Category: Real Life Thailand Experiences

Jobs in Thailand – Teaching English

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I don’t have a degree and I don’t have an overly impressive job history to wow anybody by any means. On top of that, I’ve never done a TEFL English teaching course.  I have been living in Thailand for over three months now – After my first month of living in Thailand I was fortunate enough to get a job as an Extra and earn a modest sum of money, it wasn’t much but every bit helped. Sadly, work only lasted about two months and since that time I have been struggling to acquire any more jobs in Thailand.

People had suggested teaching English in Thailand to me before but I never gave this a second thought because of my lack of higher education and experience. But desperate times pushed me to apply for a teaching job at the language school I happen to attend in Thailand – I had heard from a fellow student that students at our school have actually been considered for English teaching jobs in the past despite these shortcomings. So that’s when I decided to apply for the job anyway – it doesn’t hurt to try after all.

 

The Job Interview

I handed my CV in at the school and had a phone call the same afternoon inviting me to a job interview that week. I was so honoured and excited to have actually been considered for the teaching job there that I spent the whole of the next day looking for the perfect interview outfit to wear and after that, planning every key phrase ready in reply to any of his questions. Despite my background being different and maybe unconventional to many other desirable interviewees, I do actually feel relatively confident that I have a very diverse and interesting history behind me.

So after a whole day’s preparation making sure to look as anti-hippy and dashing as possible, I made my way to my job interview in Thailand. I arrived too early and so ended up taking a stroll to a bagel cafe nearby. Then I had a bright idea to get an Thai energy drink from the 7 11 to perk me up a bit for my job interview… Biggest mistake ever. I’ve always found myself to be pretty immune to caffeine in the past, but these bad boys in Thailand… they’re another story. I was waiting for my teaching job interview at the language school 20 minutes later and I felt myself feeling particularly energetic and chatty with whoever happened to be around me at the time. Come the job interview… I don’t know… maybe it was whatever the hell I drank mixed with nerves or something but all I remember is having the biggest grin ever stuck across my face, body twitching, eyes bulging and bullshit streaming out of my mouth at about 100 miles an hour. It went terribly.

I said absolutely nothing to benefit my cause, and yet I had so much planned to say. I was chattering useless rubbish at this poor man while eagerly staring at him and nodding insanely over-enthusiastically like a complete mentalist. I think it’s safe to say I did not get the English teaching job in Thailand. I do not know what is in the energy drinks in Thailand but that is some crazy drink.. just take it from me and avoid Thai energy drinks like the plague if you have an important teaching job interview in Thailand.

Total money made from teaching English in Thailand…

– 697 baht

 

Teaching jobs in Thailand tips

If you don’t have a degree or any experience teaching English, it is still possible to obtain work as an English teacher in Thailand. Thai state schools will still take on people without degrees and maybe if you are lucky, you may find private schools who will consider you also. You may need to ‘tweek’ your CV a little though… it is actually possible to purchase fake degree certificates on Khaosan Road too.

There are also various teaching agencies kicking around that can provide training as well as find suitable teaching jobs in Thailand for you, but they can charge steep fees and there are some untrustworthy ones around, so it is well worth thoroughly researching them before signing up to anything. One reputable company I have heard good stories about in Thailand is Essential Learning, or Ajarn is also a useful website to find teaching jobs in Thailand.

Other useful websites and agencies for finding teaching jobs in Thailand

www.teachingjobsthailand.net

www.myprivatetutor-thailand.com

www.teachingthailand.com

Time2Talk (credit to Eric!)

Super English

The Language

BFITS

Malthus

 

….Alternatively to teaching English in Thailand, Extra work requires no qualifications or experience.

Extra Work In Thailand

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jobs in thailand

 Jobs for foreigners in Thailand

One day in our first month living in Thailand, we met up with an acquaintance of of my boyfriend’s, who invited us out for some drinks on Facebook. The next time we met up with him I mentioned that I needed work while living in Thailand and couldn’t find any suitable jobs for foreigners. At this point he suggested I do modelling or Extra work in Thailand and that he could hook me up with a friend of his who did this… In my experience, people tend to make a lot of empty offers but never really pull through with their promises, so I didn’t think anything would come of this Extra work in Thailand and took it with a pinch of salt.

