Official name

Thailand

Capital

Bangkok

Administration

76 provincies, each subdivided intro amphoe (district), tambon (sub-district) and muban (village)

Surface Area

517,000 sq km

Time

Greenwich Mean Time plus 7 hours (GMT + 0700)

Telephone Country Code

66

Climate

Monsoonal. Wet: June-October, dry: November-May. Hottest: March-June, with temperatures in the top thirties. Humidity high at 66-82 per cent average

Population

62 million, one third in urban areas. 75 per cent ethnic Thai divided into four dialect groups. Chinese and Malays form the largest minority groups, with significant hill tribe presence in the mountains

Religion

Some 95 per cent are Theravada Buddhists, the remaindes are Mahayana Buddhists (mostly Chinese) and Muslims (mostly Malays), with a 0.5 per cent Christian representation

National Language

Thai (Central). Significant variables in regional dialects. Chinese (dialects) widely understood in shops. English taught as a second language, not widely spoken

Currency

Thai baht

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Introduction Some companies feel reluctant to invest into intercultural training for their representatives and/or expatriates who will work in a foreign culture. The results, often disastrous both in human and in economic terms, show them wrong. The Employee Relocation Council (ERC) ranks moving as third in life’s most stressful events behind the death of a loved one and divorce. Employees being transferred by their company will find themselves feeling vulnerable and in need of support. Support for the expat is vital for any company, and utilising all of the tools available, from intercultural training to orientation programs, can make the difference between a successful relocation and an unhappy worker. Thailand is not a mere tourist destination any more. Its rapid economic growth in the past years has turned it into a country where many foreign companies do business, invest, set up joint ventures, etc. Business and trade involve communication, and in the case of Thailand, for Westerners it is bound to be intercultural communication: communicating with Thai people whose values, practices and communicative style are very different from their own. Removing social barriers is a lot more difficult than it sounds. If you are working in Thailand, you are likely to be constantly expected and even required (by fellow expats and by Thais) to live up to the role demanded by ‘expat culture’. By all means begin your personal study of the Thais with whatever you find immediately enjoyable, be it the massage parlour or Thai classical dancing; as you learn more about the Thais, many other aspects of their culture might attract you. The present paper may help us in preventing some intercultural errors, and contribute to a better understanding between them and their Thai counterparts.

Brief overview

1. Political aspects

Thailand is distinguished from other countries in South-east Asia by the fact that it was never colonized. There were no civil wars, nor rasial conflicts. This remarcable achievement in a part of the world that is so haotic is celebrated even by its name: Thailand, or “Prathet Thai”, meaning “land of the free”.

The country is a constitutional monarchy, headed by King Rama IX. Thai people worship their king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, who has the longest reign in the history of Thailand. Even in everyday life, Thais engage in activities in honor of their king and the royal family. Visitors should be aware of common activities, to which they should participate to show their respect for the king. Not followed, could lead to arrest for assault and criticism of the royal family. Although respect for the monarchy is closely related to the esteem and respect of traditions, the real concern of the royal family for regular thai people improved the status of the institution. In states and cities from all over Thailand as well as in some parts of Bangkok, at 8 am and 6 pm the national anthem is played on the streets in honor of the King and country. Citizen’s duty is to stop their activity and show respect by meditation.

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2. Economic aspects

Thailand is a newly industrialized country. Its economy is heavily export-dependent, with exports accounting for more than two-thirds of its gross domestic product (GDP). Thailand is the second-largest economy in Southeast Asia, after Indonesia. The nation is recognized by the World Bank as “one of the great development success stories” in social and development indicators. Despite a low per-capita gross national income (GNI) of $5,210 and ranking 103rd in the Human Development Index (HDI) the percentage of people below the national poverty line decreased from 65.26 percent in 1988 to 13.15 percent in 2011, according to the NESDB's new poverty baseline. As of the first quarter of 2013 Thailand's unemployment rate is 0.7 percent,the fourth-lowest unemployment rate in the world (after Cambodia, Monaco and Qatar).

