Once A Maid, Always A Maid?

[Martin]

But there is so much in that 'stream of consciousness' that it is worth the effort of following it!

If 'postie' didn't have the time to edit his stream into an 'easy read', I am glad that he posted it 'as was', rather than not posting at all.

If 'postie', or anybody else, has lots of time, that stream of consciousness could be 'fleshed out' into a Master's thesis.

I have seen many Master's Theses, and a few PhD ones, with less 'real meat on their bones' than that.

I thought that "Hung like a black" might get the chop, so I 'saved' it, and will do the same with the 'stream of consciousness'.

[Martin]

For 'jdinasia':

When I saved the above postings, your avatar came up full page width.

It is a superb photograph, and one could wonder for quite a while about what might lie behind the expression on the face of the young monk at the front.

On the topic of "Once a maid...", yesterday, as I was driving, my thoughts on it went back to about 1946-50.

I remembered a preacher announcing that we would sing "All things bright and beautiful...", but omit verse X.

In his sermon, he spoke of why he had omitted verse X. It went:

The rich man in his castle,

The poor man at the gate,

God made them high and lowly,

And ordered their estate.

He told us that our old hymn books that dated from the 1920s would soon be replaced by new ones, and we would no longer be seeing that verse. He spoke on how religous thought, political thought, social thought, educational thought, and economic thought, advance side by side and how each affects the others, but sometimes with delays (that might be beneficial, or upsetting).

Neither they nor he knew it, but two lads listening to that sermon were to become County Councillors for that patch and one would be liberal-conservative and the other would be liberal-socialist.

I wish that I understood Thai and could hear what some of the wisest monks are saying on this topic.

[Postie]

Postie "Posting!"

Sorry, jdinasia...

The post was in a state of flux. An emergency came up and I went to anchor what was there!

Yes. It is way from coherent (even to me) to decipher...

...So gather round. I will map out my "flow."

Controlling elements exist in every collective. Titled families, Dynasties whatever.

Freemasonry is a Grass Roots element of the social interface.

Wealth and power (with corruption as a sideline) require some stability.

The ability to overview, predict...Control.

Control/The Farang in Thailand.

This little mushroom farm of a site forms part of the Expeditionary Force.

It is doing what the farang have done for centuries.

The posting I made (77) was edited by Wolfie. I agree with his sentiments. He was working in the interests of Thai Visa Inc. In isolation, the wording could be grossly insulting.

I had limited time to compose an explanation for what I had written.

Re- Post 77

The use of the term bl*ck is initiated as one of desire.

When telling this to bl*ck friends...You can't finish for their laughter and derision at a "white" joke using the term..."Hung like a bl*ck"...!

Honestly. It can be hilarious time TRYING to finish the joke.

...with the edit (and threat)

It left the original posting (77) a "Bit flat".

A Thai sentiment...

I want to GROW on my own.

I do not want to be PICKED like a flower.

To be PLACED in YOUR vase.

To be admired

and then DIE.

Look after Thailand for what it

Was and Is.

[Postie]

Rascism in Moderation.

Darwin

Jokes forum...Rascist/funny

please read before edited.

[Martin]

Good joke, 'postie'.

I have sent it on its way to pals in Blighty.

I think it may well survive on that board!

[Pakboong]

A very interesting thread. Way to cerebral for me but I must get my two cents in. I can't help but think that urban professionals control most things. I suspect it is this group who so violently oppose Thaksin and his clan. Any thing to raise the poor to a higher level seems to be opposed with vigor by these folks. I have been watching it develop for over 30 years and the obstacles for advancement of the poor seem rigorously entrenched.

[Martin]

I thoroughly agree with what 'pakboong' says about urban professionals. And it applies throughout the world---even more strongly in some other countries than in Thailand.

George Bernard Shaw was spot on when he observed: "Every profession is a conspiracy against a laity".

The majority of urban professionals want to exploit the poor, but also they fear them.

The fear comes from the thought that: "Maybe the poor are as bright as we are (but have not had our schooling), and there is a lot more of them than there are of us".

Hence scholarships are offered to the brightest of the poor. That way, those who might become leaders of the poor are seduced into becoming members of an urban profession, and can be 'used' against the poor, rather than staying amongst the poor, as a potential threat.

