Topic: Dress Code in Thailand

[monkey woods]

Section 14c 3a(ii) clearly states: "Farangs are clowns and should be treated as such."

Once you get past that, it's easy to believe that they were allowed to dress like accordingly. It's worth noting though, that they would have been regarded with some ridicule by Thais - secretly, you understand, and not to their faces.

To their faces they would have been complimented: "Today you very smart." 

[NamTok]

monkey woods, Mods-Rockers,
 
   Yes, it would be the standard Thai cultural response to view the two farang teachers who dressed in the absurd and asinine zoot suits as themselves absurd and asinine in every respect. To the foreign teachers, however, thier "attire" constituted the identical statement about the dress code requirements of the school, which recently were rescinded. So the fact that the school did rescind the ridiculous dress code requirement, I think, speaks to the effectiveness of the statement made by the two farang teachers and of the actual and real reaction of the Thai (and farang as advisors to) hierarchy of the school. 

   I think the good guys won out on the dress code requirement. The farang hierarchy of the school succeeded in getting the point across to the Thai hierarchy (in confidential meetings, of course) that the dress code just was not acceptable to the farang teachers. We especially did not like the Thai teachers and the Thai office personnel regularly and frequently stating to us the interogatory: "Isn't it easier to get up in the morning and not have to think of what to wear?"  Can't have or allow any thinking, youknow?!?

   Anyway, the "Manual" is an accurate guide but perhaps at this point needs some revision and extension.

[monkey woods]

I remember a guy I used to know telling me that he had a new job working for a company who provided polo shirts with the company logo on them. They were compulsory and, according to him, not very fetching.

I had no problem with a shirt and tie. On the one occasion I wore a safari suit, I got laughed at.   

[NamTok]

  Some Thai hierarchy at the former school regularly wore safari suits, as did (does) the farang director of all foreign staff. One year, a Grade 12 (M6) student of mine from a very wealthy family looked one time too many at a Thai "hot-shot" wearing a safari stuit and quipped: "That guy is dressed like my father's chauffeur."

   The only way at the school farangs could avoid wearing a shirt and tie was to have a safari suit or two, so I broke down and had a couple made to my specifications. Given that the farang director of all farang staff wore them no one laughed or was disrespectful. (In private might have been another matter, but I never got any word that anyone was laughing privately.) I liked the open collar but the suits were warmer to wear than a collar and tie. Six of one and a half-dozen of the other, I guess.... 

[monkey woods]

There was another guy who worked for our company but who was contracted-out to a kindergarten near Silom. He loved his job and the kids he was teaching. He loved it so much that he got one of the yellow shirts that Thai students wear for doing PE, to match what the kids were wearing. The kids thought it was great, but the Thai staff...well, you can probably guess what the Thai staff thought.