3. Religious aspects

Thai society harmony is due Buddhism and traditional value systems, in which an important place is occupied by family, friends and harmony in society. It is spoken a different dialect in each region of Thailand and specific customs are practiced, also culture and social values gather together all Thais and most minorities. The acceptance and the welcoming of minorities in most aspects of Thai culture is due to the essential Buddhist precepts and the concept of tolerance and not judging your neighbour. Nearly 95% of the population is Buddhist, religion that underlies Thai culture, dominating many aspects of daily life. Buddhist teachings avoid the notion of a god or omnipotent gods. There isn’t a divine force to decide the fate of each individual. In Buddhism, life is not a series of individual decisions, but rather life is controlled by karma accumulated in previous lives. Only the individuals actions set the course of his life and no god can change the effects of something caused by a person.

Buddha images

The most well known of Buddhism’s sacred symbols, the one most respected by Thais and, unfortunately, the one most abused by non-Thais (and some Thais) is the Buddha image. These images are not ‘idols’. They do not represent any god and, strictly speaking, are meant only as an aid to help the individual in his path towards the attainment of ‘Buddha nature’—the complete elimination of suffering. It should be, needless to say, that these images must be treated with the utmost respect. In the past, severe punishments were handed down to anyone guilty of desecrating an image or scraping the gold leaf from its surface.

Today, in spite of restrictions on taking images out of the country, they are openly on sale in tourist shops and even set out disrespectfully by the roadside. Many valuable images have disappeared from the country and turned up in museums in the West. These images are stolen by Thais (and if they can’t carry the whole image, the normal procedure is just to take the head, since this is the part most valued by the buyer), but sometimes these Thais act in open connivance with otherwise respectable foreign museums and universities.

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To the average Thai, the Buddha image is not an object of merchandise. It is also not seen primarily as a work of art. In talking about images in Thai, special respect language is used, the ordinary term for ‘it’ is never used and the parts of the image’s body are called by those terms used to refer to the king’s ‘arm’, ‘head’, etc. The Buddha image is an object of veneration, not of decoration. Mistreating a Buddha image in Thailand is tantamount to going into a devout Catholic’s house and turning the crucifix upside down.

The wat

While the visitor’s ignorance of Thai norms of courtesy involving one’s fellow man will often be excused by the Thai as simply odd, or, at worst, rude, inappropriate behaviour in any religious context will not be easily forgiven, and deliberate or unintended insult to what the Thais consider sacred could land you in real trouble. Behaving disrespectfully in a Thai temple or to a monk is absolutely taboo. One problem for the visitor of a wat is that very rarely will he find a chair to sit on. High seats, in traditional society, were reserved for royalty, and it remains the norm that most commoners live out their lives sitting, eating and sleeping on the fl oor. The most comfortable and healthy way of sitting on the floor is to sit cross-legged and this is the way monks sit. However, it is not the way a layman or a laywoman sits in the bot. There you should sit in the respect position, with the legs tucked under the body, facing the Buddha image. This position is inconvenient and tiring even for Thais and there is no reason why you shouldn’t prop yourself up on one arm.

The monk

The same sitting position is adopted before monks as before a Buddha image. To sit cross-legged in front of a monk would be to suggest that you are his equal, and you are not. The superiority of any monk over any layman is very evident in the Thai language which has a set of special vocabulary to be used when talking to or about monks. It is also evident in all aspects of monk-layman interaction; laymen eat after, walk behind and seat themselves at a lower level than monks. There are many obvious reasons, secular and religious, to respect a monk in Thailand. In the villages, many monks continue to fulfill an important secular function by providing basic education to farmers’ children. Many aid development efforts directly by teaching crafts and trades to the adult population and mobilising cooperative efforts to construct wells, bridges and dams.

4. Social and Cultural aspects

THE WAI

The wai is not just a way of saying hello without using words, it is an action of respect. As such, its use conforms to all that I have said and will have to say about Thai values and attitudes. It is the most significant of the many social actions that reinforce Thai social structure. It does so through public literal demonstration of what I shall call the ‘height rule’. This basic rule is simple and clear: in any social encounter, the social inferior takes on a physically inferior position and the social superior assumes a posture of physical superiority. The wai is used for objects as well as people and although the pace and conditions of

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modern times tend to restrict complete fulfi lment of respect procedures, it remains a very meaningful part of Thai daily life.

