Column: About education
For years I have wondered, and many who have ever visited the city or live there, how come Bangkok is such a safe city?
Women can walk alone on the streets here at night and in almost all cases simply come home without first having been the involuntary participant in a gang rape, or having been harassed in any way.
I mean, this is a city with a population of around 15 million, with an alarming gap between rich and poor and a police force that is as corrupt as it is incompetent and mainly concerned with extorting motorcycle and moped riders who wearing the wrong color flip-flops:
Diender: “What are we doing here, sir?” (I don't know if the Thai police, like the Dutch police, always use the first person plural for such questions, but I think so)
Motorcyclist: “Kweenie. I'm not doing anything, am I?"
Diender: “You look glowing, man. Green flip-flops and without a bell on public roads.”
Motorcyclist: “But there is no bell on a Kawasaki 750cc!”
Diender: “Sputtering and insulting a civil servant in office. Five hundred baht. Pay now, it will double at the office!”
Of course, murders also occur here, often in the form of settlements between criminal elements themselves, and there are purse snatchers and pickpockets in busy markets, but unsafe?
Could it have to do with the fact that Thai children are raised not only by their parents, but also by their neighbors, ice cream sellers, noodle sellers, street seamstresses and shoemakers.
In the Netherlands something like this is unthinkable. When we see a child setting an elderly man in a wheelchair on fire behind his parents' backs, we don't dare say anything. Because then the rascal's parents quickly reproach: "What on earth are you getting yourself into?"
For Dutch parents, the education of their children is firmly - in some cases not so firmly - in the hands of the parents themselves.
Even uncles and aunts will never dream of calling out little child monsters for misbehavior. That is a parent's job. They have the exclusive right to it.
How different is it here. When in my neighborhood a four-year-old boy chases his neighbor with an ax and I say something about it, it is appreciated by the boy's parents. Then I am even praised by the educators of the belhamel.
Education of children in Thailand is owned by the community.
And I think it's better that way...
Cor,
You can always put it nicely, but you often have to suppress a smile
writing and comments.
Perhaps you could also have written that the motorcyclist was only 16 and without a driver's license.
But I see that girls in Thailand are raised in a fairly disciplined manner, under the motto, so take care of us later.
As far as the boys are concerned, I have mixed feelings about this, similar to what the educators in the Netherlands do about what you mean by the wheelchair. They are princes.
Unfortunately, the cashier girls at the C1000 now very politely say to me, sir, which did not happen in the past, am I really getting old now, 48, or are they better educated these days.
In many cases, boys are terribly spoiled, but that is not what this article is about. What I wonder is whether a society where the upbringing of children is not only in the hands of the parents, but of the community - the neighborhood, if you like - would not ultimately become a more pleasant society? I have left aside the traditional respect for elders for a moment. I still find it strange that the city of Rotterdam, where I come from, is so much more intimidating than Bangkok. Maybe it's other things and I'm completely missing the point.
The strange thing is that you don't feel unsafe in Bangkok either. While in other world cities this is often the case.
Social control in Thailand is certainly great. Children are also 'made' socially because they are raised by everyone. I can confirm that. I think Cor gives a correct analysis.
Naturally, education initially begins with the child's caregivers. Later in life he will pick up the norms and values of the community in which he lives.
Every community has different norms and values, which has to do with living conditions and religion, among other things. Social control actually exists everywhere in the world.
Even the smallest criminal has to deal with ranking (hierarchy) in a gang, for example.
I mean to indicate that a child was born in America, Africa, Iran or Thailand
are therefore more or less automatically raised by the community with its applicable norms and values.
The norms and values of one community can therefore be in complete contradiction
with those of another community.
Now I think that Buddhism has an extra positive effect on society in Thailand compared to other faiths.
In Thailand, grandparents often look after the little ones. The grandparents do not dare to punish the kids or even forbid something, then the parents are called.
In shops/restaurants you sometimes see Thai little ones crying very loudly, but don't think that mom or dad will say anything about it. They just sit there next to it as if it is the most normal thing in the world for you to let that happen.
