In Bangkok:
“No Speak Your Language, Speak Thai or Die”
By Andre Vltchek
September
18, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- It is hard to calculate the cost of the stubborn
refusal of the Thai population to learn foreign
languages. Some daring estimates, however, calculate
that the losses could be in tens of billions of
dollars, annually. And the situation is not getting
any better.
Bangkok
wants to be the center of Southeast Asia, and by
many standards it has already achieved this goal.
Foreign
Correspondent Club of Thailand, Hive of Western
Opinion Makers (Photo: Andre Vltchek)
Suvarnabhumi International Airport is the second
busiest in the region. Almost all of the
international news agencies are here, and not in
Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur. Several UN agencies are now
located in Bangkok, as well as mega malls and top
private medical facilities, catering mostly for
people who live in Burma, Cambodia, Laos and as far
away as the Middle East.
For years
and decades, Thailand was busy promoting itself,
capturing the imagination of millions all over the
world.
New Bangkok
Skyline (Photo: Andre Vltchek)
Some wonder
whether it could really do even better than it is
already doing. According to Forbes, Bangkok
recently became the most visited city on Earth:
According to Mastercard’s Global Destination
Cities Index, the Thai capital had 21.5 million
visitors who stayed at least one night in 2016.
By comparison, London had 19.9 million overnight
visitors last year while Paris had 18
million. The Big Apple was even further down the
list with 12.8 million.
32.59
million foreign visitors descended on Thailand in
2016 alone, and the numbers are not subsiding.
Statistics
vary, but travel and tourism now account for
approximately 20 percent of Thailand’s GDP. That’s a
lot, much more than in other countries of the
region.
*****
For
Thailand, that is all good news, or at least
theoretically it is.
But despite
its cosmopolitan flair, Bangkok remains a relatively
closed and segregated society.
Now, there
seems to be more Japanese eateries in the center of
Bangkok than traditional Thai restaurants. However,
try to order in one of them, for instance, an iced
tea in any other language other than Thai, and you
will be up with a great surprise. The chances are
that the staff will not speak any foreign languages.
And it gets
much more serious than that: people working in
banks, at least theoretically catering to foreign
customers, hardly speak anything except Thai. Even
the ‘tourist police’ cannot understand what you are
talking about when you try to report a crime.
The other
day, in Bangkok, I tried to retrieve a substantial
payment from a foreign magazine, which for some
reason utilized Western Union in order to transfer
funds. Western Union in Thailand is teamed up with
the large Krungsri Bank. In one of its branches, I
spent a humiliating 90 minutes, trying to complete a
simple transaction that would normally take 2
minutes, even in Beirut or Nairobi. The incompetence
of the staff was covered up by spiteful facial
expressions and outright rudeness (using Asian, not
Western standards). More and more new ‘additional
information’ was demanded sadistically, by pointing
at some confusing printouts. Not one out of six
people involved spoke anything but Thai.
*****
Generally
speaking, many Thais believe that making a decent
income from foreign tourists and expats is their
inherent right. The perception is that no high level
of knowledge, language proficiency or provision of
quality services is required from them.
Once my
local interpreter told me:
Everyone wants to come to Thailand, everyone
loves it here, so they should accept things the
way they are done in the Kingdom.
Recently,
trying to buy an item of professional video
equipment at the SONY showroom in Bangkok, I
realized that the assistants did not speak
absolutely any foreign languages. I had the same
experience in the studio, where I was attempting to
capture two of my damaged HDV tapes.
This was
all totally acceptable when Thailand was, many years
ago, one of the cheapest places on Earth, a haven
for backpackers and romantics. Since then,
everything has changed. The country is desperately
trying to provide high-end services. But comparable
services and goods are now often cheaper in London,
Paris or Tokyo than in Bangkok. So is the food in
supermarkets. And still, there is no foreign
languages proficiency.
As a
veteran traveller from Japan recently pointed out:
It was
much easier to accept an overcooked and
tasteless bowl of pasta from a waitress who was
rude and spoke no foreign languages, when it
came at a symbolic price of US$2. It is much
more difficult to remain ‘benevolent’, if the
service is still terrible, nobody speaks
anything but Thai, but the cost is twice that of
a good spaghetti dish in some excellent
restaurant in Venice.
