I live in a 'guarded community', also called 'mòe: bâan'. ('mòe:' is group, 'bâan' is house: a village). Everyone knows them: a gate with barriers, a high wall all around with iron pins on it, stern-looking guards whom I often greet with: 'How are you mia nois?' The wealthier part of the population lives there, well shielded from the plebs. My 'community' has a beautiful gate with electronically operated gates: I call it 'the prison gate'.
A political prisoner was recently released. When asked how he felt now, he said, "I'm going from a small prison to a big prison!"
Yesterday I visited a very nice dentist with my son. Control and tartar, twice 900 baht. A waiting room full of neat shopkeepers. And I started thinking.
classes
Every society is divided into classes. It has been so since prehistoric times and will always be so. But for every era and for every country the differences between classes are different: sometimes relatively small, sometimes very large. In the Netherlands, that distance was always on the small side, a bourgeois society. In Thailand it is better to speak of a divide between the classes.
For a reasonably peaceful and harmonious society, the distance between classes should not be too great. But even more important than that distance, although it has to do with it, is the extent to which those classes can meet and work together.
Meetings between classes
Where do classes meet? That is mostly in the public space. I mention sports clubs, religious institutions, public transport, education and health care. (I'm not going to call it politics).
In the Netherlands, my eldest daughter attended a regular primary school next to a carpenter's son. She still blames me for that. Everyone sits together in the church, although in my Roman Catholic youth the plebs knelt on the free pews in the back while the expensive pews in the front were occupied by the Rottinghuizen. My family was right in the middle. In the waiting room of our general practice, it was quite possible that a Turk was sitting between a factory manager and a teacher, to name but a few. On the train you have a first and second class but I, clearly belonging to the elite, always travel second class. Everyone is mixed up on the bus, incomprehensible.
Let's take a look at Thailand. Above I already mentioned the strictly separated residential areas (yes, you also have those in the Netherlands, but not so striking and not closed off). Healthcare consists of two worlds. I visit state hospitals quite a lot and sometimes a private hospital. What a difference! Education consists of state and private schools, the latter of which cost between 20.000 and 60.000 baht per year. The Wat Yuan in Chiang Kham, where I used to live, is a temple for the richer people, you rarely see an ordinary farmer there. The abbot drives a van with its own driver and equipped with a refrigerator and DVD player. Dear readers may be able to think of more examples. As far as public transport is concerned, especially in Bangkok, you can safely speak of two separate worlds.
summarizing
Each society has different classes with associated advantages and disadvantages. But in Thailand that separation is very strong. Meetings between the upper (middle) class and lower classes occur almost exclusively in some official occasions. That is not good for a harmonious society.
Perhaps the dear readers have more examples or, on the contrary, they disagree with my statement. That's allowed.
Discuss the statement: 'Groups and classes in Thailand live too much at cross-purposes!'
The question is much too general, and is also a derivative of the question of which social structure you consider desirable. So I won't go into that.
More on a personal level, I find it quite easy “as an outsider” and “foreigner” to deal with people from all kinds of backgrounds here.
This is especially true for members of ethnic and religious minorities, young people and drifters.
I often find them quite open, there are few taboos and they contribute so much to the quality of my life; I hope this is also the case vice versa.
The condition is that you can express yourself reasonably in Thai.
Is it at the expense of depth?
Sjon Hauser once wrote: You shouldn't talk about Sartre with a Thai.
But if you align with the themes that are important here, and with some guidance on my part, it's well worth the time (as well as the misunderstandings).
The settled Thai, on the other hand, already has its own circles, its own fixedities and therefore has less to expect from me.
All in all, social life is perhaps more colorful for me than in the Netherlands.
Older people in particular behave very submissively towards the so-called better-off and monks. But it is changing, albeit very slowly. I was once in a State Hospital and in the bed next to me was a monk of at least 200 kg. He commanded everyone even the doctors, so I was extremely annoyed.. At one point he started commanding me, I made it clear that he didn't like his big mouth and that he should take care of it himself. A monk with a car and driver is of course too ridiculous for words.
it's like a pastor with a big glass of wine and a big cigar hahaha
I would just like to point out that what you advocate is not put into practice by you.
You yourself live in a protected moo job.
You also have that separation in Belgium, but you have to open your eyes and belong to the so-called lower class to see it.
Everyone is equal before the law , only some more than others .
Greetings
Even in a homogeneous society, people will want to distinguish themselves.
We see the same behavior in the animal world. But in humans it needs more nuance. Because who dares not to appreciate the road worker or garbage man?
They do useful and important work anyway. Anyway, the moral compass of many people has been broken for years, as I have unfortunately experienced.
