Jobs like “paper hand job,” “Berth blanket mitt work,” and “some hand-twisting spiral” are strictly prohibited for foreigners, according to this useful list published on the Ministry of Labor’s website.

To publicize Thailand’s employment laws, the Ministry of Labor conveniently put up an English-language list of prohibited jobs for foreigners titled “Career aliens do not.” At this time we cannot verify yet, but judging by the cryptic nature of the prose, our best guess is that they were targeting actual aliens as readers.

“Career aliens do not.” it says, “Not alien to the professional set of career. Professional and not an alien to do. Set in professional video and tea alien life that do not. 2522.”

Wut?

According to the list, foreigners are prohibited from driving vehicles for a living but they can totally “pilot countries.” They can’t be “the card,” or “job Buddha” or do any “indoor work with paper or cloth” whatsoever. “Work shoes,” “work knife,” “work hat,” and “work a gold and silver otter” are also totally off limits.

What else is there left for a farang to do?

Our first assumption was the whole list was pasted in Google translate, but it’s not. We checked, and Google does not mistake “mulberry paper making” for “paper hand job.”

Maybe it’s some sort of cheeky joke by the ministry.

Regardless, we’d highly recommend you read the full list here.

UPDATE: The Ministry of Labor has obviously re-worked its translation since this article was published.

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