bangkokbanks

Tatsujin, on 2012-03-22 13:39:35, said:

I must agree with the Tatsujin's remarks made above. Aggression meets aggression and in this case ‘head on’. The Farong could have avoided this incident entirely by simply saying "sorry I forgot the rules" and then turn around and take a taxi home. He should have known that balloons are not allowed on public transport. The reason is obvious, imagine if they pop and make an explosion sound - the result could be disaster. Many have died in stampedes in other parts of the world for far less in crowded areas. In essence we have the clown that yells “FIRE” in a crowded theatre syndrome. It is a good rule and should be seriously enforced. This Farong knew he was breaking the rules - otherwise he must not be very intelligent.

We foreigners often forget, we are guests here, being polite should be at the top of everyone's priority. It is easy to get lost in one's own dogmatic behavior simply because we ourselves do not want to lose face. If that Farong had been in any other major Western city in the world and the authority told him in a stern voice "no balloons" do you really think he would have continued on like he did?

To be clear, I am not condoning the BTS guard’s hostile act but what was he to do, call the police? I do not know the answer but now assuredly, the BTS officials will be discussing long and hard what new policy needs to be put in place for any future trouble such as this one.

Let's get it right, thousands upon thousands of riders a day use the BTS without incident; this Farong was wrong, he is the type that makes us foreigners all look bad in the eyes of the Thai.

Docno, on 2012-01-21 12:25:55, said:

Well said. I agree with you and do wonder why so many expats here complain as they do about the Thai. No system or nobody is perfect. Your point that so much that goes on here is not unique to Thailand is well taken.

thanchart, on 2012-01-07 00:54:27, said:

I had my kids in Thai Private school from Kindergarten through 3rd grade before switching to International. I wanted my (Look Croong - half Thai kids) to learn Thai and Thai culture. Although I do not regret my decision at the early stages of their education, some of the patterns as described by NOITOM above became all too apparent. I agree with some of  NOITOM's comments because we must remember it's a system - a culture - a way of life without much worldly influence. Thai education is indelibly influenced entirely by Thai society and despite many that want to change it – unfortunately corruption a major part of the problem. We will have to leave that to another topic, but in a class society like Thailand has – corruption is part of the problem for change.

"To call their education worldly or a place to discover the ways of the world would be an oxymoron. We falongs can't seem to fathom the simplicity of the system."

What many do not know is that it is highly competitive in the schools. The kids from early grades call each other stupid and compete for the top spot in the class. If one does not catch on in class, the teachers often ridicule him or her in front of everyone. It often turns hopeless – these kids are under tremendous stress, if not to make their grades but just to be accepted by their classmates. Humiliation is a major component in the classroom, not a very fruitful way to teach a society, wouldn’t you say? As most of you may agree the Thai education system is based on archaic methods of teaching. None the less, I disagree that the Thai feel entitled. At my business I have personally interviewed more than 100 young Thai graduates from all walks of life. Our business is such that we cannot accept anyone without a college degree. In that time a period of 6 years, I have observed a thing or two about the overall Thai education.

To make a long story short – I noted that even applicants coming from the top three Universities; were not very impressive in the ways of the world. What do I mean the ways of the world?  The only reference is akin to a four year college or University graduate from the West. In that way I refer to a worldly person, a student who has gained some prospective on the world, who has had to read and write sufficient papers expressing his or her opinions or defending a point of view.  In that way there is no comparison between the two worlds. The level of reasoning, the reading background and most apparent to me, the assertiveness of the Thai graduate is completely different than a Western based undergraduate.

Out of all the applicants interviewed as stated above, only one spoke English; of course this is Thailand, Thai is their language so we cannot expect them to be proficient in a language that is not used here – or can we? That begs a question, that to gain a prospective of the outside world they must rely entirely on their own news sources, albeit newspapers, radio or God forbid Face Book. This is in my opinion a handicap for the young Thai person because in essence they are ignorant that English is even important to bother learning. Most of the society saying “English it’s just too hard to learn.”

On the contrary to my above statements, I also have learned some very positive aspects about the graduates that have graced our small company. The level of sophistication might at first be a hindrance but depending on the person, that was no longer a factor. I found more often than not the eagerness to learn and to succeed in a majority of our early staff members was a refreshing surprise. I did find it common of the applicants to be smart, engaging and clever. Most had a fond interest to learn and the people we hired became valuable assets to our company.

We were lucky to get our kids into a top private Thai school on Sukhumvit, considered the best. I can say I am glad to get them out of there once they had a few years of it. It's a brain washing that is no one's fault; it's just the system at large that is the problem. That is why you will not find a lot of Thais with ideas of how to change and they sure as hell are not going to listen to falong’s to change their system. The rich kids lucky enough to be educated oversees; they normally do not want a low government job after returning to Thailand - which is exactly what is needed to begin making changes to the system.

The final decision to pull my kids out of Thai private school was when we started noticing the rote memory exercises being introduced in the daily lesson plans. My unique prospective of having kids in the system and hiring young Thais out of University got me thinking about the educators themselves. Just have a look at the teachers they hire in the schools, many of these nice people (and many are) are rather simple themselves.  I frequently encountered dedicated individuals with a good heart that cared about their students. The problem was their lack of worldly vision as mentioned above. Their being products of the system, they did not know how to encourage creative thinking or problem solving within the classroom. My kids would come home and tell me “the teacher said to memorize this for the test” pointing at a photo copied page of some text book. I can recall the kids having to remember 25 English words a week for a spelling test. This was a Thai school, so there was no teaching phonics or the basics of sounding out of words. We all know there is no long term memory by utilizing this way of learning.

As a whole my experience with Thai graduates is that they are eager to learn and can be good learners. The Thai are smart and can be ambitious if motivated. Remember the average Thai out there is a product of the system, his lack of prospective or interest in reading is not entirely his fault.

We can only hope for their sake, the education system gets a thorough make over.

And that's my two satang’s.