I lived in Thailand as a young Peace Corps Volunteer in the early 1980s.  To learn Thai, I would go into small local restaurants where I would sit at a table.   As a lone single foreigner, my presence raised curiosity of the people working at the restaurants, or other patrons.  Oftentimes is was a 30 or 40 year old woman who owned the stall, and made their living selling bowls of noodle soup.  Quite there were teenage girls in their late teens, or early twenties also working there, i.e. my age at the time.  I learned much of my Thai in such situations, often in the context of a conversation that went something like this:

Me:  Could I please have a bowl of noodle soup?

Them: You mean you even speak Thai!!!

Me: (modestly) Yes, yes, a little bit.

Them: You speak Thai really really well!  Where are you from?

Me: I’m from America.

Them: Ooh that’s interesting.  We see American movies.  Did you know you look just like a movie star????  (accompanied with teenage tittering).

Me (modestly):  Well, yes, I’ve heard that before (i.e. the previous time I sat down at a restaurant like this).

Them:  You have golden colored hair, just like Robert Redford!!! (more teenage tittering).

Me (with more humility):  Well yes, I guess so….

Some form of this conversation took place probably a couple hundred times during my three years in Thailand in the early 1980s.  In fact, it took place with most of the Peace Corps guys who had long noses, and hair that wasn’t’ black, including the bald ones.  It was the starter for a great deal of conversation, fun, and flirtatiousness.  Not to mention, it was the context for much of the Thai language we eventually learned.

Anyway, I returned to Thailand in June 2011 with hopes of reliving the glory of thirty years ago. I even brought along my wife of 24 years to show it how it was done—and how lucky she is to have married a guy who looks just like Robert Redford.

First restaurant:

Me: Could I have a bowl of noodle soup?

Them:  Sure.  Do you want something to drink with that?

Me:  Yes….water maybe?

Them:  It seems you speak a little Thai!

Me (hopefully):  Yes, yes….

Them:  Where did you learn Thai?

Me:  In the Peace Corps, over thirty years ago.

Them:  Why were you so stupid to leave Thailand?  Couldn’t you see that this is the nicest country in the world???

Me:  Um yeah.  Do you remember Robert Redford?

Them:  No, who’s that?

The real sad part is that it was no longer the tittering teenagers and twenty-somethings asking me these questions.  They still sit conspiculously in front of the noodle, but seem focused on others, and no longer strike up conversations with me.  Rather it is 50 year old ladies who smile as much the teenagers used to (wait a minute—I guess they were those teenagers), but the tittering is gone.  For that matter, so is the flirtatiousness.  I guess that the good news is that the noodle soup still tastes great

I am teaching a sociology class in northern Thailand to a group of nine Chico State students who are here for a special summer session.  As with most of my sociology classes, I have assigned Max Weber’s classic essay “Classes, Staende, Parties” at an early point in the class. Particularly what Weber writes about what in German is called “Staende” is relevant to Thailand. Staende are the groups we form in which we have loyalty to others in the same group, to whom we are loyal, and share a way of life.  Thailand is full of Staende, including the orange-robed Buddhist monks,variousethnic groups, uniformed students, civil servants, police officers, and other groups. Staende are the stuff of social life!

Staende memberships are an honor; notably, you can’t use raw cash to join a Staende, like you would the local fitness club. Rather you need to either be born into it, or establish a qualification that is typically marked by an education and/or and initiation ritual. An obvious example are the Buddhist monks here in Thailand. Monks are  frequently seen in their orange robes in Thai towns.  You certainly cannot buy your way into a Buddhist monk order!  Rather you go through an elaborate initiation ritual involving study, learning, and ritual. Citizenship is also are Staende. Unlikethe monkhood though, we are typically born with a particular passport, though we may also earn it through the rituals of “naturalization.”  Other Staende include professions, ethnic groups, aristocrats, alumni groups, slaves, and some clubs.  The point is that membership is not bought in the open market (like membership in a local fitness club), but is the result of “honor.”

Weber notes that all Staende think that their own group is just about the coolest thing around, meaning that they all think that their own honor is better than potential competitors, even if no one else agrees.  Thus, when teaching with Chico State students, I typically point out that they are clearly cooler than UC Berkeley students, an assertion with whom few Chico State students have ever disagreed. (I have not been offered the chance to test this assertion at UC Berkeley yet).