*****
But
Thailand is confident that hordes of people will
keep coming.
Partially
it is because of the extremely positive propaganda
coming out from countless Western mass media
sources. If there is any criticism of Thailand, it
is of an exceptionally mild and ‘kind’ sort. All the
basic elements of Western dogmas – about how great,
relaxed, safe and comfortable the country is – are
upheld in such reports.
No wonder!
No matter which government is in charge, the country
remains one of the staunchest US ally in Asia.
Thailand
fully implemented the economic system promoted by
the West. During the Cold War, it killed, tortured
or at least imprisoned thousands of its own
Communists and leftists (no need for interventions).
No
Advertising
- No
Government
Grants
-
This
Is
Independent
Media
|
In the
past, the Kingdom readily accepted and
accommodated many defeated (in China), genocidal
troops of Chiang kai-shek. It participated in
the savage bombing campaigns of Vietnam, Laos
and Cambodia, often lending its own pilots, and
it brought poor young women from the
countryside, in order to serve the US,
Australian and other pilots and technicians
based at Pattaya and other military airports, as
prostitutes.
Murdering
Students by the Military
It adopted
draconic laws that forbid all criticism, and often
even mention of almost all the basic power elements
injected into Thailand by the West.
The rewards
have been great ever since.
No matter
how rude an interaction between locals and foreign
visitors often is the country still maintains the
reputation of the ‘land of smiles’.
While the
murder rate is higher in Thailand than in the United
States, the Kingdom is still perceived as a
relatively safe place.
Endless
military coups that overthrow democratically elected
governments are generally accepted and after a few
headlines, ignored by the Western mainstream press.
While
virtually all coastlines are irreversibly
over-commercialized, even ruined, Thailand is known
as a ‘tropical paradise’.
*****
There is
actually one group of Thais, which speaks perfect
English – the elites. Most of their members were
educated in the United States, in the UK or
Australia. Some of them are leading jet set,
cosmopolitan lives, with several properties in
different parts of the world.
But these
are not people that foreigners stumble across during
their two-week long vacations. I encountered several
of them, on different occasions, and I can “testify”
that their proficiency in foreign languages,
particularly in English, is great.
*****
Frankly and
honestly, I actually love Bangkok. It is chaotic,
overgrown but an extremely complex and exciting
city. I have worked in almost 160 countries, on all
continents, but Bangkok is still one of my favorite
places on Earth. It drives me insane, it often
defeats me, but I cannot imagine my life without it.
It is one of the places where I come to think and to
write.
But it is
not a ‘friendly place, and it is not cheap. It is
definitely not an easy and comfortable city. It is
what it is. For me it is great, for many others it
isn’t. But it is definitely not at all what it is
being defined as by the Western positive propaganda.
Thailand
could change; it could greatly improve, if its
populations would take advantage of those tens of
millions of foreign visitors every year, and learn
about many other places, not just about the United
States, Europe and Japan. People don’t travel here
only from the West; they are also arriving from
China, India, Russia and Latin America, even Africa.
And savage
capitalism is not the only economic system now on
offer. As the Western “truth” is not the exclusive
one, anymore.
The best
thing for Thailand would be to interact, to learn
something new from those millions of visitors. And
what better way to learn than through interaction,
through learning languages.
Bangkok is
now a world city, a cosmopolitan metropolis, but
with a provincial mindset. All this can and should
change. Not for the sake of foreign visitors, but
for the sake of the people of Thailand!
The image
Thailand wants to project of itself (Photo: Andre
Vltchek)
Andre
Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and
investigative journalist. He has covered wars and
conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his
latest books are revolutionary novel
“Aurora”
and two bestselling works of political non-fiction:
“Exposing
Lies Of The Empire”
and “Fighting
Against Western Imperialism”.
View his other books
here.
Andre is making films for teleSUR and Al-Mayadeen.
Watch
Rwanda
Gambit,
his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and
DRCongo. After having lived in Latin America, Africa
and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides in East Asia
and the Middle East, and continues to work around
the world. He can be reached through his website
and his
Twitter.
•
First published by NEO as “Can
Thailand Evolve into A Regional Leader?”
|