Baan Ajarn

Archive for the ‘Living in Thailand’ Category

Living in Thailand requires to have some understanding of the culture of Thailand. This is especially important for teachers to avoid culture clash or embarrassing situations in and outside of the classroom.

One very important part of Thailand’s culture is the Royal Family. You undoubtedly know a little bit about the current King of Thailand, His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej, or Rama IX. He is the longest reigning monarch in the world and very much loved by the Thai people. But what about the other members of the Chakri Dynasty?

Below is a profile for each of the nine kings of the current dynasty, which dates back to 1782, when His Majesty King Phutthayotfa Chulalok ascended the throne. Click on the name of each King of Thailand to read more about him on Wikipedia.

Rama I

His Majesty King Phutthayotfa Chulalok was a great general.  The new King of Siam was also an accomplished statesman, a lawmaker, a poet and a devout Buddhist.  His reign has been called a “reconstruction” of the Thai state and Thai culture, using Ayutthaya, the old capital, as model, but at the same time not slavishly imitating all things Ayutthayan.  He established the present capital of Bangkok in 1782 and found the Royal House of Chakri, of which the ruling Monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, is the ninth Rama.  The aspect of his reign has been interpreted as a major change in the intellectual outlook of the Thai elite, or a re-orientation of the Thai world view.  During his reign, attacks from nearby enemies were frequent, but he was able to defeat the enemies as well as counter attacks.  At this time, Chiang Mai was added to the Thai Kingdom, and the Malay states of Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan and Trengganu all sent tribute to King Rama I.  The recovery of the Thai state’s place and prestige in the region was one of King Rama I’s major achievements.

Born: 20 March 1736
King for 27 years
Died age 74

Rama II

King Rama I’s son, His Majesty King Phutthaloetla Naphalai acceded to the throne peacefully and was fortunate to have inherited the crown during a time of stability.  His Reign was remarkable for the heights attained by Thai poetry, particularly in the works by the King himself and of Sunthorn Phu, one of the court poets. He also established the education and the examination system of Buddhism, by dividing it into nine levels. The reigns of King Rama II and his two sons, Rama III and IV, marked the first stage in the Thai kingdom’s dealings with the West during the age of Imperialism.

Born: 24 February 1767
King for 15 years
Died age 58

Rama III

His Majesty King Nangklao refused to acknowledge the claims of Western powers to increase shares in the Thai trade, but he was a shrewd ruler.  He upheld Buddhism above all, but at the same time, allowed Christian missionaries to work in the Kingdom. He fed the poor each day after becoming prince, and released animals every monastery day. More than 50 temples were built and repaired in his reign, including the first Chinese style temple at Rajaorasa, the highest stupa at Wat Arun, the Golden Mountain at Wat Sraket, the metal temple at Wat Ratchanadda, and Chetupol Temple or Wat Pho. Wat Pho is the site of the first university in Thailand.

Born: 31 March 1787
King for 26 years
Died age 64

Rama IV

On the other hand, His Majesty King Monkut was the first Chakri King to embark seriously on reforms based on Western models in which he concentrated largely on the technological and organizational aspects of reform.  Road buildings, canal diggings, ship building, the reorganization of the Thai army and administration, and the minting of money to meet demands of a growing monetary economy were the main changes during his reign.  He was also an accomplished astronomer.  He predicted the coming of an eclipse during his reign, and organized a group of astrologers, both foreign and Thai, to witness the spectacular event.  He also started the modernasation process of Thailand, which was dutifully continued by his son.

Born: 18 October 1804
King for 16 years
Died age 66

Rama V

King Monkut’s son, His Majesty King Chulalongkorn came to the throne at the age of 16 and died as one of Siam’s most loved and revered kings, after a remarkable reign of 42 years.  Modern Thailand may be said to be a product of the comprehensive and progressive reforms of his reign, for these touched almost every aspects of Thai life.  The King faced the western world with an eager attitude, and adapted some Western ideas and inventions in progressing Thailand to a modern and up-to-date future.  He was the first King to travel to the Western countries and avoided Thailand from being colonized through careful negotiations with the English, French and Portuguese.  He also travelled extensively throughout his kingdom for he was passionately interested in his subjects’ welfare and was intent on the monarchy assuming a more visible role in society.  During his reign, communications system was revolutionized, the post and telegraph services were introduced and a railway network was built.  Such advances enabled the central government to improve its control over outlying provinces.

Born: 20 September 1853
King for 42 years
Died age 58

Rama VI

King Chulalongkorn’s son and heir, His Majesty King Vajiravudh was the first Thai king to have been educated abroad, in his case at Harrow School and Oxford in England.  He was notable for his accomplishments as a poet, dramatist and polemicist, and was notable in the modernization of the educational system.  He set up Vajiravudh College, the first English public school style boarding school and Chulalongkorn University. He also organized Siam’s Defence and established military academies. He created the rank of General for the first time in Siam, with his uncle Prince Bhanurangsi Savangwongse as the first Siamese general.