More relevant in places like Thailand, professional bakers think that they are more important than the fruit-sellers.  Students from one secondary school think they are cooler than those from another school, and vice versa.  And the impoverished peasants are pretty sure that the success of society rests on their shoulders, even though at the same time, the aristocrats assume that the success of society rests on their own obviously brilliant skill.

Staende are readily apparent here in Thailand because of markers like uniforms (e.g. for students, employees of particular companies, civil servants, etc.), and a profusion of local accents. Then of course there are the many foreign Staende, including my own, which is called in Thai “farang,” and is composed mainly of tourists from the US and Europe.  Whether I like it or not, in Thailand, that is one of the Staende I was born into by virtue of my white skin and long nose.

For this blog, there are two important characteristics of Staende, which I want to highlight. First is the fact that by definition, Staende are about who you can hang out with, or in other words those with whom you consider eligible for “social intercourse,” all the way up to marriage.  They are the “us” and everyone else is the “them. “ We recognize the “us-ness” in each other when we share a Staende.  What is more, we recognize the “them-ness” of those who stand outside.

An important marker of Staende in Thailand, students wear school uniforms, all the way up to the university.  Each school has specific color combinations, and at the university the student even wear badges identifying their majors.  These are clear Staende markers of the honors the students have accumulated, and makes it easy for each to recognize the “us-ness,” i.e. who we have responsibilities to—or not.

Weber notes that it is the uniforms and badges that make it easy for different groups to know whether someone else is qualified for what type of social interaction.  Thus you see Thai school children all dressed alike travelling together—the wearers of specific school uniforms easily recognize each other, establishing a basis for who will help who (or not) in the future.  What is more,Stand ranking even gives such groups a chance to see who is violating the norms for interactions. Do university students mix with high school students (not too cool!).  Do English and Pharmacy majors mix (better, but still not so great).  In theUnitedStates universities the “Greek system” at many universities provides an obvious marker for stratified Stand relationships.  And not surprisingly, my students tell me, “who goes out with who” is a subject of intra-group regulations among status-conscious sororities and fraternities.

Ultimately, Weber points out, Staende reach their ultimate expression when they become concerned with endogamy and exogamy, which is basically “who goes with who” in a sexual sense. Art that point, the Staende become “ethnic.”  This is when it becomes tough to sustain Staendebecause the hormones of youth are raging.  Thus, American students seek to send their children to the highest status university possible as a way to preserve the honor and status of the highestStaende possible.  In high school, it is clear thatcheerleaderscan’t go with nerds, and in college, it means that a college boy dating a high school girl is discouraged.

I don’t know of any studies of Thai marriage patterns, but I would bet that the elaborate system of education and uniforms here patterns marriage patterns very strongly, guaranteeing that high Thai youth mix only with lower status Thai youth.  I would guess that marriage is most likely between those who wear the same university uniforms during their formative years are less likely to be caught in a compromised situation with someone from an unapproved Stand.

 

I was young once in Thailand.  I lived here as a 22-25 year old, first as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and after that working in refugee camps.  In these roles, I tried to blend into Thai society as well as possible, despite my long nose, height, blondish hair and the fact that my Thai language tones were far from accentless (or, as my Thai teacher told me last year “three out of five tones—not bad…”).

Part of blending in was getting used to the Thai focus on age and hierarchy. As a 22-25 year old, I developed the skill and reflexes to initiate a “wai” greeting at the appropriate time—which means when seeing someone for the first time who is older than me.  At age 22-25, this was most of the people I worked with.  The whole social process was reflexive by the end of my time in Thailand which was in (dare I admit it?) 1980-1983.  I would enter a social situation, calculate age, and wai, and get a wai in return.

In the summers of 2010 and 2011, I began spending time in Thailand again.   I found my Thai to be a bit rusty, and took Thai lessons to compensate (the result: the three tones mentioned above rather than the 1.5 tones I started with).  The wai reflex though turned with a vengeance.  The problem though was that it was the wai of a 24 or maybe 28 year old, and not someone who was 53 with a distinguished head full of now white hair.  This led to confusion among random Thais who received my wai, even thought hey were 15 or 20 years younger than me.  Note to self on the current trip to Thailand:  Sit on hands!