I was once at a resort with a group of Thais and there was a diving board. 2 Thai boys aged around 10-11 saw me go off that diving board and thought it was exciting. They jumped from the board into the water, but close to the edge of the pool. I warned them twice that they had to jump off the end of the board but they didn't listen until one of them hit his chin on the edge and got some scratches. Afterwards they were very ashamed of me because they knew that I had warned them. He didn't even dare to cry because of this, which his mother found very strange.
“In Thailand, grandparents often look after the little ones. The grandparents do not dare to punish the kids or even forbid something, then the parents are called.”
I think that varies from case to case. Often those children can shout for their parents until they weigh an ounce, because Mom works all day and no one knows where Dad is.
Thais are indeed immune to whining offspring. That might have something to do with the fact that they are immune to all forms of bullshit 😉
A little about “the man in brown”: the boys in the street of our previous house in Bangkok who had lost their ID card because they could not pay the fine, contacted our neighbor, a former member of the mafia in Yawarat. He left with a stack of receipts. went to the “lompak” and got a significant discount (100%) and got the ID cards back.
For a small fee he returned the ID cards + driver's license to the boys.
Everyone happy again
A little about education: in the Netherlands, children do not sit at the table while eating in a restaurant (the first thing they do is stab the tablecloth with a fork). In Belgium, France and Thailand they do. Exceptions are everywhere. up for the Thai mothers.
I personally don't think it has anything to do specifically with the upbringing conditions, such as grandparents or ice cream shop ('chaao aitiim'?), but more with the shifting of an acceptance boundary in the oh-so-liberal Netherlands. Since roughly the 60s, everything has to be possible. As a result, things that were previously unacceptable slowly but surely become normal. The Netherlands has always been proud of its liberal mentality, but is now discovering that there is a downside. Unfortunately, the slide in the norms and values system is very difficult to reverse.
In Thailand, where appearance is of paramount importance, children are raised less liberally and therefore have less of the feeling that they can decide for themselves what they will and will not do (if you confront a young person about misbehavior in the Netherlands, you will invariably get the same Answer: I can decide that myself!). I think this has nothing to do with who you raise, but with the boundaries set in education and in society. It is a pity that the usually well-behaved Thais are not told by their parents that they are not allowed to push forward on public transport. That annoys me to death in the BTS and MRT.
An interesting question is whether the relatively high penalties in Thailand help keep the population in line. I regularly visit Singapore and I hardly ever see police on the streets there. The penalties are high there, so you won't even dare to drive through a red light or throw something on the street.
The article and the responses remind me of the discussion about the bare, too young, breasts at Silom with Songkran. There was quite a bit of ridicule about it in many media and also here on this blog. You may think that it should be possible because there are also go-go bars, but a line was crossed here and the government has sent a signal to the youth that this is going too far. Then you can call me a moral knight, but if you don't, it could happen that in a few years' time the Thai youth will literally be trying to kill the police at a beach party and people will die, as happened in the Netherlands. It is difficult where to set the boundaries and it is easy to ridicule the regular call for female students not to wear short skirts. Yet I hope that Thai society will continue to guard the boundaries of what is considered appropriate here. There are so many, in my view, undesirable Western influences that it will be difficult to keep issues mentioned in the article, such as gang rape, outside national borders. Partly thanks to the global reach of MTV and other uplifting expressions of Western culture, I am afraid that in a few years Cor will have to write an article about how Thai society has changed so negatively in such a short time.
Even on this blog you can see that setting boundaries works. I have the feeling that since Peter has drawn up and enforced clear rules and regularly points these out to participants, the atmosphere at thailandblog has been more pleasant. And yet Peter did not use his grandparents or ice cream shop for this upbringing 🙂
Stricter punishment only helps if you also increase the chance of being caught. They have been very successful with this in New York. It is always a combination of these two factors.
Furthermore, I believe in social control. That used to be the case in the Netherlands. Now people don't even know their own neighbors and people sometimes lie dead in their house for weeks.
About the rules of moderation, yes that certainly helps. Especially consistent enforcement (which is difficult). As a result, some Thailand visitors stay away and seek refuge in other forums where these boundaries are not set. That is also what we have chosen.
