Thai exceptionalism - a myth or reality?: Opinion

[thedude82]

If I could please join the long line of people laughing at Thai exceptionalism. Exceptional at what exactly? Victory monuments commemorating a minor victory and naval loss against Vichy France? An exceptionally weakening baht, exceptionally unstable and weak government, exceptionally corrupt police and customs, exceptional double standards, exceptional street scams, exceptional dual pricing, exceptional nonsense, unreliability and lying, exceptional hookers, ladyboys and nightlife, exceptional "capital controls", I could go on...and on...and on.

My last thought on something mentioned was the ASEAN economic community/zone in 2015. I will say I am skeptical, from its inception ASEAN has not accomplished ANYTHING. The members do not even get along. It is an association of WEAK governments, it is not an alliance. They are not united to make them stronger, it is simply "together we are weak". Singapore is the only member state that is competent in anything. It is only a talk shop full of prepared statements full of empty rhetoric complete with photo ops with everyone holding hands once a year. They failed in the Asian Financial crisis (which originated in Thailand) and we saw how well they work together in solving the flight MH-370 mystery. The only thing "rising" in the Mekong region is the floodwater from its piss poor water policies. This whole region lost its relevance in the 70s when America washed its hands of Southeast Asia.

[bigbamboo]

I believe the whole Thai educational system needs a complete overhaul. Thai's are the most backward race I have ever come into contact with.

Commerce expects 2 Degree's, however, in reality they are not worth the paper they are written on.

The lack of real educated individuals Teaching these Students, coupled with over 80% of Thai's cannot communicate in English ensure's Thai's will always be servants to the western world.

You must be under the impression that the failure of the Thai education system is a mistake.

The battle in Thailand right now is between:

Group A: Who owns the vast majority of all farmable land (in a country that derives a good portion of its GDP from farming) and-or sells cheap labor to the rest of the world and thus benefits from keeping people poor, uneducated, cut off from the rest of the world in terms poor English skills to understand what everyone else in the world knows.

Group B: Who knows how to tap into the lack of education and the absence critical thought process being taught in schools in order to win elections and sprinkle a few crumbs around while they loot the country.

Notice how neither of those two has a vested interest in teaching people to think for themselves?

It's not like education is some closely guarded secret by the western world. Seeing as how Thailand is a hub of copying things they could easily duplicate an educational system that resembled US or UK standards.

In 2009, Thailand spent more, as a percentage of GDP, on education than:

Switzerland

Norway

Denmark

USA

Ireland

Sweden

Philippines

UK

Israel

Canada

Belgium

Finland

The Netherlands

Germany

France

Starting to see a reverse correlation here?

Thailand's educational system is not intended to educate. It's indoctrination. That's why they spend so much on it and see themselves falling behind, educationally, to countries spending far, far, far less then they do. Everyone who is anyone in Thailand benefits from keeping the educational system a joke.

But how much of it was actually spent on the educating the students?

No wonder the Minister of Education doesn't want to resign.

[bigbamboo]

OK...... no Thai bashing just a neutral assessment of the OP's ten points.

1 Cannot discuss it openly..... enough said.

2 Thais may think their language is special... many other peoples feel the same about theirs..... but no other country has ever adopted it.

3 So what? In the UK even our Royal family have nicknames. There's Brenda, and Kevin....

4 Thai women aren't the only ones who know how to make money.

5 Kitchen of the world? Until the PT government screwed it up it was the rice bowl of the world but the kitchen? France and Japan have superior cuisines for a start.

6 Thai people are very friendly but so are many, many others and Thailand is NOT the most visitor friendly nation in the world by a long way.

7 Switzerland is a very peaceful nation too but that comes from sitting on the fence when the chips are down. If every country was as 'peaceful' as those two we'd all be

eating sauerkraut and driving Volkswagens now.

8 Thailand is about to discover the 'benefits' of never being exposed to international cultures when AEC comes along. All those who only speak their own language to the

back!

9 I agree the Thai legal system IS unique.

10 Thailand certainly has some fascinating examples of uniqueness like having a fugitive running the government from another country. Now that is unique!

[Tomtomtom69]

digibum, on 19 May 2014 - 13:04, said:

Commander Tamson, on 19 May 2014 - 12:59, said:

The fact that the head of the Ministry of Culture would say that the reason they shot down a proposal to make English the official second language of Thailand because "some people" might wrongly assume Thailand had once been a colonized says pretty much all that needs to be said in terms of how strongly this is implanted into the Thai psyche.

