It is the utter hypocrisy of sufficiency theory that I find breath-taking. When one looks at the way the Thai royal family actually lives, not to mention the king’s own history of supporting megaprojects for Thailand’s economic development, and then watch him endorse a coup and at the very least “allow” a military junta that has just stolen a trillion baht budget to enforce his pseudo-“theory” at gunpoint, while at the same time forbidding Thais from criticizing the theory on the pain of a 15 year jail sentence for lese majeste (if not worse), well, to me, if one actually takes such a theory “seriously” then it demeans the academic institution involved.
Sufficiency Economy surely is a noble ideal but, as usual people will pay respect to it, but not act on it. Everyone can draw examples from their own life I’m sure. For English teachers in Thailand there is an annual conference purportedly for all English teachers in Thailand but the fee is 2,500 baht and and it is held in expensive places like Bangkok, most schools are not willing to pay this fee, and most teachers can’t go. Last year it was even billed as an international conference, which is fine, but an effort to draw in teachers in rural schools who cannot attend, before entering the prestigious and profitable international MICE (Meetings Incentives Conferences and Exhibitions) tourism market would probably be more in accord with Sufficiency Economy. I just received a notice of another English teaching conference in Thailand Friday that I know I won’t be able to afford. It’s really laughable that conferences that should be venues for knowledge building and intellectual exchange are seen as business ideas. THey should hold it in the school auditorium for free.
I have a sighting. A version of the Upagupta story is included in the Burmese historical chronicle Mahayazawingyi written by U Kala. After reading Strong’s work on Upagupta this weekend I learned this. I have translated the U Kala version, so I’ll have to compare it to other stories. Besides Strong’s book is there a comprehensive work on the textual tradition in different Tai cultures? I bet that some of the Tai Kheun manuiscripts in Anatole-Roger Peltier’s collection at Chiang Mai University include this story.
The general idea behind sufficiency farming seems to be universally applicable. For instance, a local school teacher I know (father of a friend in Chiang Rai) grows rice, pumpkin, other vegetables and has a fish pond that supplies food that the family eats during the year. This feeds the three of them and can probably continue feeding the teacher, his wife, and his wife’s mother even after retirement in the near future. Many families seem to do this, so the general sufficiency farming idea probably could probably be seen as an extension of existing best practice in some successful rural communities. Exposure to global economic forces can cause dislocations as evidenced by 1997 so an economy needs to protect itself. The motivations behind having a sufficiency economy are probably pretty universal in the developing world.
Despite everyone wanting to explain the right way to think about sufficiency economy though, the idea seems to mean something different to everyone as evidenced by the following article:
04 June 2007
Privy Councilor advises nation to emulate ants
The Privy Councilor advised the nation to apply the ant’s way of life in their daily lifestyle, especially the virtues of perseverance, endurance, cooperation, and self dependence.
Privy Councilor Ampol Senanarong (р╕нр╕│р╕Юр╕е р╣Ар╕кр╕Щр╕▓р╕Ур╕гр╕Зр╕Др╣М ) hosted the opening of a museum building at Kasetsart University, which aims to function as a center of research. Mr. Ampol conducted a speech on Living like Ants under a Self Sufficient Economy. He said that despite the ant’s small stature, the animal is hard-working, possesses great fortitude, cooperation, and self dependence.
The Privy Councilor said that members of society are currently lacking in virtue, with lack of kindness, selflessness, or morality. Mr. Ampol revealed that if humans acted like ants, then the nation will develop further.
Reporter : RTI-Reporter06 http://thainews.prd.go.th/newsenglis…d=255006040035
Over three centuries of trail and error, the West is epistemologically exhausted. Needs cannot be fulfilled, and when looked around, progress, if found any, seems to be walking on the opposite lane of happiness.
But never mind, as long as ‘the grass appears to be greener on the other side’.
Republican:
Actually, the use of “sufficiency theory” against Thaksin and the political and economic aspirations of rural people was explicitly raised by several people; myself and Andrew among them. The fact that royal projects are protected from scrutiny and that “sufficiency economy” is linked to the anti-thaksin agenda of the coup (“sufficiency democracy”) was a key point of Andrew’s presentation, which met no disagreement. Kobsak agreed that royal projects needed much more scrutiny.