There are a minority of the urban professionals who are 'on the side of the underdog', but their conscience/generosity/altruism that may lead them to serve on behalf of the poor makes them seen to be "traitors in the class war" by the rest of their profession.

In my opinion, the worst of the urban professions is the teaching profession. They 'brain wash' the children of the poor on behalf of the controlling urban professions, but have the cheek to try to pretend that they are serving those kids, and so they should be looked up to by the poor!

But very few teachers are guilty of doing of doing it consciously. Most have been 'brain washed' into the system themselves.

Interestingly, though, I notice that in Thailand the urban professionals seem to take a slightly different line with the rural poor, from their line with the urban poor.

Those urban professionals who have their roots amongst the rural poor seem to want to stay on good relations, and so they visit their poor rural relatives at Songkran etc.

I put it down to the subconscious fear that, one day, they may wake up to find that the whole urban thing has gone 'pearshaped', and the only way to eat will be to return to their family rural roots.

[Erwin1011]

In any society, there will always be a split between the "haves and the have nots" and the ones somewhere in between. Pareto's law is, as in many other cases, applicable here: 20% of the population owns 80% of the resources.

And there will be always "stabilising" forces who want to keep the 20 % that way and "revelutionary" forces who want to shift more units into or closer to the 20%.

Where it becomes dangerous is when the pareto starts getting distorted to the extreme (say 5% owns 95%) This is known as a pre-revolutionary condition. ( existing in Russia of the Csars, Imperial China, France at the time of the Sun king and more recently in certain African regions).

It does not make any difference what the political condition of the country is -a so called democracy, a dictatorship of any kind, when these conditions exist, ANY event may spark a violent reaction.

Currently it seems that these conditions to different degrees exist in certain parts of Asia ( Regions in China and India, The Philippines, Myanmar, Indonesia and yes ... more and more so in Thailand and to a lesser extent in South America and certainly in Africa)

When governments (of any kind) do not manage the Pareto split appropriately, power shifts will take place. This may be achieved peacefully (election results) or forcefully. When it is achieved by force, it simply may lead to another distorted Pareto split ( i.e. military coups )

The driving force of the change will always come from the group that has just a little bit more than the have nots. (the so called middle class) but will be limited to a relatively small group of individuals (idealists). When the idealists manage to harnass sufficent support of the have nots, sudden shifts will occur...

[Postie]

There are many ways of exploiting "the poor".

Education, as Martin has mentioned. Assimilation process number one.

Offering a way out of the Rat Pit but conditioning YOU all the way.

My wife was lucky to have been schooled by, in part, Theravada monks.

Who had the perspective of One to One interface. Nurturing, not force feeding.

Advertising and broadcasting perpetuate the Assimilation process,

until death comes knocking at the door.

The Thai System does not allow products to be adorned with "false (emotional) associations."

I find this liberating.

In Thailand, I don't have to wade through piles of packaging when home.

...Weigh up quality, price of item (note availability)

...Buy/Don't Buy.

If a person wants a product...

A bit of "leg work" to find what is on offer.

Find someone who knows this type of product (eg. Tractors or Dragon fruit)

Potential bargaining for the best deal.

Purchase best available option.

Westerners cannot take on board the Theravada Buddhist mindset of Contentment.

As "WE" are perpetually assaulted with "What we NEED"

(and the % loan that is part of the dream...Well done. Bondage.)

The young Thais, like young all over the world...Want everything that is waved in front of them.

Their inertia and ignorance mean they are following the Pied Piper.

This may seem to be at a tangent to

"Once a maid, always a maid...Social mobility for Thais"

but...

People follow a Good Option, in order to better their lot.

Some farang (try to) choose Thailand.

Some countryside Thais choose the City and Farangland.

Conservative thought or lack of options, can be in the mind and inertia of the individual.

Hey!

Brown face scenario (Us and Them) Doesn't happen in the West.

Does it..?

[Martin]

Although I agree with the tenor of 'Erwin1011's posting, I don't foresee a violent reaction occurring in Thailand.

Mass uprising is not in the Tai-peoples nature, nor is it in the nature of the sort of Chinese who would emigrate here "with only a pillow and a mat" and whose children would co-exist, even intermarry, happily with the Tai of Thailand.