And unless their attitude towards English as a 2nd language changes very quickly, their integration / contribution and benefit from the AEC will be minimal. But hey! By all accounts Thailand will be its hub!?!

Sure, as long as everyone agrees to speak Thai :-)

Oh dear, another one who fails to understand, English is THE international language of business... Thai is NOT, sorry.

My Thai is fluent (including reading and writing) and I usually choose to speak only Thai with Thais in all situations and almost every first encounter is a bit awkward because the other party may not realize that I can speak Thai unlike most foreigners they've probably dealt with. However, once the barriers are broken down it's all good because I get treated very well once they realize I can speak Thai. That and the fact that most Thais speak English quite poorly means relying on English for anything in-depth won't get you very far with the vast majority of Thais.

Unfortunately for everyone else, many Thais use language as a method of discrimination, which is quite unfortunate because I don't feel that attitude happening much in other countries.Those foreigners unlucky enough not to understand Thai may find that it's all smiles in front of them, but lots of sneaky and sometimes disparaging remarks behind their backs, which of course the foreigner in this situation wouldn't understand. This is because most Thais regard English only as a language used to communicate with foreigners or "farang" whereas Thais is for communicating with each other. The fact that English was not made a second official language bodes poorly for the country as a whole and was definitely the wrong decision to make especially in light of AEC 2015. Unlike in Malaysia and Singapore, not to mention the Philippines were you have a lot of code switching between English and other locally spoken languages, including indigenous ones (Myanmar is another example although most Burmese still speak mostly Burmese but may pepper their speech with English words like reciting telephone numbers in English etc.), locals in these countries don't have to resort to "language discrimination" to leave you out of a conversation as they are often using English amongst themselves anyway.

What still gives me a chuckle is reading the section on CIA's World Factbook about languages spoken in Thailand. It reads: Thai (obviously), English (second language of the elite). Yeah right, how many Thais speak English in their household? Although I've heard of at least one dad who speaks English with his son (and no, they are not a mixed nationality family) but that's extremely rare in my opinion. Thais, even from the upper echelons do not use English when communicating amongst themselves or with other Thais...there is no movement in that direction either. Therefore, the CIA World Factbook is dead wrong. Apart from standard Thai, the following should be mentioned about other languages spoken in Thailand: English (used for communicating with foreigners), various Thai dialects (Isan Lao, Northern Thai, etc.), Hill Tribe languages, Mon, Karen, Burmese, Cambodian (Khmer), Isarn-Khmer and others. I believe Burmese and Khmer are worth mentioning because millions of migrant workers reside in Thailand and they speak their native tongues not only amongst each other at home or at work but many businesses in areas with large numbers of these migrant workers are staffed by individuals from these language groups. In Mae Sot, so many businesses are staffed by Burmese that Thai is often not spoken at all and in fact, many of the staff barely speak Thai.

[digibum]

I believe the whole Thai educational system needs a complete overhaul. Thai's are the most backward race I have ever come into contact with.

Commerce expects 2 Degree's, however, in reality they are not worth the paper they are written on.

The lack of real educated individuals Teaching these Students, coupled with over 80% of Thai's cannot communicate in English ensure's Thai's will always be servants to the western world.

You must be under the impression that the failure of the Thai education system is a mistake.

The battle in Thailand right now is between:

Group A: Who owns the vast majority of all farmable land (in a country that derives a good portion of its GDP from farming) and-or sells cheap labor to the rest of the world and thus benefits from keeping people poor, uneducated, cut off from the rest of the world in terms poor English skills to understand what everyone else in the world knows.

Group B: Who knows how to tap into the lack of education and the absence critical thought process being taught in schools in order to win elections and sprinkle a few crumbs around while they loot the country.

Notice how neither of those two has a vested interest in teaching people to think for themselves?

It's not like education is some closely guarded secret by the western world. Seeing as how Thailand is a hub of copying things they could easily duplicate an educational system that resembled US or UK standards.

In 2009, Thailand spent more, as a percentage of GDP, on education than:

Switzerland

Norway

Denmark

USA

Ireland

Sweden

Philippines

UK

Israel

Canada

Belgium

Finland

The Netherlands

Germany

France

Starting to see a reverse correlation here?

