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Thai Youth Hanging Out
| Article
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17396 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1990 |
3,577 Words |
| Author
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Grant A. Olson
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About ten years ago, a number of editorials began to appear in prominent Thai weeklies posing a question that should be familiar to many Americans: Do you know where your children are?
One writer told Thai parents that if they wanted to find their children in their after-school hours they should go to Dunkin's Donuts. While this might seem rather tame - and even a relief to many parents in the West - the writer regarded the new and growing phenomenon of hanging-out at doughnut shops as an immense waste of time and a bad sign for the future of Thailand.
The increased concern over urban youth hanging out, which generally means going to coffee shops or cutting school to attend movies, but can include meeting to share the drugs that are readily available in that part of Southeast Asia, reflects a larger concern. Urban schools - and education and leadership in general - have shifted from a traditionally male and religious orientation, leading to ordination into the Buddhist monkhood, to a secular, coeducational system. However, modern secular education is being criticized for its lack of moral direction, and religious studies are gradually regaining popularity.
Rural children are still likely to attend a primary school within a temple compound, and young students in the countryside may stay late after school to tend their gardens or play in or near the temple compound, where monks are usually present. Although few monks take any kind of active role in government schools today, many villagers are still comforted by education's proximity to the symbols of religious aspiration and potential moral guides.
By contrast, after urban Thai youth have completed their school day, they value the chance to thieo (roam around) with friends. In the past this may have meant going to see some historic ruins, visiting a temple, or heading for the seashore during school breaks (or, for some young men, heading off to a brothel).
In the larger cities, such as Bangkok and Chiang Mai, to thieo often means heading for one of the many shopping malls, whose size and layout are becoming more amazing each year. Part of the malls' draw can be attributed to the multinational fast-food restaurants located there.
Initially, these restaurants met with little success: Kentucky Fried Chicken found it hard to compete with the women selling delicious marinated chicken from their pushcarts across the street; Pizza Hut found it hard to sell a cheese-covered pie to a country that consumed few dairy products; and McDonald's attempted to appeal to some Thai by claiming the they (McDonald's) would make a contribution to crop substitution in the north by persuading farmers and tribal people to grow potatoes instead of opium. Eventually it became fashionable to meet and eat at fast-food establishments. The life-size fiberglass colonel and the red-and-white checked tablecloths became something new to experience – “Have you tried 'Uncle Colonel's fried chicken yet?" “Pizza?' "A Big Mac?"
The various motifs of the international fast-food places, and the air-conditioned refuge the malls provide from the oppressive city heat, transport one to a kind of universal environment that for the moment seems unique, but whose meaning is not yet clear. At least one thing has become
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