The changing face of rural Thais

There's an interesting piece in today's New York Times by Thomas Fuller about rural Thais. Fuller was the guy who was interviewing Saeh Daeng on the streets of Bangkok when Saeh Daeng was shot in daylight.
One of the sources for Fuller's story is William Klausner....an adjunct professor and senior fellow at Chulalongkorn University. He's written several interesting books on Thai rural life....including Reflections on Thai Society.
Fuller's story is available at
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/world ... wanted=all

Interesting article but self evident for us to see due to the expansion of Udonthani, the loss of green belt around it and more educated young people wanting a different but better life than their forebears, is it a change for the good I guess one would like to think so particularly for the children of these villagers.

However, will the jobs be there for them and if that doesn't materialize will they return to the paddy fields I doubt it somehow, the future may well turn out to be a choppy ride for Thailand and it's Citizens.

parrot wrote:There's an interesting piece in today's New York Times by Thomas Fuller about rural Thais. Fuller was the guy who was interviewing Saeh Daeng on the streets of Bangkok when Saeh Daeng was shot in daylight.
One of the sources for Fuller's story is William Klausner....an adjunct professor and senior fellow at Chulalongkorn University. He's written several interesting books on Thai rural life....including Reflections on Thai Society.
Fuller's story is available at
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/world ... wanted=all

In my opinion that's 100% on the nail . Move over Abhissit people power will prevail .

I took the photo of the boy on the buffalo sometime around 2000. He was walking home from school, met up with his father about mid-way, and hopped on the buffalo for the rest of the way home.
I took the photo of the guy tilling around his trees in July 2007. That's the last time I've seen a village farmer using a buffalo to plow.
In our small village, the kids who drop out of school and go to Bangkok/elsewhere to work menial labor jobs (hauling bricks/cement) seem to return each year to help out with the family rice chores. But those who go to work in factories (or better) don't. I'd guess that part of the reason is that they'd risk losing their jobs...whereas a menial laborer can easily find another job. But more than anything (IMO), once the kids are away from outdoor/sweat labor, it's hard to get them to return.

trubrit wrote:

parrot wrote:There's an interesting piece in today's New York Times by Thomas Fuller about rural Thais. Fuller was the guy who was interviewing Saeh Daeng on the streets of Bangkok when Saeh Daeng was shot in daylight.
One of the sources for Fuller's story is William Klausner....an adjunct professor and senior fellow at Chulalongkorn University. He's written several interesting books on Thai rural life....including Reflections on Thai Society.
Fuller's story is available at
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/world ... wanted=all

In my opinion that's 100% on the nail . Move over Abhissit people power will prevail .

Mr Fuller's piece is indeed right on the nail.

The opinion piece that immediately follows misses by a fair bit (IMO).

People power may and should prevail in Thailand, but that will not be advanced by the alternative to Abhisit.

Interesting article.. It leans a little too much towards how rural areas have changed drastically. Yes, in many respects they have but Just in the last 3 months I've seen kids riding on water bufflaoes, and have always seen the kin folks heading out to the fields wearing an Issan style straw hat..

What's changed in my 14 years of going up country to visit the relatives?

- communications; in 1997 almost no one had a cell phone and there were very few landlines out to rural villages. nowadays probably the only folks without a cell phone are under 3 years of age!! Where in 97 kin folk working off rice season down in Bangkok sent a letter (and the Thai postal system was very good!), now if anyting happens to any of the 27 folks in my wife's extended family all know about it within hours if not minutes. The same goes for anything that happens in the country.. The government may control the TV and Radio stations (for the most part) but they haven't been able to crack down on cellphones. During last year's Red Shirt upheavals everythign that happened was quickly called up country so within seconds of major incidents occurring, thousands knew about it.

Internet: yes the younger folks are internet savvy but penetration figures for Thailand don't reflect the ubiquity of it in the article.. As of June 2010, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) extimated 17,486,400 Internet users. http://www.internetworldstats.com/asia/th.htm which is roughly a penetration of about 27%. The article doesn't break down the urban versus rural percentages. Out in the country (in excess of 30km from Udon) there doesn't seem to be much of the regular folks with internet access. The kids going to High School in Udon get their internet fix in the local shops, not back in the village.

Work migration: In 1997 there was hardly any younger adult males in Issan who didn't go down to Bangkok for menial labor jobs after harvesting in late October until before Songkran. As mentioned in the article many stay away from home after attaining decent paying factory jobs. What the article only partially touches on is what is my opinion of why they stay.. Credit! Most of our relations that have moved into factory jobs in greater metropolitan Bangkok or the built up factory areas around Rayong are middle class wannabe's.. That means having more than just cellphones and a motorcycle.. They all want big LCD TV's, a pickup truck (idally a Toyota VIGO), the latest cellphones AND travel.. When not working on weekends (the Japanese earthquake/tsunami impacted production hours in Thailand) they do day trips to tour around Thailand. The international work scene is another issue.. Yes, we have a number of male relatives that did contract labor in Saudi, Singapore, Taiwan, and Dubai. Overall their experience was terrible and they didn't bring the money home they thought they would. While many Thai expat workers get decent jobs (by Thai standards), there are still criminal job brokers in collusion with corrupt people out there fleecing country folks of their money in a money chasing dream.

