Thai People And Map Reading Skills

[UncleDonald]

My Thai wife seems to have an odd and possibly natural talent at reading maps, but her mindset may be a little more "masculine" than many. I have innocently asked high ranking Thai military and technical officials to show me something --their home town, for example -- on a map only to realize to mutual embarrassment that they had no idea how to do that.

Building plans are another problem, I find that to show someone what kind of window I want it's best to wait until the framing is about to be installed and then walk over to the place and pretend I'm actually opening and fiddling with the window with sound effects etc. Even 3-D graphics don't seem to mean anything to my otherwise excellent building crew. But this kind of abstraction, map reading, may not be the most important thing in the world, if you read the interesting ideas of the Anglo-American architect/philospher Christopher Alexander you might be convinced that "native" craft skills produce better designs than "top-down" approaches.

On the other hand having just booked the Thai Airways flight from BKK to JFK I do hope that soemeone in the crew....

[petedk]

On the other hand having just booked the Thai Airways flight from BKK to JFK I do hope that soemeone in the crew....

Reminds me of last year on a TG flight to Christchurch, New Zealand. About 30 minutes before landing the captain announced something to the effect of " ... in about 30 minutes we'll be landing at Auckland ... thank you for flying ..." and so on.

Can you imagine all the passengers getting worried? It was a good 5 minutes before he realised his mistake.

Anyway... back to the topic. I don't believe it's a language problem. I often eat dinner with large group of Thai friends and they like to try new restaurants. I really can't remember how many times they have had problems giving directions and finding the restaurants. They seem to use vague instructions like "shortly after the petrol station turn right, drive a few hundred metres and turn left. It's somewhere on your right"

Maps are often drawn completely out of scale and many of my educated friends cannot read them.

[chownah]

When I took a cognitive psychology class at university they taught us that Eskimo hunters (Eskimo is the name of one of the native peoples in the state of Alaska) did not use maps because they hunted on ice flows where the features were contantly shifting. They navigated by remembering subtle differences in ice shapes, colors, and textures and their relationships to each other. They have an extremely highly developed ability to detect subtle difference in shape color and texture and this enables them to carve realistic figures with no formal training and almost no practice. It was suggested that this was as a result of their experiences and not of their genetics which means that being able to use landmarks instead of maps is a learned process and will be more developed with more practice. They didn't talk about how well the Eskimos could read maps....darn.

[raro]

Ever noticed that Thais have also massive problems explaining other Thais directions? As for company maps, 99% of them are at best a vary vague approach to reality. My driver still believes they are correct and since I'm no longer driving by myself my punctuality has suffered somewhat.

Maybe off-topic, but have you also noticed that it is almost impossible to talk with Thais about hypothetical matters like "what would you do if...." they reply with WHAT? What have you done???

[daveh]

Ever noticed that Thais have also massive problems explaining other Thais directions? As for company maps, 99% of them are at best a vary vague approach to reality. My driver still believes they are correct and since I'm no longer driving by myself my punctuality has suffered somewhat.

Maybe off-topic, but have you also noticed that it is almost impossible to talk with Thais about hypothetical matters like "what would you do if...." they reply with WHAT? What have you done???

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

My Thai wife has a hard time with hypothetical situations as well. One problem is she feels it is bad luck if the hypothetical situation is in any way negative. When trying to get her to understand how important it is for her to have a diver's license here, I asked "What would you do if I had an accident and you had to go to the hospital." ... Big mistake. "Don't talk about that!" was how she responded.

Oh, and she can't read maps either. She was able to figure out where Thailand was on the Google maps satellite view (zoomed out to see the entire Earth). But she couldn't tell me where Phuket was when I zoomed into Thailand.

[AmeriThai]

Regarding taxi drivers, a lot of it depends on how familiar they are with the area. Maps can help, but they’re never quite like the reality of locations. Certain landmarks make a big difference in finding general locations and that only comes by knowing the area.

I remember the first time I went to Thailand, I had studied the most detailed maps I could find before going and knew Bangkok like the back of my hand. Big surprise. Seeing everything for the first time on the ground was much different than looking at a bunch of maps. The maps were helpful, but only after getting visually familiar with places and landmarks in the area.

On one occasion we were at Rangsit and hailed a taxi to head home. We were heading to a part of Don Muang crossing a strip of Sapanmai to get there. I have a hard enough time figuring out how to describe how to get there, so my son-in-law had given me both a map and written directions to get there. I gave it to the taxi driver and he said he understood. When we took off, I told him he needed to stay in the left lane so we wouldn’t go the wrong direction when we got the Y which forks off toward the International Airport. I told him to look for the Air Force Jet on display and turn left there to get to the new bridge.

Sure enough he takes the road toward the International Airport instead. I asked him where he’s going and he said too much traffic jam the other way. This way was quicker. We passed another turn that would also have taken us in the right direction. Again, he was assuring us that this way was quicker. We passed the International Airport which was a long way from where we were heading, and it looked like he was either going to Bangkok or to another road to the talat in Sapanmai. If he was planning on going the other road to Sapanmai, the traffic there was going to be even worse.

By now, we asked again where he was heading, that we are going the wrong direction, that he passed the way we needed to go a long way back and that he needs to turn around and go back. It was pretty clear he had no idea where he was going, even though we gave him a map and detailed written directions. Finally he turned around to go back, then his taxi crapped out and rolled to a stop. He got out and lifted the hood to see what was wrong. He was in panic as to what to do and probably figuring his boss would have some choice words for him. We got out, I gave him 30 baht since I figured he was gonna be deep in doo-doo with the boss for having the taxi crap out, and hailed another taxi.

We were somewhat stuck as taxis aren't suppose to stop where we were, but the new taxi pulled over anyway. Just gotta make that extra fare. The driver of this taxi knew the exact location to take us without needing to look at either the map or the instructions. We were home in no time. My wife related the incident about the other taxi driver and this driver explained (which we knew anyway) that there are a lot of guys that come in from other provinces, mostly from the Issan region, looking for work. They have no experience in knowing the areas so they end up making all kinds of mistakes. When we finally got home, I gave the driver a nice tip for his help, got his phone number and told him we’d call him when we needed another ride.

[bina]

It was suggested that this was as a result of their experiences and not of their genetics which means that being able to use landmarks instead of maps is a learned process and will be more developed with more practice.

definately a developed skill.....

women can read maps the same as men, its just that in many countries, the men are the drivers and the travellers and the women stay at or close to home, or take a different method of transport...even here in israel, women prefer that hubby will drive if needed for long distance travel (not grocery shopping trips)

i was forced to learn to read maps due to taking thai workers to all sorts of wierd moshavim out in the boondocks and close to some nasty borders (after almost going to jenin, i learned to read maps and ignore road signs, and to trust the thai workers if they've been that way before: 'taxi pbai there, then taxi pbai here ' why do u go that way?....thats arab town)....

do they teach geography/map reading in school in thailand? here at 5th grade a child is expected to be able to fill in simple directions on a simple map (john lives on elm street, he has to go to maple street....)....my daughter cannot do it (cognitive problems, but can navigate after seeing the way once, to some very complicated places, once she's done it once, visually)