Karen Connelly was a Rotary Exchange student in Phrae Province, northern Thailand, in 1986-1987 as a 16 and 17 year old. She published an enchanting memoir about her experiences in Phrae Province Dream of a Thosuand Lives: A Sojourn in Thailand in 1993, a book that won the coveted Governor General’s prize for Canadian Literature.  I can indeed understand well why the book won the prize.  Her descriptions of Phrae bring alive the world of northern Thailand in the 1980s.  She describes well work elephants, water buffaloes, rice fields, the unusual food she ate (chicken feet!), and the beautiful Buddhist temples. Accordingly, I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in Thailand, living abroad, exchange students, or culture shock.

But most effective are Connelly’s descriptions of her relationships with the Thai people she met: her host mother, Rotary Club “fathers,” teachers, friends, and others she met during the year.  In her description, Connelly relates well the difficulties in learning the Thai language, and adapting to the culture of Thailand.  Her capacity to do this in my view is outstanding—and I have special knowledge of this too, because I also lived in Phrae in the early 1980s.  In my case I was a 22-24 year old Peace Corps Volunteer.

Admittedly, when I lived in Phrae, I was different: a little older, and of course male.  Nevertheless, Connelly’s description of life in Phrae, and especially the playful relationships she established with the people of Phrae resonated deeply with me.  So did her frustrations with being a young expatriate in a sea of Thais, as she struggled to learn a difficult language, while dealing with the many stereotypes Thai had about farang, Canada, and the rest of the world.  We also shared a need to separate ourselves from the enthusiastic sociality of Thai society and bury ourselves in books, writing, walks, daydreaming in order to satisfy the western need for a solitude which was inevitably interrupted by Thais concerned that we were “lonely.”

I do though take exception to one point that Connelly makes in an introduction to the book she wrote for the American edition in 2001.  She claims that the world she observed in Thailand in 1986-1987 is now in the past, irretrievably so.  In large part this is because indeed, the charismatic elephants, water buffalo, and rural lifestyles that so enchanted her are disappearing from Thailand. I returned to Thailand in 2010 and 2011, and can agree that this is indeed the case.  There are indeed no more water buffalo in the fields—they have been replaced by various kinds of diesel-powered tractors. (Thai farmers have let me know that the “metal bufallos” are a lot easier to take care of then the real thing, less ornery, and can plow longer without rest and a wallow).  Really all that remains of the enchanting parts Connelly described during her Rotary year are the Buddhist Temples, and the ubiquitous monks in their orange robes. The charismatic elephants are around, but mainly for tourists to whom under-employed mahouts sell rides; no longer are random work elephants found walking down the road, as they were in the 1980s.

But in my eye, the really important things about northern Thailand have not changed as much as she claims.  Especially, the very human elements that Connelly describes so well are still evident.  There is still a playfulness in the relationships between people that is uniquely Thai.  There is also an open curiousness about the rest of the world couched in many of the same stereotypes Connelly and I dealt with in the 1980s.  The Thai are also just as quick to laugh, and have fun.  I suspect that they are just as quick to worry about expatriates who enjoy the solitude of a walk, or time alone with a notebook writing letters and diaries, too.

 

 

 

1 APRIL 2011 (Variety Newswire) NEW YORK – FOX News Corp and Ethnography.com has announced the acquisition of Ethnography.com by the conservative news network for $123.6 million dollars in cash and stock.  According to the agreement jointly released by Fox and Ethnography.com, the network assumes all rights to the domain, the content of the website and the copyrights to the phrases “ethnography” and “ethnography.com.”  The current authors of Ethnography.com will join a number of popular FOX news hosts to contribute a social and cultural context to reporting; ranging from American eating habits to explaining how the cultural factors of “President” Obama’s birth in Indonesia affects how he rules US citizens.  “This is an exciting, but perfectly natural acquisition for us,” stated Montgomery Brens, VP of New Media for FOX. “Providing Fair and Balanced reporting about the Left-Wing assault on American values is our core mission, and Ethnography.com’s unique expertise supports that.”  Variety attempted to contact Mark Dawson, the founder and chief editor of Ethnography.com, at his home, but was informed by his secretary that “Mr. Dawson can’t come to the phone; he is busy rolling around naked in a bathtub full of $100 bills.”  Ethnography.com released the following written statement. “It is with great pride that we join the Fox Family.  We look forward to supporting their on-going commitment to fact-based new reporting.  Mostly though, we are looking forward to hitting the beach bars in St. Barts and making drunken fifthly-rich asses of ourselves.”