The Road to Steem Fest | The Thai Life and what to expect

We can hear the stories and imagine what it's like to be somewhere in a country abroad, but we never really know until we experience it. And even then, each individual experience can be different. Personally, I've been to places where I absolutely loved it, but will hear others tell me they hated it for whatever reason. It can be a bad experience, heat (or cold) that people can't handle, or something else. Either way, until we experience the place, we can only imagine what it's like.
In this Road to Steemfest prompt by @anomadsoul, I'd like to take you to my personal experiences with Bangkok and Thailand, many years ago.

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Laidback, or is it something else?

It's been a long, long time since I called Thailand my home. Part-time that is. I lived in Asia for nearly three years the mid to late 1990s, (not nearly long enough!) and after a few months in Japan, only weeks in Hong-Kong, and almost a year in Indonesia, I had to choose whether to go back to the Netherlands or move on to somewhere else. I was living in Jakarta at that time, and there were some political unrest and elections coming up, and foreigners were advised to leave the country. I had seen crazy things during the election campaigns and I took this advice quite seriously. I didn't want to go back to the country that I had never really called 'home', and friends I had met sometime before had told me about Singapore and how they would help me get on my feet there if I ever needed it, so I decided to take the plunge and go. This is something you'll see pretty much everywhere in SE Asia, at least the places where I've been: the willingness to help others, even if they only just met them. Thailand is no exception.

After a few months in Singapore, a friend who'd become a very close friend asked me to come with him to Bangkok, where he worked two weeks a month. It was supposed to be for a visit, but after those few days, I told him he'd just found himself a new roommate in the weeks he was there. I had to come back. Luckily, he was absolutely fine with it, and so our strange part-time roomie-best friend-partner-in-crime relationship was born. I stayed with him at his apartment, would sometimes accompany him to the club where he worked as a light technician, and whenever I found the time, I'd venture out to see more of the country.

My friend's partner in the Netherlands did an internship in Thailand and he told me that some of the workers would just stand (work) there on a flat roof, just after it rained with electric cables lying around bare... All I could think of was: "Yeah, that sounds about right." I've seen so many potentially dangerous scenarios that could have easily ended badly. Something you wouldn't easily see in Europe or the US.
Want to see three, four or even more people on a scooter without having to go to a circus? Thailand is your place.

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Smiling Thailand

When I was in Thailand, there was quite some poverty. I am hoping that these things improved a bit. But it didn't matter if people had nothing, they would always have a smile ready. And I never ever had the feeling that it was forced or faked.
They don't call it the land of the smiles for nothing. But not all smiles actually mean true happiness. Personally I've never had any issues, but I have seen Thai men give another a big smile before he beat his head in. That being said: I have never felt unsafe in the country (unlike in Jakarta for instance).

This man here explains the different smiles in a really funny way.

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Like the movies

One thing that really had me (and my friend) talking for weeks was an experience that could only be described as something from a movie. My friend had a day off and we decided to visit one of the more popular nightclubs at the time. People were lining up to get in and while we were waiting, this Lamborghini drives up...
We were quite stunned, because it makes NO SENSE whatsoever, to ever drive a car like that in Bangkok, other than that you're filthy rich and want to show it. The car doors flew open, and out comes a very handsome (and tall!) Thai man (long story...I had a chat with him later, it was quite cool at the time), and a supermodel looking woman. Before he even stepped one foot in front of the other, another woman was also on his arm. The club's staff nearly fell over to take his car from him and help him get to the door. He was wearing: a deep purple tux...yes. Like a film star who had escaped the filming of his latest movie.
I said to my friend jokingly: "All he needs now is a gun." When he reached the door, I saw the back of his tux fall open just long enough to see two guns sticking out of the back of his pants. As I said: like the movies.
I'm not sure if things have changed much, but things like that were quite normal for Bangkok in that time. (man I feel old, not really hehe).

An experience and a half

Out of the places I've been, SE Asia tops all the others by a mile. But Thailand is something else. Don't get me wrong: I LOVED Singapore, but only for the people I have met there (and who I am still in touch with after all these years!) not for their rules and crazy laws. Indonesia is amazing, of course, and the country will always be very close to my heart. My dad spent years there and the time I was there, I absolutely loved it. But Thailand? OMG. I am a softie, and I cried when I knew it would be a while before I'd be back there. I cried when I found out that Steemfest was going to be in Thailand. And I'll probably cry when I get there and when I have to leave again...
Why? It's my favorite country, my favorite people 😍, my favorite food (wake me up any time for Tom Yum Goong and you'll be my best friend forever!), my favorite beaches, full moon parties, islands...(Koh Samui was my favorite place on earth, and some people called it "Little Amsterdam", I wonder why...🤔). And funny enough, I even loved the heat!
Thailand will be an experience and a half, I promise.

And with a few hundred Steemians to share some time there with: absolutely priceless...

Thank you for reading!

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Thailand is similar to Vietnam. Oh, I don't know if I told you that my grandpa is from the Netherlands. I've not been to Thailand, so it might be immature for me to prefer Vietnam.

