Sanuk is one of the most important words in Thai - language. Literally translated it means fun or joy. This word designates however more, it stands for joy of live, or better said, the typical ability of the Thais, to pull out of even poor or shabby living conditions, an optimum of joy of life. This requires naturally a pragmatic way of life, and above all an appropriate frame of mind, which one designates perhaps best as "a merry heart".  It is nothing other, than the innate or perhaps also the learned ability, not to take this life too seriously, and if all things have at least two sides, to rather regard the good than the bad side.  Many travel guides emphasize the merry nature of the Thais at each opportunity. The typical smile, which one gets from most Thais if one looks at them, is only an outward indication. For us western people, with our innate or instilled sense for work, order and cleanliness, it is nevertheless not easy to understand the completely different life attitude of these people, and perhaps even to learn something from their easy kind of life.

Who is interested however, to understand somewhat better this country, and particularly to come in contact with its inhabitants, or who lives there for a longer time, will experience something, what one generally calls culture shock. In Thailand are not only much things completely different - above all thinking and behavior of the people - but one can also live there for many years, and meets nevertheless again and again something new, a taboo or a custom incomprehensible for us. The country and the people will open themselves only slowly for a Farang - that is the name the Thais use for all western foreigners. It is like playing a puzzle, with always a new bit appearing, which must be put in the right place before the whole game forms slowly an understandable picture. One must be careful to approach too rationally or only with our western value conceptions to the understanding of Thai-behavior.  Thais decide much more than we do "from the belly". If one wants to understand their world, - up to a certain degree anyhow – one must renounce to judge everything only by our western standards of value and moral.

 

How we will cope with the constantly changing situations, with which we are confronted in our life, is determined by our lifelong experience in dealing with people of our own culture area. Now we are suddenly shifted by jet in 10 hours into a completely different world, among people, who same as we, but with totally different background, are acting more or less unconsciously, in accordance to the rules and the rhythm of their own cultural area.  Each culture has its own rhythm, even if that is as well unconscious to humans as the fact, that they are breathing in and out regularly, or that their heart strikes 60 times in a minute. If one suddenly is diving into a completely different culture, then his innate or trained behavior rules are suddenly no longer corresponding to his environment. It is now important to realize, that not all humans around us are wrongly polarized, but that our synchronization to the surroundings is not correct any more.  The often quoted jet-lag concerns thus not only the temporal, but also the mental synchronization with our environment. That is what is generally called culture shock. 

 

By my experience this synchronization is less difficult, if one lives completely under Thais, because there one is constantly reminded - usually by little things – that the clocks tick differently here.  If one lives however as a tourist in a European managed hotel, and comes only over a short time into contact with Thais, mostly with taxi drivers or street hawkers, then situations will result sometimes, where the Farang asks himself, whether the Thais tick correctly.  Exactly the same the Thai will asks himself of the Farang, or expecting it, due to a longer experience with Farang. If one overcomes this cultural shock, one will perhaps see, that the Farang can also learn something from the Thais.  For example, that this life has much more to offer, as to hasten hectically from one day to the next one, until arriving one day at the inevitable end, but instead to enjoy his life here and now, with all the beautiful and pleasant things, which it has to offer for us.

 

Thailand is caught today in a conflict between tradition and modern living. On one side, even the simplest things of everyday life are regulated by a set of behavior standards and taboos, which each Thai observe and whose sense or necessity hardly someone can explain, but which nevertheless are questioned by nobody. On the other hand, Bangkok has become in the last years a metropolis of western capitalism, with all the negative aspects:  the glaring gap between poor and rich, criminality and inconsiderate waste of existing environmental resources.