Well, to my surprise the next day, I got a message from this friend, giving me the friend of a friend’s details and telling me to email her for advice. I was taken a little off guard and to be honest, absolutely hated the idea of contacting a complete stranger for help and job advice… it kind of made me cringe. But… this friend of mine who I had only met twice now, was kind enough to try and help me find work and I was really grateful. So, I had to contact this person for his sake. And I did. Long story short, I met up with this girl who turned out to be most awesome – she hooked me up with her agent and I had a job as an Extra in a Bollywood movie in Bangkok the next day after meeting her.

 

Extra work in Thailand

Extra work in Thailand can differ greatly from job to job, so if you like a little variation in your work then it can be a more interesting option than teaching English or working within a company in an office. Some Extra jobs can start at 4am in the morning, some can start a 2pm in the afternoon. Sometimes you will finish after 4 hours and other times you could end up working 18 hours with overtime. You could be expected to dance and celebrate at a nightclub or merely sit doing nothing in the background.

Quite often, you will be expected to literally just walk backwards and forwards over and over again. You may be taken to grand mansions set 100 miles out of Bangkok or maybe just work in an abandoned warehouse in the centre. Sometimes you get time to snooze in the sun, sometimes they really get there money’s worth out of you, barely giving you time to eat and repeating over 30 takes of the same scene. There are nice directors in Thailand and there are bad ones that don’t treat you so well.

The only downside of extra work in Bangkok is that it is freelance, so your pay will vary depending on how much work you can find. It can be good fun though, and you get to meet so many interesting people. I also still find it intriguing now to see the adverts and movies from a perspective behind the scenes, although I never actually know the names to be able to look up the finished result.

Anyway, for a standard 12 hour long work day in Thailand, you can get paid from 1500 baht (£30 or $50). It seems low at first but you do need to remember that the minimum wage in Thailand is only 300 baht for a 12 hour day, so it really helps to keep this in mind before you start getting too greedy! However saying that, if you are really lucky, you might find an extra job in Thailand that pays 3000 baht (£60 or $100), or if you get a few lines you can even earn from 4000 baht upwards.

Many people I have met, got involved in Extra work the same way as me – through word of mouth. So sometimes it really pays to be a Yes man! Life and work in Bangkok all seems to be about word of mouth, unlike in the West, you just don’t seem to find everything in adverts in papers or on google in Thailand.

 

Extra work in Thailand tips

Here are some casting agencies in Bangkok that I have researched and been recommended. If you are in need of work in Bangkok, then it is worth a try sending some photos and your profile through these websites and asking for extra work:

 

www.modelingbyus.com

www.coolmodeling.net

www.starlighttalents.com

www.tigercasting.co

Facebook: Wattnott Talent

Facebook: Orange Talent agency

Facebook: Banana Casting

 

Extra work is ideal for foreigners in Thailand and you don’t need to worry about a work permit. You do not need to concern yourself too much with having professional shots to send to agencies – I only have rubbishy pictures myself – but it would help if you happen to have some to hand. But the first step when starting work as an extra in Thailand is getting your foot in the door. It helps immensely if you have contacts but this is just down to luck… If you can just get one agent interested in you, it will be much easier to find work in Thailand from then on out.

After I stopped getting work with my first agent in Bangkok, I sent my details and photos to some other agencies and never heard anything back from any of them. A couple of months later in Thailand though, I had a random phone call from an agency I had never even heard of before, offering me work. I can only assume my previous agent had maybe passed my details on, I really have no idea. At this particular job that they gave me, I met an agent from yet another different company who gave me his business card – this was actually one of the agencies I had applied to and not heard back from. So it really helps to meet people personally on the set in Thailand when you have the opportunity.