On any long-distance bus, you will notice the passengers waiing sacred places as they speed by. And don’t be surprised if your taxi-driver, having beaten the longest red light in the world at the Erawan intersection and screaming on two wheels around the corner, takes his and your lives in his hands and raises them in a wai to the elephant-god on the corner.The Thai king does not wai his subjects (unless they are monks). When the social distance between any two individuals is

very great, the wai is not returned. Thus if a young child wais a senior elder, the elder may reply with a nod or smile; if a waitress wais on receiving a tip, the giver does not return the wai; if a junior employee meets the big boss, he will wai, the boss need not.

The Western visitor used to simple upper/middle/working class distinctions may be confused by the individual way in which Thai society is stratified. The complexity and individuality of the Thai system will begin to be revealed if you begin the daunting task of learning Thai. Then you will be intrigued by the ease with which a Thai changes language and behaviour patterns, slipping in and out of positions of superior, inferior and equal. Visitors from most non-English-speaking European countries will be used to manipulating two words for ‘you’. In modern Europe ‘inferior you’ is decreasingly heard and may cause offence. Not so in Thailand. The Thai adjusts all of his language to suit the social situation. I give the ‘status chart’ below for the personal pronouns ‘I’ and ‘you’ only to indicate the complexity of the Thai deference system. On this chart alone there are 11 different words for ‘you’. The chart is adapted from the one given at the very end of the AUA intensive 20-week Thai course—some Thais consider it an over-simplification! Some people are very evidently at the top of the structure. The king, royal family and monks (and Buddha images) are all phra (excellent). They are excellent in every sense and stand as moral custodians of the Thai world. Almost every Thai household has Buddha images, pictures of monks and many pictures of the king and queen. The Thai world is simply inconceivable without these essential components. An individual status system must have a commonly agreed point of excellence at the very top of the system.

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Attitude towards foreigners

Thais are sociable and enjoy family gatherings or with friends or colleagues. Even a lunch break can become a little party with smiles, food and visitors. Forget about egalitarianism. It does not exist in Thailand. It’s an automatism to relate to someone with a higher rank and respect it, something westerners would resemble with flattering. Thais have no post colonial hang-ups about Westerners, simply because they were never colonized and regard Westerners as their equals. The Thai word for European is farang, and you will hear the name used wherever you go in Thailand. Parents will point you out to their children, and often children will come up close to get a better look. Some may touch you for luck. Farangs are frequently a source of great amusement to the Thais, since they behave in such strange ways. The Thais watch the visitors intently, waiting for them to commit some faux pas or do something odd. However, in many of the international tourist spots foreigners are so numerous that they lose their curiosity value.

The Thais are particularly attracted to foreigners who behave politely and try to follow Thai practice. On one occasion I was sipping a beer with a friend at a roadside cafe in. a holiday resort, when a Thai came up and greeted us. He said he wanted to meet us because we were dressed politely (suparp). On further investigation we found he was impressed because we were both wearing shirts and slacks in a place where everyone else was in T-shirts and shorts.

Thais are less impressed by foreigners who "go native" and dress as Thai peasants. On the whole, they prefer us as we are.  The Thais can be disarmingly direct, asking personal questions even when they hardly know you. They will ask where you come from, whether you are enjoying your stay, whether you are married and, if not, when you are planning to tie the knot. They may even ask how much you earn. You are not expected to answer properly or exhaustively, for this is merely friendly small talk. The Thais admire people with pale skins, but you will find some who are afraid of people with dark skins, which they call "kerk." For this reason, darker-skinned foreigners have to work harder to earn their respect and friendship.