 

The tourist, attracted to Thailand by multicolored travel folders, showing gilded pagodas, smiling temple dancers, and sunny sandy beaches, when arriving at Bangkok, will first be taken aback by noise, traffic and dirt, perhaps, depending upon his taste, also by the unashamed night life in some tourist centers. That is not the exotic dream country which he had in mind. Even if he is talked by his travel guide into a package tour to the north, to visit one of the Meo villages in the so-called golden triangle, he will soon realize, if looking a little bit nearer, that it is a kind of Disney Land, where the natives from morning to evening must run around in their holiday garbs, selling industrially manufactured trash to the tourist as original folks art.  If the traveler however moves somewhat outside the normal tourist routes, driving for example from Bangkok up country, and taking a little more time, in order to look nearer and to come in contact with Thais, then he will soon experience the real charm of this country.  One should not make the error, to take the first impression of this country, which each tourist gets first in Bangkok, because this is usually the first station of all tour operators, as typical for Thailand. As a friend of mine, who lives for many years in Bangkok, has once stated: the only advantage of Bangkok is that it lies so closely to Thailand. 

 

Although exposed today by television and tourism to very strong western influences, up to today the Thais are one of the less westernized Asian peoples. That may, at first sight, appear questionable to the tourist, who in the evenings walks along the Bars in Bangkok, or in Pattaya, regarding the busy live there. He will however soon change this opinion, if he comes in contact and lives together with normal Thai people.

 

I have spent the last 20 years between Germany and Thailand, and as I built my house there up country, in the middle among the rice farmers, I had to learn at least enough Thai-language to be able to communicate with my neighbors, because there where I am living, nobody speaks English. If one lives for months only with Thais, one is inevitably integrated into the family and learns much more about the real Thailand, as from a heap of books.  One adapts oneself completely to the normal rhythm of the country people, and begins to think in many ways like a Thai.  Above all however, one loses the bonus, which each Thai grants first to the unacquainted foreigner. Thais consider it as normal, that the Farang adapts himself to the national customs and observes the dominant taboos. In addition, when visiting my European friends, living in the tourist centers, particularly in Pattaya and Phuket, I regarded the bustle there with some distance, and with a growing ability, to understand the motives and the thinking of the Thais working there, mostly the girls at the Bars.

 

Briefly, I always tried to understand more of this country, which fascinated me already at my first visit, more than twenty years ago.  In the following stories, I would like to report some of my - naturally personal and completely individual – experiences. To understand Thailand, or better the Thais, one needs also a little information about the national institutions, which like parliament and police have the same designations as in our country, but however are functioning according to very different rules.

 

If one speaks of the Thais as one people, then one must explain, that there are - as in every country - substantial differences in cultural and regional habits, above all between the ethnical Thais and the relatively large groups of minorities. Thailand is about as large as France, and has also nearly the same number of inhabitants. The country extends from north to south over 1500 km, and shows substantial climatic and ethnical differences. From the about 60 million inhabitants of Thailand, only 85 % are ethnical Thais, from which a large part lives in the north-east of the country, known as Isaan, speaking Lao-language or a Cambodian dialect.

 

The Chinese are the largest minority, but they have practically the whole business life in their hands. They are owners, or joint owners of nearly all commerce, from the large banks and hotels, to the small noodle shops at the street corners. The Thais can not keep up with the enormous diligence and organizational ability of the Chinese; they prefer instead to enjoy their life.  Even if they represent a minority, with less than 10 % of the population, mostly immigrated during the 19. and 20.^th century, Chinese have nevertheless exercised a lasting influence on the Thai society. They are today occupying top positions in production, trade and the monetary system. The economic success of Thailand in the last decades of the 20^th century is to a large extent owed to them. Without the Chinese immigrants and their descendants, Thailand would not be the country which it is today.

 

Another large group of minorities are the muslin Malays in the south of the country, causing in the last years much trouble to the Government, while seeking separation from Thailand. And finally, there are the mountain peoples, four or five tribes of completely different races, coming from the north in the last centuries, which are living today in the forests near the borders to Laos and Burma in an area, which generally is known as the „Golden Triangle“. They were living predominantly from the cultivation of opium. Since today the government is prohibiting the production of opium, they make their living from the tourists, who coming mostly from Chiangmai, the center of the north, want to visit these exotic types.