So there is a congenital disposition to be non-violent.

(Individuals may 'lose it' at times, but that is all.)

And, although I agree with the tenor of 'postie's posting, I think it is going a bit too far to say:

"Westerners cannot take on board the Theravada Buddhist mindset of Contentment".

I would delete 'cannot', and substitute 'have very little chance to' in its place.

The conditioning that we Westerners have been subjected to will mean that most will never look to adopting Contentment, but there are a quiet, serene, few who do.

The thing that I most dislike about the present-day West, though, is that its schooling systems chase exam results to the extent that kids have no chance to develop their abilities to resist being conditioned. And then you have a generation that is conditioned to condition the next one into Discontentment.

Forty years ago, my late wife and I were fortunate that we could leave Outer London and take our kids to bring them up on a small farm in the depths of rurality.

We saw the 'refugees from modernity' come (and most of them go): the Flower Power, the Hippies, the middle-class-retiree Self Sufficientists.

But the thing those 'refugees' had in common was an uneasiness with the discontent of their previous lives, and a gut feeling that Contentment did exist, if only they could find it.

When the industrial economies go 'Phut", and George Bush seems determined to make it happen on his watch, there will be a lot of Westerners wanting to take on board 'Contentment'.

Of those who manage to get clear with some physical gold in their pockets, a proportion will head this way, I guess.

Their maids will be in with a good chance of being encouraged to aspire to something beyond being always a maid.

[Postie]

Agreed, Martin.

I was presenting "cannot" as a collective mindset.

There are English Theravada monks!

The Collective Ratrace, western style.

Let us not underestimate the salient fact-

Thailand is a Matriarchal society. Not in it lineage but in it's family based perspective.

WE come from a Patriarch spread of societies.

I think this underpins the stability of Thai- Siam national identity.

The individual is always conscious of Mother (Genetically as the family ovum, next, the "Nation" and it's wellbeing)

This is why farang are entertained as "providers"

The answer to the Forum Post lies with a Thai perspective.

[jamman]

I like the sentiments of Postie and Martin. Success is too often simply equated with money. It must be partly biological that we are so status hungry - even the social animals look at status to see who to have sex with. But contentment and money are not always correlated, and the endless striving for bonus points is distracting.

[thohts]

I had limited time to compose an explanation for what I had written.

Re- Post 77

The use of the term bl*ck is initiated as one of desire.

When telling this to bl*ck friends...You can't finish for their laughter and derision at a "white" joke using the term..."Hung like a bl*ck"...!

Honestly. It can be hilarious time TRYING to finish the joke.

"black" is a not a bad word. But I'm sure you knew that.

Now.. back to the topic at hand.

[thohts]

:deleted:

must learn how to use forum!

Edited July 11, 2006 by thohts

[Martin]

In the Matriarchy/Patriarchy thing, 'postie', I think that I am the exception that proves your rule!!

It happened that both my grandfathers were a bit unusual in that they had abiding interests outside the home, wanted to hand over the 'domestic management' thing to a wife, and so married wives who were born 'to rule the roost'.

Men marry women who are like their mothers, so my father married a congenital matriarch.

And I have done it twice.

Victorian mechanicalism induced a mindset that gives insufficient attention to inherited traits. But they haven't gone away. And one that crops up, in a minority, is refusal to run in the collective rat-race.

So there will be Thai maids who are fulfilled by being always a maid, but there will be others who will escape to 'run their own show'.

I'll bet there are a lot of Thai businesswomen who 'moved out and up' from maidery, but they will keep it very much to themselves.

[jdinasia]

I still can't follow Postie's remarks ... oh well

[Postie]

Dear jd in asia.

Abstract. Referring to ideas or qualities rather than material objects.

Not applied or practical; theoretical.

Thai- The people: Oriental, yet with an established Western Interface.

Farang - Un Oriental...

Expansionist,

Industrialist. (Heavy)

and

Various competing

(often warring)

Colonial "Powers"

Two diametrically opposed cultures. That you (jd) have a marked interest in -

(with your study of Asian languages)

Two cultures, evolved from different roots...

With constrasting philosophies, goals...values.

Interface. An area where two things interact or link."The interface between Islamic culture and Western modernity"

Tell me why so many farang are involved in murders in Thailand?

The answer is a lack of understanding.