The extent to which public, business and private lives are mixed or kept separate

Trompenaars (1993) categorises various cultures along a dimension he calls specific vs. diffuse. Diffuse means that the whole person is involved in a relation; in a culture with the characteristic of specificity, on the other hand, it is possible to enter a relation with someone purely at a business level, for instance, without concerning oneself with other aspects of that same person (such as his ancestry or moral background, his religion, his family life, etc.). We inquired into this dimension with the following two questions.

I can do business with someone who is competent professionally but has an immoral personal lifea) yes, his/her personal life is irrelevant 13%

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b) yes, but I would prefer not to 50%c) no, that would be difficult for me 37%

There is little doubt that these answers are shifted toward the diffuse side in comparison with most Western cultures, where little inquiries are made into the personal life of business partners. In contrast, almost 40% of our Thai respondents are likely to refuse doing business with a professionally competent person if that person’s personal life is not up to their moral standards; and the vast majorityof Thai people will be reluctant to enter into a business relation with such a person.

If my boss asked me to assist him/her with a task that has nothing to do with the company (e.g., for his/her spouse’s Business), during company hours, I woulda) almost certainly accept to assist 27%b) probably accept to assist 60%c) probably refuse to assist 12%d) almost certainly refuse to assist 1%

Here again, although we do not (as yet) have any figures from Western cultures to compare these results with, it seems probable that the Thai are less specific, distinguish less between one aspect of a person (in this case, the fact that he/she is their boss for a particular job) and other, ‘unrelated’ (to Westerners) aspects of that same person. 87% of our respondents are likely to carry out, for their boss, tasks that have nothing to do with the job they are paid for, during company hours,—an attitude that most Westerner would deem unacceptable or even unethical.

Conventions regarding socialising The Thai much prefers a polite and fairly cool start to a relationship. Such a start allows any deeper friendship to develop only if the conditions are right. Once such friendship has developed, however, a Thai would not hesitate to ask a friend for a favour, perhaps a big one, and a real friend would grant it. A real friend becomes one of the family. Thais can also make mistakes in timing and ask for a favour, possibly borrowing money, before the visitor feels a sustainable friendship has developed. Asked to lend US$ 2,000, the visitor might feel he was being taken for a ride; that might be the case, but it could also be that the Thai wanted to establish a material basis to the friendship. Whatever the truth, I would advise the visitor to refuse such loans in a Thai way—”You caught me at a bad time. Got to pay Junior’s school fees”, “Ask me next month”. No need to be offended or to offend. But if the Thai does not take the hint, feel free to terminate whatever friendship has developed. Again do this in a Thai way. Don’t answer the phone. Don’t turn up when invited round. He will get the hint.

Thai society is structured in such a way that almost everybody is superior or inferior to almost everybody else. This restricts development of the kind of deep friendships that can only exist between equals. The norms of Thai society further limit the opportunities for friendship that might be considered ‘meaningful’ from the farang point of view. It is rare for one Thai to bother another with his personal problems, even if, deep down inside,

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he is crying out for help. The imperative of all social interaction—the maintenance of superficial social harmony and the avoidance of any word or action that could create a conflict situation or embarrassment—makes Thais polite, pleasant, flattering and friendly but does not encourage deep, lasting friendships.

In certain cultures, people tend to think of themselves primarily as individuals; in others, as members of a group. Thailand, with an Individualism score of 20 (40th out of 53 countries) ranks low, though not among the very lowest, on Hofstede’s scale (Hofstede, 1991). We therefore expect Thailand to exhibit many features that are associated with collectivism (group-orientation). In group-oriented cultures, people owe a high degree of loyalty to their in-group, and in return they get (and expect) a high degree of protection from it.

Conventions regarding work

Some questions deal with (vastly different) aspects of time, ranging, more or less from small to large,from punctuality to decision making and to the issue of future or past orientation.The first question examines whether workers arrive on time for work or not, and the results are as follows. In the morning most workers in my companya) Arrive on time 41%b) Arrive on the average … minutes early 43%c) Arrive on the average … minutes late 16%

Some people did not fill out how many minutes they generally arrive early or late. However, the averages calculated with the available data give us an indication. The average of those who arrive early is 18 minutes, for those who arrive late it is nearly the same, 17.5 minutes. Workers, however, seem to prefer the ‘risk’ of arriving early to the risk of being late. For a foreigner, it is good to know that, although people in Bangkok will understand that in some cases unforeseen traffic prevented you from arriving on time, traffic congestion should not be used on a regular basis as an explanation or an excuse for arriving late!