The point was also made (by Warr) that the king has been talking about sufficiency economy, etc since 1974 (in the wake of the oil shock) and then it hit the headlines again in 1997 (the currency crisis and stock crash). Both of these are well before Thaksin came on the scene. Though “sufficiency economy” is being used as a weapon against Thaksin now, it significantly pre-dates him as a concept and cannot therefore be said to have only one purpose. Many of the people who embrace it now (eg Sulak Sivaraksa) have been outspoken anti-establishment types for 30 years.
Did anyone point out the risk of lese-majeste if you criticised sufficiency? Yes. Did anyone point a finger at the crown property bureau? Yes. Even people other than Andrew IIRC.
In sum, I would say we take it seriously enough to criticise it as a set of ideas. If there’s an idea, good or bad, on the face of the globe that hasn’t been used as an excuse to point a gun at someone else, I haven’t come across it yet.
What the happiness research indicates is that there is a level of “sufficiency” or “enough” beyond which happiness will increase only very modestly. As such it would be moderate, reasonable and risk-averse to not seek to push income or expenditure beyond this sufficiency threshold. In other words, some economic research points to the good sense behind the sufficiency economy approach.
You are certainly right in thinking that the SE thing is being treated as a fashion item by both the conniving and the crass. Here are a number of recent examples of the stupid SE bandwagon.
Thailand elite are absolutely shameless on issues like this. Where else would the rich go round telling the poor how to live within their means when it is blatantly obvious that they they have absolutely no experience of the subject? Even the dreaded Thaksin had to pretend he came from a modest background. Not to mention the fact that we are constantly bombarded with how frugal life was in a Swiss canton after WW2.
Some people will even steal people’s pauvity given half a chance.
The situation is a bit more complex than you make it out to be. Yes, the proliferation of sustainability theories, each more meaningless than the next, is intended almost purely as an assult on Thaksinomics. The fact that these have come pouring out after the coup has several causes, one of which is clearly a push from the junta. It is also clear that the applications of suffficiency economy are often just rebranded Thaksin policies.
However, claiming that the King forces this on people at gunpoint is somewhat misleading. I would agree that the junta is forcing a lot of this at gun point, literally.
However, it is not at all clear that they are actuially acting on behalf of the King. Rather it seems that they are claiming to be Royalist because it deflects criticism and has always worked in the past.
I expect that the cominmg months will show that the army acts for the army. It may get very difficult to claim to be acting on behalf of the King, when he is around to deny it.
Well, the collective cliches of people do not necessarily have to conform that well with historical reality. But the Chinese point of view has a certain level of support since their economic role in Thailand is a lot more prominent than that of the Thais. Even the Thais themselves perceive it this way (sorry for the generalizations). Obviously, not all Chinese made it to become Charathiwats, while not all Thais remained on the ricefields, in the palace, or in the bureaucracy.
Pathetic. Only a moron could not see that sufficiency economy discourse has only one, political (NOT economic) purpose: to destroy Thaksin and Thai Rak Thai.
Did anyone at the seminar ask what would happen if one openly criticized sufficiency economy and its chief theorist in Thailand? Did anyone ask whether the Crown Property Bureau was practising sufficiency theory? Did anyone point out that, besides the fact that this theory can only survive by virtue of lese majeste, it has been put into practice by a royalist dictatorship? Say what one likes about the “evil” Thaksin, at least he gave people a choice whether they wanted to use his economic theory or not; the king forces it upon his people at gunpoint. Then he gets foreign academics to discuss it at learned seminars, thus giving it some pathetic credibility which no doubt they will use back home for royalist propaganda purposes. One would have thought a centre of Thai Studies like the ANU would have been able to see through this game. Instead they actually take it seriously! When will the ANU, SOAS and the rest of these international Thai Studies centres realize how they are being used for domestic political advantage?
So Warr is buying into “sufficiency theory”? Unbelieveable. No better statement of the bankruptcy of international Thai Studies, when no-one will speak the truth to a dictatorship. While the ANU is debating the niceties of sufficiency theory, the regime is closing down websites, censoring the media, threatening demonstrators, disbanding mass political parties, all at the barrel of a gun, and constantly seeking (and receiving) legitimacy for its actions from the king.
In Thailand real academics ridicule (secretly of course) sufficiency “theory” (if that is a term we can apply to scarcely coherent ramblings), but at the ANU Thai Studies academics (with one honourable exception) take it seriously.
