Most Thais, basically, haven't a notion where Ireland is. Luckily for them however, I'm frequently hit by an almost insurmountable urge to tell people, at every possible juncture and on the most flimsy of pretexts, all about my little green homeland. If someone Irish comes on the TV everybody near me hears about it. I even do this when the premiership highlights are on and there's at least one Irish guy playing in practically every game. The same goes for movies, books, phrases food and drinks. My Thai friends, initially, seem very receptive in that they smile and nod enthusiastically before going back to watching the TV/world go by.
However, I recently discovered that they were not exactly taking full command of the information I was giving them - while we were having lunch at one of the thousands of temporary outdoor cafes that are pitched up along Bangkok's streets before being packed away and stuffed into Nazi-esque motorbike sidecars and driven away at night time.
“You have a lot of snow in your country Robert! I would love to see the snow,” said one of my amiable colleagues. “It never snow in Thailand,” she added, almost misty eyed.
“We don't really get much snow though. It snows where I live maybe once a year, and sometimes it doesn't snow for a couple of years at a time,” I answered, also on the verge of tears owing to the mysterious and excruciatingly spicy foodstuff they decided I would like.
I paused to catch my breath and gulp down some Pepsi (it's way ahead of Coca Cola here and they still sell it in those glass bottles from the 1950s) but when I looked around I noticed that my comment about the amount of snow in Ireland had drawn a full compliment of puzzled stares.
“It doesn't snow in Iceland?” a second workmate asked.
“I'm not from Iceland, I'm from Ireland!” I wailed helplessly.
“Oh. I don't know this country,” the first replied, before exchanging a few words in Thai with the rest of the largely uninterested group and going back to her food.
Later that day my confused colleague send me an instant message on msn which read, “I know you come from island, but what its name?”
But although the Thais are very much unaware of our existence, the insidious hand of Hibernia is everywhere in evidence when you know what you're looking for. For a start, there are Irish pubs all over the place. There's one on the corner of the street where I work which has a bar stocked with Guinness, Bulmers, Powers and Baileys. Oddly, the Irish bars are one of the most expensive places you can drink. They also serve European and American food which is equally pricey. The upshot of it all is that Thais don't go to them and so have been robbed of the opportunity to experience even the MacDonalds version of Irishness on offer within their fake Guinness poster-clad walls.
Another anomaly is that the popularity of the Premiership means most can name a good 10 Irish football figures, they've all heard U2 songs, they can all sing along to a host of Westlife tunes and the girls all fancy Colin Farrell. Strangely, the most popular song to arrive in Thailand in the past 10 years is that Zombie tune by the Cranberries, the words to which you will hear being blasted out of at least one car, shop, nightclub or bar practically every time you set foot outside, to this day. Ireland was the first country to bring in the smoking ban (smartarses at this juncture, might point out that the smoking ban was brought in in California first, but California aint a country) and last weekend Thailand followed suit. But despite all these little bites of knowledge, somehow and for some reason, the connection is never made and we remain unknown.
There are of course exceptions. I went to a holiday island called Koh Phi Phi a couple of months back. I was at a small beach bar at about four in the morning when one of the Thai bar staff came up to me and told me I was Irish. He then stuck out his hand and asked, “Conas ata tu?” As it turned out he knew a whole range of basic Irish phrases and decided that as I was an Irishman, I would be interested in what he had behind the bar. So, confused and with drink in hand I stumbled on up to find out what he was on about. I regretted letting my curiosity get the better of me when he conspiratorially produced what looked like a 9mm automatic handgun. Happily, it turned out to be just a replica and after taking some amusing photos involving him covering his face with a scarf and putting the gun to my head, it was safely tucked away again. But this guy was very much the exception – Thais don't know who we are, where we came from and largely, don't really give a stuff.
The whole situation kind of got my goat for a while. I always assumed tales of our nation's wondrous deeds had been avidly followed by the peoples of the four corners of the planet but sadly, that doesn't seem to have been the case. Recently though, I have started to come to terms with it. I was helped along last weekend when walking through one of the city's poorer areas on my way home from a Muay Thai class. Two drunken Thai teenagers were standing outside a bar, smoking with the hurried discomfort the great Irish smoking ban has hoisted upon its victims while the oft-played song about the Troubles in the North belted from their chosen establishment.
F**king Farang! Go home!” one of the hapless duo mumbled in my direction.
“Sorry pal, I thought I already was,” I answered with a grin.
