Amazing Thailand

“Lazy Thai” — The Virtue of Contentment and Adequate Diligent

Let’s See how Thai Culture Abate the Money-Oriented Modernization

In spite of the fact that Materialism is rampant nowadays, Thai people keep their internalized noble spirit nicely, live in a sublime, honest, down-to-earth lifestyle.

In general, Thai is very easily contended, very friendly, very lovely.

“Lazy Thai” is a shared cognition in Thailand, and even Thai people presume themselves indolent. These wide-spread perceptions and loaded-language presenting fact selectively, which is very misleading. Once the people classify oneself in a particular bracket, humans tend to become what they think. Consciously or unconsciously.

I disagree with the “lazy Thai” statement. In my opinion, It is a derogatory term created by some sort of eugenicists, or the ones assume Thai people should be more productive or, “hardworking”.

Questions: are you a hardworking person? Do you feel contented with your industriousness? Are you paying your effort in the apposite direction?

In my opinion, It is exhilarating to strive. As long as you do it happily, effectively, taking others into your consideration. Then the endeavour would be considered highly valuable.

In contrast, if paying efforts hysterically, targeting greedy accomplishment; or the motivation is all about running away from insecure; meeting the expectation of others. These are likely to end up with bewilderment.

With this “hardworking” attitude, society might have replaced merriments by degrading the environments and human-welfares, and its aftermath could be irreversible.

Of course, there are materialists among Thai people and trader. People become anxious when ones “integrated”, or more specifically, “assimilated” to Materialism.

When the tendency of considering material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values, anxious and impatient lead people to labyrinth: businessman tend to cheat on the pricing, intend to gain more money from customer; the social ambience turn down; the criminal cases happened; people started to being harsh to themselves and each other; trashing moral, trashing human, so on and so on.

However, the strength of spiritual believes in Thai evidently outsmarted the misleading stereotype. When I was travelling in Thailand, the smiles of the people were truthful, the reciprocity between people was healthy. When they say “thanks” their body language and facial expression showed gratitude and kindness, sincerely.

Instead of so-called “lazy”, knowing where and when to stop is an extraordinary attitude. It is an art of being happy, a skill of satisfaction and contentment. I noticed that the Thai vendors are peaceful, honest and down to earth. According to my description, they even “lazy” to raise the price; or, even “lazy” to cheat on the people. The “laziness” is unusually favourable in Thai culture. It is equivalent to honesty, humble, down-to-earth, kindness.. et cetera.

When I lived in Pai and Mae-Sa-Long, my Thai-Malaysian mix friend told me that, compared to other countries, Thailand is very safe. They do not even need to lock the door in the night, because people are honest, too “lazy” to steal or hurt others.

Once, I intend to go Kota Tua in Jakarta. The google map illustrated that it cost 5000 IDR to travel from the National Museum to Kota Tua. However, the tuk-tuk driver told me that cost 10,000 IDR. An old Indonesian passenger was enraged, he criticized the driver and voiced out for me in Bahasa: “Honesty is crucial to run business! How would the people talk about Indonesian if they found out you(the driver) overcharge them? Do you know, the citizen builds up the reputation of the country!” “Young man, it costs only 5000 IDR.” The driver, probably felt ashame, murmuring, consented what the old man said.

I felt protected by the forthright old man, and I appreciated the driver charged me a fair price eventually. Needless to say, there are a lot of implications in this incident.

Behind the scene, economic condition and spiritual belief are the elements that play the leading roles. Due to financial constraints, some people try to gain more money although the behaviour might harm other’s feeling. On the other hand, some other people feel gratified with what they owned. Thus, spiritual wealth endows them with the ability to share their happiness with others.

Overall, Thailand had given me a good impression. Their “laziness” dazzled me.