The Abhisit Tragedy
The good people of Thailand have a long history of meekly acquiescing to coups d’état. So it was not altogether surprising that they appeared to collectively breathe a sigh of relief when Abhisit Vejjajiva emerged from the siege of Suvarnabhumi and Don Muang airports with just enough parliamentary votes to become Thailand’s 27th Prime Minister. By-elections held on January 11 gave him an unexpected boost. The Democrat Party picked up a handful seats; its performance in a number of constituencies in Northern and Central Thailand improved markedly. The Thai people, it seems, genuinely want the new government to succeed.
In truth, Thai voters have never really liked Mr. Abhisit. The Democrat Party has lost every national election it contested under his leadership. Some joke that this Oxford-educated son of privilege needs a visa to travel to the rural areas where most Thais still reside. Despite his clean, boyish looks, Abhisit is manifestly squirmy and uncomfortable in his own skin – his charisma and charm scarcely exceeding that expected of the greyest, most anonymous of menial clerical workers at the lowest rungs of the country’s vast bureaucracy. To be sure, Barack Obama he is not. But having witnessed the People’s Alliance for Democracy inflict still untold damage on the Thai economy and the country’s increasingly tenuous image around the world, many ordinary people were simply relieved when Thailand’s bureaucratic, economic, and military elites executed the final stage of a carefully orchestrated plan – first, by using their control of the courts to remove a government their paramilitary and military wings had mortally wounded through a mixture of terrorism and insubordination; then, by forking out the cash needed to buy off a sufficient number of MPs to form their very own “nominee government.” Precisely because of the elite support it enjoys, at the very least Abhisit’s government promised to return the country to a measure of normalcy. And, unlike the coterie of swine that has ruled Thailand for decades, the Thai people can reliably be counted on to place country over partisan interest.
Then came this week. First, that is, came the appalling story of monstrous human rights abuses the Thai military perpetrated on the hundreds of Rohingya refugees, towed out to the high seas on barges equipped with no engines nor sails, left to drown and starve to death. As many as 500 of them are still unaccounted for and presumed dead. Then came the heart-breaking images, beamed into every television set around the world, of a young Australian man standing behind iron bars, weeping, chained and shackled like a fucking animal for having written a novel no one had ever bothered to read. It’s not just that, as the BBC’s Jonathan Head noted in a recent piece, these events may signal the end of Mr. Abhisit’s honeymoon with the Thai people and the most facile segments of the foreign press. After all, most Thais did not hold it against Thaksin Shinawatra when security forces murdered, in cold blood, dozens of Muslim demonstrators at Kru Ze and Tak Bai. Very few of them, moreover, would have lost any sleep over the fate of Harry Nicolaides.
The problem is not just that Mr. Abhisit’s crisp, white business shirt is now stained with Harry’s tears and spatters of Rohingya blood. It is not just that Mr. Abhisit has graduated, in record time, to the rank of serial human rights abuser his patrons have long (and somewhat proudly) held. It is not just that Mr. Abhisit is now an accessory to torture, murder, and the violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – not to mention the very acts of terrorism and treason that elevated him to the position he currently occupies. The real problem is that it is now increasingly clear that Mr. Abhisit is blithe to make apologies for the same practices he vociferously denounced during Thaksin Shinawatra 5-year tenure in office. To put it bluntly, the events of the past weeks have shattered the entire public case that Abhisit and his puppeteers have made to justify Thaksin’s (and his handpicked successors’) removal from power.
Corruption? Oh please. I find it rather hard to believe that the 40 million baht each member of the Friends of Newin faction seems to have been given in exchange for jumping ship should not count as corruption. Or that Newin himself, Thailand’s foremost vote-buyer, has somehow cleansed himself and restored his virginity. Wasting government resources to curry favor with low-income voters? It seems to me that the new government’s 2,000 baht handout to 10 million people, not to mention the slew of populist proposals the new government has recently devised, are driven by electoral considerations at least as much as Thaksin’s policies were. Silencing dissent? Give me a break. From day one, Mr. Abhisit has moved to silence his opposition through the gross abuse of the nation’s barbarous lèse majesté legislation. Murder? Now let’s be serious. Mr. Abhisit has not shied away from duly exculpating the military in the lurid Rohingya affair – all evidence to the contrary be damned. He has even reached into Robert Mugabe’s bag of tricks as he stonewalled the UN’s attempt to gain access to the victims of his government’s abuses, accused eye-witnesses (and, I guess, everyone who has viewed their footage) of hallucinating, and then played to nationalist sentiment by promising the Thai people he would strenuously defend the country from foreign invaders.