It remains strange, Maarten, that Thai society can react so prudishly to bare breasts and skirts that are too short, when the same society is world famous for its sex industry and is the hub of everything that God has forbidden.
No police on the streets in Singapore, but in Thailand you rarely see police patrols on foot. Thais don't walk.
Sufficient crminological studies have already shown that stricter punishments do not help, nor does the death penalty. I'm just pointing this out, because a debate would become endless if the Editors were to allow it.
@ It just depends on which research you choose. For every study, there is another study that claims the opposite. Stricter punishment certainly helps, provided you increase the chance of being caught.
@Stricter punishment helps in the sense that you temporarily remove the person from society, but, again, research shows that they come out of prison more criminal, more aggressive and more frustrated and therefore more dangerous and also more difficult to integrate.
The entire system of incarceration without any therapeutic or resocializing effect should be overhauled.
Strict punishment and arrest does satisfy the good citizen's feelings of revenge, but that is not what it is intended for, I thought.
@ Niek.
1 – Strange for Westerners, not for Thais. They don't really see the farang sex industry as part of their society. At best as a very extreme outgrowth of that. I can't blame them for that, maybe you can, that's possible. The Thai sex industry is less public. By this I mean the massage parlors. I can imagine that the Thais judge the teenage girls who show their breasts in the middle of Silom differently than a gogo dancer in a bar on Patpong (100 meters away). By the way, I already indicated that it is difficult to draw the line, as in this example.
2 – I often see police on the streets in Bangkok. I have to get out of the taxi tonight to be searched and just now they were in my street checking moped riders to see if they were wearing a helmet.
3 – I thought this blog was meant to exchange ideas about 'all things Thai' and that my comments were in line with the article.
4 – Agree with Peter.
Well, you hit the nail on the head, many use the Western yardstick for everything they observe. And then shout that the Thais are hypocritical. Rarely, if ever, do they take into account the fact that Thais have completely different views on certain matters. This shows that many still have difficulty not looking at everything through Western glasses and we often find our own views and way of thinking better. Thinking from a kind of feeling of superiority. What that is based on is a mystery to me? The colonial genes must have something to do with somewhat imperialistic thinking. Because that's what it is in my opinion. To be honest, I catch myself doing that sometimes. You choose a size, but that size is actually only your own prejudice...
@Kuhn Peter, you shouldn't pretend that Thais come from another planet. Many behaviors and reactions are also very recognizable to us without having to pour an exotic sauce over them. 'We' are not that different from the Thais. We are all people with our wishes, fears, insecurities, shames, the expressions of which may be culturally different.
And that has absolutely nothing to do with a superior or imperialistic attitude.
@ Niek, judging someone else is almost always done from a sense of superiority. Otherwise you don't judge and you are more looking to understand why they think that way.
Thai and many Asian cultures are shame cultures. You can say it's hypocritical, but compared to what? Our measuring stick? How do we think about those kinds of things? How we think it should be done. In short: our opinion. It is a nasty trait that we think our culture is better than other cultures.
Look at the prejudices that are spouted here and on other forums: Thais are lazy, stupid, money-hungry, etc, etc. Comments from people who consider themselves better and are not open to the way of thinking of others.
Dear Kuhn Peter, I don't think our culture is better than Thai and I also hate superior prejudices, I have traveled too much for that as a talker in 60 countries outside Europe alone. Sorry, for this 'argumentum authoritatis', but I I'm certainly not one of those narrow-minded idiots who doesn't like anything except themselves. In contrast, I have always been very interested in the world with an open mind.
So please don't put me in that box.
But if I get robbed I call it a thief and if I get murdered I call it a murderer (in my next life of course) and if someone lies I call it a liar whether it is Thai or Dutch and then that is of course a judgment, but rather also a factual statement in something that is recognized and understood across all borders. And so it is with more subtle matters such as gossip, loss of face, shame...
No further comments are possible on this; There is more to this blog than discussions between Peter and Niek and I also find the atmosphere of 'kinnesinne' annoying. Hello everyone.
