They Call This Kingdom The Land Of Smiles Is It Really?

[kevvy]

I dont see many people with smiles on their face but see alot of people sad , or trying to scam other people , so is this really the land of smiles or the land of scams

[uptheos]

Don't rain on the 'another day in paradise' brigade.

[norrona]

More like the 'land of frowns and grimaces'

if you want the land of smiles stick to your 5* hotel....after all you get what you pay for!

[hookedondhamma]

It depends on how you see things. I look at it as a great place but have never referred to it as anything over than Thailand. If all you notice are frowns and scams that is what you will continue to notice. If you can, try travelling around a bit to see what his country has to offer.

[Songhua]

Seems to have been lost somewhere over the last fifteen years or so. It's a shame and it's sad.

[Banzai99]

Do you live there by choice ?

[bobo42]

For tourists, its marketed as the "Land of Smiles", and does a pretty decent job at upholding that image for visitors. Once you live here a while, it becomes the "Land of ordinary people, doing what people do", just like everywhere else on earth. There are bad and good people.Taking into consideration the local customs and eccentricities anywhere, people are just people.

[kevvy]

It depends on how you see things. I look at it as a great place but have never referred to it as anything over than Thailand. If all you notice are frowns and scams that is what you will continue to notice. If you can, try travelling around a bit to see what his country has to offer.

have travel from north to south and east to west , i love traveling around ,

[kevvy]

Do you live there by choice ?

no i dont live here by choice, I can go back home which i intend to do in the near future . I just find things have changed so much in the last 8 years

[barefoot1988]

United States of Awesome Possibilities doesnt sound very much better either

[eeeya]

Just about to hop into bed for some rumpy pumpy...

i'm smiling

[jacktrip]

its all smiles as long as you are buying and paying out.

once that stops the smiles turm to frowns.

[Dancealot]

Good news you get with a smile. Bad new you will get with a smile. Simple, this is why.

[payak]

move to greece, happy place. lol.

[Seismic]

I moved to Thailand in 1982 from Singapore, I never regretted it, although I still rate Singapore as the number 1 place to live in SEA. Thailand is the land of smiles, because thats what the advert says, heads up....its a slogan, an advert, a selling point, but its never gonna be 100% real. Its like saying, I travelled to Yorkshire England and the people were really friendly, even in the shops they loved to chat and talk. Hey....newsflash, yorkshire people can talk the hind legs off a donkey and smile while they are doing it....but, ever met a happy lugubrious yorkshire farmer ??, of course not, because yorkshire farmers can take doom and gloom to 7 levels beyond your typical scottish cattle farmer who pops into thurso once a week to stock up on Irn Bru.Over the last 32 years, I have spent time with smiling korat farmers and laughing bangkok salespersons, and they all, at one point or another, gave me the Thai smile... a spontaneous and friendly guesture. The only one to be afraid of is the Thai smile of anyone who holds a position of power. Show me the person who believes khun Yabumrang is giving you a friendly Thai smile and I will show you a person who sincerely believes that the United nations is not a bloated useless institution.

[NeverSure]

You get a smile whether being treated fairly or being scammed.

If I keep a few thousand baht in cash hanging out of my shirt pocket I am also called hansum man, with a smile.

[Ulysses G.]

People smile a heck of a lot more here than where I came from and in general they are a heck of a lot more pleasant.

Is the place perfect? Maybe not, but I much prefer living here on an average income to anywhere in the West.

[BigJohnnyBKK]

I think "it was so great when I first arrived but now X years later it's changed so much" actually comes from the changes in the knowledge and attitude of the speaker more than of the country over that time.

Thailand's culture is very much oriented around keeping everything at the top level, outside surfaces pleasant and calm and beautiful and polite and friendly, no matter how tawdry and corrupt under the surface.

As you live here longer, the surface appearances become more transparent and unreal, to the point where you don't even see them anymore, you're looking at the underlying reality directly and of course that reality's always unpleasant for those who prefer the illusions.

However IMO it's negatively oriented people see mostly negative in the reality, would feel the same way back home. Positively oriented people see the good there as well as the bad, but focus on the good and therefore aren't as dependent on illusion to prop up their good feelings about the world.

[hookedondhamma]

^^^ *claps* Well put!!

[BigJohnnyBKK]

^^^ *claps* Well put!!

Not to say that Thailand isn't changing of course. IMO mostly for the better, other than the fact that the cost of acquiring and maintaining the hotties has been rising so spectacularly. But that's a positive from the Kingdom's POV innit.

[CharlieH]

Walk in a field you'll see grass, walk in a garden you'll see flowers, walk through the sewer you'll see sh*t !

Depends where you are and what you want to see, often your own disposition can reflect right back at you.

[mogandave]

Exactly, if you're not seeing many smiles, try showing yours

[Rancid]

Depends wher you are of course, I had a guy doing some work here that snarled every day, dicovered he was a raging red shirt leader. You should have seen his face light up when we wore our red coloured shirts, life is a two way street. Smile at anyone and you usually get one back.

[Dancealot]

I think "it was so great when I first arrived but now X years later it's changed so much" actually comes from the changes in the knowledge and attitude of the speaker more than of the country over that time.

Thailand's culture is very much oriented around keeping everything at the top level, outside surfaces pleasant and calm and beautiful and polite and friendly, no matter how tawdry and corrupt under the surface.

As you live here longer, the surface appearances become more transparent and unreal, to the point where you don't even see them anymore, you're looking at the underlying reality directly and of course that reality's always unpleasant for those who prefer the illusions.

However IMO it's negatively oriented people see mostly negative in the reality, would feel the same way back home. Positively oriented people see the good there as well as the bad, but focus on the good and therefore aren't as dependent on illusion to prop up their good feelings about the world.

Indeed; Negativity is a bad motivator.

[Geekfreaklover]

By tradition the Thais have thirteen different ways to smile and fewer than half of them denote happiness. The Thai smile has been a default expression used in times of stress, anguish, anger, anxiety, conflict, pain. So quite often a face without a smile is a sign of an honest Thai evolving into a multi-cultural society. The lack of smiles (and the foreigners' misunderstanding of it) is progress in a country that is moving forward quite well in this modern age.

Edited November 17, 2012 by Geekfreaklover

[MAJIC]

It most certainly was LOS 12 years ago,when I first came to Thailand. Nowadays it's more like a question: "where did summer go so quickly"?

[kangeroo]

I think that the falang change a lot faster than Thailand itself , people come here with rose coloured glasses and when living here gets a bit tough it is always the same boring answer , hence.......... blame it on the country . or thailand has changed .

[Sharp]

It's certainly depends where u live and work.I would say in general Thais have got more selfish,aggressive and greedy which doesn't allow for many smiles unless your being ripped off...

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa app

[macksview]

factory girls giggling and laughing as they file out of work,having toiled hard all day for a pittance,the motorcyle shop boys having a smoke and laugh after work,people just being people.

sometimes,i look at those people and forget the corruption,dishonesty,disparity in wealth and just enjoy thailand.

[chiangmaikelly]

factory girls giggling and laughing as they file out of work,having toiled hard all day for a pittance,the motorcyle shop boys having a smoke and laugh after work,people just being people.

sometimes,i look at those people and forget the corruption,dishonesty,disparity in wealth and just enjoy thailand.

A lady who lived on the third floor of a bar. Her mattress caught on fire. All the women rushed out of the building in sleeping attire and laughing at the women with the mattress on fire asking her how it catch fire.