Weren’t the first officially sanctioned brothels, gambling dens, etc set up to cater to the imported Chinese labour market? Not very consistent with that point of view…
“they had no time to drink or gamble. They were thus able to save significant amounts of money and pay their debts … I found this extremely reminiscent of a Puritan ethic (a la Weber)”
I is also what the Chinese Thais have been saying for decades to justify why they were rich while the Thai Thais were poor!
Some other comments raised at the forum:
Kobsak several times said that he and the Bank of Thailand were “worried” by people adopting the “sufficiency economy” as a cover for continuing to operate the same, often controversial, projects. He agreed that there had been little research done on just how well the various “royal” and sufficiency projects actually worked, due to the general fear of criticising anything connected to H.M the King.
An analogy to communism (another doctrine with high ideals and ugly state enforcement) was drawn by some audience members, which Kobsak diplomatically chose not to respond to.
I was interested to note a strong “anti-vice” aspect of Kobsak’s presentation. For example, when asked how New Theory farms managed to produce enough of a surplus to enable people to pay off their debts, he said that because people farming in the new way worked constantly (as opposed to just at planting and harvest time) they had no time to drink or gamble They were thus able to save significant amounts of money and pay their debts (which in itself suggests why this kind of farming doesn’t appeal to the young… ). I found this extremely reminiscent of a Puritan ethic (a la Weber) and rather inconsistent with the usual story, which in my experience is that the debts are paid by selling off farmland and new theory subsistence farming takes place on the remainder.
Kobsak also remarked that the “sufficiency economy” morality was better than the Thaksin government’s 1 million baht funds because the villagers just spent the money on “TVs, mobile phones and motorbikes”, whereupon (at least in the case of the phones) it flowed back to the pockets of “you-know-who”. Various people pointed out that the 1 million baht fund is not really all that large compared to the amount of economic activity in villages. It often translates to about 20,000 per household, whereas households often have debts of 50,000 or more.
Personally I think that giving every farmer in Thailand access to a TV, mobile phone and a motorbike would be one of the best possible things you could do; the power to access information (eg find out what crop prices are, where good jobs are, what the weather will be like tomorrow) is one of the best tools for lifting people out of poverty, and improving their physical mobility certainly doesn’t hurt either. There have been studies in both Thailand and Laos showing the positive economic transformation effect of mobile telephony, which is more than can be said for the sufficiency economy.
I’ve sometimes speculated that the fear of a “mobile peasantry” in Thailand’s elite goes back to the Sakdina days, when farmers were tattoed with the location they were supposed to be and whipped if they were found elsewhere. How you’d trace the evolution of an attitude like that though is beyond my historical research skills.
[…] is obviously of some concern to Kobsak Pootrakool, an analyst from the Bank of Thailand. During his presentation at The Australian National University last week he indicated several times that there is a real risk of “sufficiency economy” being […]
[…] sufficiency economy theory contained in the UNDP’s Thailand Human Development Report (discussed previously on New Mandala). A key argument put forward by Kobsak was that sufficiency economy does not just […]
No matter what miss dinosaur, Ladda Tangsupacha, might say, I think Ms Fahroong showed great creativity and sensitivity towards those who the ‘elite’ would love to keep down and out of sight. The skirt Ms Fahroon wore was made out of cloth patches produced by the real people of Thailand. What do the ‘elite’ produce that is so useful? Even the Thai silk costumes (boring!!) they tout as the official dress are created from fabric produced by poor Esarn people in their homes. Perhaps Ladda should get out of her cocoon and go upcountry to meet some real Thais.
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Sufficiency and the rich
A happiness index? There is no greater depressing aspect to Western culture than to have a happiness index. How.. nice!
Tonight we sleep under floral manchester!!
Note the comparable purchasing power of Columbia and Russia. Russians depressed yet polemically, the Columbians are happy?
Sufficiency and the rich
It is the utter hypocrisy of sufficiency theory that I find breath-taking. When one looks at the way the Thai royal family actually lives, not to mention the king’s own history of supporting megaprojects for Thailand’s economic development, and then watch him endorse a coup and at the very least “allow” a military junta that has just stolen a trillion baht budget to enforce his pseudo-“theory” at gunpoint, while at the same time forbidding Thais from criticizing the theory on the pain of a 15 year jail sentence for lese majeste (if not worse), well, to me, if one actually takes such a theory “seriously” then it demeans the academic institution involved.