Nonsense Peter: “values and norms are basically the same all over the world, i.e. being polite, friendly and interested can be done anywhere. If the Thai has different views, for me it is often a lack of interest in the other person and this has nothing to do with the Western perspective. Niek is absolutely right in that regard
@ That's your opinion Harry. I have a different opinion. By the way, an opinion is never nonsense. If you had left that out in your response, I would have attached more value to it.
@Harry N., values and norms can be very different depending on the culture in which you live and within a culture there can be very different values and norms between different walks of life, but also between regions.
@ Maarten, very strange indeed, even if you realize the remarkable liberal attitude of the Thais towards everything that has to do with sex, such as their culture of cheating, going to whores, their 'mia noi system', their tolerance of 'katoey;s', their massage houses spread all over the cities, etc. I cannot say whether it is more or less than in other countries. And that all takes place quite publicly, doesn't it? But when it comes to a few bare breasts on the street, everything goes wrong. For example, anything involving female nudity is blocked on TV, but (bloody) violence in all forms and horrors as well as violence against women is regularly shown on TV.
And that attitude is difficult to understand, whether you are a Westerner or not: on the one hand everything is possible and on the other hand nothing. In other words: 'as long as you do it secretly' and that looks a lot like hypocritical bourgeois decency culture and there is nothing exotic about that; We know this all too well in the West.
Some time ago I saw neat rows of people waiting to board the coming train on the busy platform of Sky Train Siam.
There are always exceptions that skip the lines.
Maarten, when the man in brown stops mopeds, he does so because he can use some money at that moment. If he stops cars, he will always let the expensive cars go.
He always divides the loot without a uniform. He cannot forget his superiors. My wife and I often (unintentionally) witness this. I sometimes make jokes, so does she. For Westerners, this is strange, but not for Thais. .
Khun Peter: There are also people among us who want to change things here because they think our own views and ideas are better. I think they do that out of a kind of sense of superiority. Wouldn't Christianity be to blame for this instead of our colonial past? Evangelizing ?Like that bespectacled lady in Pattaya, for example?
Further related to the posting: In the Netherlands, everything has gone crazy in the past, everything has to be possible and everything is allowed. Here people do not have such a mentality. The upbringing is quite strict. My wife used to have them in every corner of the room when the children were still small. a bamboo stick within reach. What she regularly used. Norms and values are also heavily inculcated here in schools. For example, I have also experienced several times when the neighbor hears that children are talking disrespectfully about other people, she comes out of her house to take a look. what to say. The children look very timid. Puan job explains the norms and values to them.
Yes, that's right here in Billboard Country, there is much more emphasis in education on pounding and pumping, obeying and listening, Buddha, the King and the National Anthem.
Inventiveness, creativity, solving problems yourself, daring to express your own opinion are things that are not taught or encouraged. The great status of the teacher also plays a role. I tried to teach English as a volunteer at a school in Chiangmai for 2 years and there I saw a teacher reprimanding a student who was on his knees, but to my surprise his parents were also kneeling respectfully to listen to the teacher. What I always found remarkable was the group behavior at joint meetings, so collective; when something funny happens everyone laughs at the same time without an exception.
What strict punishments, those in the Netherlands...don't make me laugh...I have been working with such guys for 4 years now...they laugh about it...they are not talking about punishments but about a holiday in a hotel. it is only getting worse in the Netherlands and not safer. So please let Thailand be Thailand, I feel a lot safer there.
Dear Cor,
You're still cutting some things!
I will limit myself to a few comments;
In the Netherlands, parents leave the upbringing to the education system. Parents mainly want to stay young and avoid confrontations with their children. By the way, children teach each other a lot.
We are individualistic, Thais are first and foremost part of a whole.
It is clear to anyone who travels around the world that there is only one dominant culture. Introspective, politically correct university circles claim the opposite, which may be explained by Western guilt. (That feeling has more to do with Christianity than with reality, Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.)
Suppose history had turned out differently. Since the Papuans had come to Europe with powerful ships, the penis sheath would have been a very normal attribute of the three-piece gray!
@Dear Dirk,
You're also addressing quite a bit here.