 

 

Farang And Paranoia In Thailand

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paranoia and xenophobia in thailand

People in Thailand laughing at me

One thing I love about thailand is some of the open mindedness that can be found in daily life. For example, I see a great deal of older and middle aged people reading comics and mangas, I see lady boys on a daily basis – people simply just being themselves, things that you do not always see in other parts of the world due to ridicule and closed mindedness. But in contrast to this, there also seems to be a kind of barrier between some Thai people and the rest of the world. I think that a lot of expats living in Thailand can at some point go through a stage of paranoia regarding racism during their stay there.

Many Thai people can be so friendly, but others seem to find foreigners so amusing, intriguing or even disgusting it seems. As a foreigner in Thailand, it can become quite irritating and also a little personal when people react to you so strangely in daily life. I grew up in a somewhat over-the-top politically correct environment and naturally it has always been very taboo to mention or notice a person’s race…  The people that do have a tendency to notice and react to race in my country, tend to be quite aggressively or spitefully racist, but that isn’t necessarily the case in Thailand. So this hateful association with reaction to race in the west can make being treated differently difficult to accept and deal with at times.

There are so many more expats and tourists in Bangkok these days for people to become acclimatised to that I find it very odd for this ‘singling out’ to be so commonplace in Thailand. But the funny thing is, Bangkok – the most multi-cultural city in Thailand – is the worst culprit of all for this. Either way, the reaction to westerners from some people can be quite childish in some ways and it still surprises me to see some adults sniggering and staring for no particular reason. To me, I just can’t help but perceive this kind of attitude as somewhat xenophobic, even derogatory.. but it simply just isn’t a big deal for some to notice race in Thailand. If this kind of behaviour is beginning to grate on you, all I can say is do not take it personally.

 

The word ‘Farang’ in Thailand

Now, I completely understand that all cultures are different, and it is especially important to understand and accept other cultures when you are living in it yourself, more so. But, it does get to me after a while; being charged a different price simply because you’re not Thai (I still refuse to go a Muay Thai match because of the stupidly steep difference in price between ‘foreigner’ and ‘local’ tickets ;p), even feeling like you’re being laughed at, being talked about and last but not least, being called ‘Farang’. I’m not an easily offended person, and I know most Thai people probably don’t intend to use the word ‘Farang’ in an insulting way… but I can’t help but find it offensive, and I am curious to know if I am the only one who feels this way.

When you’re new and alone in a foreign country, there is a great sense of vulnerability which is not helped when you constantly hear people talking about you and reasserting your ‘differentness’… I hear this word pretty much on a daily basis… however sometimes I hear it with laughter, which sadly makes me feel like some sort of inferior race in Thailand, like an unwelcome outsider. I detest the word Farang and I never use it myself because of this, although I have heard other Westerners use it… but they can often use it in a deprecatory way, whilst belittling other expats or travellers who they deem inferior and inexperienced.

One time I walked into a photo shop to have my passport photo taken, I asked for this in Thai… but I guess my Thai wasn’t as good as I thought because the woman on the counter then mentioned the word ‘farang’ multiple times to her three customers who all proceeded to snigger and stare at me… When some people are just laughing their asses off at you without telling you why or what you said wrong… it’s not particularly amusing, confidence boosting or encouraging to learn the language for that matter. After a while of being singled out in this way, mixed with the simple vulnerable, loneliness of being in a foreign country, your paranoia gets the better of you.  I find myself feeling very defensive about this word, my ears pricking whenever I hear somebody around me say it.

Of course you’re always going to get some bad eggs… in every corner of the world. These actions of just a few people can have really strong effects on you when you’re in a vulnerable situation so the bad experiences can easily make you misconstrue the perfectly innocent and normal behaviour of another person. I absolutely hate being generalised by my race, as a farang rather than as an individual human being, to me it is disrespectful; but I try to remember not to emulate this and generalise people by judging them and associating them with others who may use the word ‘Farang’ harshly. Cultures are different, when living in others you must learn to accept your different opinions, some people may not exactly be so ‘colour blind’ or politcally correct by your standards, but it is the intention of that individual person that is ultimately all that matters.

