It´s a shame the Thai-thread I created 12 years ago isn´t in the archive anymore. I have explained life in Thailand as I lived in that country for many years.
When I was young and strong I was doing boxing and Muay Thai. Sports that has never been accepted by my family who are more to Tennis, swimming and soccer. But contact sport was my thing. As with most foreigners going to Thailand for serious training, it is really something you must want to do, or you can just do your ordinary holiday trip if you don´t want to invest in the amount of training from belonging to one of myriads of camps all around Thailand.
I remember my first time in Thailand. The summer of 1997 and I felt ready for step up in my training. 2 months of training that gave me more appetite for it, and also why I started to love Thailand. The thais that I met was curious and asking why I was doing MT. I told them I burn for it and I love to train. Thais have a different view when choosing a sport. It´s okey to go to a gym and do fitness and do light weight lifting. Badminton, tennis, golf and soccer are also sports that are accepted if you should have the interest for it.
But as a foreigner and in their eyes a person with money, they could never really understand why I choose to do boxing(most causual thais say boxing not thai-boxing). For them Muay Thai is something that are a product of the poorer areas in Thailand. For instance, Issan is a rural area with many young thais doing MT since they are 2-3 years old. For the urban Thai(Bangkok), people who train thaiboxing are poor. And in a country such as Thailand where dark skin(rural outdoor agriculture, training under the sun(running)), is correlated with poverty in the eyes of the rich, educated thais. People don´t give you much respect if you tell them you are training Muay Thai.
Long after I stopped training, I met the woman of my life, and when she found out that I had been training Muay-Thai from old photos, she was shocked. And then came the derogatory questions. LOL
People in Thailand love to gamble, and if it is Water buffalo fighting or bird singing contest, cock fighting or Muay Thai, it is always big money involved. Hence Muay-Thai is human cock fighting.