You are right about that dominant (Western) culture. The Western (American) subculture is embraced almost everywhere in the world. So the MTV/Youtube culture, which is now spread much faster and more effectively via satellite than 500 years ago by ship.
However, the American subculture is a thin layer of veneer in many countries in Asia. On the surface, a city like Bangkok seems 'westernized'. When you look beyond your nose, you discover that every Western cultural expression has been given a Thai twist in a city like Bangkok, or an Indian twist in a hip city like Mumbai.
American culture is tangible and present almost all over the world, but does not dig deep enough to actually overturn traditional relationships in Asian countries. It is not without reason that the Americans are accused of 'superficiality'.
We could make a big fuss about this, but I'm afraid the subject is too comprehensive to discuss in more detail here.
There is
I agree with you. Now it mainly becomes one-liners.
Even for insiders, the concept of culture is difficult to define. The role of the media is the most accessible, worldwide and since the Americans are in charge of most of them, we see it all the time.
Yet American culture is only one aspect of Western culture. You actually have to go back to the period before the arrival of the Europeans (in this case, the Portuguese and the Dutch) to clearly see the differences. And believe me, Asia was certainly not a paradise: slavery, prostitution, cruelty, war, it was all just as bad.
For those interested, read some of the memoirs of Schouten, chief merchant of the VOC in Ayutthaya in the 17th century. Or the “Description of the Kingdom of Siam” by Engelbert Kaempfer (18th century). Perhaps van Vliet's report to van Diemen (17th century)? and the cruelties of the Siamese (Thai) which he describes graphically.
In short, a treasure trove of knowledge about South-East Asia. It's always a mystery to me why people don't take the time to learn something from it. Without these ancestors, today's Asia would be unthinkable and incomprehensible.
Dirk, I have read the book, or at least the English translation, and it does indeed provide a nice insight into the ins and outs of that Dutch trading post in Ayuthaya. in the 17th century.
What I found most interesting were the passages of the Dutch sailors and other personnel who, like elephants in a china shop, repeatedly made the Thai aristocracy appear ashamed. These boys had little knowledge of the Siamese customs at the court. The king is described in the chronicle as an extremely cruel megalomaniac.
I mean Schouten's memoirs. (I forgot to mention) I don't know the other books. At that time, atrocities committed by the Siamese were not inferior to those in Europe. I recently read an article about how Willen van Oranje's murderer, Balthasar Gerardt, was executed. Even Hitler would get sick of that 😉
I can highly recommend Van Vliet,s Siam (in paperback, for example from Amazon, for example).
It is internationally regarded as the most reliable account of an event in Siam in 1636. The case is referred to as; “The picnic incident”. About ten Dutch boys who, after days of hard work in Ayutthaya, were given permission for a trip, which ended dramatically. The king threatened to have them trampled by elephants for (alleged) desecration. (A common punishment at the time.)
However, if that had happened, Governor General van Diemen would have had the Chao Phraya River closed by two warships as revenge and the Siamese state would certainly have collapsed.
Van Vliet had to report on this and because he still had months to spare, he described the country, the government, the history, the products and the state of the army (which he did not have much regard for), the customs, etc. event. with a view to conquest by the Dutch.
Van Vliet spoke and wrote the language of the country and was surprisingly well informed about the court intrigues. He also mentions the terrible habit of the king, when building a temple or palace in the well, of sacrificing a pregnant woman for every heavy stake(!) His soldiers were ordered to go into the streets to capture those innocent women, If they are not found, then search the houses. Can you imagine?, sometimes they made buildings where more than thirty poles were used! The victims' necks were cut and then they would lie under that pole forever and turn into terrible demons that guard the building.
Ultimately, the ten boys were released unscathed, and the Dutch were given a monopoly on trade with Japan, from which they made a tremendous amount of money.
Things also ended well for Van Vliet, he returned to the Netherlands as a rich man, to a dull village, where he served on a municipal council for many years.
What I find a bit sad is that there isn't even a contemporary Dutch edition (the English one is quite readable.)
It's a shame the total disinterest in our history.