Born: 1 January 1880
King for 16 years
Died age 46

Rama VII

His Majesty King Prajadhipok was also the son of Rama V and the younger brother of Rama VI.  He was a liberal and a conscientious man.  In an institutional innovation, in what was virtually his first act as King, announced the creation of the Supreme Council of the State of Siam. He was well aware of the desirability of establishing Siam in the international political community as a country with a modern and liberal constitutional system of government.  He finally granted a system of constitutional monarchy in 1932, which after hundreds of years, ended the absolute monarchy in Siam.  He abdicated in 1935 and lived quietly in England until his death in 1941.

Born: 8 November 1893
King for 9 years
Died age 48

Rama VIII

The new king was His Majesty King Ananda Mahidol, then a ten-year-old grandson of Rama V.  He was born in Heidelberg, Germany. He was the first son of Prince Mahidol Adulyadej of Songkhla (son of King Chulalongkorn) and Mom Sangwal (last title Somdej Phra Sri Nakarindhara Boromaratchachonnani) who were studying there at the time. He was very much loved by the people, but due to his young age, was mostly away pursuing his studies in Switzerland.  During his absence, the People’s Party was left relatively free in shaping the destiny of a kingdom.  King Ananda Mahidol returned to Thailand in 1945, and unexpectedly died in 1946.

Born: 20 September 1925
King for 13 years
Died age 21

Rama IX

King Ananda’s younger brother, His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej is the present king of the Thai kingdom. He was born at the Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States and is much loved and revered by the Thai people. He has been involved in numerous development projects in Thailand, in areas like agriculture, environment, public health, occupational promotion, water resources, communications and public welfare. In 1996, His Majesty became the longest reigning monarch in the history of Thailand and currently the world.  The Thai people threw a big celebration in commemoration of his 50th year on the throne, and the celebration continues until this day.  In 1999, the Thai people also saw another big celebration, one that celebrated the 72nd birthday of the King, which is an extremely auspicious year for the Thais people, representing the 6th cycle (of 12 years) of a person’s life.

born: 5 December 1927
Celebrated 60 years on the Throne (Diamond Jubilee) in 2006
Currently the longest reigning Monarch in the world

Tomorrow is Loy Krathong [photos], one of my favorite festivals in Thailand. It is held each year on the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar.

During the night of the festival, many people will float a Krathong (a small, beautifully decorated raft holding candles) on a river or other body of water, such as canals, lakes, seas, and even swimming pools or a basin in their own yard. The purpose of floating a raft on the river is to honor and pay respect to the goddess of water, as well as to apologize for the bad things we may have done to the river during the past year.

Governmental offices, corporations and other organizations often create big decorated rafts and for schools, this is an important time as well. Many schools hold a Miss Loy Krathong competition, known as Noppamas Queen Contest, before or during the festival and students are busy creating krathongs, either for their family, or to be sold in the evening of the festival. This is definitely a time of the year you want to bring a camera to school.

Leading up to and throughout the night of the festival the official Loy Krathong song can be heard all around Thailand. The video below shows dancers in traditional Thai clothing performing to the song in Ayutthaya, the original capitol of Thailand.

There is still enough time to memorize the lyrics to impress your friends when you stand at the riverbank tomorrow night, watching your krathong float down the river:

วัน เพ็ญ เดือน สิบสอง
wan pen deuan sìp sŏng
น้ำ ก็ นอง เต็ม ตลิ่ง
náam gôr nong dtem dtà-lìng
เรา ทั้ง หลาย ชาย หญิง สนุก กัน จริง วัน ลอย กระทง
rao táng lăai chaai yĭng sà-nùk gan jing wan loy grà-tong
ลอย ลอย กระทง, ลอย ลอย กระทง
loy loy grà-tong, loy loy grà-tong
ลอย กระทง กัน แล้ว ขอ เชิญ น้อง แก้ว ออก มา รำวง
loy grà-tong gan láew kŏr chern nóng gâew òk maa ram wong
รำวง วัน ลอย กระทง, รำวง วัน ลอย กระทง
ram wong wan loy grà-tong, ram wong wan loy grà-tong
บุญ จะ ส่ง ให้ เรา สุข ใจ, บุญ จะ ส่ง ให้ เรา สุข ใจ
bun jà sòng hâi rao sùk jai, bun jà sòng hâi rao sùk jai
Source: Tweet Yourself Thai

There is also an English version of the song. Teaching it to your students in the classroom is a great activity during the preparations for the festival. Students already know the melody by heart and your Thai colleagues will love you for embracing an important part of Thai culture and turning it into a lesson in English.

