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Going Native, or Not:
Which lifestyle will you choose?

Phil Williams, Webmaster, Ajarn.com
 

One of the most common questions I get sent to the Ajarn teaching website is from teachers who are looking to earn X amount of money per month and they simply want to know if such and such a figure is possible.

The amount a person needs could be as low as 20,000 Thai baht per month or as high as a frankly optimistic 60,000. There are all sorts of reasons to find out if certain salary figures are reachable. Teachers may have student loans to pay off back in their homeland, or if they come from a close-knit family, then annual trips back to America or Europe to say hello to Mom and Dad do need to be figured into the annual budget. But most importantly, there's the question of what lifestyle suits you. Are you the type who requires a swanky apartment with broadband Internet connection or perhaps the sort who can't face the day without his paper cup of Brazilian _Mocha Blend (topped with whipped cream, of course) available at all branches of Starbucks for 80 baht a pop? I fall very firmly into this category, so please don't feel guilty for a second!
 

Or maybe you're the kind of teacher who can go native? You enjoy sitting at a roadside food-stall with your head in a bowl of 20 baht noodles while four lanes of rush hour traffic whizz perilously close by. Or is your idea of a good time throwing bread to the oversize carp in the lake at Bangkok's Lumpini Park? Choose your pastimes and activities wisely and you can exist in Thailand on literally 'next to nothing'.

I've found from experience that many foreign teachers start off with the good intention of 'living like the Thais do', and while some succeed, most of them don't. The craving for a good old-fashioned western steak or a 'proper' cup of cappuccino or the need to throw caution to the wind and jump into a taxi during the rainy season eventually takes over and defeats all the plans you ever had to survive on three dollars a day.

You don't need to earn a fortune to enjoy an extremely comfortable lifestyle in Thailand, but the secret is balance. Make sure you are not going without. Make certain when the golden arches are beckoning that you're not standing outside with nose pressed against glass and lost in wonderment at how the other half live.

However, a great friend of mine, the much-traveled Mr. John Holland (sadly no longer with us) gave me the best piece of advice that I have ever received, shortly before I came to live and teach in Thailand 17 long years ago.
 

"Keep enough money in your back pocket for a flight home (meaning, of course, safely in reserve) .... and you can't go wrong."