The catastrophic, shameful performance of Mr. Abhisit’s cabinet has rendered it clear to anyone paying attention that the cries for a cleaner, more honest government that accompanied his rise to power were a fraud. To be sure, Thaksin Shinawatra’s government had an abominable human rights record. But, unlike Mr. Abhisit, Thaksin came to power through legitimate means, not by trampling all over whatever was left of the country’s democracy. Unlike Mr. Abhisit, Thaksin’s power was grounded in a decisive popular mandate, not the commands of a tiny, unaccountable elite wielding enormous extra-legal power. And, for all his faults, Thaksin never was the groveling, slobbering bootlicker the new Prime Minister has shown himself to be. So what was the point of all this, if not merely to substitute the will of the weak and dispossessed for that of the rich and the powerful?
Of course, there is an interesting historical precedent to Thailand’s current predicament. Back in 1991, in what was supposed to have been Thailand’s last coup, General Suchinda Kraprayoon seized power from elected Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan. The case made against Chatichai was remarkably similar to (if perhaps even weaker than) that concocted against Thaksin. Citing the intolerable corruption of his “buffet cabinet” and the presence of many “unusually wealthy” politicians in its midst, Suchinda promised reforms, investigations, and a swift return to democracy. And, much like the generals did in 2006, Suchinda moved swiftly to reform the constitution in a way that would entrench, as The Nation put it back then, Thailand’s status as “a dictatorship in the guise of democracy.”
At first, the public largely acquiesced – having been given little reason to bemoan the ouster of a corrupt democratic government. But it didn’t take long for Suchinda to make a mockery of the case he had made to remove Chatichai. The newly formed Samakkhitham party enlisted the support of 80 former MPs and 11 former cabinet ministers, each of whom appears to have been given 500,000 baht for their campaigns (see Murray’s 1996 book Angels and Devils). That alone was not enough to win a majority of seats in the March 1992 elections, so Samakkhitham was forced to put together a coalition government. Ironically, the only parties available to form a coalition with Samakkhitham were those Suchinda had overthrown the year before — Chat Thai and Social Action Party — under the pretense of saving democracy.
In the space of one year, Thailand had come full circle. Suchinda had come to power promising to clean up the system. He aggressively went after (some) corrupt politicians and confiscated their assets. To cling to power, however, he had little option but to let these very same people off the hook, promise to return them to their lucrative posts, and set on using their same electoral practices. The result was that Thailand would have much the same government it did before, if with the added bonus of having the military back at the helm. Confronted with the obvious hypocrisy of Suchinda’s regime, it was the same urban middle income voters who had applauded his rise to power a year earlier who forced the military’s shameful ouster during the events of Black May 1992. Sounds familiar?
Reports of a brewing backlash notwithstanding, all this may ultimately not matter to the clique of generals and former generals who put Abhisit in power. They still have the people’s apathy on their side – not to mention that the Thai people understandably have little taste for the kind of chaos the elites have wrought upon the country over the past several months. What is more, Thaksin’s coalition (virtually the only serious threat to their power) may now be irreparably fractured.
At a minimum, however, this is Abhisit’s own personal tragedy. Having shown himself to be just as contemptuous of democratic values and just as callously indifferent to human suffering as his rather more accomplished predecessor, barely a month into his ill-gotten term Abhisit’s reputation and credibility is in tatters. It remains to be seen whether the segment of the electorate who had bought the PAD’s (and Abhisit’s) demonstrably empty calls for a cleaner, more honest government will take to the streets to demand a return to democracy, reversing themselves just as they did in 1992. But any prospect that Abhisit will ever be able to exercise power without the support of his current masters, from whom he might have ultimately hoped to extricate himself, appear increasingly fanciful as this tragic charade continues to unfold. Their crimes are now his own. Now more transparently than ever, Abhisit is nothing more than the handsome face of a loathsome dictatorial regime.
(6 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)
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I call this the Patty Hearst Syndrome, after the American heiress who was at once the captive and the accomplice of a politically inspired criminal gang. This is not at all special, but the fate of every public official working for a military dictatorship.
Another devastatingly accurate and succinct commentary on the Thai condition. Well done that man.
Tom
Abhisit a captive of the military…… – so what was Thaksin’s excuse?
