this makes me feel less crazy. i feel like some medical professionals hurt more when they poke me with a needle, and with others i feel nothing when they poke me.
here’s a random opinion I remember my granddad had and a fun story I tell almost everyone. 🧵🐵
to summarise, my grandfather thinks that more people should stand their ground and beat up monkeys…. yup
context: in the last half century my grandparents told us that they saw in real time the behavioural changes in monkeys in their area of Thailand.
how before monkeys used to be timid scaredy cats who will merely scream and charge at you as a test on their worst days (usually during the dry summer when food was scarce)
before tourism monkeys would learn that locals WILL whack them on the head, throw things at them and scare them away etc but now they test their luck bc tourists are easily intimidated.
this is why monkeys often attack tourists and they scout for backpacks/approach humans they think have food.
the reward is just way too high and the risk is low for them.
my grandad hypothesised decades ago that the solution isn’t to just stop giving them food (they are intelligent and will rob you)
he made a suggestion to his local council way back in the 80s for the government to deploy guards in tourist heavy areas whose job will be to scare and by extension control monkeys behaviour. call it human x monkey relations if you will
however, this “solution” might put tourists (especially children and the elderly) in more danger as over time the monkeys will be able to distinguish guards from regular tourists and go after the vulnerable groups.
so with that being said my fondest memory of my grandad was listening to his righteous and often comical stance on this super niche subject. I think he may have been autistic.
he would chuckle to himself while saying “you only need to punch them in the face once and they will be scared of you forever I promise”
when me and my brother were 2 and 6 my grandad took us to a national park to prove his theory.
We stopped in the middle of the road beside a large hill face. this exact area is famous for this one particularly massive troop of macaques.
there must’ve been 100 individuals there at least. it was the largest monkey troop I’d ever seen in my life.
my grandad got out of the car and walked up to a group of macaques with a bag of snacks filled with nuts and sweets.
almost immediately the standout largest male with fangs so long they looked like fingers approached him with aggression.
It was then I saw my little 76 year old grandfather punched an animal half his size in its face.
the monkey looked spooked and let out a huge screeched then fled into the dense forest as my grandfather turned around smiling proudly while 30+ onlooking tourists took photos.
My whole family was shook as the entire monkey troop fled and for the remainder of the trip non of the monkeys dared to approach our family and non were aggressive.
even when some individuals approached us for food (we were in our car) they would quickly run back into the dense forest at the sight of my grandfather.
For the rest of the trip my grandfather spoke proudly of his action and told everyone “see, I was right” and till this day I still die of laughter.
so if you get anything from this story it should be that monkeys are more scared of us than we are of them. if it comes down to it, you should probably punch one in the face.
Giving my classroom gluesticks human names has been revolutionary. Does a student care if a glue stick goes missing? No! Do they care if DEREK the glue stick has not been returned? ABSOLUTELY. It’s like a manhunt until Derek has been returned to his rightful spot.
@alexissTyler Honey truffle chicken meal! They also have an appetizer sampler dish which is really good!
I've only tried a couple of other things there though so my view is limited.