This is an intense thread, but a great read! LonelyPlanet.com's ThornTree never gets this intense, though this would be tame for Dave's ESL Cafe -- a forum that never fails to show the darkest sides of culture clash.
I think a lot of the heartache and frustration that comes from Westerners trying to make it in Thailand (and Japan) boils down to really two things:
1) This is a culture that is very good at selling itself and making a charming first impression, and migrants feel cheated when what they ultimately find there is not what they were originally promised.
2) This country is SO good at selling itself that there's no shortage of foreigners who want to move there. So it takes an awful lot of self-delusion to convince yourself you're doing anything unique or adventurous in moving there, or are any more than 'just another foreigner' to most of the locals you encounter.
Thailand and Japan are countries I will almost certainly visit again. But I wouldn't move to either one permanently, I don't think. I just have too many preconceptions about both of these places to ever appreciate either of them 'as is' long term. There are many places that make fine places to vacation, even repeatedly, but not nice places to move. These are two of them. Miami is a third that comes to mind.
I'm glad I went to Taiwan to teach English, because I had no expectations of how that country is 'supposed to be', and therefore no chance to be disappointed when it didn't live up to these expectations.
I would say to anyone seeking work as an English conversation teacher in Asia: never forget that you are, underneath it all, a migrant worker. Being a migrant worker means that you will get offered a lot of raw deals, including ones you're not in a position to refuse. Many times you won't be in able to do anything about it, simply because you're not local, and can't works the ins and outs of the system the way a local can. If you can approach any working sojourn in a far off place with the attitude of, "I'm blessed to have ANY source of ANY income here AT ALL", then you're on the right track. If this strikes you as a bit too much of what Nietszche would call 'slave morality', then don't work abroad, if you can help it.
Call me a racist, but overall, I find that people in East and Southeast Asia are just more open about choosing to do X, because choosing X will garner the greatest material gains for me and mine. People do this everywhere, I'm aware. But often conspicuously absent in Asia is the middle step, where the doer of the deed uses elaborate rational justifications about why his choice is 'for the greater good' or in line with some lofty set of abstract moral principles. No. If it makes me more money and/or brings more honor upon me and those close to me, then it's what I'll do. Period. A certain 'businessman's anti-intellectualism', as Wikipedia calls it, seems to prevail a lot there.
Granted I'm speaking in gross generalizations. There's a lot more depth to this highly diverse collection of cultures than what I just wrote, and many people who make decisions for all kinds of other reasons. But in my experience, what I just described is a COMMON sticking point for Westerners, in their attempts to form friendships and working relationships with locals in East Asia.
People there do not ask "Who am I, and what is my purpose in life?", but "Who are my people, and what are my obligations to them?" This can lead to people who are not "in-group" being, and feeling, exploited, more easily
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
))- even to the point of me becoming friend's with a taxi driver on my street who even takes me to some places for free or next to nothing hahaha