And I've not been in Vietnam, so can't compare the two. I'm planning to go (soon) though, so I'll be sure to report back on that!

No, I didn't know your grandfather is from the Netherlands @joeyarnoldvn! Do you know where he's from? Did he immigrate to the US? That's cool, you must have gotten your awesomeness from him ;)

Awesomeness:

Yeah, my dad is built like an ox. Pretty strong like an ape. So, good heredity. So, probably because he is dutch. My dad was born in California. My dad's dad was born in the Netherlands.

The Titanic

My dad didn't know he was adopted until his teen years. Eventually, he found his birth mom. But his real dad, Peter Marinus Rasp, died around 1953. So, that means we don't know as much about my dad's side of the family. Peter was born in 1906-04-14 in Amsterdam. I heard a rumor that they missed the Titanic because Peter's dad, Peter Sr, was drunk somewhere. So, then, they eventually made it to Canada and then California. So, Peter's dad might have been from Germany. I'm still trying to find out more about those things.

That sounds very interesting. I'm intrigued...
Now that would be the best ever told about how a person got too drunk to make the passage on the Titanic. But it makes no sense because there were ships going from Rotterdam at the time, so I doubt that Dutch families would first sail to the UK and then take the Titanic to the US.

My father is from Amsterdam and he had an uncle and aunt who sailed to the US on the Holland - America line. They ended up in Canada and since a few years, I've been in touch with a few of the people on that side of the family. For me it was easy, because I don't have a very common surname. But everyone with the same surname is related :)
The last name Rasp is definitely Dutch, not German. It even sounds familiar, but that could be my brain trying too hard. It's a shame my father isn't alive, because he knew a lot of people in Amsterdam, as his cousin and best friend was quite the celebrity. Now that I think of it, I might write about it sometimes!

There's a website that might help you in your search:
https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/748241?availability=Family%20History%20Library

It has the passenger lists of all the sailings in that time. If you scroll down and look at: 'Passagiersregister' that should have the lists...

Did your father ever find out why he was adopted? I believe it happened a lot those days, simply because people went to the US with all these hopes and dreams that didn't quite happen the way they hoped and they then didn't have the money to support their families. Sad really. We're so lucky to live in this time, and we don't even realize it.

Different Spellings:

I've heard there are different spellings to my grandpa's surname, Rasp. Another spelling might be Raspe. Family Search is a good website. Thanks. I've been there. Also, Wiki Tree.

Adoption

My mom talked to my dad's real mom. So, I was told that my dad's parents were getting and feeling old. So, my dad's dad died when my dad was like three. So, his mom felt like she couldn't take care of him. So, she gave him up. But then she ended up remarrying and having another son. So, my dad's dad may have had heart disease or something as he died at around the age of 47, assuming he lived from 1906-1953.

Litography

I've read on I think Ancestry that my grandpa was in the occupation of lithography. So, perhaps, that was a family business that they were doing in the Netherlands and then in California as well. Ironically, I like to write. So, in some ways, I might be like my grandpa even as I've never met him. By the way, I stay away from beer.

Titanic

I need to look more into it. I guess they didn't have to, like you said. Maybe they just really desired to be on the Titanic. It might have been the cool thing to do.

Family Tree

Here is a link to a family tree (that I made on WikiTree) that I think is as accurate as I can make it. My great grandpa was Pieter Rasp Sr. born 1879, July 22, in Amsterdam. He married a Marie Charlotte Van Der Byl. Married in 1903. They probably had 5 children including my grandpa.

Well, either way, it sounds like your family history is quite interesting. I love going through info in history. I've been trying to find out more about my ancestors. It's harder now because both of my parents and any uncles and aunts have since passed away. I still have some cousings though who are much older and grew up with my mother, they would possibly be able to tell me more about her side of the family. I know that both my mother and father had some French in their ancestry. My grandmother's maiden name is French, and my father used to go to a French school in Amsterdam, which was only allowed at the time if you had some French heritage.
His French was fluent! I'd love to find out more about that school too! His French family would have come from the Normans, so in a way, we're also Viking :) I can hardly find anything about my mothers' side of the family. My father's side goes back to 17-something but funny enough, no info about the French part of their family. So I may have to dig a bit deeper.

However, his cousin (from his mother's side) was quite famous and notorious in all of the Netherlands around WWII and beyond, and we have a famous painter on my grandmother's side as well. All in all this makes for quite some interesting material.

My high school mascot was the Vikings. You know, it can be tough to get information out of people. So, the trick is in finding ways to get them to see the value in what they know. So, there are people, like you said, that can help you with your family tree. Vietnamese people would tell me that they don't know much about their family history, their ancestors, in many cases. They can tell me general stories about their country which is good in the sense of being united around Vietnamese heritage.

According to my mom, she has said that her side of the family can be traced to the kings of Troy and possibly back to Noah and Adam according to some websites and genealogies she ran across. So, we are not directly connected to the kings of Troy. It is more like a mother's mother's mother's mother's, etc, kind of thing, or I'm not totally sure yet because I have not looked at it yet. Most of my ancestors were Europeans. Maybe all of them were. Some of them may have been Normans.

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