I must pick up a copy of this book..looks like good stuff!
2Bangkok.com - Thai Social Etiquette
Book: Thai Social Etiquette
By Mrs. Pensri Kiengsiri, Mrs. Sudchit Bhinyoying and Assoc. Prof. Malithat Promathatavedi, Editor: Prof. Khunying Maenmas Chavalit, Cartoonist: Ohm Rachawej
(Source: Illustration by Ohm Rachawej, Thai Social Etiquette)
Above: Ohm Rachawej's illustration of "How to stand" - We should stand in a straight position. However, when speaking to an older or a respected person, we should bend forward a little to show respect.
Above: The following is not acceptable especially if done in the presence of people older than you or your superiors at work, or in society. Standing with legs apart, with hands in pockets, with arms folded across the chest, with hands on hips, with hands together at the back, in a leaning position, blocking someone from something he needs to see, blocking a passageway and towering over an older person who is sitting.
(Source: Illustration by Ohm Rachawej, Thai Social Etiquette)
Below: Refrain from holding hands in public as it may have undesirable implication.Above: A seminar or meeting is not a lecture class where you attend only to be informed. There must be an exchange of ideas, knowledge and experiences, questions and answers to clarify the issues concerned, in order to make the whole session worthwhile. Keep your shyness to yourself and try to contribute and demonstrate your ability as much as possible.
(Source: Illustration by Ohm Rachawej, Thai Social Etiquette)
(Source: Illustration by Ohm Rachawej, Thai Social Etiquette)
More interesting tidbits
* You should not speak about something dirty or draw up a vision that is not pretty, such as talk about worms in a garbage, someone being sick and throwing up, the condition of someone down with diarrhea or constipation. You should also train yourself and your children not to have to visit the rest room directly before or after eating.
* Do not wrestle with a tough piece of food trying to cut it into two smaller pieces till it shoots across the room or the table.
* For a night banquet, candles on the table can look romantic and festive.
* Do not spoil the atmosphere by chiding your inferiors in front of your guests.
* Walk in a natural, relaxed manner, taking steps that are neither too long nor too short.
* He does not show that he is well acquainted with someone by calling that person by his father’s name. This is greatly impolite and yet some people do it.
* He does not ask personal questions such as: How is your ex-wife/husband now? How much do you weigh? How old are you? How much is your salary?
* Do not scratch here and scratch there.
* Always introduce a man to a woman, a younger person to an older person, a lesser-in-rank to a superior-in-rank, etc. The lesser one will do the wai first and the superior one will give him a wai in return.
AA television ad aired a couple of years ago showed a youth whose back, when tapped, resounded with a loud boinggg. This was supposed to be funny, and there was even a bit of canned laughter after every boinggg to make sure the viewer understood that. The intended message was that the lad’s back was so stiff he could not assume a correct pose of stooping deference. The ad was made by the Ministry of Culture.
The Ministry has recently reissued a booklet entitled “Thai Social Etiquette.” The booklet is written in English and offers visiting foreigners the usual tips about making a proper wai, not pointing with the feet, and not patting the head. But it is much more wide-ranging than most such guides. It tells its readers how to sit, eat, lie down, walk, speak, dress, make a phone call, queue for the loo, drink, use a spoon, give a speech, pay a visit, and perform at a seminar.
It is really a handbook on what foreigners should not do in Thailand, but rather a manual on how Thais should behave in their own country. It sums it all up like this:
“In Thai society, where seniority is given much importance and politeness to everyone is stressed, in order to be a person with good manners, one must be aware and careful of almost every gesture or movement, and also of almost every word or sentence one utters.”
Let’s imagine a newly arrived foreigner toting this book along to some of the common everyday spaces in Thai society. At the open-air restaurant, she would find that most of the booklet’s rules (not reaching across, always using a serving spoon, making sure to wipe lipstick off your glass) were being broken at almost every table. The lively atmosphere would make her doubt that all the people present were being careful with their every gesture and their every word.
In a business office or factory, the foreigner would find people interacting without any attention to the booklet’s rules about social behaviour. In a village, all the booklet’s procedures about how to pay a social call would make no sense at all. In the shopping mall, bus, or Skytrain, the visitor would be forced to conclude that almost none of the people were Thai since they did not seem to walk, talk, sit, or dress in the prescribed manner. The booklet warns, “Refrain from holding hands in public as it may have undesirable implication,” and declares that “Men do not roll up their sleeves as if getting ready for a fight,” but the visitor would find even such desperately stern injunctions being transgressed in full public view.
