While the quality of life here in Thailand is great, I was never really happy here because part of me never really understood Thai culture or felt accepted by Thai people. Indeed, I met expats who speak fluent Thai and have lived here for decades, but still do not have any real Thai friends and are not accepted by this extremely closed culture.
In addition, while Thailand is a beautiful country, endowed with gorgeous beaches and landscapes and rich in history and tradition, I feel that it has been corrupted by tourism and recklessly rapid development. Thai people are entrepreneurs who have cleverly commodified their culture, but in the process, they have themselves lost touch with it. In my mind, there’s an unresolved tension between tradition and modernity here. One of the most obvious manifestations to me is the seeming conflict between traditional Buddhist values and beliefs and the way that modern Thailand has so fervently espoused capitalist consumerism. While there are spirit houses in every home and business, the offerings are cigarettes and fast food or drinks from American chains.
Another aspect of Thailand that frustrated me to no end was this sham democracy. While I was here, there were two rounds of elections. On the weekends preceding the Sunday voting, a ban on alcohol sales was imposed for no apparent reason. What exactly were they trying to prevent, citizens emboldened by liquor going to the polls and actually voting against the regime? Or perhaps drunken Thais forgetting who they had been paid to vote for? Most Thai people I asked about the elections did not even know what the elections are for or about! These embarrassing elections stood in stark contrast to the interesting exercise in democracy currently taking place in the US. The fact that few Thai people were speaking out for more genuine democracy made me particularly angry since their Burmese neighbors are fighting and dying for it.
The fact is that there is no democracy in Thailand and Thai people do not even seem to want it because they are happy to simply follow the king. All that Thais really believe in is the monarchy, headed by the longest reigning king in the world--also, coincidentally, the dorkiest. Beyond respect and admiration, Thai people revere their king like a deity. His every utterance and act is sacred and anyone believed to be slandering his majesty can be imprisoned—you can imagine what this does to the “free press.” It’s to the point that the film ‘The King & I’ was banned because it was inaccurate and unflattering of the Thai monarchy.
Like I said, the past few months living in Thailand has been an interesting professional experience and a challenging personal experience in unexpected ways… and I could not be more ready to get out of here and head back to Africa.
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