Do Thai people hate reading?

[upinthesky]

On top there is a Thai texts said "Comment and complaint box" while the blue bar said "For commenting and reporting" and you can see this box is full of coin and banknote. People thought it is a donation box.

[manarak]

spot on - many can't be bothered to read. anything.

[cooked]

Many can hardly read, so don't have a bad conscience if you can't read Thai either. It's difficult.

[hanno]

Here we go again

The Thais I know are avid readers but I guess it depends in what circles you move......

[balo]

Yes they can read.

Everyone carrying a smart phone reads FB messages daily. Maybe that's why you think they can't read , spotting a Thai reading an old fashioned book is a rare sight in 2015.

Edited February 18, 2015 by balo

[Sviss Geez]

Instead of bashing the Thais why not give them some credit for their generosity?

How long did you wait there surveying the scene; long enough to establish that it was actually only Thais to blame for this terrible transgression? Maybe the donors were foreigners not as skilled as you in the Thai language?

[hanno]

Yes they can read.

Everyone carrying a smart phone reads FB messages daily. Maybe that's why you think they can't read , spotting a Thai reading an old fashioned book is a rare sight in 2015.

This. I manage a hotel catering to Westerners and I hardly ever see people reading printed media anymore.

[Suradit69]

Instead of bashing the Thais why not give them some credit for their generosity?

How long did you wait there surveying the scene; long enough to establish that it was actually only Thais to blame for this terrible transgression? Maybe the donors were foreigners not as skilled as you in the Thai language?

The O/P's question is of course absurd and assumes everyone in Thailand is the same. In any event, how do you know everyone who deposited the coins was Thai. Farangs pay for electricity too and probably walk away with some coins in hand.

I see plenty of Thais reading newspapers everyday. Every time I go into a Thai language bookshop there's lots of people checking out the books. Someone must buy them or the newspapers, publishers and bookshops would go out of business.

How many farang bother to read directions or users' manuals. Does that mean they hate to read or can't be bothered.

I guess these farang hate to read:

Edited February 19, 2015 by Suradit69

[berybert]

Instead of bashing the Thais why not give them some credit for their generosity?

How long did you wait there surveying the scene; long enough to establish that it was actually only Thais to blame for this terrible transgression? Maybe the donors were foreigners not as skilled as you in the Thai language?

The O/P's question is of course absurd and assumes everyone in Thailand is the same. In any event, how do you know everyone who deposited the coins was Thai. Farangs pay for electricity too and probably walk away with some coins in hand.

I see plenty of Thais reading newspapers everyday. Every time I go into a Thai language bookshop there's lots of people checking out the books. Someone must buy them or the newspapers, publishers and bookshops would go out of business.

How many farang bother to read directions or users' manuals. Does that mean they hate to read or can't be bothered.

I guess these farang hate to read:

Does this mean all White people speak English ?

[Rumblecat]

Instead of bashing the Thais why not give them some credit for their generosity?

How long did you wait there surveying the scene; long enough to establish that it was actually only Thais to blame for this terrible transgression? Maybe the donors were foreigners not as skilled as you in the Thai language?

The O/P's question is of course absurd and assumes everyone in Thailand is the same. In any event, how do you know everyone who deposited the coins was Thai. Farangs pay for electricity too and probably walk away with some coins in hand.

I see plenty of Thais reading newspapers everyday. Every time I go into a Thai language bookshop there's lots of people checking out the books. Someone must buy them or the newspapers, publishers and bookshops would go out of business.

How many farang bother to read directions or users' manuals. Does that mean they hate to read or can't be bothered.

I guess these farang hate to read:

Does this mean all White people speak English ?

To be fair there is a drawing of someone swimming a red line struck through it which is pretty much the universal symbol for 'don't do this'. But I don't think the person who posted this photo is seriously suggesting the people couldn't read the sign or failed to understand what the sign said. Rather that they just ignored it.

[Hal65]

Let's not be too politically correct. I am consistently told by foreigners and Thais alike that Thais just don't like to read. Part of the reason is the culture, part of the reason may also be difficulties of their written form of language that make reading a little bit more inconvenient. There are no spaces between Thai words, only sentences. As you can imagine this greatly slows down the pace of reading as each sentence becomes a mini puzzle to solve.

[redandyellow]

All complaint boxes should be full, that'll fix it

Complaints and Stress, 2 words that never should have been invented...

Signed,

Psychosomatic Disorders

[Mencken]

I think the language is absolutely tedious. My wife us vollege graduate but admittedly no genius. The time it takesher to read something short is ridiculous. They need to revuse the languages of all these Pali based systems. Speed readers of English can easily plow through upwatds of 300 wpm.

But I do think the education hugely substandard at all levels incl best universities.

The culture emphasizes fun, that's why we are here. You want an intellect, go marry a Russian and you can drink snd debate Gogol snd Turgenev all nignt long.

[Langsuan Man]

If you want a real world answer to the question of " do Thai people hate reading ", just try an buy a book case in this country

[AlexRRR]

Its a complaints box in soi cowboy that answers the posters question.

[hanno]

If you want a real world answer to the question of " do Thai people hate reading ", just try an buy a book case in this country

IKEA.

