So there I was past 2:00 A.M. on the sidewalk coming out of Soi Katoey with my beat-the-bar-fine little cutey on my arm, when she turns to me and asks, " How much you pay me?" I figure she is just being sure I know the routine, and I reply, "a thousand Baht", whereupon she commences swinging at me furiously, both fists flailing away. If looks could kill I'd be a dead man, but fortunately, she punched like the petite little thing she is, and my six-inch or better reach advantage prevented any damage, but she wouldn't give up, so I picked her up, set her down on a barstool just off the curb, and gave her a little talking to, finishing up with, "Now I 'm going to walk away, you stay there." And she did. For a long time I was puzzled with what had set her off like that. No way was she a 2000 Baht girl, and even if she was she could have just asked for more, like any normal BG.
I reckoned she was just crazy cause I didn't do or say anything out of line. It was several months later, back in US in Thai class, when we were reviewing a vocabulary list that it suddenly all made sense.
When I said, "a thousand Baht," what she apparently heard was "ja ow suun Baht" meaning "You will get zero Baht."
