Obstacles Facing Thai Reconciliation

[Guest lazyphil]

hitler didn't think so, or stalin!!!!!

[chuckwoww]

I had to think about that one. You mean the cheap labour? Hitler certainly wasn't squeamish about using that. He didn't pay them at all. Not sure how Stalin fits in there. You mean the gulags?

 

Funnily enough South Africa under Smuts actually joined the war against Nazi Germany. The Boers were not enthusiastic.

[dave32]

I think you'll find 'amataya' is from Sanskrit and it means or meant something like court officials or royal advisers. I can't be more specific. That's the perception among the Reds about who the real power brokers are. You seem to be suggesting that no such group exists or if it does it is progressive and enlightened.

 

I don't know the linguistic origin of the word "bourgeois," but I have a general idea of the more hardline communist definition. "Amataya" is a variation of that, with pretty much the same meaning as employed by the Reds. Do you disagree?

 

And what I am suggesting is -- there are a lot of people tossing out "Bangkok Elite" in a very vague manner that has grown and grown to the extent that all you have to do is come from Bangkok to be labelled thus.

 

Here's what I want = since I was able to find the term in numerous references, it obviously meant something more specific once upon a time.

 

What is that meaning? Who, specifically are the Bangkok elite? And while I was content with your original response -- you had to get all high and mighty and shit, so now, haha, I reject the response of: the dudes who removed Thaksin from power, and some of the dudes who backed him.

 

Need more info to process this. I don't doubt that there were powerful groups aligned against Thaksin. And that there are corrupt officials exploiting the constituency. I'm just tired of this 'Bangkok Elite' shit being thrown out so arbitrarily that it means nothing except: bad guy. come from Bangkok. You guys can do better. And for the record, I really want to know who is being referred to and the backstory. It's not bullshit posturing.

 

Ps. If you knew me Chuck, you would know that 'progressive' and 'enlightened' are terms I would apply to nobody.

 

Maybe a long time ago.

[chuckwoww]

I always see bourgeois as meaning middle class. When they say amataya I think the Reds are thinking of people higher up the social scale. A lot of Reds might be considered middle class in Thailand. Most outsiders translate it into some kind of urban elite.

 

I don't think you'll get a definition of amataya that will satisfy you on this board. We are basically a bunch of opinionated old farts who throw out terms like confetti. You'll have to ask the Redshirts what they mean by it. I'd be interested to hear what they say but they'll probably tell you whatever they think you want to hear. Or they might just smile and say nothing.

[cavanami]

Chatting with local Thais, to me, the Thais seem jealous of the Thai-Chinese who are wealthy and have power. I just reply that the Thai-Chinese worked for what they have, so OK. The local Thais frown and do not accept this answer

 

Are the Chinese the Jewish of the East. Yes, they work hard, encourage their children to study and work hard.

When I needed something done in Malaysia, I went to the Malay-Chinese and it got done! When I went to the Malays, they stuck their hand out and wanted money (bribes). The Malay-Indians, well, they seemed lazy.

FACT: had to ship some equipment from Malaysia to Japan, 1st company we used, Malay-Indian, showed up with 20 workers. 19 workers promptly went to sleep while 1 did the work!!! took hours to get the equipment loaded up!!! WTF!!!

2nd shipment, used a Malay-Chinese company. Six workers showed up, was loaded in under one hour!! no one sleeping and was cheaper!!!

I have many stories like this of working in Malaysia!

[chuckwoww]

"Chatting with local Thais, to me, the Thais seem jealous of the Thai-Chinese who are wealthy and have power."

 

That's another elephant in the room nobody likes to talk about openly. I don't think most Thais see it in ethnic terms.....there's been so much intermarriage it's hard to say who the real Thais are.

[cavanami]

My personal idea is that a Thai person is some part Chinese and some part Indian.

...too lazy to search to see if this has been investigated

[gobbledonk]

The problem with all of the above is racial stereotyping, and I apologise for taking us down this path, but now that we are here I'd like to add a few thoughts -

 

1. I agree that ethnic Chinese are go-getters : they arent afraid to work hard to make money, and the locals often resent that. Its most obvious when you have riots in Indonesia or Fiji, but both countries would inevitably suffer if the Chinese packed up and left. Fiji is a basket case, and I doubt that any other country would be willing to bite the merchant hand that feeds.

 

2. Someone cited the fact that we Anglo-Celtic types have supplanted the local populations in several countries and its not seen as oppression. I guess that depends on who you ask, but here in Oz the percentage of the population who would identify themselves as 'Aboriginal people' is tiny (less than 3% of the population according to Wikipedia), yet successive governments have allocated billions to their welfare. Non-aboriginal people have outnunbered aboriginals (including those who designate themselves as such with no apparent physical resemblance to aboriginal people) for at least a century, and I expect that this was the case in the US since the early 1800s. Whatever the rates of intermarriage have been in Thailand and Indonesia, I doubt that ethnic Chinese outnumber Thai people who could trace their lineage to other parts of SE Asia : agree that its not a clearcut issue when China has had such a profound impact on so much of SE Asia.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians#Demographics

 

Note that the Chinese population in Australia is currently estimated to be over 3.3% and the media claims they are one of the largest groups of new arrivals after Poms and Kiwis. For the Aussies on the board who may have grown up surrounded by Greeks and Italians, Wikipedia makes for interesting reading:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia#Demography

 

3. Regardless of the reality in Thailand, whatever it may be, its the *perception* that Chinese-Thais hold the majority of the nation's wealth which might be a flashpoint. Thats a large 'might', but I still disagree that there is no racial component to the division between rich and poor Thais.

 

None of the above makes the domination of an existing culture by another 'right', but didnt Europe endure centuries of invasion/cross-pollination ? Every country that I know of has its moneyed elite, and I dont think any of our top 30 earners identify themselves as aboriginal people, but I can safely predict that in years to come, more of them will have Chinese surnames. As long as they spend their money here, we could do a lot worse, IMO.

[dave32]

Nice post. While I agree with Sporty's perception that the Reds have shown a propensity for violence and there's definitely a darkside emerging -- don't agree with Gobbledonk as Nazi. lol.

 

But hey, it's a forum and this is a topic that definitely touches nerves. People gotta vent a little (me too).

 

It's going to be interesting to see what happens in Thailand over the next few years. There's a pretty fucking broad spectrum of possibility.

[LizardKing]

Chatting with local Thais, to me, the Thais seem jealous of the Thai-Chinese who are wealthy and have power. I just reply that the Thai-Chinese worked for what they have, so OK. The local Thais frown and do not accept this answer

That's just it. Most of them (and the Sikhs) came here with little more than the shirts on their backs 100-150 years ago. Strangers in a strange land. Now using just their willpower, they are on top. And that makes them evil in the eyes of the lazy.

 

Take Mrs LK's family. She's 24, yet still treated (literally) as a child by the family because she has not finished Uni yet (went from a BS to an MBA proggie immediately). She cannot do a lot of things independently. That's the penalty and the carrot at the same time. It absolutely infuriates me at times, because for instance we cannot live together in sin nor even get married with the family's blessing until she's graduated, but I also understand the great motivational factor it is.