Eating Out In Bangkok

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eating out in bangok

 

It’s quite hard going in Thailand when it comes to food. I say that because I am a bit a of a health freak. I have a preference for vegetables, whole grains, low-fat, low-sugar, low-salt foods. Food and health is important to me. So, after just a few weeks in Thailand I will admit I am struggling – food is not particularly healthy; so far at least. Lots of deep-fried, non-vegetable, sugary dishes. And in Thailand, they put sugar in everything. In the 7/11, if you’re feeling hungry wanting some snacks… well you’ve got a choice of sugary buns, cakes, steamed buns, sugary yogurts… not to mention the neon coloured drinks. Order a smoothie and usually you will get syrup added to it. At first I was loving all the sweet stuff, but now I am just hungering for some healthy, sugar free food and drinks.

 

The local eateries on the street sides are probably the healthiest option but even then things are fried. You can get a meal from 20 baht (65 cents or 40 pence) upwards which is way cheaper even than cooking at home yourself; it really is a bargain. The locals are very friendly and welcoming too, as it can sometimes be intimidating among locals in a foreign country. It’s really quite tasty, with simple ingredients and I think it can more often than not, be tastier than eating in a restaurant and paying triple the price. The problem in Thailand I find though, is the portion sizes. They’re more like child portions and I yearn to feel full up! For this reason, I do have a tendency to treat myself quite regularly to a 100 baht (about $3, or £2) steak/ burger and chips.

 

As for the fried meat and unidentifiable meat balls on the streets… The street meat guys have got me, my tastebuds have adapted and I now love the meat skewers. You can buy sticks of meat including sausages, meatballs and deep fried chicken from the streets for 10 baht a piece, granted some of it is weird and over processed… but it grows on you. Especially when you have it smothered with the chilli sauce which I have also now acclimatised to (although it is actually reasonably mild anyway). You can also, although quite rarely seen, purchase cooked insects from some of these vendors.

One time I picked out some skewers from a street vendor in Bangkok.. thought they looked nice and meaty.. Well, one of them was barbequed livers and the other, which I thought was pieces of chicken – I took a nice, big mouthful and… crunch. It turned out to be something like baby birds on a stick… I don’t have a clue. They had boney spines along the middles and some kind of yellow, inardy substance inside. For the more adventurous though… sure give it a bash!

I did, however, manage to finish them – I do hate to waste food… or anything for that matter – but it was not a very pleasant experience.

Crime In Thailand

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thailand crime

 

Bag Snatching In Bangkok

We were walking back home through the Sois to our Bangkok apartment today, just after dark. There is a very thin lane with corrugated panelled walls – quite dilapidated looking. I could hear a motorbike approaching behind me, as they very frequently do around this area of Bangkok, so I sped up to try and move out of the way for him… Well the guy on the motorbike snatched my bag. Yep, just like in the movies – they actually do drive past you on a motorbike, bag snatching in Bangkok. And a smoothly done crime it was.

I thought I’d been hit at first, what with it being such a narrow path, so it took a few seconds to register that I’d had my bag snatched. Then my boyfriend just flung his bag to the floor and chased the bag snatching thief up the lane for about half a mile, Terminator 2 style. Alas, despite this lane having heavy single lane traffic coming from the other direction every night that we have lived in Bangkok for 3 weeks, tonight there was not a soul on the road and so the thief escaped with my stolen bag after a valiant attempt to retrieve it.

Sadly, my boyfriend’s laptop suffered a crack from being chucked on the floor during the pursuit of the thief. I had my bag, my wallet, my camera, my mobile phone, my freshly topped up BTS carrot card, my school books and notes, and about 800 baht stolen 🙁 To be honest, there were plenty of warning signs. Literally. ‘Beware: bag snatching’ signs everwhere around this part of Bangkok. Fortunately, I only have a crappy mobile phone, it was my lesser camera, and I had no credit cards in my wallet. So, in a positive light, I still have my sexy camera, my credit cards and my passport… At least I can learn from this small crime in Thailand so that I may protect my more important possessions in the future.

