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As I sit here writing this the sheet lightening keeps drawing my eyes away from the computer. It's early October and I am looking forward to the cool season, but for now I wear rubber shoes to avoid the Rama 9 River on my way to work. It has been a rollercoaster journey and I have finally settled into life here.

 

When I landed here a year ago I had never visited Thailand. It was a complete assault on the senses. I came here to work and they kindly gave me less than twenty four hours to recover before expecting me at my desk. Stumbling around Asoke junction past the morning food stalls when your body thinks it is 3am is not the greatest first Bangkok experience but it was the smell that really sticks in my mind. It’s a mixture of fried chicken, sweat and incense. Sometimes now when I walk past a food stall I am transported back to those dazed few days when I was too scared to do anything but scuttle in between the office and our hotel.

 

Moving to Thailand was obviously a huge decision but I hadn't really imagined how hard it would be for those first few months. In London I had been pretty city savvy and I always felt completely in the know. Before I arrived everyone told me how hot the hot season was, and how rainy the rainy season was. They did not tell me that people here never seem to rush. I had read this in the guide book and I have to say there is most probably a correlation between their movements and the weather, as just the other day I tried to sprint to the MRT (the underground) and almost expired so I can understand wanting to take your time and keep cool. I didn’t realise I would be going from full speed ahead to one notch above stationary.

 

However, as someone who used to tackle King Cross during rush hour, I get frustrated when I see someone not standing to the right on an escalator. Worse than this, there seem to be many people who are actually afraid of them. They can't just walk straight up, but have to pause for half a minute before stepping on. This means I tend to crash into old women and young mothers with babies. Add mobile phones into my Bangkok commute and it's not surprising that I am always late for work. People have a tendency to stop when they receive a call or message, even if it is in the middle of a busy thoroughfare. This led to daily collisions and one frustrated farrang.

 

They say that in the UK we are adept at queuing but I will never cease to be impressed by the orderly queues I see at the MRT and BTS. Sometimes I wish I was carrying a camera so I could take a picture. Obviously not everyone commutes at a leisurely pace, but on the whole they squeeze as many people on the trains as they do in London and it still seems much more relaxed than London. I also get the added pleasure of trying to decipher bizarre Thai advertisements that are shown in every carriage. When I arrived this was a Tourism of Thailand video with a delightful boy band-style soundtrack but my current favourite is for what I hope is an intimate body wash. A young girl makes her way through a crowd of men sitting at crotch level, swishing her dress in their faces.

 

 

This unrushed nature also continues in the office. I work for a predominantly British corporation. My fellow expat colleagues and I try and try again to explain how things work in head office. Having started our careers surrounded by equally hungry graduates determined to make their mark and claw their way to the top we know what our bosses expect of us. Work hard, meet targets and deadlines and you keep your job. Work harder than anyone else, do over time and there is a small chance that someone with the power to promote may notice you. In our Bangkok office the local staff have a completely different attitude. They work as a unit, supporting each other with all their tasks and being more flexible in their approach to completing tasks and deadlines. To come from an environment where you feel that saying no may cost you your career to this has initially led me to believe that my Thai counterparts were simply less productive than I was.

 

After months of trying to get them to think like me, I have now come round to thinking that they might have something on their burnt out western colleagues. It’s not that things don’t get done, my colleagues are delightful and they will stay late if we are approaching a deadline. They just don’t stress trying to get everything done. I’ve found that by adopting this attitude and telling people that I need to delay a submission rather than staying up till midnight sobbing over my laptop is much healthier. Unless you are working in the emergency services it’s rare that anything is the life and death drama you feel it is. I may not be the next CEO with this attitude, but I am certainly happier!

 

Slowing down takes time to get used to but in Thailand and even in a large city like Bangkok you just have to relax and go with the flow. If you are not on the same page as people who live here you tend to spend most of your time constantly irritated and angry about being amongst them. Adopting this slower pace makes all those tricky things about living abroad just a little easier to navigate.