By now the visitor might conclude that the booklet is a work of complete fantasy on the level of Star Wars. But that would be wrong. The society described and idealized in the booklet does exist, but is not “Thai society,” either past or present. Rather it is one rarefied segment of the society, occupied by senior bureaucrats of the sort that work in or with the Ministry of Culture.
They have some defining characteristics. They have a good surname proving they come from a good family—or else they wish they did. They have a private income because it is difficult to maintain the proper public display on the standard bureaucratic pittance—or at least they wish they did. They belong to a profession which used to be very influential but which is being rapidly marginalized as the society becomes richer, more commercial, and more open—and they have nostalgia for an idealized past.
If you remove from the etiquette booklet all the advice which is really universal (e.g., don’t eat with your mouth open), it has one clear message: hierarchy is everything, and deference is always due.
Since its reincarnation in the early 2000s, the Ministry of Culture has had two main roles. First, it administers a small budget to preserve and promote valuable creative work, past and present. This is Culture with a capital C, and is a very valid and necessary role.
But the Ministry of Culture also wants to be the Ministry of culture with a small c. This is dangerous because “culture” is such a slippery word. Does it mean how people actually live? Or how some people think other people ought to live?
In the early years after its rebirth, the Ministry spent a lot of effort compiling a Masterplan defining its role. The first part of this plan goes out of its way to emphasise how varied Thai society is (in ethnicity, region, urban/rural, occupation), and how dynamic it is as part of the modern globe. This part is descriptive—describing how things are in all their messy variety. But moving to the second part which frames what the Ministry is going to do, the plan slips into another mode altogether. This part is prescriptive— prescribing how things ought to be. And this part junks the enthusiasm for messy variety in favour of a much narrower view.
The results have been both hilarious and tragic. The Ministry has tried to outlaw risqué songs on the grounds that they are “against Thai culture” when in fact these songs belong to a great tradition of boisterous counterpoint singing which is the historical culture of far more Thais than the courtly arts. The Ministry rages against “un-Thai” forms of dress which are rather similar to the way most ordinary people dressed around a century ago. Much more tragically, the Ministry has obstructed some highly creative contemporary work in theatre, cinema, and the plastic arts.
In these obstructive actions, as in the boingg-back ad and the etiquette booklet, the Ministry claims a right and duty to impose the values of a declining minority on the society as a whole. Perhaps the Ministry should obey one of the rules from its own etiquette booklet: “Do not scratch here and scratch there.”
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Originally Posted by zehner
...elitism.
Thai Social Ettiquette. Part 2.
* Don't use razors when shaving. Simply pull out your facial hairs one at a time with a tweezer.
* Keep your bus fare inside your ear when using public transport.
* Make fun of the physically-handicapped. Even place them on TV game shows as a source of amusement.
* Refer to Indian-Thais as visitors, even though they have lived in the country for generations.
Game? This wasn't meant to be a game!!!...NEVER!!
Mai kao chai this one
* Above all, pretend nothing is going on when there is a huge problem.
Did you say something?
"La-la-laaa...keep wearing yellow....la-la-laaa!"
Sounds like they're doing the "Timewarp" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no Interior Minister of Thailand's son.
The author of the site describes the book as, "idealized nostalgia inextricably packaged as 'advice for farangs'."
If that's the case, how can the following comment even make it into and "idealized" version of Thai society?
And with this attitude in a nutshell why Thailand will never become a fully developed country. Arm the poor, destitute and homeless and let 'em loose on the Puu Yai IMHO.
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And never allow the person who really fucked up and cost money/jobs/lives to lose face. That would be terrible wouldn't it?
Last edited by columbia; 11th December 2007 at 12:27. Reason: Automerged Doublepost
that's indicative of the whole asian mentality though isn't it? deference to ones "superiors"......highly distasteful for us longnoses but an attitude engrained in Thai culture
right...i'm off to run over some issan labourers in my big shiny merc
Seconded!Totally with ya on this one.
the poor and destitute all love square-head taksin though....how are you gonna get them to revolt?
Not just distasteful. A block to free thought, creative expression, intellectual development and progress of any shade in this part of the world.
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Same way he does. Promise them free M150 and money for the massage parlour if they do it.
Last edited by robitusson; 11th December 2007 at 12:33. Reason: Automerged Doublepost
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