Sufficiency and the rich
Sufficiency Economy surely is a noble ideal but, as usual people will pay respect to it, but not act on it. Everyone can draw examples from their own life I’m sure. For English teachers in Thailand there is an annual conference purportedly for all English teachers in Thailand but the fee is 2,500 baht and and it is held in expensive places like Bangkok, most schools are not willing to pay this fee, and most teachers can’t go. Last year it was even billed as an international conference, which is fine, but an effort to draw in teachers in rural schools who cannot attend, before entering the prestigious and profitable international MICE (Meetings Incentives Conferences and Exhibitions) tourism market would probably be more in accord with Sufficiency Economy. I just received a notice of another English teaching conference in Thailand Friday that I know I won’t be able to afford. It’s really laughable that conferences that should be venues for knowledge building and intellectual exchange are seen as business ideas. THey should hold it in the school auditorium for free.
Sufficiency and the rich
I do hope the King has some less scurillous people on his Privy Council than this Khun Ampol.
Upakhut in Sipsongpanna
I have a sighting. A version of the Upagupta story is included in the Burmese historical chronicle Mahayazawingyi written by U Kala. After reading Strong’s work on Upagupta this weekend I learned this. I have translated the U Kala version, so I’ll have to compare it to other stories. Besides Strong’s book is there a comprehensive work on the textual tradition in different Tai cultures? I bet that some of the Tai Kheun manuiscripts in Anatole-Roger Peltier’s collection at Chiang Mai University include this story.
Sufficiency and the rich
The general idea behind sufficiency farming seems to be universally applicable. For instance, a local school teacher I know (father of a friend in Chiang Rai) grows rice, pumpkin, other vegetables and has a fish pond that supplies food that the family eats during the year. This feeds the three of them and can probably continue feeding the teacher, his wife, and his wife’s mother even after retirement in the near future. Many families seem to do this, so the general sufficiency farming idea probably could probably be seen as an extension of existing best practice in some successful rural communities. Exposure to global economic forces can cause dislocations as evidenced by 1997 so an economy needs to protect itself. The motivations behind having a sufficiency economy are probably pretty universal in the developing world.
Despite everyone wanting to explain the right way to think about sufficiency economy though, the idea seems to mean something different to everyone as evidenced by the following article:
04 June 2007
Privy Councilor advises nation to emulate ants
The Privy Councilor advised the nation to apply the ant’s way of life in their daily lifestyle, especially the virtues of perseverance, endurance, cooperation, and self dependence.
Privy Councilor Ampol Senanarong (р╕нр╕│р╕Юр╕е р╣Ар╕кр╕Щр╕▓р╕Ур╕гр╕Зр╕Др╣М ) hosted the opening of a museum building at Kasetsart University, which aims to function as a center of research. Mr. Ampol conducted a speech on Living like Ants under a Self Sufficient Economy. He said that despite the ant’s small stature, the animal is hard-working, possesses great fortitude, cooperation, and self dependence.
The Privy Councilor said that members of society are currently lacking in virtue, with lack of kindness, selflessness, or morality. Mr. Ampol revealed that if humans acted like ants, then the nation will develop further.
Reporter : RTI-Reporter06
http://thainews.prd.go.th/newsenglis…d=255006040035
Maybe he is thinking of Aesop’s fable:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ant_and_the_Grasshopper
Sufficiency and the rich
Over three centuries of trail and error, the West is epistemologically exhausted. Needs cannot be fulfilled, and when looked around, progress, if found any, seems to be walking on the opposite lane of happiness.
But never mind, as long as ‘the grass appears to be greener on the other side’.
The search for progress will continue.
Good luck in your journey, educated ones.
Sufficiency and the rich
Republican:
Actually, the use of “sufficiency theory” against Thaksin and the political and economic aspirations of rural people was explicitly raised by several people; myself and Andrew among them. The fact that royal projects are protected from scrutiny and that “sufficiency economy” is linked to the anti-thaksin agenda of the coup (“sufficiency democracy”) was a key point of Andrew’s presentation, which met no disagreement. Kobsak agreed that royal projects needed much more scrutiny.