I also have 2 recommendations; 'A traveler in Siam in the Year 1655', extracts from the journal of Gijsbert Heeck. Gijsbert Heeck was a doctor employed by the VOC who wrote his diary 350 years ago on his third voyage to the East.
There he describes, among other things, the relations of the Dutch with the authorities of Siam, about the violent confrontations between the Dutch and the Portuguese, about relations with indigenous women, about village life along the Chao Phraya river, the VOC trading post in Ayutthaya, etc.
In addition to the English translation, the diary is also presented in old Dutch.
All very entertaining but above all very interesting.
N.a.v. To celebrate 400 years of Siamese-Dutch trade relations, an entire page in the Bangkok Post was devoted to this on that day, December 23, 2008.
While I'm at it, I would like to draw your attention to another more contemporary work, namely by the anthropologist Niels Mulder: 'Between Brothels and Buddhism', written in the XNUMXs.
Through his contacts with the young prostitute Reg, with whom he lives, he penetrates deeply into the life and culture of Bangkok. The Chinese neighborhood of Sampeng, the slums, the brothels, the rituals in the temple, his conversations with a young monk and all the accompanying photos offer a fascinating and often hilarious image of Bangkok at that time.
Dr. Niels Mulder, as can be read on the cover, has been trying to understand the cultures of Java, the Philippines and Thailand for 40 years, about which he has also written a comparative study. His classic is 'Inside Thai Society'.
The contributions about the VOC under the posting 'About education' would actually belong better under the posting 'Netherlands-Siam, a piece of history. Could those contributions be transferred? Then you have a nice piece of information together on the same subject...
When we talk about the differences in upbringing, we are actually talking about the difference in culture and that is completely different from the West. In Asia, a child is usually not raised by the parents, but by the grandparents or, in the case of the somewhat wealthier, by the babu (maid). The child will also have to listen to an older sister or brother. Social control is therefore great. If something happens to the child or he does something that is unacceptable, the caregiver will know about it in no time. Neighbors who are seen as uncle and aunt and are often referred to as such, also have something to say and woe to his bones if he dares to speak loudly against these people. The child will then receive such a merciless beating (from his parents) that he will never forget for the rest of his life who he has to listen to. Respect is something an Asian is taught from a young age and if that doesn't help, it will be drilled into them.
I am absolutely not in favor of hitting, but when I see how some kids behave towards their parents and elders here in the Netherlands, education and respect are hard to find. For example, my Thai mother-in-law is younger than I am, but I address her in Thai as U and mother and that has to do with respect.
No police on the streets in Singapore? Well, you bet yes, there are plenty of them, but in plain clothes. Then the comment, world-famous sex industry and that Thai society can react so prudishly. A red light district cannot be associated with the entire country, can it? After all, you can't see Pattaya as representative of Thailand? Here too we make the mistake of judging the size of such a neighborhood or place based on our standards, while the Netherlands is only a dot on the world map.
An Asian, poor or rich, is usually raised in a very protected manner. Try getting in touch with a Thai girl outside the bar circuit as a farang. With the richer Thais this is almost impossible, unless you do business with them or are introduced by a friendly family member, in all other cases you can forget it as farang. And immediately dive into the suitcase with such a girl, well forget it. At first it's just a matter of holding hands and sneaking a kiss, and everywhere you go the family follows you.
I am not a backpacker and I do not claim to have a monopoly on science, but as a half-Asian, born there and partly Asian as well, I know the Asian culture like no other. I have also visited many Asian countries professionally, some of them 9 times a year. I lived and worked in Thailand for 2½ years with short interruptions. I certainly do not condone all Asian (Thai) customs and customs, otherwise I would have stayed there.
I think Thailand is a beautiful country, but living there…no, thank you. I think it would be nice to spend the winter there, but then I have to have something to do, otherwise I would be bored to death after just a month.
I completely agree with you that Asian children are often raised to be (over)protected. This often becomes painfully clear when some of my students are sent on an exchange project to the US or Europe. Ten months of studying in the West. These exchange studies are sponsored by the Thai government and often involve students with excellent study results and less excellent parental bank balances. So that's a good thing. I get a call from my bed at least once a week from a student of mine who does not understand that in the West you have to show initiative when you are sixteen, have to go after your books yourself and arrange a catch-up date for a missed exam.