Thaksin was screwed because he tried to lead his country out of the clutches of the military and their civilian captives/accomplices. Like most other high-status Thais, Thaksin is morally unattractive, but he offered genuine hope that the centre of power in Thailand was moving from the barracks to the parliament. The people in the barracks might have balls but no morals, but like the rest of his fellow captives/accomplices, Abhisit has neither.
another excellent post !
(although I liked Dictatorship of the “poo yai” more)
it is good to see Abheesit being exposed for what he is. hopefully this sort of truth will reach both international observers as well as ordinary Thais (I saw some blog in Thai regularly posting the translation of most English articles).
also I am glad that Suchinda was mentioned.
it is such a shame that such a shamelessly blunt BLOODY MURDERER as Suchinda is still not only free, but even frequently shown on TV giving interviews, comments, opinions.
Democracy in Thailand ? what a joke !
R. N. England
“The people in the barracks might have balls but no morals, but like the rest of his fellow captives/accomplices, Abhisit has neither.”
spot on ! that is why he is called rather Abheesit :)
(or some even say Abhee-heet :D )
Their treatment of the Rohingya refugees reminds us of a central truth about Thais. On the whole, they are arrogant, smug, imperious, and brutal; but then again, Thais have considerable difficulty finding anyone with whom they have the courage to give these characteristics free rein.
The sort of foreigners you find in Thailand have had to go a long way down the social scale to find people they can lord it over. Thais have to go even further. A lot further.
This is an excellent review of recent history and how it clearly repeats it’self in The Land of Smiles, with relentless assaults on any form of democracy, preventing it ever having the chance to develop.
Is this blog-site available in Thai language?.
“Old Asia Hand said:
Their treatment of the Rohingya refugees reminds us of a central truth about Thais. On the whole, they are arrogant, smug, imperious, and brutal; but then again, Thais have considerable difficulty finding anyone with whom they have the courage to give these characteristics free rein.
The sort of foreigners you find in Thailand have had to go a long way down the social scale to find people they can lord it over. Thais have to go even further. A lot further.”
I have been waiting for someone else to say this for such a long time, but to me it seems absolutely, obviously and certainly true, though this view s not fashionable among the tourists and neo-residents. Also, it generally applies more to the urban Thai than to the rural Thai, or so I have found.
But yes, the typical Bangkok Thai is “arrogant, smug, imperious, and brutal” but only with those lower on the food chain than them, so you would have to add ‘cowardly’ as well. With those above them on the food chain they are happy to grovel on their belly, so you would have to add ’sycophantic and obsequious’.
Look around the world. How many friends does Thailand have? Why is that?
Tom
This thread is starting to be a bit hard on Thais. Like the Buddah, good Thais tend to forsake power instead of using it for good. Perhaps this explains why one does not have to look too far up the Thai food chain to find nothing but sharks. One of the reasons why the Christian tradition tends to produce better leaders (on average), is that the story of its founder is one of the ultimate moral courage in the face of corrupt, cynical, and murderous power. I am an atheist, by the way.
R. N. England:
I am also somewhat uncomfortable with the harshness of some of the comments above (BTW: I basically publish any comment that’s submitted regardless of whether I agree with it or not; the only restriction is that I moderate comments I believe to be in violation of particular provisions of the Thai Criminal Code). In fact, I wouldn’t have put any time into managing this blog if I didn’t love the country and its people perhaps more than “my own.” Contrary to what some may think, I am not on Thaksin’s payroll :). That being said, I agree with some of the readers that getting to know upper-middle class Thais from Bangkok can be somewhat disconcerting in light of their palpable hostility against the farang. In part, the hostility is due to the fact that the farang is seen by them as an invader, notwithstanding the fact that they are the very enablers (and beneficiaries) of farang misbehavior (see my post on “Who Sold Thailand”); in part, the hostility is due to the fact that there is a bit of an unholy alliance between the farang and the poo noi (because we generally sympathize with their political and economic aspirations, not to mention any personal/family bonds that may inform our judgment) some upper class Thais find quite threatening.
I would take issue with your characterization of Christianity having produced “better leaders” than other religious traditions. The way I see it, the historical record does not really allow us to draw this kind of conclusion. I will give you that Christians and Buddhists are generally provided with very different behavioral models by the founders of their religions (BTW, I am an atheist too). In the face of an equal disdain for injustice and inequality, it is arguable that whereas the Buddha retreated inwards and dedicated his life to the very transcendence of physical existence, Jesus preached a considerably more earthly, activist message. However, it should be noted that for much of the past 2,000 years, the Christian (Catholic) religious hierarchy successfully de-emphasized Jesus’ revolutionary message and rather stressed those aspects of Christianity that appeared to legitimize the status quo. All of this is not to deny that there might be cultural reasons behind the fact that the Thai people are generally less rebellious or politically active than, say, the French are. It is rather to say that the reasons for those differences are much more complex – including, very importantly, how cultural symbols have been effectively manipulated by the authorities to protect their position and discourage mass mobilization.