Also, after so much budgeting and depriving myself of tasty treats and drinks during our days in Thailand so far, well the cash alone in my bag was about 800 baht. Ironically before my bag snatching, I had been being particularly stingy with my money and so I bitterly realised that my petty attempts to save money in Thailand were in vain.

And so I conclude.. Screw it. Screw you money! I’m gonna eat all the tasty Thai snacks and bubble teas to my heart’s content until I either explode… or run out of money after 4 months living in Thailand rather than the planned year :/

Because money – it just comes and goes, it is impermanent… and you never know when some jackass thief on a motorbike is gonna just steal it all away from you.

 

Avoid having your bag snatched in Thailand! Check my Thailand safety guide here.

 

Mystery Job – Interview Day

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After a random and unexpected job offer from Bob Anderson in Bangkok, (mentioned in my previous post here) today was interview day. I arrived prepared for the worst and dubious that it might be a scam.

Bob Anderson’s english turned out to be quite a lot worse than I remember. There had definitely been a bit of a mis-communication. ‘So what sort of job are you interested in in Bangkok?’, he keeps asking. I was a little unprepared for this as I assumed he had a specific job lined up for me from what he told me yesterday.

After a long walk across various walkways and through various shopping centres, (my bodyguard boyfriend James-Bonding-it-up and sneakily following us behind)  we reached a Bangkok office. Pretty flashy and corporate looking. Anyway, Bob Anderson introduced me to the Director and we moved on into a small glass-walled room with a dozen chairs in it and a white board. He began asking me about my previous work and education history, which is a little embarrassing as it’s not the most impressive career background, and then continued to ask me what sort of work I’m after. Again, I really don’t know, I don’t have any idea what kind of work is available to me in Bangkok (being simple and unskilled as I am).

He explains a couple of jobs they have available for me in Bangkok, but through his broken english I don’t quite understand the details exactly. Then his colleague, the director entered. Next I had to sit through a long presentation on the white board about a pyramid scheme where I would have to buy some useless product for £600 and then I’d be able to make thousands of dollars every month apparently. Woohoo! ;p Bit surreal and awkward when you’re a one man audience sat alone in the middle of a boardroom twiddling your thumbs, not in the slightest bit interested in signing up to the scam. After 20 minutes of the presentation, the two of them switched back (never to mention the subject of the Pyramid scheme scam again by the way) to asking me what sort of work I’d be interested in.

Anyway, to finish it all off, a huge, very serious african gentleman dropped them a visit and I have to say, he was one of the scariest, most intimidating people I’ve ever met. I guess he was a little less patient with Bob Anderson’s overly quiet, beating around the bush, broken English style and eventually he started getting a bit shouty and it was all very awkward. And then I left. After about 1 and a half hours of arriving there :/

…At least I had a bash at it.

Recruitment scam in Bangkok

UPDATE: A few months later in Bangkok, I noticed a post on my Facebook news feed warning people about a man who had stolen a small business’s identity and website and was tarnishing their name with various scams. Other people commented and the gist of it seemed to be that he was tricking people into the sex trade and screwing other people over with their pay on other jobs.  I recognised the name so I clicked on the link to his Facebook  and – yup you guessed it – it was the very same person who approached and interviewed me. That explains why we thought he seemed so dodgy when we looked into all his different scam websites and names obviously. Apparently he goes by many aliases, but the main one he goes by is ‘Bob Anderson’. 

recruitment scam thailand

This is the second Facebook post I’ve seen about ‘the notorious Bob Anderson’ to date

 

Random Job Offer

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I arrived at my thai lesson early today and decided to wait outside in the sunshine at Park Venture. A few minutes later, a Japanese guy approached me – ‘excuse me, do you speak english?’. His name was Bob Anderson and he went on to explain that he had a job for me – translating. I assume maybe (as we chatted about languages so he’d know I can’t speak any others fluently) translating texts or just improving rough drafts… I’m not quite sure. Bob Anderson seemed nice enough… he was softly spoken and polite, his english wasn’t that easy to understand and he just didn’t seem to get to the point about what the company did or what the job was.

