Dear Real Estate Agents of Bangkok

Dear Real Estate Agents of Bangkok,

With this blog post, I wish to apologize publicly for my behavior these last few days. I know you are already busy without me, let alone with me. I know you frequently work on commissions, I know you have to eat and eventually pay for your own house and food. I know that I am, maybe, the hardest client to deal with. I am the picky, wannabe omniscient type of client. Such a prick, am I not?

I don't even know yet if I will definitely stay in Bangkok and I already contacted two handfuls of you. Some I had to let down. Others were made happy. A third group keeps trying, curiously (and you should stop, guys, really, because I am just not that into your units. You are not the problem: I am).

Sometimes, I am unable to pronounce your names (fortunately, it is mutual, I see). I am annoying, I look like a teenager, I speak loudly, I gesture a lot, I tell you that I am possibly going to be a teacher at one of the best universities in Thailand, but who the f*** do I think I am, refusing to pay more than 12k THB for an apartment in the city centre? Who am I to wish for an apartment on a high floor, with a beautiful view, good furniture, fancy décor, a bedroom separated from the living room and the kitchenette, included cooking appliances, new and clean air-conditioning equipment, a washing machine, a pool, a gym, a garden and free Internet? Oh, and it also has to be near the freaking MRT/BTS/railway!!! Who am I, seriously, to crave for this kind of luxury, when the average Thai worker earns half of my salary and works twice the time? Who am I, white European pretending to be half-Filipino just to fit in, to demand an affordable apartment with all of these characteristics??? FREAK.

Furthermore, as if you hadn't suffered enough because of me, you suggest more apartments we should visit. Just run away from bully-Beatriz ASAP! Didn't you learn your lesson? We don't have an exclusive relationship, I often contact other Real Estate Agents in Bangkok without you noticing. Please, respect yourself. Leave me.

And then, all of a sudden, I decide that, if I move to Bangkok, I want to move in to That Condo. What the hell? Didn't I want something cheaper? Ergh, actually Another Real Estate Agent in Bangkok got me some fantastic apartments within my budget and we will visit them. 

Also, I have to acknowledge I am the cruellest client you never had (or will ever have). Dear Real Estate Agents, I apologize for my indecency, but yes, I kind of expect you to work for me during the weekend AND during night hours as well, because I expect you to be available to chat with me via e-mail at 3 in the morning and to schedule visits I wish could happen at 11 a.m., when I am in the middle of an insomnia crisis, provoked by the anxiety and excitement about moving to another country nearly before I end puberty (it was not long ago and it shows). Basically, I am a spoiled brat and you have to put up with my sh.... stuff.

In the end, the probability of me renting a condo through your agency is less than the probability of Madonna telling her real age while she is alive, but anyways I need you to be aware of this: you did the best you could! You learnt from your mistakes, such as when you arrived half an hour late and showed me a messy, smelly studio on the ground floor, facing the parking lot, that I didn't even want to see in the first place (but I made an effort to like it, I really did). 

Now, for all the pain I put you through, I bet you wish I won't stay here in your country, possibly teaching your beloved sons and daughters in a public university, sponsored by your taxes. I understand. It has been hard for me to find the perfect apartment according to my high standards and it has been even harder for you to sooth my pain when I try to open the door of a wardrobe and what I get is a loose handle freeing itself in direction of my toes, which end up cut and bleeding (true story).

So far, I think this is the longer apology I wrote in my life. You really should give some credit to my effort, although, while I was writing it, I was sitting in a fashionable café, drinking an overpriced bottle of water and eating an overpriced mushroom soup that looks like it came from a supermarket can.

Thank you for your time, your sweat and your vain words. LOL.

Wishing you the best of clients in the future, who will believe you when you say "Nooooo, that's such a wrong idea, of course the apartment looks the same as it does in the photos, the problem is the lightning!". Sure it is.

Kind regards,

Your Worst Real Estate Client Nightmare

The way we force our native language on other people

This morning I had just entered one of the offices where I am working at when I started talking to two people who were already there. For now, I just speak English, because my Thai is not that good yet (no, not at all, it is better if I stay quiet), so it is kind of hard when people randomly introduce Thai language in a conversation... particularly if it is 8:30 in the morning, which was exactly what happened. One minute they were speaking English, the next they were mixing Thai and I got lost. 

I know they didn't mean harm to my face as a speaker in the conversation. They want me to learn some sentences and to improve my skills. Unfortunately, you can't just force your native language on other people without them expecting it.

You may even want them to enjoy your fantastic language as much as you do, but you risk creating an uncomfortable situation for your interlocutors. It is not right to expect a foreigner to understand your native language instantly, namely if their native language is very different from yours and it doesn't share the same grammar rules, nor the vocabulary, nor the phonetic system. Please, be patient. Say something before bringing your native language into a conversation with non-native speakers. In the name of an efficient intercultural and inter-lingual communication, don't scare them off! 