[madmax6889]

Here we go again

The Thais I know are avid readers but I guess it depends in what circles you move......

hey sure I know thai nerds who read lord of the rings, harry bloody potter... might and magic type rpg shit and fantasy novels watch star trek ect ect.. but they are the abnormal 1 or 2%

they are people I know because they speak English and are familiar with foreigners thorough the internet and such things they are not normal thai people..

these people are nerds in Thailand geeks. freaks...

normal thais don't read anything.. they read candy crush and angry birds and the mc donlads logo..

there is no book in their houses..

you can see how much they read by how much thai content there in on the internet.. 0.3% of internet content finnish also 0.3%.. and remember nearly all finnish content is in or in both English and finnish!! so just official websites and shit will be in only their native language.. they are proficient in English - thais don't even speak or read thai properly for the most part..

there is about 70 million people in Thailand and 5.5 million in finland... so you can see the problem there...

finnish people mostly using English on the net and interacting on the "English internet" thais- not reading things and don't care

the reason they don't read shit is because mostly they are ignorant..

just like why they don't pronounce words correctly in their own language or spell things correctly..

for nerds in Thailand a constant point of frustration..

here is a good example at money point of was involved in business sint eh area of manufacturing..

you know even a homeless guy in the former soviet block knows the periodic table and the elements and if they don't know the same name for them as you for osme reason they will draw the latin symbol and youll know..

in Thailand university educated people don't know the difference between brass and bronze or lead and tin :S

they are not intelligent its that simple..

there is no culture of intellect..

no times for discussion

no political intellectual or historical debate.

no ideas or concepts being discussed..

there is no intellectual beer halls or coffee or tea houses or engineers halls or other uch places our ancestors use to duscuss such topics of man nature and the world..

thais don't have and such culture as this.. just a base society.. ran by a few people..

as you get into the villages you can really see it starkly..

its kind of the reverse you can see in some middle eastern countries that are consumed with religious fanatics now had at one point in the distant past.. maybe 1000 years back maybe .....they had a culture of political scientific and social debate.. they gather at noon or after work to discuss things and debate stuff but now its all crazy religious crap but .. at one point not so..

but Thailand dosnt have this AT ALL nothing not a single thing..

its like those redshirts.. they were just payed to turn up...its not like some mullah in yemen that sits around and convinces them through various religious books over tea and hala certified snacks to go out and do crazy shit... its just here 500 bht now cause a riot...

so you have a culture of very materialistic little kids ..

books nothing they wont get you rich.. some old guy from Denmark whos 50 years older than you that will now go play angry birds..

actually theydont teach their kids things.. I should point this out, there is no father son connection or mother daughter connection here..and most children are raised by a alternating group of family members who pass the kid around like a toy when they tire of them or decide they don't want to spend more money for their upkeep...

pearental discipline and character development is not in line with western culture and generaly here parents will only teach easy things to their kids.. but the expect the school to teach all.. so most of what thai kids actually learn is from school which in turn will make reading look like a job not fun.

people don't ready stories to their children or tell stories like they do in other cultures..

I was raised in a culture where story telling was common, my father being a skilled teller of stories. and so by proxy reading a book was also something that would be fun.. my parents would ask whats the capital of this place.. whos that..where is this.. ect ect and tell me to do things my self id seen them do.. dill a hole sharpen a knife ect..

thais don't do this at all..

I have Japanese friends here or a horrified by it.. the only things thais read are comics... in japan people are very active and avid readers.. its abnormal for somebody not to read at all where as in Thailand its normal..

[madmax6889]

I think the language is absolutely tedious. My wife us vollege graduate but admittedly no genius. The time it takesher to read something short is ridiculous. They need to revuse the languages of all these Pali based systems. Speed readers of English can easily plow through upwatds of 300 wpm.

But I do think the education hugely substandard at all levels incl best universities.

The culture emphasizes fun, that's why we are here. You want an intellect, go marry a Russian and you can drink snd debate Gogol snd Turgenev all nignt long.

yes true . not just Russia tatar, Georgian, Mongolian Kazakh ukranian Czech Romanian.... ect many former soviet block nations youll find pretty women who repsect intellect.. and who can hold a good conversation.. youll also find sluts who never read anything more than the directions on their nail polish.. but its an even balance and both types of girl and both will suck your dick at the end of the night if you have luck

in Thailand its not an even balance.. its like 1 to 60 ratio...

the girl im with now loves to read but mostly its factoids or shit like that website cracked... or historical things.. not so much novels.. this si amazingly abnormal for any thai person male or female..but shell spend 3 hours per day looking that shit up and reading.. she was looking at nazi concentration camp guards confessions guards the other day..

thing is its bloody hard to find anything in thai so most of her weird reading is done in English.

about thai language and writing system being messed up yes so true Vietnamese, lao and kambodian have latin scrips that all work far better..

but look chinese ideograms are far far far worse than thai and much crazier to read but chinese still read them..

my g/f has no trouble to read things all day long and quite rapidly..

because she is interested...

but still at the end of the day she has no interest to dicuss these topics she will just read privately.. there is no culture of discussion and debate here.