Infrastructure: in 1997, taking a shortcut from the relatives home village to another relatives village was 30km of potholed, dusty laterite roads (in the dry season) or a red-mud mess (in the rainy season). for the most part nowadays intervillage roads are paved and bridged, a legacy of the Taksin years. In 1997, my relatives 30km south of Udon had their youngest girls push a handcart to the village pond every morning with 20 X 20 liter plastic jugs to fill up their bathroom cisterns for washing.. By 2001 they had village water piped in at a very low cost.. In 1997, the power was OK, but the village wiring was a goat rope.. By 2002 it had all ben redone with all houses properly metered.

Remittances: The outflux of issan folks getting relatively decent paying factory jobs means that family (Moms and Dads) are getting monies remitted that give them a far higher standard of living than they had back in 97. My observation is that any extended family getting such remittances have rebuilt the family home, have a nice fridge, TV, and gas burner stove as well as educational opportunities for the younger folk.

Demographics: A general observation; Most Thais, including rural Thais do NOT have large families today.. The biggest family among my eight adult nephews and nieces is 3 kids. All the rest have two or less.. This is a sea change from my 70 year old sister-in-law who had 10 kids (2 died). Most of the other older families I know in their village also had very large families.. Birth control, education, and climbing up the economic ladder seems to significantly slow down population growth.

Agricultural Increases: Miracle rice, fertilizer and pesticides. Yields of rice per rai are significantly higher than back in 97. This allows families to keep enough to eat for the next year and put some cash in their pockets selling the surplus.

Education: As pointed out in the article, education is way up. An older niece of mine who is illiterate, tells us she was released from school after 3rd grade by bribing the teacher with a chicken.. Kids today do at least up to 9th grade, with any families who look to the future pushing their kids to complete M 6 and go on to college. While the Thai education system may not measure up in many respects, having a literate population (2005 report 94%), and kids getting more and more education and who are "connected" via cellphones and to some extent internet means the rural folks know a helluva a lot more about what's going on in the country today than they did back in 97. I really think that the huge graduating population each year coming out of the provincial Rajhabat's will end the current elite/ammat political paradigm (either from Yellow or Red perspective). A more educated and connected rural population are not the "Kwai" or "Prai" or ignorant bribed country folk that even today some Metropolitan Bangkok folks seem to think they are.. They no longer vote en bloc for whoever the local "influential" big boss dictates... The political parties as shown in the recent campaigning, are wooing folks through populist give away programs...

We visited Udon in 1995 then moved in 1996. Back then, things were hardly much different from when we were here in the early 1970's. I may not have been the first expat in Udon to have a loxinfo account, but I was the only American I knew here who had a computer back in Oct 1996.
There's no question that monumental change took place in this area post-1997. Paved roads, the ubiquitous village water pumps and water carts disappeared with piped in water, electrical upgrades, phone upgrades, Rajapat became a university, flood control system in place, Lotus, Global, Homepro, Index, clean bathrooms, restaurants galore, and yes, everyone owns at least one mobile phone. A fair number of local workers today get to enjoy the privatized hospital care of AEK or Paolo...either through private health insurance or job-sponsored health care. And to top it off, not only does the food court in the complex offer very clean bathrooms with tissue and soap......there's a steaming hot water pot available to de-germ your spoon and fork. Does anyone remember the state of the public restroom that was next to the kiddie arcade near the foodcourt back about 5 or so years ago?

Kids today are mostly going to at least 9th grade......but at least in my neck of the jungle, the drop out rate at that point is very high. I'm more and more convinced that a good part of the reason is: you pass whether you understand what's being taught or not. If you don't understand and you pass, the next year will be even more of a blur. After about 2 or 3 years of not understanding, school is sure to be a bore. And on any given school day in Udon, there's a fair number of young school-age children who are running around....and look like they haven't seen a day of school.

All in all, as FrazeeDK says, there's no comparing the Udon of today with that of the late 1990's.
With any luck, the elections will go smoothly and be accepted by all parties....one step forward, no steps back.

Great thread & excellent info & observations, Parrot & Frazee!

Any other "old-timers" out there having anything to add would be most appreciated.

Would love to see more posts in the "Society & Culture" topic!

As a "young-timer" I can't add anything, other than to applaud the posts of Frazee and parrot.

I forgot to add: When we moved here in 1996, I gave the pedi-samlors another year or two at the most. Nearly 15 years later, they're still here!

The pedicab samlors are a sorry mess overall. Not the new, tricked out with flower vases and little lights of over 38 years ago. I figure the only guys that still tiep samlor are those without the money to buy or rent a Tuk-tuk.... Perhaps the continual rise in petrol prices will result in a resurgence of them.. Hah, 18 speed Samlors with disc brakes vice the squealing (on Tuk-tuks too) axle drum brake..

Just last night, we were watching a documentary on Netfix about rural Thailand named "The two faces of Thailand". My wife is from Udon and we were trying to guess when the documentary was made. We thought it was about 50+ years old, it turns out it was made in 1985. My point is that, the speed of change is very fast. And already back then, there was a great cultural divide between Bangkok and the rest of the country. It was and still is obvious in the kind of music people like in Issan(mollam) and Bangkok(pop). The king himself likes Jazz.

funny though, for all the things I've seen change in Thailand since 1997, one thing has NEVER changed.. The wife is still glued to the TV from 1830-1940 and from 2030-2215 watching primarily Channel 7 and those blasted Lakorn... If they government could ever force "reconcilliation" on the screaming rich/poor conflicted harpies in these shows then Thailand would truly be at peace!

DK, the question I have often asked myself re the Thai soapies is "are they art imitating life, or life imitating art"?