As long as the elite feels protected by politics, police and army, it will follow its own plan.
Incidentally, I am curious why daughter Kuis did not want to sit next to the carpenter's son...
There are certainly differences between people in Thailand and anywhere else in the world. For me, every person is equal. We are all born and die the same way. No one has to feel superior to anyone else. I find the class difference very objectionable and it should not be there. There are too many people who find the difference important and want to leave it that way. Apparently they feel elevated and that gives them a good feeling. People of so-called lower descent were raised this way and often don't know any better.
I have a large house and use housekeepers and have to get used to the submissiveness of the ladies in question. My wife and I deal with them appropriately and we try to normalize relations. I have had several ladies from Myanmar work in the household and they regularly gave the slavish kneeling waii attitude on the floor as a thank you and respect, which gave me a very unpleasant feeling. They think this is normal, but I told them in a dignified manner to stop this, because I am not the king of Thailand.
Developments will take place in every culture and society. Under the influence of the many social media and education, people will understand and see that a situation can be changed.
How this process will proceed depends on the political insights of the government to come up with social reforms and the willingness to use them for this purpose. On the other hand, “the people” can seize power, because many changes do not happen or are perceived as unjust. The Thai elite and wealthy upper class will not like to give up their position, for example by promoting a fairer tax system or social reforms.
Thailand is disproportionately built up. A very rich limited upper layer (10%). A real middle management is limited and a very large bottom layer with a minimum income.
Thailand will need a long time of development and maturation, just like neighboring Cambodia and Laos.
´ǴCalls and classes live too much at cross-purposes¨ not an eye-opener but a daily fact that can be observed. Visible in appearance, even an average school teacher in uniform seems straight out of the movie “worheld number one΅. In other words, social class is partly determined by appearances.
The reason that most Thai people look well-groomed when they go out, positive of course, but a sham to pretend to be in a higher class. The whitening industry is also benefiting. Closed society arises, groups clump together, a kind of nice job, a fortress that cannot be taken by an outsider. An upgraded marriage will therefore be rare.
Power, usually not from knowledge, but from fortune, so simply put money is commonplace in Thailand.
As well as insufficiently good education and a lack of money for better education, but also the lack of awareness of the need for this, maintains the situation outlined.
The closed society, averse to innovation, ostentation and capital related to a higher class, provides a breeding ground for long-term maintenance of living in isolation from each other.
"Meetings between the upper and lower classes are almost exclusively in some official places." In my experience, this is absolutely far from the truth. People from higher and lower classes sometimes meet each other on a daily basis. At my university: students from the higher classes talk/confer with the admin staff, with the maid, with the computer boy, with the lady of the copier, with the lady of the canteen. At home: many rich people have employees: for cleaning, kitchen, security, driver, childcare. In state hospitals, the poor patient meets the graduate doctor and nurse. And it is precisely in public transport in Bangkok that it is more uniform. The rich do not deign to travel by BTS or bus, not to mention the songteaw. They all have a car. I've never really seen a rich person on a bus. And my elderly Thai colleague had never used the boat on the Chao Phraya River in 40 years of living in Bangkok until I brought him along.
You forget the 'encounters' between generals and conscripts, between police and criminals, between restaurant visitors and waiters and between men and prostitutes. If we go back in history before King Chulalongkorn, there were the 'encounters' between king and slaves.
Maybe I didn't word the statement well. By 'meet' I meant something more than 'encounter' or 'have contact with'. Those things that you mention above, and that I mention here, fall under those 'official occasions'. Maybe I should have said "professional meetings." They are indeed there.
But what exactly do you mean by 'living past each other'?
And with the word 'too much'? They live past each other (whatever that means) and apparently that's not so bad or normal. But what is too much? That is a normative concept and has a lot to do with your own views on how things should be done.
But of course there are different worlds. The world of the rich, of luxury, the world of the (fortunately growing) middle class and the world of the underprivileged.
Where in other societies education is the way to work your way up, this form of social stratification in Thailand is very small, especially because of the costs of secondary and higher education. The rise of the middle class is through the rajabaht universities (which are not well regarded) and the cheap government universities. But that process does not go very quickly, partly due to the low quality. I also see the problem that as soon as someone from the middle class rises above the mowing field, they adopt the ways and ideas of the upper social class and deny their own history. Probably to be accepted in the higher social classes. Social-democratic ideas are therefore hardly found among intellectual Thais because you will probably immediately be called a communist. I have a good, critical Thai colleague who studied in the Netherlands and his favorite party is the VVD. Then of course it won't work.
I often notice this when I am in Thailand.
In some places people are very friendly, and in other places disrespectful and anti-social.