Thailand's educational system is not intended to educate. It's indoctrination. That's why they spend so much on it and see themselves falling behind, educationally, to countries spending far, far, far less then they do. Everyone who is anyone in Thailand benefits from keeping the educational system a joke.

But how much of it was actually spent on the educating the students?

No wonder the Minister of Education doesn't want to resign.

Exactly. Thai exceptionalism in skimming money.

[digibum]

i find it interesting in the Honourable Professors article,there seems to be no mention of the concept of Face,which in my opnion is the biggest single thing wrong with Thailand,; no one can compromise because they loose face hence the present political problems,people would rather tell a lie than lose face,people won't say i did wrong,because they lose face,etc,etc,etc.

Face is more of an Asian concept rather than unique to Thailand.

However, the Thai version of face is absurd. Like many things adopted by Thailand, the underlying concept has been twisted and perverted to the point where it's bad form to even catch someone doing something wrong because they'll lose face.

[northernjohn]

Posting problem

Edited May 19, 2014 by northernjohn

[buhi]

i find it interesting in the Honourable Professors article,there seems to be no mention of the concept of Face,which in my opnion is the biggest single thing wrong with Thailand,; no one can compromise because they loose face hence the present political problems,people would rather tell a lie than lose face,people won't say i did wrong,because they lose face,etc,etc,etc.

Face is more of an Asian concept rather than unique to Thailand.

However, the Thai version of face is absurd. Like many things adopted by Thailand, the underlying concept has been twisted and perverted to the point where it's bad form to even catch someone doing something wrong because they'll lose face.

Not sure as this implies morality and " doing something wrong, " is subjective.

[BillyBobThai]

If ASEAN kicks in next year, there are going to be some Thais who are in for a real shock.

[MaxYakov]

digibum, on 19 May 2014 - 13:04, said:

Commander Tamson, on 19 May 2014 - 12:59, said:

The fact that the head of the Ministry of Culture would say that the reason they shot down a proposal to make English the official second language of Thailand because "some people" might wrongly assume Thailand had once been a colonized says pretty much all that needs to be said in terms of how strongly this is implanted into the Thai psyche.

And unless their attitude towards English as a 2nd language changes very quickly, their integration / contribution and benefit from the AEC will be minimal. But hey! By all accounts Thailand will be its hub!?!

Sure, as long as everyone agrees to speak Thai :-)

Oh dear, another one who fails to understand, English is THE international language of business... Thai is NOT, sorry.

Thunk! Miss the smiley did we and/or are we wound a wee bit too tight today?

Edited May 19, 2014 by MaxYakov

[MaxYakov]

I'm waiting for the day Thais realize most of their current culture has been forced down on them by the military since the end of the absolute monarchy. The backlash might be entertaining. The cultural mandates were news to the few Thais I've showed them, not included in history lessons.

Thai Cultural Mandates - 1939-1942 - Wiki

Edited May 19, 2014 by MaxYakov

[ggold]

never seen so much nonsense combined into one article.

and that is also an achievement.

Thainess

[focus27]

I have actually heard a few Thais claim that Ankor wat belonged to them...on what pretext....oh you know because Siam controlled Siem Reap and Battambang for 100 years before it was seceded to the French to become the Khmer territory it rightfully was

by the way, what has become of the conflict for Preah Vihear temple? have the Thais finally realized that they are fighting a losing battle on this one?

Whenever that old chestnut comes up in conversation, I enjoy reminding Thais that the whole of what is now Thailand was a part of the Khmer empire, and before Siam even had a name or a history.

If Thais would open their eyes - and their brains - they might wonder as to why there are so many Khmer-style temples dotted around the country. There are also smaller versions of Angkor with characteristic Khmer features.

[Donnie Brasco]

Here's how you sell copy to Thais.

Do what this learned professor did.

Give 'em something in English that will help them sell their bullshit to themselves . . . . . cause no one else is buyin' it.

The article on Thai exceptionalism is the kind of hagiographic bafflegab that I'd expect scribbled onto a paper towel in Chao Phraya 2 fluffing room.

It's not even worthy of deconstruction and critique.

"Sometimes, 'fuggedabowdit' just means fuggedabowdit. . . . "

[anteater]

I can't believe that this pathetic, sentimental blather was written by a professor. Remind me never to go to Minnesota.

Has he even noticed that there's a near civil war going on here? Has he realised that a fascist called Suthep is trying to take over the country?