He asked me if I could come for an interview in the office across the road but as I didn’t have time, I wrote down my email address for him and asked if he could send me some more information. I figured, as I didn’t have much of an idea what he was talking about, I could probably get a better idea if he sent me something more official, or his website even. Now, I am a strong believer in the Yes Man theory… You regret the things in life that you don’t do more than the things that you actually do. A job in translation sounds pretty cool and I could really use the money – it sucks living on a budget when there’s so much tasty food enticing you and seducing you on every street corner :O

Well, I received an email from him straight away… It didn’t have any more information in it, just a load of his website links and a facebook link. I looked at the links… still have no idea what exactly he does, looked at his facebook and get this – he has around 3000 friends and seriously 99% of them are all young girls around my age… That’s weird. My boyfriend got pretty suspicious and stayed awake hours googling him – Bob Anderson seems to have different aliases, different businesses and all information and pictures basically just don’t match up. So, admittedly I’m a bit put off now, but he seems pretty harmless so we’ve concluded that it’s probably legitimate… Still though, I shall prepare myself for something very, very ropey.

Learn more about my interview and Bob Anderson here.

I have no Exit Stamp from Thailand

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thia visa no exit stamp

If you ever managed to leave Thailand on for whatever reason did not get your passport stamped at the border, this post may be of interest to you.

 

Earlier on in the year, I took part in a charity tuk tuk race from Bangkok, across the Malaysian border, over to Sumatra and ended up in the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta. Thanks to a combination of exhausting, confusing and a healthy dose of nonchalance, I managed to leave Thailand without getting my passport stamped. The Malaysian border officials gave me my Malaysian stamp and on we went.

 

It wasn’t until I wanted to return to Thailand to live for a year that I thought I should get this sorted before landing in Bangkok. Not having an exit stamp from Thailand could result in any of the below…

  • Being fined in Baht, per day from the date my visa ran out to the day I landed back in Thailand.
  • Being incarcerated until I can pay said fine.
  • Being deported from Thailand.
  • Being permanently banned from entering Thailand.
  • All of the above.

None of those are particulally appealing to me so I decided to call the Thai Consulate in the U.K to get this sorted before flying. Luckily I have an entry stamp to Malaysia long before my Thai tourist visa expires, I also have an exist stamp from Malaysia before my Thai tourist visa expires. On top of that, I even have an entry and exit stamp from Indonesia within the Thai tourist visa limit.
 

So I call the consulate, who are confused by the situation. I explain several times that I left Thailand via land, through Sadao and I do not have an exit stamp. After some worried groans, the Thai Consulate offers to call the Thai Embassy to see what we can do. I wait for two days and get a call back, and to summarise: good luck.

 

What the Consulate actually said was that there is nothing they, nor the Embassy could do. I would have to board my plane, rock up in Thailand and except to visit the immigration office in the airport, where I would have to explain why I do not have an exit stamp. The Consulate thinks it should be fine, because its obvious I’ve just landed and I clearly have stamps for the other countries. That being said, I should take any additional proof I have that I left the country such as train or plane tickets and be prepared to pay a fine. I guess if your moving to Thailand you should probably get used to it. Don’t be put off, what are often long complicated processes in England can often be solved in Thailand with a minor fine. It’s a good thing, to an extent.

 

Oh, one more thing – The Thai Consulate gave me the number of immigration at the airport so that I could call them before I fly in, and do my best to explain my situation. The Consulate was not sure if this would help or not, mearly suggested it is worth a try.

 

So, quite an open answer from the Thai Embassy. It’s certainly an exiting start to my year long stay in Thailand. I’l be sure to update this post as soon as I speak to immigration on the phone and once again once I fly in.

UPDATE: Got in fine. Zero happened at the airport. Cool.

 

Adios,
Happy