In Thailand it is very important to dress appropriately. This is true especially for teachers and not only during working hours. If you work in a small town, people will soon get to know you as “the farang teacher”. Teachers are held in high respect in Thailand and it is therefore recommended to dress smartly at all times.

In the classroom, men should wear a proper shirt and dress pants while women should wear a blouse (buttoned up – not revealing any cleavage) and a skirt which covers their knees. Some schools require male teachers to wear a necktie while other schools allow their teachers to wear polo shirts. Sneakers, sandals, or even flip-flops are a big no no. As a teacher, wear dress shoes at all times. If you have any tattoos, make sure they are covered up.

The Nation published an article in December 2003 which gives insight into the importance of dressing appropriately in Thailand. The article might make you chuckle — or even shake your head in disbelief — but the old “When in Rome…” rule applies here.

The importance of well-mannered clothes

The key to Thailand’s unwritten dress code is polite clothing, even down to the type of sandals you wear.

One of the Thai cultural norms that foreign residents soon find out about is the emphasis on “polite clothes”. People judge you by the way you look in every country, but in Thailand it seems to be more pronounced. In fact, Thailand has an unwritten law that the eminent local writer Collin Piprell has dubbed the Cosmetic Imperative: In Thailand it is important to look good.

In America, by contrast, we have what might be called the Slovenly Imperative. In America, it is important to look like a slob.

Looking like a slob conveys a message. It says, “Hey, I am so cool I don’t care what I look like. By dressing like a slob I proclaim my indifference to public opinion, trumpet my egalitarian ideals and identify with the unwashed masses.” This is why multimillionaires like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates go around wearing blue jeans. It is why we produce pre-faded jeans with holes in the knees and cargo pants with baggy pockets.

Slobbishness, indeed, has deep roots in American folk culture. We have profound proverbs like “Never judge a book by its cover,” “Beauty is only skin deep,” “All that glitters is not gold,” and “Man looketh upon the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh upon the heart.”

These all point to the truth that a shabby surface often conceals rich inner depths. The problem nowadays is that we have cultivated the shabby surface but let the inner depths go to ####.

I mention this merely to highlight the contrast with Thailand. Thailand is a hierarchical society. Even clothes have a hierarchy here. The more the clothes cover the body, the politer they are.

Take shirts, for example. At the bottom of the hierarchy, and deep in impolite territory, is the lowly tank top, or singlet, which has no collar or sleeves. Slightly higher on the totem pole, but still in impolite territory, is the T-shirt, which has no collar but at least has short sleeves.

Moving into the realm of politeness, we come to the short-sleeved shirt with a collar. And finally, at the top of the politeness hierarchy, we have the long-sleeved shirt, also with a collar. If we want to be super-polite, we add a tie, and to really excite people with our politeness, we wear a suit.

Shorts are impolite; long pants are polite. Shoes are polite: leather shoes are more polite than cloth shoes, and shoes with laces are politer than shoes without. Sandals are impolite – but there is a hierarchy of politeness even among sandals, as I discovered on an enlightening visit to the Grand Palace several years ago.

At the Grand Palace, a group of officials screen you at the entrance to make sure you’re wearing polite clothes. If you’re not, they’ll lend you some – and it is to their credit that they do not charge for this service. For instance, if you’re wearing shorts, they’ll lend you a sarong to cover your impolite legs.

On this occasion I was entering the Grand Palace with a buddy. We were both wearing sandals. An official stopped me, saying, “I’m sorry, sir, but you’re wearing sandals. You’ll have to exchange them for shoes.”

“Dave,” I said to my friend, “we have to borrow shoes.”

“No,” the official corrected me. “HE is okay. YOU have to borrow shoes.”

I was bewildered. “How come? I asked. “He’s wearing sandals, too.”

“Yes,” the official agreed. “But his sandals have a strap over the heel. Yours don’t.”

This was a new twist to the hierarchy of clothes in Thailand. There is even a hierarchy among sandals!

Sandals are basically impolite, but sandals with a strap over the heel are more polite than sandals open at the heel. They are even polite enough to pass muster under the stern gaze of the guardians of decency at the Grand Palace.

Now, the only thing a heel-strap covers is the Achilles tendon. I wondered why the Thais think it needs to be covered. Is the Achilles tendon considered ugly? Dirty? Obscene? Sexually exciting? I never found out.

The polite clothes syndrome wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for the number of foreign tourists who seem to consider Thailand one big beach. Since the whole country is a beach, they figure, beach clothes are appropriate everywhere.

This attitude is especially prevalent among the tourists on Khao San Road. Sometimes male tourists wander around shirtless in that distinctly un-beachlike district. Indeed, I believe that one reason Khao San Road has become a popular venue for young, middle-class Thais is that it functions as a zoo where they can goggle at the variety of impolite clothes worn by the foreign denizens.

