khunsanuk Posted July 14, 2012 Report Share Posted July 14, 2012 Hi, I agree that the level of silly superstitions in Thailand is off the chart...but are the less-educated of any culture immune? Nope, plenty of superstitious people in other countries as well. What gets me here though is that it doesn't just seem to be the less-educated ones, but a very large portion of the population including people who have had good educations abroad. Sanuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted July 14, 2012 Report Share Posted July 14, 2012 Like Thaksin with his Khmer witch doctors? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radioman Posted July 14, 2012 Report Share Posted July 14, 2012 Whilst I would expect Cambodia to have similar levels of superstition amongst its population, Burma too, I wonder if Laos is the same? Are not communists supposed to be devoid of all belief in anything other than the party? As for the continued superstition in Thailand I really think it's all part of the scam being foisted on the gen pop by the families of influence, essentially the third part of the triumvirate that controls... Okay, nuff said, don't want to get banned Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horneytorney Posted July 14, 2012 Report Share Posted July 14, 2012 Like Thaksin with his Khmer witch doctors? Thaksin and a good education abroad??? I thought you can buy academic titles at mediocre US Universities? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coss Posted July 14, 2012 Report Share Posted July 14, 2012 Whilst I would expect Cambodia to have similar levels of superstition amongst its population, Burma too, I wonder if Laos is the same? Are not communists supposed to be devoid of all belief in anything other than the party? Communism here, is almost invisible to the casual observer, whilst we all know the difference between communist elections and the western kind, the Lao are pretty happy with their way of doing things. They get to vote for this or that person so they see they have choice, despite the fact all the contenders come from one party. Animism and Buddism is big here, trees on my land get prayed to, the land itself has had ritual offerings, eight times. And the old Thai dream of lots of small fish (will bring luck, so buy a lotto ticket) works on Lao women too. Try telling your nearest and dearest (if Thai or Lao) that you had such a dream, they'll usually sit up and anticipate good luck. JMHO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gobbledonk Posted July 14, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 14, 2012 I agree that the level of silly superstitions in Thailand is off the chart...but are the less-educated of any culture immune? Let us not forget all the stupid, stupid farang who believed that "Y2K" meant anything and acted like fools at its coming... What's coming later this year will make Y2K pale in comparison...all the hysteria over all this totally misunderstood "Mayan Calendar" 2012 bullshit...mark my words, you will see some of your friends, whom you otherwise thought to be rational people, start to behave not that differently than the hyper-superstitious Thais... You know exactly what Y2K was all about, and why it was a whole lot more serious than the Mayan calendar hooha. Corporations didnt spend millions upon millions to have code monkeys like myself go over countless lines of code because they were 'superstitous' - they did it because they knew full well that fixing potential problems well BEFORE midnight on 31 Dec 1999 was going to be a lot cheaper than trying to fix them after the fireworks went off. There were plenty who claim that it was a huge con job by the IT industry: Opposing View Of the observations there, the most glaringly obvious is this: The absence of Y2K-related problems occurring before 1 January 2000, even though the 2000 financial year commenced in 1999 in many jurisdictions, and a wide range of forward-looking calculations involved dates in 2000 and later years. Estimates undertaken in the leadup to 2000 suggested that around 25% of all problems should have occurred before 2000.[49] Critics of large-scale remediation argued, during 1999, that the absence of significant problems, even in systems that had not been rendered compliant, suggested that the scale of the problem had been severely overestimated Anyone who started their remediation in 1999 deserved whatever they got. We spent far more time testing code for a variety of date-related problems (including the Unix Millenium Bug) than making changes - and that's as it should be - for our back office stockbroking products and our clients were ruthless in relation to any bugs, date-related or otherwise. In addition to the 'fail fees' they would have incurred for not processing trades, they risked damaging media coverage. They didnt particularly care about what companies were doing in Italy or Russia - they did care about the prospect of walking in after Xmas to find a train wreck. We had backup generators, a complete disaster plan and teams on call to handle software and/or hardware-related issues - consider the money that has been thrown at Afghanistan and the GFC's Mk I and II, and the cost of Y2K remediation looks like a bargain to me. BTW, what else do you think Italy might have spent the early noughties ignoring beside potential date-related issues in the code that runs their financial system ? Interesting times ahead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
panadolsandwich Posted November 27, 2012 Report Share Posted November 27, 2012 When I set out to learn a foreign language - I'm prepared to spend at least half the time learning about the culture. That's what drives the fascination to learn in the first place - or one of the principle components of it. And when you think about it - it is a bit obnoxious to want to learn another language but be mocking of the culture behind it. Not that I'm saying that is what you mean - I'm sure it's not. However interestingly the Mormon missionaries have got an excellent Thai program - perhaps that applies more to them. When you think about it though - you might believe the Thais to be overly suspicious, but perhaps you are too inured to the superstitions that are real and present in Australia. Many here are Christian and that means to varying extents - they believe in transubstantiation. Even to some extent religion is taught at schools as a primary subject. It's even worse in America where some communities are so fundamentalist they don't want evolution even present in textbooks, despite it being one of the greatest scientific advances ever. Even subcultures of greed can be classified to exist in Australia, have you ever watched the white-shoe brigade on the Gold Coast? They are worshiping something - I leave it up to you to infer what I mean. Anyhow learning about ghosts and demons will assist you in watching Lakorn or Thai Soap Opera - which if you plan on spending any time with a Thai woman - you will be watching, and it's more entertaining if you can follow what's going on. All that aside, I like dragons, ghosts & ghouls, zombies etc. You don't have believe them to exist in order to watch a cracking story about them. Although if you watch Parliamentary question time it could give you good insight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted November 27, 2012 Report Share Posted November 27, 2012 The Mormon missionaries study intensive Thai for two or three months at Brigham Young University in Hawaii before they come here. Their Thai is generally quite good. However, I knew a few of them years ago and one said to me, "I wish my Thai was better. I can discuss religion with no problem. But when I get into other subjects I'm lost." I told him we all had that problem. Our vocabulary tends to be limited by the situations we normally deal with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khunsanuk Posted November 27, 2012 Report Share Posted November 27, 2012 Hi, "and it's more entertaining if you can follow what's going on" No, it's not Sanuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
panadolsandwich Posted November 28, 2012 Report Share Posted November 28, 2012 Well, I tend to be over-indulgent in that regard, but I know what you mean! If I'm going to be coerced to watch it - rather than the UFC on the other channel for instance, then I like to attune my ear to the language. Also I do enjoy some of them - I'm not shy to admit that, much more than watching them dumbfounded for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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