As someone once said, “The true measure of a man’s character is how he treats the servants.” When you apply that standard, the Thai upper class is revealed for what it really is: a band of morally repellant cowards.
I do not think we are being too hard on Thais, at least not the part of the social structure to which we are all referring. A friend of mine once characterized Thailand as having the nicest poor people and the nastiest rich people he had ever met. America, he said, was exactly the other way around. I have always thought he nailed it.
I have live here for nearly twenty years now for various reasons other than choice, and every year I have loved these disgusting little toads less. Now the plain truth is that I have leaned to loathe and recoil from them.
Kwai Jok Foong:
Yes, on second throughts, I think you could be right about leaders influenced by that Christian story. Der Führer in particular tends to bring their average down a bit.
I have always enjoyed the author’s posts and this latest one is excellent. However, i find some of the comments above really offensive. By trying to say that “Thais’ are like this and that–trying to attach a number of nagative traits to “Thais in general’, i think those posters have done nothing good to make Thailand and the world a better place. They are simply resorting to stereotyping ‘the other’ and showing moral superiority and I find this outrageous. There are many flaws and evils in Thai society and I appreciate the author’s honest, well-informed and intelligent socio-policial-cultural commentary. However, some of the comments above can be read as nothing beyond the reinforment of age-old Orientalism and racism. I know my comments are too harsh but as a Thai I’m deeply offended by such an attempt to fit ‘Thai national characteristics’ into a number of negative descriptions only to highlight the posters’ racial or intellectual or whatever form of superiority.
Quote: “…I do not think we are being too hard on Thais, at least not the part of the social structure to which we are all referring. A friend of mine once characterized Thailand as having the nicest poor people and the nastiest rich people he had ever met. America, he said, was exactly the other way around. I have always thought he nailed ..”
I think this is a really simplictic approach to ‘difference’ and other culture. You are simply idealizing the poor and demonizing the rich.Things are certainly not as simple as that. In fact, the blogger (I mean the author “Kwai Jok foong”) is often very careful when s/he analyzes Thai society and he takes into account other complicated issues e.g unequal power relations, religious role etc. I don;t know why SOME people who follow his blog are still trying to reduce Thai social-polical problems into nothing more than the opposition/contrast between the ‘morality’ of the rich and the poor.
Quote: “..That being said, I agree with some of the readers that getting to know upper-middle class Thais from Bangkok can be somewhat disconcerting in light of their palpable hostility against the farang..”
I’m Thai (from the North, from a working-class background). I agree there is some truth in this, esp if we read commentary or articles from people like Vasit Detchkulchorn(spelling), Surakiat Satienthai and other (upper) middle-class people who are staunchly conservative, royalist and very defensive of ‘traditional’ or ‘unique’ ‘Thai way’.(of course it is their way of defending status quo) This is one of the major reasons I find blogs like yours so liberating coz they help to contest or challenge the political, social and cultural hegemony imposed by those powerful conservatives who dominate Thai society. At the same time, however, I dislike comments from foreigners who tend to ignore the complexity of the Thai social and political problems and see things in ‘moralistic’ or ‘national traits’ terms…. sorry for being repetitive here.
An excellent review of recent Thai political history.
Thailand’s forward path has, of late, begun to intertwine with its past in a dangerous way. Freedom of expression has been trampled time & time again by what has now clearly evidenced as an illegitimate proxy government. Shame on you Mark Vejj!
An extremely dangerous development has been the reduction in status of the power structures from a former era. The common man appears to have begun to lose much of the respect and devotion so often relied upon. This aspect will play an important role in future modern power struggles and in the stability of the Thai nation.
Dark times appear to lie ahead for the Kingdom of Thailand.
Joy:
I am interested to know why some upper class Thais are guilty of moral outrages, such as the refusal of doctors at a major Bangkok hospital to treat injured policemen.
I have suggested that some answers might be found in a culture’s best known stories, which have survived largely because they set moral examples. The story of Buddha giving up his princely power is likely to endear him to poor people and help them live together by his moral system. But it seems to leave out those who seek power, or are born to it. There is not so much for them in the region’s main moral system, and perhaps they tend to behave accordingly.