The Khao San attitude toward clothes was typified by a young traveller who came wandering into my office when I was teaching at a Thai university. He was straight off Khao San Road, wearing a tank top, shorts, and sandals and he wanted to interview for a teaching job.

One of my colleagues undertook to set him straight. “If you were back in your home country, and you wanted a job interview, would you wear the clothes you’re wearing now?”

The traveller blanched. “Of course not.”

“What makes you think Thailand is any different?”

He could have replied, “Because Thailand’s a beach,” but he didn’t. Cowed by my colleague’s severe demeanour, he fled the scene.

S Tsow

One of the local expressions heard in Thailand daily — if not hourly — is “Mai Bpen Rai” (ไม่เป็นไร). It is not just an expression; it is part of the Thai lifestyle.

Literally, “Mai Bpen Rai” is translated as “no is nothing.” Its daily use is found whenever a speaker wants to say:

• It’s okay.
• No problem.
• That’s alright.
• Don’t worry.
• It doesn’t matter.
• Never mind.
• You’re welcome.
• Don’t mention it.
• It’s no big deal.
• Oh well, I can’t do anything about it.

In short, “Mai Bpen Rai” is a philosophy of life: Go with the flow, like a drop of water in a river. And above all, keep smiling!

Thailand is largely a Buddhist country and people believe that the journey through life is a series of predetermined events. Buddhists believe that life does not begin with birth and end with death; the concept of Karma thus becomes an important part of one’s life. If something bad happens to somebody, it’s explained as the price one pays for something he or she may have done wrong in the past. This may explain why Thais use “Mai Bpen Rai” even in situations in which Westerners would become rather impatient and show strong emotions.

A better understanding of the phrase will make it a perfect relaxation tool. Consider the following situations:

• Stuck in traffic and late for a meeting?  ”Mai Bpen Rai”.  In Thailand everybody is on Thai time anyways…
• Did your taxi miss the exit on the motorway? “Mai Bpen Rai”. Enjoy the sightseeing tour through an unfamiliar landscape.
• Ordered a fried rice and got chicken curry instead? “Mai Bpen Rai”. Here’s a great opportunity to try some new food; perhaps you really like it.

Whatever happens to you, don’t get annoyed or even angry, but rather adopt the attitude of “Mai Bpen Rai”. Relax and go with the flow. Everything will be alright eventually.

Thailand is nicknamed “Land of Smile” for a good reason. Visitors to Thailand quickly realize that there is something very special about Thais: they smile at you at every opportunity they get. It’s a tool that captivates and disarms even the most cold-hearted foreigner. Deep down, however, this famous smile is more of a self-defense. If somebody is killed in a car crash, Thais will surround the crash site within minutes…and smile. Not because they think it’s funny, but rather because these tragedies of life are so invincible that only smiling prevents one from being driven crazy.

Foreigners easily lose their composure – Thais don’t. They keep on smiling. Take the following examples: A Thai appears an hour late for a meeting, but simply smiles. Somebody commits suicide, but the bereaved smile. Heavy rains destroy a year’s crop, but the farmer smiles. Somebody gets fired, but he smiles.

Thai people do not want to show their problems to others. They often live in very cramped spaces and have learned to not communicate inconvenient truths, as to not cause pain to others.

It is actually very simple: The smile is a way of expression for things that are not easily expressed. Smiles are simply another language. The smile is perceived as just about the most appropriate answer to any situation. It is used to show happiness, embarrassment, fear, tension, resignation, remorse, and even disgust. Thais have a number of smiles, which may all look the same to foreigners. To Thais, however, they offer an amazing array of distinctions:

• yim tak tai: The polite smile, used for strangers
• feun yim: The “I am forced to smile, even if I don’t want to” smile
• yim cheuat cheuan: The winner’s smile over a rival
• yim tang nam dtah: The truly happy smile
• yim tak tan: The “sorry you are wrong again” smile
• yim sao: The smile masking sadness or unhappiness
• yim mee lay-nai: The evil smile
• yim cheun chom: The admiring smile
• yim yor: The arrogant smile
• yim mal ork: The forced smile
• yim yair-yair: The smile to apologize and take the heat out of an awkward, embarrassing situation
• yim hairng: The nervous, apologetic smile
• yim soo: the “it cannot get any worse therefore I better smile” smile

Western culture is all about easily understandable and reliable assurances, such as “yes”, “no”, “I believe you” or “I don’t”. Westerners need and trust confirmations by words. Thais don’t! Thais may say “yes” and smile, but every Thai knows what is really meant: “No”. Or perhaps: “Maybe.” Or “Not yet sure.”

Pay attention to the different smiles you encounter on your journey through Thailand and you soon will be able to distinguish them from each other.