Thai Culture?

I've been preoccupied during the last week with a question posed to me very soon after I entered this country: What do you think of Thailand? It's a simple question, but the task of answering it involves a complex characterization of an entire nation.

Thailand's culture is sort of Las-Vegasesque, a description confirmed by the webpages for Vegas versions that spring up when I Google certain tourist sites here. The colors are vibrant pinks and yellows, the presentations are glitzy with glimmering sequins, gold, and silks, and MTV (or ice cream truck music) provides the background for every bus ride, telephone call, and restaurant dinner. Golden Buddhist shrines lurk in middle of shantytowns and over the rear-view mirrors of taxicabs. The culture is very physical, in-your-face: slapstick comedy, dancing, massages; the prevalence of sex tourism appears to be no coincidence.

But there is also the harmonious side to Thai culture. Somehow drivers on the highway are able to weave confidently between the hoards of motor bikers and other cars that use the yellow lanes painted on the road as suggestions rather than rules - accidents are supposedly rare here. Enormous masses are funneled through small entryways, without undue frustration. Despite jostling through crowded sidewalks, I have made elbow-contact with fewer people in the last two weeks than I would in one walk in the UK. I've seen more people sitting idly in groups on plastic chairs, just smoking or people-watching, than I have since reading literature set in 1930s rural America. The pace is much slower.

As a result, inefficiency is rampant. At our tournament, check-in for a hundred people devolved into an hour-long ordeal of individuals filling out forms at the reception desk, problems handled on a case-by-case basis. Stalls crowd together in malls or along streets, with individual sellers and lines in front of good food stands. Roads are planned so that one must drive half a mile past their destination, then u-turn back and drive toward their exit.

For everything but the amazingly high-tech sky train public transit system, the Central Planner seems to be conspicuously missing, both in culture and government. Even the architecture is haphazardly constructed, with Grecian columns randomly thrown on top of modern facades with colonial window frames; one rarely sees uniform design or color in any neighborhood, or even in shopping districts. Street signs often are not marked. Most street trash recepticles are hanging bags placed by individual stall- or shop-keepers, not by the state. Public restrooms often collect 3 baht for the privilege of using them. All of Thailand reeks with the individualism of the marketplace.

The inequalities resulting from government neglect and economic underdevelopment are also glaring. Next to the highways, solid mansions rise in the swampy jungle just next door to the squalor of the shantytowns. Zoning is almost unheard of outside the central city (and almost, inside it). Filthy makeshift stalls selling various pawned goods and manned by individuals missing teeth and shows lean against decently clean laundromats with printed signs and fresh and clean owners. No one seems to bat an eye. However, it makes me wonder whether the gated segregation from but abstract sympathy for poverty that I have observed among the wealthy in America - which actually drives many people, whether the older through charitable donations and foundations or the younger by pursuing public interest careers - is perhaps valuable anyway. Or at least, it seems to offer some prospect for change that seems impossiblt from the callous matter-of-factness of the wealthy Thai, confronted by poverty so close to home every day.

But I think Westerners often forget the downsides of our rules and bustle. Once you emerge from the ever-intrusive ad hoc commercial advertising, hawkers selling everything from tuk-tuk rides to riverboat tours, the Thai easiness seems to translate into a very deep kindness and awareness of others. As I walk quickly down a street, a slow woman in front of me will graciously step aside to let me pass; those whom I apologize to on the street will stop and turn to face me, saying no problem; one person asked about directions will call a conference of five to answer the question; yogurt purchased at any 7-11 receives a spoon in the bag, while Coke receives a straw; taxi drivers at the Henry's gate joke with the security guards whom they've never met. People are also very trusting (partly due to the language barrier) - any excuse will get you into a locked hotel room.

However, I fear that the Thai may prostitute their culture to Western tourists. They often try to truss up their culture, as was done at the Worlds closing ceremony. Few people travel to their National Forest besides tourists, who are driven from site to site in over-priced tourist trucks. They also tend to translate their business communications into poor and - worse - vague English, naming businesses things like Great Insurance and Food for Fun. They also don't seem to care much about the precision of the translations, suggesting that they are not trying to convey a nuanced message about themselves to foreigners. It's unclear to me whether they view the glamorization and translation of their own culture as a compromise for the sake of business or not.

Perhaps it would've helped if I had spoken in-depth to any Thai resident, beyond the occasional haggling and request for directions...