Do U Ever Feel U Are Banging Your Head Against The Wall?

[rychrde]

The OP should try tracking down this guy: Pire Sudham. He wrotes books like Monsoon Country and Children of Esarn -- he is from Esarn -- and he was nominated for the Nobel Prize.

The recurring theme in Sudhams books is that the Thai education system addles the students minds. I enjoyed "People of Esarn" and "Monsoon Country"(though less), but "The Force Of Karma" was pure crap.

I'm actually helping someone do a thesis on Monsoon Country - just editing the English. have been promised a copy but have a fair idea of the book from the thesis. However, it strikes me that children not only get taught by schools but also my the monks at the temples. Or am I wrong? I need to investigate this. It's all very well blaming the state schools for making people stupid but is the buddhism in this country colluding with this?

If Buddhism is anything, it is the power of introspection. At least that's the buddhism that has spread to the west, coz we have enough ritual BS of our own so have no need for that side of things. But if the monks here are no better than the village priests in Europe then the people are fed crap from both sides. From what I've been told most Thais don't get taught to meditate unless they request to and there seems little genuine spiritual support apart from births, deaths and marriages. There are retreats one can attend, of course. I'll have to ask the kids what their experience of the monks is!

rych

[Tinkelbell]

Rome wasn't built in a day, huh!

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Your wife is so lucky to have an understanding & considerate husband.

[TAWP]

My reply after reading some of the first pages:

People aren't stupid here. Selfselected ignorance on part of the outside world, sometimes, perhaps, but most importantly: they have [often] never been or feelt encuraged to seek out information and learn more to understand the world. A note is that I only know people in the ages 20-30 really (discounting relatives) but they seems so happy to be out of school and not having to 'learn' [and hearing the stories from the wife and friends on how it is in the schoolsystem, perhaps I would be the same] anything but just be.

However, after living abroad and discovering that you can look up and learn stuff online, my wifes interest have grown a lot and we have spent time reading about countries, history and fauna.

If curiosity was rewarded perhaps more people would be...

[canadiangirl]

I've done some empirical research into whether Thai people know who Hitler is or was. Well, many of them don't. Funny that. Unless they've seen a movie, they've often never heard of the guy..

They don't know what's so funny about my 'B52' brand mosquito net either or why I laugh at the cap they're wearing which says CIA on it. All of which research I've written up as a blog because I find it intriguing that Thais sometimes seem so isolated from the world.

How much does your average farang from NA, or Europe knows about Asian history? Probably not that much. Does the average farang know who Mao or Pol Pot is?

[rychrde]

Rome wasn't built in a day, huh!

----------------------

Your wife is so lucky to have an understanding & considerate husband.

gosh, I must be getting old! nobody has called me that before!

mind you, I still laugh at her when she hasnt a clue where small insignificant countries like Brazil or Russia are on a world map :-) so havent gone completely marshmallow yet.

[OxfordWill]

In my experience pretty much every other country I have visited (about 10) the average citizen is more interested in the outside world than Thai citizens. This in terms of striking up conversation about the outside world, news, experiences, etc. Thai's just don't tend to do that, even the ones who have travelled alot you get the feeling they are trying too hard to show you how experienced they are but it comes off as insincere and as if they did it just to have the ability to say they did it, not because they were genuinely interested in doing it. YMMV

[TAWP]

How much does your average farang from NA, or Europe knows about Asian history? Probably not that much. Does the average farang know who Mao or Pol Pot is?

If they didn't sleep during class, they do...