The point was also made (by Warr) that the king has been talking about sufficiency economy, etc since 1974 (in the wake of the oil shock) and then it hit the headlines again in 1997 (the currency crisis and stock crash). Both of these are well before Thaksin came on the scene. Though “sufficiency economy” is being used as a weapon against Thaksin now, it significantly pre-dates him as a concept and cannot therefore be said to have only one purpose. Many of the people who embrace it now (eg Sulak Sivaraksa) have been outspoken anti-establishment types for 30 years.
Did anyone point out the risk of lese-majeste if you criticised sufficiency? Yes. Did anyone point a finger at the crown property bureau? Yes. Even people other than Andrew IIRC.
In sum, I would say we take it seriously enough to criticise it as a set of ideas. If there’s an idea, good or bad, on the face of the globe that hasn’t been used as an excuse to point a gun at someone else, I haven’t come across it yet.
Sufficiency and the rich
What the happiness research indicates is that there is a level of “sufficiency” or “enough” beyond which happiness will increase only very modestly. As such it would be moderate, reasonable and risk-averse to not seek to push income or expenditure beyond this sufficiency threshold. In other words, some economic research points to the good sense behind the sufficiency economy approach.
Also makes good sense for the planet.
Sufficiency and the rich
You are certainly right in thinking that the SE thing is being treated as a fashion item by both the conniving and the crass. Here are a number of recent examples of the stupid SE bandwagon.
http://www.angkor.com/2bangkok/2bangkok/forum/showthread.php?p=14981&posted=1#post14981
Thailand elite are absolutely shameless on issues like this. Where else would the rich go round telling the poor how to live within their means when it is blatantly obvious that they they have absolutely no experience of the subject? Even the dreaded Thaksin had to pretend he came from a modest background. Not to mention the fact that we are constantly bombarded with how frugal life was in a Swiss canton after WW2.
Some people will even steal people’s pauvity given half a chance.
Sufficiency and the rich
Republican,
The situation is a bit more complex than you make it out to be. Yes, the proliferation of sustainability theories, each more meaningless than the next, is intended almost purely as an assult on Thaksinomics. The fact that these have come pouring out after the coup has several causes, one of which is clearly a push from the junta. It is also clear that the applications of suffficiency economy are often just rebranded Thaksin policies.
However, claiming that the King forces this on people at gunpoint is somewhat misleading. I would agree that the junta is forcing a lot of this at gun point, literally.
However, it is not at all clear that they are actuially acting on behalf of the King. Rather it seems that they are claiming to be Royalist because it deflects criticism and has always worked in the past.
I expect that the cominmg months will show that the army acts for the army. It may get very difficult to claim to be acting on behalf of the King, when he is around to deny it.
Sufficiency and the rich
Well, the collective cliches of people do not necessarily have to conform that well with historical reality. But the Chinese point of view has a certain level of support since their economic role in Thailand is a lot more prominent than that of the Thais. Even the Thais themselves perceive it this way (sorry for the generalizations). Obviously, not all Chinese made it to become Charathiwats, while not all Thais remained on the ricefields, in the palace, or in the bureaucracy.
Sufficiency and the rich
Pathetic. Only a moron could not see that sufficiency economy discourse has only one, political (NOT economic) purpose: to destroy Thaksin and Thai Rak Thai.
Did anyone at the seminar ask what would happen if one openly criticized sufficiency economy and its chief theorist in Thailand? Did anyone ask whether the Crown Property Bureau was practising sufficiency theory? Did anyone point out that, besides the fact that this theory can only survive by virtue of lese majeste, it has been put into practice by a royalist dictatorship? Say what one likes about the “evil” Thaksin, at least he gave people a choice whether they wanted to use his economic theory or not; the king forces it upon his people at gunpoint. Then he gets foreign academics to discuss it at learned seminars, thus giving it some pathetic credibility which no doubt they will use back home for royalist propaganda purposes. One would have thought a centre of Thai Studies like the ANU would have been able to see through this game. Instead they actually take it seriously! When will the ANU, SOAS and the rest of these international Thai Studies centres realize how they are being used for domestic political advantage?
