Thais And Their Onsession With Gore

[bust]

What is it with thais and there obsession with gore and carnage? I have a number of thai friends on Facebook and a few continually post extremely graphic images and videos. Not something I see from anyone else but thais seem to be be de-sensatized to it. What's this all about? It was something I also found when I was living in PNG. I also noticed in Burmese news as well.

What am I missing? Basic rules of evolution?

[Coss]

I think its's to do with Buddhists being essentially fatalists. So whilst the West is obsessed with avoiding gore and carnage so we can all get into Heaven, the East is more realistic and says "see, Buddha told you so".

 

This is the reason for the carnage on TV and the shots of criminals - G'ma won't miss it - it's entertainment and it bolsters their 'right' thinking attitudes.

 

But then I generalise

[Flashermac]

They are more than welcome to Al Gore, if they want him.

 

Back on the topic, I remember a Thai monk showing primary school students the photographs he had taken at the morgue in Phuket after the 2004 tsunami had killed thousands. Monks do that sort of thing to teach that life is transient and we should always remember it. Imagine what would happen if someone showed such pics in a US or UK school.

[StoneSoup]

I remember about 2002, going to renew my driver's license at the license office at Sukhumvit Soi 101 (or thereabouts). There was an area of counters for filling out the application, and each horizontal counter surface extended from a Plexiglass vertical panel that was effectvely a display board. All of the display boards featured large colored photos of accident scenes - and all of the scenes that I saw that day were of the same scenario (but all different incidents): a pickup truck carrying a load of primary school students in its bed - with students in school uniform - had crashed at high speed - throwing seven-year olds all over the highway - resulting in a panorama of twisted, bloody dead bodies in clean white and red/blue/purple uniforms - with little brains spilled out onto the roadway. It was horrific.

 

I'm not sure if it might not have a good effect, reminding drivers to not do stupid things. But - it definitely put me off lunch that day.

 

Cheers!

SS

[Flashermac]

Great. I've seen a few such gory scenes here for real, and they are the only thing that has brought flashbacks to Vietnam.

[cavanami]

The police station near the On Nut BTS used to put cars that had been in accidents in the middle of the road to show that Honda that you are driving isn't some sort of armored stealth vehicle! The cars were tore up, bent up and bloodied!!

 

There was a news story, I think from the USA, where someone was shot in a 7-11 and was dead in the doorway...people were stepping over him to do there shopping, unfazed!! so blood and gore is not a show stopper as it was some decades ago...

[Flashermac]

I remember when the wrecked cars used to be put out on display. Some of them were so mangled that no one inside could possibly have survived. The only advantage of today's traffic jams is that cars now are usually moving too slowly to cause serious injuries. I recall a time when drivers raced down the city streets as if they thought they were in Formula 1 or at the Indianapolis Speedway. Many more traffic fatalities up until the late 1980s.

[bust]

It's strange my thai girl here in Sydney often shows me graphic images on her phone from Facebook yet last week we were in the cit and witnessed a man get hit by a bus. He was pronounced dead at the scene and it really upset her. Maybe there is a detachment with what is just images or video as oppossed to reality

[baa99]

Is it worse to show uncensored photos or sanitize photos to create a false reality?