Meetings in my company generally starta) approx. … minutes earlier than planned 9%b) less than 6 minutes beyond the stated time 32%c) approx. … minutes late 58%

The majority of meetings start later than the stated time, but the time lag remains fairly small: the average is 10 minutes. One third of the meetings start on time, defined here as starting within 5 minutes after the stated time. We may conclude that the starting time of meetings in Thailand is not very different from what it would be in Western countries.

As far as we know, there is no culture in the world where one starts a discussion about business without at least some preliminaries. In Northern Europe and the United States, these may be reduced to a few sentences (‘How are you’, ‘Did you have a good flight’, ‘How is the weather back home’) and take only a couple of minutes. In France, as described by Vincent Merk (1986), for some negotiations the business lunch (lasting a couple of hours, and during which one does not talk business) is an essential element of the ‘getting acquainted’ process, its importance being often overlooked or misunderstood by Americans

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or Northern Europeans. In other parts of the world, doing business with someone is carried out on the basis of trust and respect, and building this up may take several months, or even more. Two aspects of these preliminaries were included in this survey: (a) the time participants indulge in small talk before starting to discuss business, and (b) the time it may take to get to know someone personally before accepting to do business with that person.

When a meeting in my company starts, a) we immediately start discussing issues 54%b) we may exchange some personal and other unrelatedsubjects before talking business, for approx. … minutes46%

With people you work with, extensive socialising before getting down to business may not be functional on a daily basis: only 46% of our respondents say they indulge in some personal and other unrelated subjects before talking business with their colleagues, and then for an average of (only) 10 minutes. More exciting, however, are the answers to the following question:

Before you do business with someone, do you wish to spend some time in order to know the individual personally (family,education, social background, etc.)?”a) no, not at all 9%b) yes, a few minutes 32%c) yes, one or two hours (e.g. having lunch together) 28%d) yes, a few weeks 18%e) yes, a few months 13%

As one can see, even if 41% of the respondents declare they start doing business immediately or after a few minutes of small talk, the process of getting acquainted is felt to be important for the majority of the respondents. Twenty eight per cent feel that an extended lunch is the appropriate length of time for the ‘getting acquainted’ process. The question itself was, no doubt, insufficiently refined, as no difference was made depending on the kind of transaction and the importance of the business relation one wishes to establish. However, what is most important, and certainly surprising from a Western point of view, is that a considerable number of our Thai respondents (31%), think of the process of getting acquainted before entering a business relation as something that will take weeks or even months. This is close to the examples we discussed above, where the Western businessperson needs to be aware that investing (morally and financially!) in a long period of building up trust and respect is sometimes necessary before the locals accept him/her as a business partner.

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Conventions regarding food and drink

Thailand is truly blessed when it comes to culinary arts. Lunch will be one of the highlights of your stay in thailada. Eating is a national pastime for Thais, most of whom manage to stay delightfully slim in spite of giving in to temptation at every opportunity. And opportunities are many. Almost very street corner and doorway offers something. Cakes are carried on the tea trolley at workplaces, and Thai friends are constantly meeting up after work for a snack before dinner. Thai food does not fit neatly into breakfast, lunch and dinner categories. Lunch and dinner tend to offer the same choice of various foods, while breakfast is either rice with yesterday’s leftovers or johk (rice porridge), a bowl of ground rice well cooked with slithers of ginger in it (which you need not eat) and minced pork or chicken. The visitor will be pleased to hear that eating out in Thailand, unless attending a wedding feast (and even then not too much) involves little in the way of protocol and, apart from a reluctance to discuss death or other serious subjects which may grace a Western intellectual’s dinner conversation, no real taboos. No food or beverage is forbidden, all can be taken in any order and the eating of one thing does not exclude the eating of another thing.

