’t try to claim our room’s auras were evil.

I am conducting tours for hotel guests to various points of interest around the area. One of the stops is a large outdoor market where the guests can buy local handmade goods as well as enjoy the bustling atmosphere.

The bus pulls up to the market and I am explaining to the group where best to go and what time we’re departing. One of the guests interrupts me.

Guest: “Are there usually this many foreigners in the market?”

Me: “You mean tourists? It is quite popular with the tourists, yes, although I think we’re the only tour group visiting at the moment.”

Guest: “No, not tourists! Foreigners! The market looks like it’s full of foreigners.”

Me: *Looking at the market.* “It mostly looks like locals to me.”

Guest: “Exactly! They’re all foreign!”

The guest’s adult daughter immediately speaks up.

Guest’s Daughter: “Please, continue with the tour! My mom thinks that everyone non-white is foreign.”

There’s a little mild laughter on the bus as I deem it wise to continue as quickly as possible. As everyone is exiting the bus I can hear the guest complaining to her daughter.

Guest: “Why did you make me come on this trip if it was only going to be nothing but foreigners?!”

Guest’s Daughter: “Mom! When you’re in their country, you’re the foreigner!”

Guest: “Don’t be stupid! I can’t be a foreigner! I’m American!”

My teenage son and I are going back to our hometown (from Australia to Asia) for a holiday. I can easily change accents to suit the local crowd. With my son, I have to use an Australian accent, or he does not understand the sounds coming out.

We go to a hawker centre (think of a food court but noisier with Wild West kinda rules), and I am explaining to my very Australian-Asian son the nuances of what food is available. We stop in front of a noodle shop beside a drink stall. As I am explaining (in Australian-accented English), I overhear the noodle vendor talking to a drink vendor.

Noodle Vendor: “I should sell the [local word for Westernised Asian] the medium serving for the large price.”

Drink Vendor: “Yes! I do that, too! I charge them for the ice. I tell them, ‘Ice with the drink costs extra’. They always fall for that.”

Hmm.

Me: *To my son* “Practise your Thai; you order! Get a large.”

He tries to order, and he massacres it, but he’s trying. When the food is ready and I go to pick it up, I speak to the hawker vendor in a perfect local accent with banal vulgarities thrown in.

Me: “Why is it a large price when it’s a medium serving?”

I do this while pointing out another customer order that’s the same serving and medium price.

Cue a “shocked Pikachu” look from the vendor, who at least looks ashamed.

Me: “I am paying the medium price and not a cent more.”

I walk to the drink stall and glare at the drink vendor.

Me: “Do I need to pay for ice because you think I am a farang (local word for foreigner)?”

Drink Vendor: “Uh… ice is free.”

Me: “No, the drink is free, or I tell every foreigner here in English what you just did.”

Being so close to tourist traps, there are a lot of foreigners here. The drink was free.

The drink was free every day that week.

I’ve just been hired as a translator for this company. We agreed on 35,000 baht per month (Thai baht currency). Today is my payday, and they pay me 4,000 baht.

Me: “Why is my pay so low?”

Office Manager: “Because you’re on probation.”

Me: “That’s not stated in the contract, and you did not tell me any of this when hiring me. So, on my probation period, I only get 300 baht (10 USD) a day for my eight hours of work?”

I double-checked the contract, and it also didn’t say anything about me deleting all the work I had done for them: translated contracts, loans, etc.

I deleted every f****** file I’d translated, some due for the government and for viewing the next day or the day after. I deleted them all, I formatted the computer — they didn’t have cloud storage, so nothing was saved online — and I f***ed off.

They called me and asked me to come back to the office the next day so they could “explain” the reason they only gave me 300 a day, and they said they’d like their files back, pretty please.

I didn’t go.

CONTENT WARNING: Animal Abuse & Death

I work in a large aquarium. We have several pools with goldfish and other species. We sometimes get kids, and even adults, who want to touch the fish. One day, I see a little boy grab the tail of a goldfish and pull it out of the water.

Me: “Please put that back in the water.”

The boy just stares at me. Thinking he might not understand me, I gently take the fish and put it back in the water. The boy then grabs a different fish.

Me: “Please don’t grab the fish like that. You could really hurt them. Now put him back in the water.”

The boy blew a raspberry at me and then took off with the fish.

Sighing, I called my manager over and told her what was going on. She sent security to find the boy and the fish.

A few minutes later, security radio’d that they’d found the boy and his mother, who was insisting that her son was an angel and had done nothing wrong, even when the boy put the fish in his mouth. His mother shrieked and slapped the fish away, where it landed hard on the cold concrete. I picked up the fish and security took the extremely misbehaved boy and his crazy mother away and banned them for life.

Unfortunately, the fish died, and we installed video cameras the next week.