Thailand: The land of smiles

So as you all know I am in Thailand for one month and then I am going to Vietnam for 3 weeks. Well, if you didn't know that, you do now.
In researching for this program, I wanted to find out some information from someone who had been to a location, or was currently at a location, but have no vested interest to push me to go. I found this kid on facebook who was in nha trang, and we have been corresponding on and off since January. Well I messaged him recently to tell him I'd arrived and he wrote back warning me of all the things to look out for. One of the main things he kept saying was that the Vietnamese do not really like foriegners. Coming from Thailand this didn't make any sense.

Then I realized, of course Vietnam wouldn't like westerners. Westerners have occupied, controlled or colonized Vietnams government for the past 200 or so years. Westerners caused a war which tore the country apart. It's a surprise that they even allow Westerners into the country to begin with.

Thailand on the other hand, is one of the few countries in the entire world that have never been controlled, or colonized by a foriegn power. Thailand, which used to be called Siam(think Anna and the King/The King and I) innitially took up much of the South East Asia Penninsula, although I think Vietnam has always been fairly separate. It has also been a monarchy, with the rulers of the country determined by birthright since the middle ages. However in the early 1900s the government changed from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy. In the 1940s, the French colonized Laos, which is to the North of Thailand(Nongkhai is actually a border town, and when I go near the river I can physically see Laos), yet the king of Thailand used its ties with Japan to fend off the French. However Japan then began to occupy thailand militarily and caused much destruction to the country, as it was slowly loosing its foothold in world war two. Either way, it was close, but was never politically controlled by another country, super power or even another ethnicity/race. Therefore, the Thai people have nothing to fear from westerners. **Pictured is current King who has ruled for over 60 years and is one of the longest ruling monarchs in the history of the world. You can see his picture nearly everywhere.

Thailand is called the land of smiles. Which is why I LOVE it, since I am always smiling. They also dislike confrontation, and use those smiles to avoid conflict with each other and with foriegners. Whenever you are frustrated in dealing with the language barrier or some other dispute, smiling will immediately difuse the situation as they see that you mean well. However, in certain urban areas where prostitution run rampid smiles are the key to their success. The smiles can sometimes be fake and its hard to determine what they are really thinking/feeling. Either way though I haven't had many problem so far, they all seem to be friendly and very welcoming. Yet, I am also in a small closeknit town.

As a whole Thailand's economy seems to work very efficiently. Thailand and Vietnam both devestated by the War dealth with rebuilding in different ways, Vietnam through communism, or command economy and Thailand through private enterprise, or capitalism and within a few short years Thaialnd vastly improved their economy and are now the strongest economy in the area. Vietnam however was struggling emmensely and finally decided in the 80s(I beleive) that the command economy was not working and they slowly incorporated private enterprise into their way of life, similar to what Mao did in the People's republic of China.

The only main issues with Thailand's economy is that it depends alot on "sexual tourism" or prostitution essentially. The country's economy makes alot of money by having the mere children and teenage girls(although the "patrons" are always told that the girl will be older then 18) solicit their "servies" to tourists at "dance clubs", bars and street corners. It's a joke(although I find it offcolor) then its very easy to have a "thai girlfriend" if you want one, you just need a few Baht. Prostitution came about before tourism was such a big part of the economy. The Thai people were a polygomous people until the 1930s when the King outlawed the practice in order to "westernize" the area. However, they apparently still needed that outlet and variety I suppose? That was when Prostitution first became as big as it was now. If you could legitimately marry as many people as you want(although usually it was just males of course) and have sex with many different women in a socially acceptable way, then prostitution is not a necessary institution. However, when that was taken away, it simly came out in another, more profitable and capitolistic reform. I realize I am sounding rather flippant about the issue, and I don't mean to be offensive, I am trying just to explain the rational behind it, moral or not.

The other issue with the economy, or rather the government is the corruption. For anyone who has seen Brokedown Palace, its a fairly realistic portrayal of how bad the corruption is. The higher up you are in politics the more corrupt you will be. Although, corruption does actually make the country safer in a way, because officials get paid off instead of violently taking down criminals. I know I'm not explaining it right, but its similar to the idea of legalizing marijuana. If you legalize marijuana and you can buy it at the store, instead of from a dealer, you take away the criminality from it and it won't be as violent or deadly. Either way, its an oxymoron, but the corruption does seem to make the country safer and more efficient to some extent. Living in Nongkhai though, its too small of a town for the corruption to really effect the way of life at all.

Ok enough of a history and civics lesson for today. I thought it would be nice for you all to understand the backgrounds of the countries I am in. If nothing else, its my blog and I'll blog what I want to. So there.

*Note-all of this information is stuff I've pieced together from things I've heard, seen and read. Please do not take this as completely accurate, I was just trying to give you an overall understanding of the country, but I could have some facts wrong.

ps-thanks for all the comments and feedback so far, its very appreciated. I will soon write more about my daily goings on, I am trying to lay the groundwork first.

See ya on the flip side!