Thai Ties That Ended a Friendship

Phil and Nantasarn work at the same insurance office and discover kinship in their dress habits. They are the only two men who don’t wear ties to work and that becomes a joke between them.

One weekend, Phil attends a garage sale and buys three colorful used ties. He takes them home and wraps them as a gag gift for Nantasarn. He can hardly wait until Monday. As soon as he sees Nantasarn, he excitedly hands him the present, but after Nantasarn opens the box, a strange expression crosses his face and he walks away, their friendship severed.

What does it mean?

Nantasarn is Thai and Phil was unaware that Thai people do not give secondhand gifts. To do so disrespects the recipient. Even siblings are careful to observe this rule. One Thai woman told of having to ask first before she could give one of her dresses to her own sister. Further, Thais do not customarily give “gag gifts.” Phil suffered guilt and loss over this incident.

Cross-cultural gift-giving is challenging. For example, when giving presents to Japanese, make sure that objects are odd-numbered because giving a gift that can be divided evenly does not bode well. For good luck, when giving monetary gifts to Jews, give them in units of 18. Eighteen represents chai (life), arrived at by computing the numerical value of the two Hebrew letters that make up this word.

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Folklorist Norine Dresser is the author of “Multicultural Manners” (Wiley, 1996). E-mail: norined@earthlink.net