Thailand is pre-eminently a network society

If you go on holiday in Thailand from the Netherlands, you will of course notice that Thailand is very different from the cold frog country on the North Sea, although they also have frogs in Thailand (but they eat them here): much more sunny weather, higher temperatures, everything is cheaper (food, drinks, cigarettes, clothes, computers, software, DVDs), friendly people, tasty but sometimes spicy food, lots and lots of fruit, a big difference between Bangkok and the rest of Thailand.

What you hardly notice as a holidaymaker is that social life is also very different and organized differently than in the Netherlands. One of the main differences is the importance of networking.

For the Thai, networks are of vital importance. These networks are built from the family or rather from the family to which you belong. The family is not the family (husband, wife and children) as in the Netherlands, but also includes grandparents, uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces and often also peers with whom you grew up in the street or with whom you grew up in class (or in military service). Many Thai call peers in the 'clan' brother or sister while biologically they are not at all.

Clans care for each other; in good and bad times

These 'clans' take care of each other in good times by paying for your education (for example at the university), putting you in touch with possible marriage partners, giving you money to buy a house and car, giving you (another) job. (and then promotion). The clan also takes care of its members in bad times: paying doctor and hospital bills (very few Thai have health insurance), providing money and accommodation if you are unemployed, sick or retired (in all three cases you get after all no money, salary or benefits), support you in all kinds of procedures.

If your network has one or more members who are wealthy, you can lead a fairly carefree life even though you yourself are not rich or have a good job. These wealthy members are supposed to support the others if they ask for it. If you were born in a more poor network, you may have had a lot of juice your whole life.

One of the ways to escape this is to marry a person from a richer Thai network. However, this is not so easy unless you are a very attractive young lady or young man. After all: the most important persons in the richer network must approve such a marriage because a marriage is not so much a bond between two people (as in the Netherlands) but a bond between two families, between two networks.

The dream of every not rich young Thai woman is to hook a man from a wealthy family

Every week on Thai television you can see how beautiful young Thai actresses have managed to hook a man (sometimes young, sometimes older) from a wealthy family. The dream of every, not rich, young Thai woman (Maybe this is also the reason why young Thai women pay so much attention to their appearance; who knows). The basis of a marriage is more security for the future (especially financially) and much less romantic love. (Love is nice, but the chimney has to smoke, my grandmother used to say.)

In addition to Thai men, foreign men are of course also very popular as marriage partners. On average, they are all many times richer than the men from the poor networks in Thailand. This even applies to a European retired worker who has little more than state pension. And: the approval of the network does not apply to those foreigners. They decide for themselves who they marry, whether the family, the children in Europe like it or not.

Questions from Thai people to whom I am married are intended to find out whether I function in a Thai network and, if so, how important that network is (what does my wife do for work, who does she work for, who has her studies paid to college, who are her mom and dad, grandpa and grandma, who considers them siblings, who are friends).

Network structures function in politics, business and government

These network structures are not only visible in politics, but also in the ordinary (from large to small) Thai business community and the Thai government. I know a Thai with a medium-sized company and of his thirty employees, at least twenty come from the village in southern Thailand where he comes from. The other ten are then (Bangkokian) friends, cousins, 'brothers', 'sisters' of one of those twenty. And so his entire staff is connected, and not just by work.

If you understand the importance of the network, you will also understand that there are hardly any job advertisements in the newspapers (new colleagues are preferably sought in the network) and that it is not easy for foreigners (if they have not been sent to Thailand by their company) is to find work here: they do not own a network. Those doing the work are not always the most qualified to do the work. You get a job here because of who you are (and your position in a certain network) rather than what you can do.

Leaving the network (or being expelled) has serious consequences for Thai. This can happen because a Thai woman marries a foreigner and follows him to his country of origin. However, many women try to maintain the bond with parents (to whom they feel a duty of care) if only by sending them money every month. The children of the Thai woman often continue to live in Thailand and are raised by grandparents or brothers or sisters.

Those who are expelled end up in the jungle

Being ostracized can be because the marriage is on the rocks (and the number of divorces is immense here; but not visible in the statistics because the vast majority of Thais do not marry for the law, but only for the Buddha, as they call it here; in practice this means a party for family and friends and a ceremony with Buddhist monks and then living/living together) or because a person comes into contact with the law and the clan no longer wants to have anything to do with him/her.

In both cases, what remains is the 'jungle', as Thai society without networks can easily be typified. Due to the surplus of women and the large number of 'divorced' women (with or without children), it is not that difficult for Thai men to find a new partner in a new network, although the number of Thai women who no longer serve is from a Thai man (adulterous and a lover of alcohol) visibly.

For the foreign man this is an advantage. However, what the foreign man does not realize (and often does not like after being confronted with it) is that he is welcomed into a poor network like Santa Claus and that his money is partly passed on to the family of his new Thai wife. He is in fact rich and is expected to take care of the other clan members who are less fortunate with his Thai wife.

Years ago I had a girlfriend from a poor network. Her brother had a small job and earned 150 euros a month. When he got wind that his sister had a foreign boyfriend, he stopped working. From that moment on he called my girlfriend every week to transfer some money so that he could pay for the petrol for the moped and his daily beer. Playing in the back of his mind: that foreigner is so rich that he can easily take care of me through my sister, and then I don't have to do anything anymore.

More and more Thai young people are choosing their own path in life

It is fair to say that the situation is slowly changing. I see more and more Thai young people who choose their own path in life and are allowed to do so by their parents. Thai young people from wealthier networks are more often sent abroad for education in their secondary school period: to New Zealand, the United States, but also to India. An important argument is that they learn the English language better and faster there.

What the Thai parents do not realize is that their children live in a completely different world for one or two years and are also deprived of the Thai network that helped them with everything and anything until then. In Thailand they didn't have to think: people thought for them. They have to rely on themselves at a foreign school, become (forced) more independent in a short time and see that in a world other than Thailand you will not achieve anything if you do nothing.

In high school in the United States, nobody is interested in who your mom and dad are (let alone your grandparents), but only YOUR personal achievements and you will be judged on that. A hard school for many young Thais. Their eyes are opened and back in Thailand they go their own way, especially if they aspire to an international career.

The importance of the clan will decline in the coming decades

It is to be expected that the importance of the clan will decline in the coming decades. Increasing competition in the business world (particularly due to the arrival of the Asian Economic Community) will force companies to look more at what employees can do than who they are (and have to pay market-based salaries).

An increase in social security, health insurance and pension provisions will make people less (financially) dependent on each other. Younger Thais (with foreign experiences at secondary school or university) are more likely to choose their own path in life and take more responsibility for their choices. The pace at which - in this globalizing world - will be partly determined by factors beyond the Thai's control.

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