[Thai at Heart]

Here's how you sell copy to Thais.

Do what this learned professor did.

Give 'em something in English that will help them sell their bullshit to themselves . . . . . cause no one else is buyin' it.

The article on Thai exceptionalism is the kind of hagiographic bafflegab that I'd expect scribbled onto a paper towel in Chao Phraya 2 fluffing room.

It's not even worthy of deconstruction and critique.

"Sometimes, 'fuggedabowdit' just means fuggedabowdit. . . . "

The only other time I heard of exceptional I am was in referral to the USA and the illuminati.

Some inherent destiny that in some way the USA was bound to succeed because of the strong faith of the people. Complete bunkum of course and even less relevant to Thailand.

[Trouble]

Basically I am at loss for words as to what the professor is saying in his article. I had to read it three times and even on the third reading I still found the article nothing but BS. He states:

"Unfortunately, there is confusion about the meaning of the term exceptionalism. It does not mean superiority, though it can contribute to feeling superior and promoting ultra-nationalism. Its actual meaning is uniqueness; something that one country has that is distinctive, which no other country has. Defined in this way, I have identified a number of examples of Thai exceptionalism. Some are quite important, while others are fascinating but rather trivial."

I don't know about you but I never had any confusion about the term and without going through his laundry list of "exceptionalisms" I really don't find most of the items have all that much bearing on Thai "uniqueness". What was the point of listing the tenth item. So what if the zoo and parliament are in close proximity. Is this guy nuts? The article is poorly written and superficial and the list of items is so inconsequential to Thai "uniqueness" as to be of little benefit in understanding how these things make Thais unique. Not a very scholarly work for someone with a PhD.

Edited May 19, 2014 by Trouble

[Thai at Heart]

I suppose the country is exceptional to the level that it.continues to survive every attempt to destroy it.

[JohnDodd]

Almost a consensus then, Thais are'nt exceptional. Thats for sure in IMHO, Iv'e never met a race of people so stupid and ignorant. That PHD. must of been awarded for sycophancy. Other than some attractive women, Thailand is totally unexceptional.JD

[edwinchester]

19 coup d'etat in 82 years is exceptional imho.

[plachon]

Basically I am at loss for words as to what the professor is saying in his article. I had to read it three times and even on the third reading I still found the article nothing but BS. He states:

"Unfortunately, there is confusion about the meaning of the term exceptionalism. It does not mean superiority, though it can contribute to feeling superior and promoting ultra-nationalism. Its actual meaning is uniqueness; something that one country has that is distinctive, which no other country has. Defined in this way, I have identified a number of examples of Thai exceptionalism. Some are quite important, while others are fascinating but rather trivial."

I don't know about you but I never had any confusion about the term and without going through his laundry list of "exceptionalisms" I really don't find most of the items have all that much bearing on Thai "uniqueness". What was the point of listing the tenth item. So what if the zoo and parliament are in close proximity. Is this guy nuts? The article is poorly written and superficial and the list of items is so inconsequential to Thai "uniqueness" as to be of little benefit in understanding how these things make Thais unique. Not a very scholarly work for someone with a PhD.

I think those latter points are just an excuse to name drop Mr Condom, and prove that he gets most of his information about Thai history, politics and culture from visits to Cabbages and Condoms to dine with Mechai and associated royalist friends, rather than any profound knowledge of Thailand's perceived exceptionalism and society. It is a superficial account definitely, that actually proceeds to strengthen the phenomenon he purports to want to debunk. His failure to mention the draconian lese majeste and defamation laws is evidence of this selective myopia.

[tartempion]

19 coup d'etat in 82 years is exceptional imho.

When will we have a crack down on coup d'états?

[northernjohn]

I have actually heard a few Thais claim that Ankor wat belonged to them...on what pretext....oh you know because Siam controlled Siem Reap and Battambang for 100 years before it was seceded to the French to become the Khmer territory it rightfully was

by the way, what has become of the conflict for Preah Vihear temple? have the Thais finally realized that they are fighting a losing battle on this one?

Whenever that old chestnut comes up in conversation, I enjoy reminding Thais that the whole of what is now Thailand was a part of the Khmer empire, and before Siam even had a name or a history.

If Thais would open their eyes - and their brains - they might wonder as to why there are so many Khmer-style temples dotted around the country. There are also smaller versions of Angkor with characteristic Khmer features.

Siam Reap Cambodian for Siam defeated.