Daily Archives: June 17, 2005

To Thai people…in general….it seems to me, that the appearance of houses and public buildings on the outside (Other than religious Temples……)are just not important.

I have walked the streets in Bangkok and Chiang Mai and Tak, and Lampang and have been so frustrated with how rundown things looked to western eyes only because of mold and a lack of paint. Sometimes I’ve just wanted to go into a store and buy a gallon of bleach and a wire brush and start cleaning a wall or entry way to a building and show people what could be done in a couple of hours………… with a few dollars and some elbow grease…all the black mold could be gone and things would look beautiful (Until the next rainy season)….

Reading the blog from SiamJai called Thailand’s future and his remarks on Thai youths; I feel that I should contribute to the subject. It seems that no ones yet to post other blog or discussion on this subject either. Today, I would like to discuss my thoughts toward Thai youths in the new emerging economy.

As Thailand has recovered from the Asian economic crisis back in 1997, in the past couple years, it seems to enjoy enormous growth and prosperity, except a couple set back of SAR disease, drug wars, local problems in the South, and a traumatic event of tsunami last December. Other than that, Thailand seems to continue make it strive and advancement of technological development throughout the country including educational accessibility and funding provided by the government and Royal Family. I think our PM did a good of job of that. But it’s not the point that I try to convey here. I’m worry about Thai youths that growing up during the late 90s to now, as we are continuing to progress in the 21st century, might lose our traditional culture value.

From what I have seen and read through media, socializing with my Thai friends, and reading through the discussions and blogs in this site, Thai youths seem to have lost interested in our traditional value and a proper way of living. The Thai youths, who are currently growing up in Thailand today depicts too much toward liberal western style culture of life. Although, this is great strategically thinking because it helps children to become more independent and expand his/her knowledge of thinking. However, too much influence and pressure from western style might cause them to lose their native culture and values. If you speak to any Thai individuals, they would agree with me.

To my current knowledge of understanding Thai youths today, children are being educated to think creativity and encourage participating in school activities such as playing sports, volunteerism, and others. Parents have more choices where to send their kids to school. With technological advancement and socioeconomic variability, Thai youths have access to the Internet, mobile phone, and other formal of technology that you can name of. Let face it….if a child today asked his/her parents for something; he/she will get it. In fact, they have ability to rebellion against their parents’ teaching if they do not agree with them. This is due to culture influence from western cultures and socio-economical improvement of their parents.

The culture has shift toward a western style of life. Thai education system is incrementally changing and might eventually adopt the full process of western style of teaching. My questions are: Where does Thai traditional culture and value fit in the new Thai education curriculum? Does Thai youth today, still have Buddhism teaching, history, and culture teaching in their education curriculum? Maybe Richard, SiamJai, SteveSuphan, Oakmonster, or others can write more on this topic. I am very interested to see where Thailand will be in, let say, 20-30 years from now.

It is in reversal trends to see the Thai youths, who are growing up in the western culture, where their parents are native Thai-born. The youths are being educated by their mother or father native way of life and value. It seems to me that we, Thai, do educate so much of our value and culture to the Western world and forget to educated Thai youths, who are currently growing up in Thailand.

This leads me to think that we (Thai) did a good job of educating foreigner or Western society about our own Thai culture and fail to educate our Thai youths in her native culture. I wonder how this will contradict itself out in the future. Maybe foreigner knows more about our way of life, than native Thai really do.

I hope this post will spark out a lot more discussions and blogs in weeks and months to come.