Lord Sugar pointed out in “The Apprentice“ that you’re on foreign soil whenever you find yourself in the embassy of another country. This couldn’t be ring any more true and I have Lord Sugar’s words ringing in my ears everytime I walk into the Thai embassy. Besides Buddhapadipa temple and other Thai festivals spread throughout the year, I’ve never seen so many Thai’s gathered in one place. The only thing that gives it away is the number of westerners in the building. This is usually the case because either one of the spouse is Thai. In pretty much every case, the Thai spouse is the lady. It’s never the other way round. Clearly thai men isn’t doing something right.
As I need to collect my visa, the Thai embassy has the honour of hosting my presence again (bam!) in the next day or so. I’ve been a couple of times now and even though my thai is, to put it mildly, horrendous, I still communicate to my thai buddies in English. Quite simply, they probably exaggerated on their job application about their English competency or rather expressed a willingness to learn to beef up that CV. So, I’m there to put it to the test. One candidate I examined failed…badly. Am I being a cruel/bit of an arsehole? Yeah, perhaps, but it’s part of the learning process when you’re abroad.
PS. Sorry I couldn’t take pictures inside the embassy. I did intend to when I was waiting to be served. But the minute I walked in, they asked for my name and handed my passport with a shiny new visa . Talk about quick service.
Kritt Normsaskul 