So Warr is buying into “sufficiency theory”? Unbelieveable. No better statement of the bankruptcy of international Thai Studies, when no-one will speak the truth to a dictatorship. While the ANU is debating the niceties of sufficiency theory, the regime is closing down websites, censoring the media, threatening demonstrators, disbanding mass political parties, all at the barrel of a gun, and constantly seeking (and receiving) legitimacy for its actions from the king.
In Thailand real academics ridicule (secretly of course) sufficiency “theory” (if that is a term we can apply to scarcely coherent ramblings), but at the ANU Thai Studies academics (with one honourable exception) take it seriously.
Sufficiency and the rich
Weren’t the first officially sanctioned brothels, gambling dens, etc set up to cater to the imported Chinese labour market? Not very consistent with that point of view…
Sufficiency and the rich
“they had no time to drink or gamble. They were thus able to save significant amounts of money and pay their debts … I found this extremely reminiscent of a Puritan ethic (a la Weber)”
I is also what the Chinese Thais have been saying for decades to justify why they were rich while the Thai Thais were poor!
Probing a painful past
I’ve met the caretaker (and survivor) of the Tuol Sleng museum. He says that he has trouble convincing even his son that these things really happened…
Sufficiency and the rich
Some other comments raised at the forum:
Kobsak several times said that he and the Bank of Thailand were “worried” by people adopting the “sufficiency economy” as a cover for continuing to operate the same, often controversial, projects. He agreed that there had been little research done on just how well the various “royal” and sufficiency projects actually worked, due to the general fear of criticising anything connected to H.M the King.
An analogy to communism (another doctrine with high ideals and ugly state enforcement) was drawn by some audience members, which Kobsak diplomatically chose not to respond to.
I was interested to note a strong “anti-vice” aspect of Kobsak’s presentation. For example, when asked how New Theory farms managed to produce enough of a surplus to enable people to pay off their debts, he said that because people farming in the new way worked constantly (as opposed to just at planting and harvest time) they had no time to drink or gamble They were thus able to save significant amounts of money and pay their debts (which in itself suggests why this kind of farming doesn’t appeal to the young… ). I found this extremely reminiscent of a Puritan ethic (a la Weber) and rather inconsistent with the usual story, which in my experience is that the debts are paid by selling off farmland and new theory subsistence farming takes place on the remainder.
Kobsak also remarked that the “sufficiency economy” morality was better than the Thaksin government’s 1 million baht funds because the villagers just spent the money on “TVs, mobile phones and motorbikes”, whereupon (at least in the case of the phones) it flowed back to the pockets of “you-know-who”. Various people pointed out that the 1 million baht fund is not really all that large compared to the amount of economic activity in villages. It often translates to about 20,000 per household, whereas households often have debts of 50,000 or more.
Personally I think that giving every farmer in Thailand access to a TV, mobile phone and a motorbike would be one of the best possible things you could do; the power to access information (eg find out what crop prices are, where good jobs are, what the weather will be like tomorrow) is one of the best tools for lifting people out of poverty, and improving their physical mobility certainly doesn’t hurt either. There have been studies in both Thailand and Laos showing the positive economic transformation effect of mobile telephony, which is more than can be said for the sufficiency economy.
I’ve sometimes speculated that the fear of a “mobile peasantry” in Thailand’s elite goes back to the Sakdina days, when farmers were tattoed with the location they were supposed to be and whipped if they were found elsewhere. How you’d trace the evolution of an attitude like that though is beyond my historical research skills.
Sufficiency workshop in Canberra
[…] is obviously of some concern to Kobsak Pootrakool, an analyst from the Bank of Thailand. During his presentation at The Australian National University last week he indicated several times that there is a real risk of “sufficiency economy” being […]
Sufficiency going forward, diversity going backward
[…] sufficiency economy theory contained in the UNDP’s Thailand Human Development Report (discussed previously on New Mandala). A key argument put forward by Kobsak was that sufficiency economy does not just […]
Spot the Thai national dress
No matter what miss dinosaur, Ladda Tangsupacha, might say, I think Ms Fahroong showed great creativity and sensitivity towards those who the ‘elite’ would love to keep down and out of sight. The skirt Ms Fahroon wore was made out of cloth patches produced by the real people of Thailand. What do the ‘elite’ produce that is so useful? Even the Thai silk costumes (boring!!) they tout as the official dress are created from fabric produced by poor Esarn people in their homes. Perhaps Ladda should get out of her cocoon and go upcountry to meet some real Thais.