Other answers might be found in history. Slaves in the West usually came from other cultures and other races. Some of the ugliest characteristics of Western people, xenophobia, racism, and the worst aspects of colonialism may have origins in the ill-treatment of slaves, even though slavery was abolished long ago. And as slavery fades into the distant past, racism seems to be fading also. The fact that Thais once enslaved Thais may perhaps help to explain the continued ill-treatment of poor Thais by rich ones. This may fade with time too, though ill-treatment by the powerful tends to be kept alive by the nearest institution to slavery that still exists, the Military).
Joy:
If I am reading your posts correctly you seem to be saying:
1. Nations cannot be stereotyped. And yet Thais stereotype Indians as dishonest, Laotians as being stupid (not without its irony really), and, it seems, Rohingyans as being fair game for being towed out to sea and left to die. It does seem that you people do it so often yourselves and yet when you are the target of justified stereotypes you complain bitterly; one of the less attractive traits of Thais. You might like to reflect on what exactly makes a stereotype. In many cases, it is simply an aggregate of people having similar experiences. Better to change the experiences if you wish to change the reputation you have. Did you seriously never hear of the 5 Ki’s that Thais use to describe their own people? Ki-ooat (boastful), Ki-kong (cheating), Ki-kiat (lazy), Ki-itcha (covetous) and Li-lohp (grasping). This is what Thai culture says about Thais.
2. But you then go on to say that there is some truth in it all. Does the expression “you want to have your cake and eat it” mean anything at all to you? Or is it that you just want to pick and choose which bits are acceptable to your self-image?
3. You go on to repeat the oft-told fiction that foreigners don’t understand the complexity of Thai society and politics. It is true that many Thais like to see themselves as having a complex cultural system and an equally complex and inscrutable political system, but I have bad news for you. There is nothing particularly complex about Thai culture and politics. The culture is based on fear and a feudal class system, and the politics are based on corruption, vendettas and greed. Have a look at your own newspapers and see the way your politicians, bureaucrats, judiciary, armed forces and police behave and then see if you get any inkling as to why stereotypes of Thais exist. What’s not to understand?
I could certainly debate with you on this but instead I will give you a link to some extracts of a paper by a Thai psychologist who does much better than I could ever do in describing at length what I for one believe are the many issues that Thais have to address before they will be taken seriously in mature company. I am sure that reading it carefully will make you a much better commentator on Thai character – perhaps a little more objective and a little less emotional as well. I believe you will find ample evidence in there to support the perceptions of posters in here that Thais are status-conscious, arrogant, greedy, dishonest and uncaring of those in lower social strata. Nicely supported and documented by one of your own people.
http://studyinthailand.org/study_abroad_thailand_university/Thai_society_values.html
Oh, and by the way, there is often very little difference between stereotypes and statistics. In practice, stereotypes are just statistics we don’t like very much and want to ignore.
Tom
Don’t be hard on Joy. Joy is a refreshing voice among Thai people. She comments intelligently on this and other blogs. She is well read, intelligent, and open-minded, even when it comes to criticism of Thailand and Thai culture. If you have disagreements with her, I think she’s open to criticism, so you don’t have to make it personal.
Tom: You utterly miss the point that the traits you describe are not unique to Thailand or Asia but exist in all cultures.
The traits you describe are especially obvious in developing countries, as there is a lack of education and maturity and the rule of law is usually very lax,
I find Thailand fairly middling in terms of its greed, corruption and vindictiveness on a global footing.
Stereotyping is just a veil for ignorance, it serves a purpose in many situations, but there is nothing particuarly clever nor attractive (though it can be funny in the right circumstances) about using this ugly episode as an opportunity to vent your hatred.
I see you and OAH in the same light as I would see any Thai resorting to lazy stereotypes to pass high handed judgements about a peoples’ worth: Very childish.
‘Status-conscious, arrogant, greedy, dishonest and uncaring‘
Tom: Are you suggesting those characteristics are exclusively Thai?
I would be interested to hear your stereotype(statistics) for a few other countries – lets start with each SE Asian country, as well as USA, UK, Australia & China.
After that is done, why not move on to each European country individually, then Africa and the Latin American countries.
Will any of those 5 traits will be repeated?