For you, small words seem easy, but they are not as simple as they look, because some people didn't learn them intuitively since they were newborns! Oh, so you are just casting the word "rain" when it is raining?! Sure, but, FYI, if I said "chuva" most of you would not understand what the heck I would be cursing.

For the sake of a nice conversation, be careful when suddenly changing codes.

Conclusion: there are many other ways through which you can motivate people to learn your native language. Just be sure it is not forcing it.

What we talk about when we talk about speaking foreign languages

Don't you love to speak foreign languages? Don't you think you are such a lucky human being, being able to communicate with a vaster crowd than, maybe, most people in the world? Isn't it wonderful, the way speaking foreign languages makes us more complete individuals and, in a certain way, more participative citizens of the world, only because we are aware of other linguistic codes? Isn't it wonderful that we have this special power we sometimes take for granted?

Everyday, we encounter lots and lots of other people, especially if we live in a city, or a capital city - which was my case. I am from Lisbon, one of the most magnificent capital cities in Europe (c'mon, just agree with me and all of those centuries of grandeur, and travelling around the world, and collecting gold that the nobles and the Church acquired because slaves worked for them and because the peasants starved). Even though I never lived near the city center, I was fortunate enough to go there frequently during my whole life, until I enrolled in the University of Lisbon at the age of 18. I had the best of both worlds: the quiet, quirky life of the suburbs + the agitated, fugacious frenzy of Lisbon. Even though I do not consider Lisbon to be the busiest city I have ever been to, it still has its moments of craziness. People going around like ants, phones hanging from their bags, their pockets, their hands. Cars and buses and pedestrians coordinated to the sound of ever-present traffic lights. The very dirty staircases that lead us to the Metro stations below our feet. Tattered beggars, sometimes drunk or high in the clouds, sometimes just disgraced, not only begging for money but also for a vestige of our attention. Just a quick look. Just a quick look is all that takes to wake up from this dream in the sunniest capital of Europe (fact), where the downtown buildings are yellow and white, the tourists are guided in not-so-portuguese Tuk-Tuk cars and the taxi drivers fight over their dignity with the much more fashionable (but less traditional) Uber drivers. A little now and then, we should just appreciate the fact that we have a cold rainy Winter, a shockingly hot Summer and the warmest and most beautiful mid-seasons we could ask for. And we also have beaches around the corner (most precisely, both on the other side of the bridge and in the end of the highway - you choose it). And we are surrounded my mountains. And we have precious monuments, museums, palaces and castles ready to tell the stories about our History, just around the corner (and with this I really mean around the corner, you could just step into them, they are everywhere).

I liked to live in a city, at least from morning until early dawn, in the middle of other people, just like me, but who often spoke a different language, not Portuguese. I was fortunate enough to have learnt three foreign languages, so I could relate. You know, this is all about relating. Relating to other people. Listening to other people. Having the skills and tools to do so. There is a mechanical part in the process of learning (grammar, vocabulary, phonetics, memorizing, building sentences, creating meaning), but the most important, for me, once I manage to manipulate the previous one, is the human part of it (something even more intrinsic than mere body language). It is such a reward, to finally share something with someone who, otherwise, would not understand me. What a blessing! Lisbon was just the perfect city to put my language knowledge into practice, particularly because I studied in the School of Arts and Humanities (also famous under the nomenclature of Faculty of Letters), which means I had the chance to meet many foreign teachers (Brazilian, Spanish, English, American, Slovenian, ...) and even more foreign classmates (from every continent, I am almost sure).

I got to know about more lives, I got to read more books that my peers could not read, I got to collect more world, not leaving my place. And meanwhile I got to teach others how to speak foreign languages as well, isn't it funny? 

And now that I left my place I am so glad I had both a polyglot and a very thoughtful education about the existence of something beyond my physical limits and imagination. I am thankful I have met so many wonderful people who were not from the same place as I, who introduced me to more ways of living and thinking, to more behaviours, to more books, more authors, more countries, more movies, more, more, more, more.

Learning a foreign language is aiming for more and actually never stopping to do it. On the one hand, you learn to express yourself in another code, but on the other you gain a new identity and a new vision. I think speaking a foreign language is like being given a third, a fourth, a fifth, a millionth eye and also expanding your heart into more than it could handle before. It is like pushing your horizons and demanding the sky limit to go the extra mile, just as you are willing to.

What about you? Do you suggest a different metaphor for speaking and learning new languages? Leave your answers below, I am sure everyone will have a blast while reading them!

(Disclaimer: these two pictures were taken from the Internet, I just Googled them, so I just want to declare that I do not own them. That's all, thank you.) 

BTW: If you find something wrong in this blog, please do not hesitate to contact me. I am not a native speaker of the English language, so pardon my Portuguese thought.