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Tactics for resolving a loud music problem successfully


Gecko123

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Have been hesitant to post this out of fear of jinxing things, but it's now been a week without hearing the son-in-law's loud music. I can't begin to tell you how grateful I have been for the ensuing peace and quiet. Clearly, the son-in-law was maliciously turning up his stereo in order to antagonize me, so I have been doing a lot of reflecting about my behavior, how I could have handled the situation differently, and trying to understand the son-in-law's perspective about what happened.

 

Even though I would give myself good marks for being pleasant and polite enough the first handful of times I asked him to turn down his music, I'll readily admit that by the fifth or sixth time I treked over to his house to ask him to turn down his music, my willingness to hide my displeasure became less and less and I did become more and more unpleasant and beligerent in expressing my annoyance as time went by. Even though in many ways I felt justified, this was probably a mistake because it made communication with him more difficult. The result was that trench warfare tactics (playing loud music in retaliation, honking car horns, yelling) started to take hold, which caused the situation to erode even further.

 

Putting my Dr. Phil hat on for a moment, the son-in-law and I were probably engaged on some level in a struggle for pecking-order status. Although he was born and raised in our village, he was a relative newcomer to our moo ban, and I do not think he enjoyed a great deal of respect from the other Thais in the moo ban. Basically, he was probably seen as a somewhat anti-social low life with a reputation for being hot tempered with at least one narcotics use violation. In his eyes, probably the only person who was lower than him on the moo ban pecking order was me. He probably decided that I was this nobody who could safely be totally ignored, and that if I didn't like listening to his music I could go back to wherever I came from.

 

I also suspect that he was indulging in a fair amount of self-pity, you know, the whole world's against me, where did I go wrong, how did I get myself into this mess? He's married to Sai, the older daughter of Noi and Lek, who own maybe 40 rai of land and a two-story house. Basically, he had to marry the daughter after knocking her up. The father-in-law Lek is a manager/foreman in a furniture factory in the vicinity of Bangkok. The mother-in-law Noi historically has bounced back and forth between staying with her husband and staying here on the farm, but it looks more and more like the in-laws are living full time down in Bangkok and have effectively given the land and the farm house to Sai and her husband. So the son-in-law likely saw himself as the new head of the household who had every right to do what he pleased, while I still saw him as a newcomer who was violating the established norms of the neighborhood. So that probably contributed to his feeling that I was unfairly raining on his parade as he took over as the new head of household.

 

At the same time he was struggling to put food on the table. Crop yields this year were poor, and the family's various past business ventures like noodle shop, mini gas station, at-home furniture manufacturing, cattle tending always seemed to be money losing operations, which I'm sure also made the guy feel like the whole world was against him, and who was I to be telling him he couldn't turn up his stereo whenever he felt like it.

 

So my advice would be to keep the lines of communication open, try to humanize yourself in their eyes, and try your best to understand things from their perspective.

 

Edited by Gecko123
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Direct confrontation is rarely a good strategy in Thailand. As could be expected you were vilified and the entire village rallied around the noisy bloke who made a fool out of you until you were on your knees to him. The next time don't talk to him. Just dial 1111, get a beer, and let the government deal with him. It's free, English speaking, and made just for such things. Then it will be his ass to the fire under the weight and pressure of his own people of authority who he won't dare lift a finger against. And you will get a reputation as a powerful person to be reckoned with as no one would want that courtesy call in the village ever again. Simple solution, done.

 

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1 hour ago, canopy said:

Direct confrontation is rarely a good strategy in Thailand. As could be expected you were vilified and the entire village rallied around the noisy bloke who made a fool out of you until you were on your knees to him. The next time don't talk to him. Just dial 1111, get a beer, and let the government deal with him. It's free, English speaking, and made just for such things. Then it will be his ass to the fire under the weight and pressure of his own people of authority who he won't dare lift a finger against. And you will get a reputation as a powerful person to be reckoned with as no one would want that courtesy call in the village ever again. Simple solution, done.

 

Kind of feeling talked down to by you, Canopy. At best, the 1111 hotline would have farmed such a complaint out to the tourist police which have absolutely no presence in rural Thailand. At the very most they may have in turn relayed the complaint to the local police, who, as stated in the OP, I had contacted numerous times to discuss this problem. So your so-called easy-peasy "simple solution" didn't really exist in my situation. The "entire village" didn't rally around the son-in-law and he didn't "make a fool out of me." What we had is a running feud which neither of us knew how to put an end to. You should show more respect as I only shared this experience in the hope that others might learn from my missteps, not to invite 'know-it-all' comments such as yours.

 

https://www.huahintoday.com/thailand-news/multi-lingual-complaints-hotline-for-foreigners-dial-1111/

 

Edited by Gecko123
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