Assumptions.

Your gut instincts are based on the culture you can read well.

Yet you have isolated yourself from "your" culture.

WHY?

Westerners fight for the "fun of it", on many physical and emotional levels.

We fly right in the face of Respect of the individual (and their beliefs)

Yet trumpet

And I mean TRUMPET!

Liberty.

(As long as We are Giving IT)

Freedom.

(As long it's Our perception of the word)

This list could ramble on...You get the idea?

How do you all think farang are weighed up?

When WE stop bolstering up somewhere with Our Cash...

...and make a claim on "Someones' backyard?"

This is why I pitched in with the (Edited) BLACK MAN / WHITE MAN joke.

It bore an essential barb that we should note.

Our actions promote opposing actions

(If only as stored knowledge)

WE ARE ENTERTAINED.

IN THE BROADEST SENSE OF THE WORD.

jd in asia...Yes, I type in a load of bo**ocks (It's a forum, not binding contract)

...but I like it that way.

It has tangents off in all directions. Ridiculous, frustrating, In Your Face, ethereal...

Yet it constantly throws up what I have seen in Thailand, as a farang.

You may know the language.

But will be recognised as Farang.

Your partner and family may love you.

Yet others will watch you with amusement or concern.

You will have your broad knowledge base.

But know bo**ocks.

NEVER let em know EXACTLY what you're thinking.

Pip pip!

[jdinasia]

ok ... just too wierd .... time to click on that special box and make something incoherant disappear.

[Martin]

We have been discussing whether a 'maid' can move out of 'maidery' into something else in the hierarchy.

But is there a hierarchy, and 'career progression', within Thai maidery?

In the UK, until World War Two 'released' women into all walks of life, and also levelled incomes amongst social groups, there was a strong hierarchy from kitchen maid or parlour maid, through to Cook or Nanny.

[Postie]

Martin, jdinasia and co.

Do you have Thai friends, partners? (Yes)

Do they have friends, contacts. (Yes)

Then why don't You ASK them?

Better still.

Put the question raised TO THEM.

Come back with EXACTLY what you discovered.

As I have mentioned many times...

It is an Interface.

We have the interesting situation of dual perspectives (Thai-Farang)

I feel sure we could glean information on "How a Maid's lot has changed"

across the generations.

Therefore, augmenting the original.

Edited July 15, 2006 by Postie

[kenk3z]

My wife has been here in the USA now for about 18 months. It is interesting to tell her my first impressions of Thailand and to hear hers about America.

We just had a conversation that surprised me a bit, yet I instantly understood that it had to be true. She had just come out of the grocery store with a cart of food and as we were driving off, she said "American young people are not shy to work." I didn't really comprehend what she meant, so she continued. "In Thailand, young people don't want to work in lower jobs, because people will see them doing that and think they are poor." (She was referring to the young people who run the cash register and bag the products.)

Talk about a self-defeating attitude - you're poor, and you don't want to work because someone will SEE you working and know you're poor.

Somewhat related, her family always discouraged her ambition to go to higher education. "Why do you want to waste money doing that? It's expensive and you'll never see any benefit from it."

So I think there has to be some acceptance of this social stratification on the part of Thais as the "easy" way to live.

To some extent you see the same thing in America in certain social groups.

A lot of it has to do with the way each generation's children are taught. And what they as individuals choose to believe.

kenk3z

[Martin]

America wasn't hierarchical, because there were opportunities for everybody with ability and willingness to work to succeed and 'rise'

Also, from the Founding Fathers on, Americans were mostly immigrants who had had the 'get up and go' to escape from hierarchical situations in Europe.

But hierarchies are always on the defensive against the insidious ways of a proportion of the people wanting meritocracy. They may 'hold their ground' in some skirmishes, but will lose a bit in others, and can never gain it back.

Generally Tai people in all countries are 'mae pen lai' and not 'uppity'.

However, the Chinese (and particularly those who would emigrate 'with only a pillow and a mat') are go-getters.

It may take them quite a few generations, but ultimately they produce a Thaksin Shinawatra to threaten to disturb the cosy hierarchical status quo.

[Postie]

AT LAST.

THE THAI PERSPECTIVE.

(Anyone else know a Thai person?)

Edited July 15, 2006 by Postie