@Doug:
Nothing personal in what I said, my criticism is of the points she makes wrongly or badly. I am sure she is everything you say she is but that is a personal assessment and one should not be personal as you rightly but irrelevantly point out. Her views as responded to by me in defence of Thais were transparently silly and are at least as racially motivated as those she complains are racially motivated because they criticise Thais.
If a person makes silly comments, it is pointless to say they have previously made some intelligent ones. No? Otherwise one is simply being personal.
@Longway:
It is you that miss the point that the attributes *do* describe Thais. If they describe others as well, then fine but that does not invalidate the points I made about Thais.
A defence in court that a robber is less culpable just because there are other robbers would probably not carry much weight. Rightly.
“Stereotyping is just a veil for ignorance.” What does this mean? In linguistics it is called a nominalisation – usually used to appeal to emotions where the rational case is weak.
“[ignorance] serves a purpose in many situations.” Really? Perhaps it does in Thailand.
@Hobby: Please see above.
Simon
Tom
There is no point singling out Thais if everyone possesses the same attributes is there? Thailand has plenty of flaws, but I am not sure who you think you are that you can pass judgement over a large swathe of the Thai population.
For all your talk rationality its evident you possess very little when assessing Thailand and its people.
I will let you wrestle with what I meant with the veil for ignorance observation, I think its pretty self evident myself. If you wish to be pedantic about the way I have phrased the statement then may point out I did not said that stereotyping is a substitute for ignorance, nor should it be. Which is in fact what I implied in my observation. So I cannot see the point of your little word game.
Personally I think you owe Joy an apology, I cant see anything silly about what she said and how she said it, but I see much silliness on your part.
‘It is you that miss the point that the attributes *do* describe Thais. If they describe others as well, then fine but that does not invalidate the points I made about Thais‘
‘Status-conscious, arrogant, greedy, dishonest and uncaring‘ – that sounds like my fellow countrymen, and I’m not Thai.
(I’m sure if my fellow countrymen were asked, many would agree about the population generally, though few would admit they have those traits personally – I will admit to personally being all five at various different times, but think only one applies to me all the time)
They also describe humans generally, Thai’s are human, so what’s the point?
‘…yet Thais stereotype Indians as dishonest, Laotians as being stupid‘
In that one sentence you have shown how sterotyping nations is what’s really stupid.
Sorry guys – I’m going to shut this back and forth down, considering that it has very little at all to do with the original post.
Tom, do you honestly think all or most Thais match with your description? And do you really think Joy doesn’t have a right to feel insulted even though she knows many (not most) Thais are actually roughly similar to the characters you depicted? You know what I think? I think that by being so harsh and overly direct and prone to generalization when you voice your opinions, you’re actually confirming that the many people in Thailand who match your description are not necessarily ethnical Thais: you might be one of them, for example. There’s a difference between Khiikwai’s article and some of the comments here: Khiikwai doesn’t feel morally superior or in a cultural, moral, or even ethnical higher position, whereas some of the posters actually do. If trying to voice our honest opinions about Thailand means insulting ALL Thais, including the genuinely open-minded ones like Joy (whose posts are always great, full of good, fresh ideas, and at the same time humble and criticism-friendly), then let me strongly disagree: this is counterproductive and can only lead to bad ramifications.
something more @ Tom: “Her views as responded to by me in defence of Thais were transparently silly and are at least as racially motivated as those she complains are racially motivated because they criticise Thais.
If a person makes silly comments, it is pointless to say they have previously made some intelligent ones. No? Otherwise one is simply being personal”
So long with open mindedness: what feels silly to you doesn’t necessarily have to feel silly to others. Dismissing it as “silly”, though, denotes a strong tinge of arrogance. As I read it, she was in no way defending the Thais, but merely stating the obvious: not all Thais are like that, and the ones who aren’t are not happy to be described that way. Which, I think, is fair enough.
There’s more: “Did you seriously never hear of the 5 Ki’s that Thais use to describe their own people? Ki-ooat (boastful), Ki-kong (cheating), Ki-kiat (lazy), Ki-itcha (covetous) and Li-lohp (grasping). This is what Thai culture says about Thais.”
I’d like to point out that self-criticism is a good thing. There are many things I don’t like about Thailand and the Thais, but this particular thing is good: it means people are aware of their own flaws. This, for example doesn’t often happen with Northern Europeans and Americans. I love Scandinavian countries and people, for example, but some people in those countries are not exactly ready to openly identify their countries’ flaws. Still, I would never write such things as “Scandinavians are not humble”. In other words… Tom, face it, you fucked up… apologize, it’s better.
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