After ten months they come back and in that time they have suddenly grown up, which would never have happened if they had stayed in Thailand with mom and dad.
What I always find funny is that young children usually come first when it comes to seats on the skytrain. It's even official; There are 4 categories that take precedence according to instructions on the wall of the train compartments, namely: elderly people, monks, pregnant women and small children.
This is for safety reasons. Small children cannot hold on to the loops that are too high and can therefore easily fall. I thought it was strange at first, but my wife told me this.
Bangkok safe through social education?
Well, let your wife or girlfriend take a taxi from a disco to her hotel (alone) at night. Or let your wife go to a nightclub by herself.
I think we foreigners are somewhat safer because most of us don't go to the places where Thais go. But I think we especially feel safer because for most of us, because of a language barrier, not much of real Thai life gets through to us.
Or did you think that in Thailand there is less rape, assault, theft, murder, etc. in the Netherlands? Learn to read Thai and read the Thai newspapers! There is a lot of firearms ownership in Thailand and Thais often have a very short fuse.
Chang Noi
You are not much wrong with Chang Noi.Unfortunately for Thailand. When it comes to crime, I mean...Most people who respond to this blog view Thailand as an outsider.That is clearly noticeable...If you live here, a first requirement is that you speak the language. speaks. And you have to have a woman next to you who explains a lot to you about everything (the advice from the Thai children is also very useful). And you have to be open to a lot of things. You have to be eager to learn and also still have a good portion of study zeal. And you should try to take off your Western glasses. And not think that we are better at everything.
You Chang Noi knows as well as I do when someone tells you that they feel safer in Bangkok late at night than in other big cities that they are wrong.
Especially with your last paragraph you get to the heart of the truth: that firearms possession and that damned short fuse. We almost lost a son who was stabbed twenty times with a knife just because he looked at someone (according to countless witnesses) and we are happy no vital organs are hit. What do they mean by the usefulness of social education? unfortunately that fuse. Unfortunately for Thailand.
Dear Chang,
I have lived in Bangkok for ten years, am married to a Thai woman, work with Thais every day and go everywhere Thais go and speak the language reasonably well, understand it even better. I am not comparing Bangkok with Heerjezusveen but with other Dutch cities. Imagine a city in the Netherlands with 13 million inhabitants and tenfold more than all the robberies, murders, not to mention stabbings, intimidations and fights that occur annually in Rotterdam. Then you have a nice picture.
Read Thai newspapers? Yes, then you really get a nuanced picture of Thai society. Real quality, those newspapers.
Cor you are a lucky person: arriving in Thailand for the first time with 1000USD in your pocket, a one-way ticket and a fake passport and building a careerCHAPEAU.
Andrew, not everyone enters Thailand on a fake passport…
Coincidentally, Dick van der Lugt wrote in his daily column two days ago that the
Thais only feed their children but do not educate them.
In the Netherlands something like this is unthinkable. When we see a child setting an elderly man in a wheelchair on fire behind his parents' back, we don't dare say anything.
Cor, I don't know how and where you were raised, but I would intervene immediately, even against Mr. Thaksin's child. Man, how did you come to write this on a forum?
Years ago I was on Samui in a beautiful resort with thatched roofs. There were 2 Thai boys lighting a fire under a roof next to my bungalow. I walked up to them and told them that this was not allowed (in English) and the fire was immediately done with.
In my opinion, someone who wouldn't do that or wouldn't dare to do that isn't raised well either.
you're right-partly. You're a teacher, so you must have a more elaborate idea about it.
In the Netherlands the same thing can be noticed about the Turks vs the Moroccans (assuming you know anything about NL): what you say about Thai-style upbringing is the same in TR. That kind of crime is also much less among Turks than among Moroccans. And essentially applies to almost all of Asia.
Much of what the above writers (didn't have time to read everything) say is sometimes true and certainly not valid for all situations. The grandmothers I experience as a substitute parent can be very punitive, because the mother can then act as a comforter in the evening. “If they don't learn it from me, they won't learn it from anyone,” she then remarked, apparently forgetting that Mom is her own daughter.
