My third-world debt
Donaldson, Peter J.
THE LAST WORD MY THIRD-WORLD DEBT Peter J. Donaldson I lived in Thailand for almost ten years, yet many people both Thai and farang (as all Westerners there are known) would tell you that I...
...My spoken Thai is rudimentary, and I never mastered the rules of daily life that govern such seemingly simple things as whom to wed that is, to whom to display the traditional Thai greeting of hands with palms together held high...
...I had a business-class ticket...
...Yet I frequently embarrassed myself and others by wai-ing too soon, surprising young professors who had held off waxing, thinking that a handshake might be more appropriate or that no gesture at all would best suit the circumstances...
...As I grew older and therefore more deserving of respect, the number of people who should have waied me before I waied them increased...
...In the same situation, my Thai friends would never grumble...
...Thailand is called the "Land of Smiles" for a reason...
...Today, I'd let the movers do the work...
...We exchanged seats because younger brothers defer to older sisters...
...Per capita income has increased almost ten times over the past twenty-five years, and at least among the urban middle class who have been able to take advantage of this growth an optimistic worldview has become pervasive...
...They realize that nothing is often a good thing to do and almost always the best thing to say when confronted with a slight...
...At times, this acceptance allows a bad situation to get worse...
...I traveled frequently between Bangkok and New Delhi...
...Pi Yaw was booked to travel in economy...
...I have become more kreng jai, more inclined to say mai pen rai, I appreciate the accord that social hierarchies can provide, and I'm more inclined to smile and accept the ways things are...
...The important part of Thailand's influence is that my cultural map has been altered...
...I never heard him complain, as I would have, that the theft added insult to his considerable injuries...
...Many of the Thai traits I enjoyed most are evident in the propensity of people in Thailand to smile...
...They'd think, "What a great deal," and buy more fruit...
...Thai experts have visited cities throughout the world to study ways of managing Bangkok's traffic problems...
...The positive aspects of Thai development were a delight for those of us who lived through the country's economic transformation...
...If I bargained and paid 50 baht about U.S...
...The characteristic Indian way of dealing with uncertainty and possible embarrassment is to glower...
...Acceptance of hierarchy is in part an acceptance of the way things are...
...When I arrived in Thailand my values were relentlessly egalitarian...
...The Thais have a deeply rooted inclination to look for a way around interpersonal problems, to be krengjai, to worry about causing trouble, and to be watchful of other people's feelings...
...The well-ordered hierarchy of the Thai cultural map recognizes that to do others' work is often to demean them...
...to say, in a celebrated phrase, "mai pen rai," "never mind," and to move on...
...But the traffic remains wretched, not because of a lack of possible solutions, but because of an acceptance of the way things are and of kreng jai: The city government is unwilling to cause any of Bangkok's elite citizens trouble or inconvenience, say, by restricting the use of their cars...
...I smiled at the immigration official, at the customs officer, at the man in the taxi kiosk...
...He is now president of the Population Reference Bureau in Washington, D.C...
...During the first days of my stay, I carried cartons of books into my university office, working alongside movers the school had hired to do the job...
...I arrived as prickly as any newcomer, but over time I learned something of the common Thai strategy for coping with the unpleasantnesses of daily life, an approach very different from the relentlessly cantankerous style favored by the New Yorkers of my youth...
...Pramote said, "Mai pen rai...
...THE LAST WORD MY THIRD-WORLD DEBT Peter J. Donaldson I lived in Thailand for almost ten years, yet many people both Thai and farang (as all Westerners there are known) would tell you that I remained almost totally unaffected by my sojourn...
...2 for some fruit and later found the same fruit for 10 baht, I'd complain and feel cheated...
...When I arrived at the Delhi airport, my inclination was to use my Thai manners and smile to ease each potentially awkward situation...
...I paid taxi fare to the hospital...
...While he lived in Bangkok, Peter J. Donaldson was the director of the Population Council program in Asia...
...When my friend Pramote Prasartkul was in a serious automobile accident, the people who brought him to the hospital relieved him of his wallet...
...The economy has been growing like gangbusters...
...Each of them would look at me as if to say, "You are a dimwit...
...Thais smile when they are amused, of course, but they also smile when they are embarrassed, or when they are bargaining, or as a way of saying thank you, or indeed when they are in doubt about what to say or do...
...I have changed since I first arrived in Bangkok, and Thailand has changed as well...
...But for me, Thailand's transformation is less important than my own...
...But despite such inadequacies, Thailand shaped me in ways both profound and incidental...
...Once I and an older friend, someone I address (again following that map) as "Pi," or "older sister," were on the same flight from Bangkok to New Delhi...
...So what...
Vol. 124 • June 1997 • No. 11