In one place they love tourists very much, in another place they are xenophobic.
In Thailand they quickly have prejudices and you are often judged on your appearance.
I notice all these things more and more and I think that's a shame.
The photo accompanying the article already shows that the colorful collection that is there definitely and happily lives alongside each other. This also applies to the widespread appearance in uniforms.
In the Netherlands, people can count themselves lucky that people generally do not live in parallel.
Solidarity became visible when the Thai king died, but even then the class distinction was very visible.
A stark contrast, on the other hand, was the way in which the former Queen's Day and the current King's Day and the king's birthday were celebrated in the Netherlands. It is unthinkable that in Thailand the King's birthday is dined with "nationals" who also have their birthday on the same day.
“The other culture” will undoubtedly be blamed again for living alongside each other in Thailand.
Incidentally, it is good to see that in the villages in the Isan people generally do not live alongside each other.
Well said, Fred. And the Dutch princesses go to school by bicycle.
We often talk about that beautiful 'Thai culture', but we forget that the 'culture' in the Isan (and the North) differs fundamentally from that in the better circles in Bangkok where elitist and royalist habits are praised.
The upper classes in Bangkok (upper middle class and upper class) comprise no more than 20% of the total population of Bangkok in my estimation. There are still about 5% foreigners, but the other 75% come from the other provinces and many of them from Isan. You can clearly see the exodus of Isaners during the long holidays of Songkran and New Year's Eve.
I dare to say that the (individualistic) Dutch live much more at odds with each other than the (collectivist, group-oriented) Thai people. How many Dutch people in an average apartment building know their neighbors reasonably or well? Think about yourself: how many people in the neighborhood did you talk to at least once a week? How many Dutch people have immigrant friends? How many children from working-class families play hockey or golf? I think that living alongside each other has little to nothing to do with class differences. In Thailand, the difference in classes has to do with your country of birth, who your (grand)parents are and how much money they have. In the Netherlands, the class difference is based on something else.
Whether you talk to your neighbors has nothing to do with class difference. Only with the fact that the Dutch live more individually than Thais. In fact, people living in the same apartment building are very likely to belong to the same class.
But that's not the point. In the Netherlands (all over the world) there are of course different social groups. But it may very well be that in a small town (small town or village) the children of the higher classes are in the same group (class) as the long-term unemployed asocials in the village or town. That will not happen in Thailand. In NL, all social classes also go to the same hospital or doctor. In Thailand it will be different.
It is obvious that the behavior of “the rich” in NL and TH is very different from the “poor” in NL and TH, but that is quite different from social classes living alongside each other. This is hardly the case in the Netherlands (partly because it is not possible), in Thailand it is.
Every frequent visitor will agree that there is a large income inequality. Examples of this come up regularly:
- https://www.thailandblog.nl/economie/inkomens-vermogensongelijkheid-thailand/
- http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/thailand/overview
- http://www.th.undp.org/content/thailand/en/home/countryinfo.html
Inequality has decreased in recent decades, the middle class is growing, but Thailand is still a long way off. In the long term one can get there, I do not believe that a culture cannot be changed. However, it takes time, the upper class does not just let go of their power and privileges. But if education improves little by little, diplomas become worth more, questions permeate more, citizens unite more (is difficult now under this fantastic junta...) etc., then in Thailand there will also be a good healthy middle class of considerable size .
But for now people still live too much separately. Free education for minors at decent schools where all kinds of people sit together in class is still lacking. This also affects the business world because those pieces of paper partly determine where you end up (plus nice connections from mom or dad so that your job is almost guaranteed when they are high on monkey rock). While school and the workplace are the places where you come into contact with others the most. A lot less outside there, a short chat with some luck in a restaurant or entertainment, but if you earn 10-15 thousand THB, you won't easily get to where the 25-30 thousand let alone the 200+ thousand THB plus incomes come…
Tini as you describe your community it is indeed a prison, if it was really that bad I would have run away screaming. But it's true, you won't meet the plebs. A spontaneous chat with a minimum income is not possible or is very limited. A chat with the security, gardener and housekeeper is nice (and how often do your neighbors do that? Or feel too good for that? Or don't they care?) but too little to be able to say that as an elite you really have good contact with the plebs. I wonder how your neighbors would experience a week in the vicinity of the Inquisitor ...
I agree with the gist, but not with your conclusion.
Until the middle of the 20th century, for example, there was a big difference between social classes in Japan. Today, 90% of the population is middle class. In Singapore and Taiwan, too, the situation is somewhat comparable to that of Japan. Although not insignificant, I think the distance between classes has more to do with wealth than with culture.