My profession has taken me to many cities around the world. The most safe-feeling cities were Osaka, Nagoya, Singapore and Bangkok. For a city like Bangkok with its hotspots of bars and prostitution, it is a super safe city. I don't know if this has anything to do with upbringing alone. My opinion is that the religious background plays a greater role. Take a look at the countries where mainly Christians (especially Catholics – I was one) live. You are often not sure of your life there: Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, New York, Manila…
This is just a small selection of violent cities. I haven't even included Africa yet.
However, wherever there is a form of Buddhism or Hinduism, I can walk on the street more safely than in many Western cities.
If you talk about education, I have been coming to Brazil for 23 years. I know the people there to be very polite and personable. Yet crime is more visible there than in Bangkok.
So it can hardly be due to education at home. My daughters are treated like beautiful princesses in Brazil (just like in Thailand). In Brazil they feel observed and appreciated as young women. Here in the Netherlands they were called whores, just because they were smarter and more beautiful than the Limburg womenfolk from my hometown.
Ultimately, I want to say that no immediate connection should be made between crime and education. The environment plays a much larger role.
to raise
(verb; raised, raised) 1physically and mentally form; to raise
At least this is what Dale says.
– Does this also mean that as a father or mother you read to your child from a good book?
– Does this also mean that you point out to your child the limited intellectual value of the Thai soap?
– Does this also mean that you point out to your child the existence of toilets, even if they are located more than 10 meters away?
– Does this also mean that you point out to your child the existence of a bicycle?
– Does this also mean that you ask your child to be considerate of other guests?
– Does this also mean telling your daughter that you CAN get pregnant the first time?
– Does this also mean that you point out the dangers of drugs to your child?
– Does this also mean that you point out to your child the existence of a book as an alternative to the internet cafe?
– Does this also mean that you tell the 7-11 employee that you don't need a plastic bag around a box of sweets.
– Does this also mean that you have a REAL conversation with the child every now and then?
– Does this also mean that you just turn off that TV or stereo?
– Does this also mean that you tell your child that others may be bothered by the tinny, irritating 'music' from your mobile phone?
– Does this also mean telling your child that the iPad can be turned off during dinner?
– Does this also mean that you ask your child about his or her studies?
I think so.
I don't think the Thai word for education exists.
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I regret to say that unfortunately I have already experienced some things in Thailand and yet I feel safer on the streets in Thailand than in the Netherlands.
The only reason for this is that there are always a lot of people and cars on the streets, at least the streets where I walk, because even in Thailand I don't go to very quiet streets or back alleys at night.
The people here also live outside, which increases social control. In the summer months in the Netherlands (if there are any) I also feel a little safer on the street than in the winter, simply because there is hardly anyone on the street in the winter and the people those who walk there are often huddled deep in their coats, which seems less pleasant.
The bad things I have experienced are a group of taxi drivers who wanted to transfer us four women to another taxi in an unsavory place so that his taxi number could no longer be traced and they could rob us. They really tried to intimidate us, threatening us with a very big mouth and almost pulling us out of the taxi, but luckily we were not intimidated and fortunately we got away well, but it was really scary.
Then I caught an Asian man under the bed at our beach house. He had entered through an open door. This was open because I thought and everyone told me that it was very safe to leave the doors open here and we were at home. We live in a small local community with only a few tourists so you don't expect much crime unfortunately it is different and a wallet was stolen.
Less than a week ago, a friend of mine was almost raped at 08.00 a.m. on the beach while she was running. Fortunately, she was able to scream loudly and was strong enough to throw the man away and hit him with a stick she had with her to keep the wild dogs away from her while she was running. The police took the case seriously but at one point claimed that it might have been a Burmese while they were convinced it was Thai. Now it turns out that they do know who it is, but that they will not arrest him, he will probably (hopefully) be punished by his family and banished from the village.
All in all, I am no longer so naive when it comes to crime in Thailand to think that it is a lot safer there, but as mentioned, the streets are so much busier, especially in Bangkok, that it feels much safer.