West Eats East- Erosion of the Thai culture?

This is an article from chiangmainews.com

December, 2002

Thailand, a country rich in culture, its people proud of their monarchy, their heritage and their national identity. Strong Buddhist values, a work hard/play hard ethic and a love of life that manifests itself in a multitude of festivals and public holidays are but a few of the characteristics on which this diverse culture is based.

Forgive me if that sounded a little clich?d, a little hackneyed perhaps, reminiscent even of an introductory paragraph in a travel brochure or the words of a narrator on a holiday programme. The point is these are the things by which Thailand is sold to tourists and these are the things we are attracted to by their absence from our own cultures. Millions of us flock here every year (approximately 1,100,000 between January & July 2002 according to TAT) intent on escaping the daily grind of the west and immersing ourselves in the diversity of the east. How many of us stop however to question how our being here may be detrimental to the status quo?

In our capacities as tourists or expatriates should we not consider how our presence might be having a subtle and arguably irreversible effect on the Thailand of tomorrow?

Whilst the kingdom embraces tourism as one of its biggest and most lucrative industries one has to consider how the injection of so much western capital and influence is diluting the very attractions that the brochures and travel agents are using to entice us here in the first place.

Many of us choose to live or visit here because to some extent we’re disillusioned by westernism and by what our own countries have to offer us and yet our very being here encourages the locations we settle in to open western friendly establishments that compromise on the authenticity of traditional goods and services in order to appeal to our western consumer palates. Gradually the popular tourist destinations are suffering an erosion of their cultural idiosyncrasies. Customs and practices unique to the popular provinces may slowly be experiencing a shift away from their origins as the power of the tourist dollar is fully realised. Money is indeed a powerful demon. Koh Samui is a case in point, through marketing it has attracted the masses and undoubtedly its cultural ecology has suffered. The multinationals have moved in, McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut and even Starbucks, have all recognised the consumer potential of this tourist haven and wasted no time in exploiting it. Now correct me if I’m wrong but the Big Mac a Thai national dish? I don’t think so.






Chiang Mai has its fair share of fast food outlets also. Take a trip to the Night Bazaar or Kad Suan Kaew to see a plethora of American consumer outlets or head down the superhighway to the outlet stores for a real American shopping experience, just don’t be surprised to see more parking spaces than customers.

Perhaps these establishments are not pandering necessarily to tourist demand, Chiang Mai is after all Thailand’s second biggest major city and as such it represents a highly lucrative market. Television and cinema have helped convince Thai people that western consumerism is desirable. Today’s young Chiang Mai residents are adjusting to a diet of UBC and MTV and finding fast food a more gastronomically interesting entree than traditional Thai fayre. Western consumerism is alive and well in Chiang Mai and the combined efforts of local and tourist will ensure its survival and continued growth.

The locals we can forgive, for them the glitz and gaud of American fast food outlets give them a sense of buying into a lifestyle. It’s still very much a novelty also. We can’t claim the same excuses however and should know better. We labour under the impression we’re searching for something new, some thing detached from our own realities.

We are perhaps not as adventurous as we like to think. We travel in search of different environments and challenging situations and yet we seek comfort in familiar ones. We adopt this elitist attitude towards the package tour holiday maker and we look down with scorn upon those who on their annual 2 weeks abroad spend the glut of their time in bars and restaurants with national themes (those of our own nation’s that is) eating ‘home from home’ food and supping their favourite national beverages. Yet here in Chiang Mai itself we have English, Irish, Australian and Israeli establishments to name but some, all of which are highly successful and never fail to attract tourist clientele. Bear in mind also that the average a tourist spends 3 days in Chiang Mai and a whopping B3000 per day and then consider what percentage of this might be acquired by nationally themed bars and restaurants.

But if we’re all so keen to escape our own countries why do we seek out the security that these environments offer us and more to the point how is their presence affecting the cultural balance and the traditional Thai businesses in the areas they are located? Some will argue that you can’t stop progress and that ultimately Thailand will be enriched by these cross-cultural acquisitions. Whether it can be classed as progress or not is debatable but certainly it’s a wheel that now set in motion will be almost impossible to halt. We can take some small consolation however in the fact that we are not solely responsible for this phenomenon. Cheaper airfares, the Internet, cable TV etc. are all contributing to the creation of a global community. Countries who choose to be members have to accept that in doing so they will ultimately compromise something of their national identity.

For Thailand the bottom line is that Thai culture cannot absorb the effects of western consumerism without losing something of it’s own uniqueness. A generation will pass before the true impact of our presence is felt on a national scale and by that time those cultural peculiarities lost to progress will survive only in the minds of the old and nostalgic.


by Mark Bentley