Features

Dear Hillary,
Recently, my wife and I had visitors from home whom we invited to stay with us in our house. We expected a couple, but they brought 4 other friends along whom I had never seen before. Since they arrived without a hotel booking, we offered them to stay with us as well (Luckily we do have a big house). No problem at all. My wife prepared breakfast every morning for all of them and also did the cleaning of the rooms together with our housemaid. During the daytime, when they went out on excursions or to the beach, they were understanding enough to eat dinner outside.
After one week of their vacation, it was time for them to go back home. Since everyone had much more luggage than at their arrival, they booked 2 mini busses at a travel office. On the morning of their departure, however, only one minibus came to pick them up. Calling the travel office was of no great help, it was still closed and nobody picked up the phone. Trying to help them, I called a taxi centre to hire another minibus. In a short period of time the second minibus arrived and my visitors paid in advance. Meanwhile, one of them had the great idea of packing all the luggage on top of the first minibus. After a successful packing, they did not need the second bus anymore, so they came to me (none of them spoke English) to tell the second minibus driver to give them their money back. The driver did it, but he kept 300 baht as a cancellation fee. My visitors got very upset and blamed me. They even went so far to ask me to pay since I was the one who had ordered the second bus.
I paid for it. Now my question is, why can people be so rude, after staying for free in my house, eating my food and taking advantage of my hospitality? Don’t people have manners at all anymore?
Offended host.
Dear offended,
You must know by now that life is a non stop learning process. Take this as just another lesson you have had to learn the hard way. I am sure that next time you won’t be so generous to strangers.
You should write a letter to your two friends who brought those people along. Tell them in a friendly, lecturing way that before they come back to see you again, to take some lessons in good manners. If they still do not have the manners to apologise to you, end your relationship with them. For people who only like to take advantage of other people, you’ll find plenty.

Dear Hillary,
Probably it is me. On the other hand I have seen it happen to other people as well: I am talking about interrupting other people’s conversations. Where ever I am, whether it be in the office or while having dinner with some friends, someone will always walk over and start to talk to the person I am having a conversation with. If someone starts to talk to me, I will always tell them to please wait a minute, I will talk to them after I have finished my sentence with the person I am talking to. But nobody else seems to do that. Not one person who interrupts me will even be polite enough to apologise for interrupting.
The way I was brought up is very different to the behaviour other people show. Even though people do not understand the language of a conversation, they should still realise that they cannot just walk over and ignore people.
I’ve tried many times to teach people about this behaviour, but most of the time those persons who get addressed don’t seem to mind it. They probably do not like to hurt the feelings of certain people. Don’t they realise that they do hurt the feelings of that person who has to suffer the interruption?
Always interrupted.
Dear always interrupted,
You are definitely not alone with your bad feelings about being interrupted. It has happened to me many times as well. Believe me, I have also tried everything to convince people to be more polite - without success. I have come to realise that some people who had been very polite after their arrival here, have changed to the same bad habit. I fight back by just not talking about that subject, for it must not have been too interesting for those to whom I was talking too. If they still want to hear more about it, they will start asking questions. The Chinese way of punishing people for some misbehaviour is to be quiet and show them your disagreement in this way. Sometimes it also works with Europeans.