Fruit carving

Thais are not satisfied just to have one of the tastiest cuisines in the world, they are giving their best to make of their products one of the nicest.

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Other conventions/taboos

Probably better known as “The land of the free” Thailand is also known as “The land of smiles”. Those who travel to Thailand are amazed by the presence of smiles. But the meaning of smiles is diversificated. Thais were able to classify thirteen types of smiles, reaching a wide array of emotions, from sadness to exhuberant or despondency.

Behind the Smile

The Thais do not necessarily smile ‘about’ something, but their smiles are not meaningless. In the West, people smile primarily to show amusement and in many situations, a smile would be out of place or even rude. Smiling or laughing at somebody’s ungainly attempts to do something beyond his capabilities might, in the West, produce a feeling of insult and the hostile retort “what are you smiling about?” In the West, a smile is about something. In Thailand, a smile is a natural part of life. It does, however, serve social functions and, at the risk of over-analysing and classifying this most beautiful and natural of actions, I offer the following basic list:

To Show Amusement A smile—and often a laugh—may, for the Thai, as for all human beings, show amusement. However, while the Westerner generally would not smile on seeing a person slip on a banana skin (unless he was watching a cartoon), a Thai generally would. This does not mean he is unsympathetic; the Thai is just as likely to help the wretched banana-skinslipper to his feet as anybody else. Rarely would a Thai smile or laugh involve ridicule, although it may sometimes seem that way to the visitor.

To Excuse In the above story, the smile may have been prompted by amusement of the banana-skin variety, but it also served to excuse the perpetrator of an unintended inconvenience.When the smile was returned, it demonstrated the granting of pardon. A smile may be used for these reasons a thousand times a day (usually, the visitor will be relieved to hear, for incidents less serious than the example above).

To Thank The smile is often used to thank somebody for a small service. As I point out in the section on small talk, a verbal ‘thank you’ is used far less often than it is in the West. In Thailand a smile, perhaps accompanied by a slight nod of the head, means ‘thanks a little’; the return smile could be translated ‘oh, that’s quite all right’.

Thai time

Another major cause of misunderstanding is that, although thoughts and words may be translated into English by a Thai speaker, his speech habits may remain very much Thai. Thus, if a Thai arranges to meet you at ‘four o’clock’, he might mean 4:00 pm or he might mean 10:00 pm. Everybody could be greatly inconvenienced because of a simple cultural misunderstanding. Thais traditionally divide the day up into four sections of six hours each,

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instead of two sections of twelve hours. 7:00 am is ‘one o’clock in the morning’, 11:00 am is ‘fi ve in the morning’. In Thai, each part of the day has a special name, so mistakes are unlikely. In recent years, it has become normal to refer to morning hours in the Western way of counting time. Evening hours, however, remain inviolably Thai: 8:00 pm is, in spoken language, always ‘2 o’clock in the evening/night’. Fortunately, Thais are also familiar with the 24-hour clock (used on the radio and in timetables) and the visitor might be advised to stick to that when making appointments.

Names and titles

Whatever the size of your talk with Thais, you will need to call them something. In Thailand, as elsewhere, friendly and polite conversation usually involves the use of names and titles. All Thais have two legal names, a personal name which comes fi rst and a family name which comes last. Here the similarities with English end. You will fi nd Thais are introduced to you by the fi rst name only, however important they are. This first name is normally preceded by Khun, the equivalent of Mr, Mrs or Miss, unless the bearer of the name possesses a higher title. Even when speaking English, Thais will use the polite formula, title + fi rst name. Thus, you will find yourself referred to as Khun Peter or Misater (Mr) Robert or, if you have a PhD, as Dokter (Doctor) Fred.

Gifts

Thais like to give and receive presents. These are almost always wrapped up beautifully. Do not be offended when the Thai thanks you for your present and puts it aside unopened. It is bad manners to open presents in front of the giver. Ripping the carefully prepared gift package apart to see what is inside is rude. Put it aside until you are alone. It is good manners and saves you having to say ‘how lovely’ when your face registers ‘how awful’. It’s the thought that counts.

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