Thailand

Cultural cringe is something I tend to get a bit of a feel for in every country I visit. How proud and how ashamed are the people in that country about their relative standing in the world, the contributions of their country to the history of manking?

Related, I also think about Xenocentrism quite a bit - the desire to consume things from other lands.

These are topics close to heart for me since I used to carry in myself a fair amount of cultural cringe and since I don’t let myself easily condescend to others, I will often turn judgments of their culture into deprecating statements about mine, thus centering other people’s culture as more important than mine.

Thailand is an incredibly interesting place in this regard. There are two airports in Bangkok. The one I landed at the first time I arrived was called Suvarnabhumi - a Sanskrit name, an exonym. Thailand’s ancient name in India was Suvarnabhumi - golden land. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone use that appellation for Thailand before in any Indian language. Thai script itself is derived from Indian scripts and if I squint long enough I can convince myself that I can read something. There are a few characters which look similar to Telugu script and the sounds are similar - I think the ‘ga’ sound in Telugu is represented by a very similar character for the ‘ka’ sound in Thai, Lao and Khmer (please correct me if I’m wrong anyone). The Thais use the word Khet to refer to a particular district, derived from the word for ‘field’ in Sanskrit.

Thailand has an incredibly large tourism industry and there are no shortages of Italian restaurants, Indian restaurants and burger places catering to the European and American middle class tourists who flood the country for their vacations.

The Royal Palace is a true wonder though - and it shows you what years of stable continuous government can do. Thailand was never colonized. It had to cede its peripheral territory that it held as vassal states - such as Laos, parts of Vietnam, Cambodia and parts of Burma to the British and French, but the center held. This comes through in the incredible way that Thais have retained, cultivated and enhanced their traditional architecture. I cannot help but feel a deep sense of jealousy when I walk around Thailand. This is what they took from us. Kerala is one of the few places in India I feel like gets close to the same level of sophistication based on the strengths of the local culture.

Much of Southeast Asian tourism, especially if you’re white, can make you feel like a money pinata. Thailand has some of this, but thankfully I’m able to avoid it since Thai vendors assume that Indians will put up a fierce bargaining stance, I suppose. Herd immunity.

There are lots of Indians living in Thailand - 200,000 at last count and I met quite a few. They speak Thai, consider themselves Thai first and carry Thai passports. It’s fascinating to see how easily Indian culture and food gets transported and turned a bit more liberal and freeing in Thailand with its famously lax attitudes towards sexuality. Western, and specifically Victorian values never made it to Thailand by way of colonialism the way they did into India and India’s education system. Monks were found having group sex with men and women - the real controversy being of course that they were monks having sex, not that they were having sex with men. No culture is without problems and Thailand has its share, including gnarly traffic in Bangkok nearly any time of day, only easing up at night. But it does seem like the problems that Thailand has are of a different shape than India. Women are free to roam on the streets late at night, and seem unafraid of large men walking on the same street.

The tourist industry certainly has a corrupting influence. Pattaya is the world’s biggest brothel and was also the site of an incredibly fun music festival I went to last year called Wonderfruit. It is a bit of a depressing place with its mix of elderly expats and young Thai women usually from Nakhon province. Nakhon province itself has a troubled history in Thai lore - it was the state which imported sex slaves from Laos over the many centuries that Thais ruled over Lao. Today, women from Nakhon are considered the most attractive and command a higher price in Pattaya. Thre’s something soul-crushing about centuries of oppression being continued under different terms in the modern world.

Lest you blame the expatriate industry for the large sex industry in Pattaya, know this - Thai men are by far the largest purcahasers of commercial sex work in Thailand. It is just considered incredibly uncouth to do so in public. It is apparently nearly universally accepted that a man will go to a sex worker sometime in his life. But to be seen in public with one is grounds for divorce. Western expats meanwhile are almost universally focused on being seen in public with attractive young women whose time they’ve purchased.

Thai food is amazing. I don’t think I need to tell anyone this. But if you have only had Thai food outside of Thailand you’re missing out on all the little snackies that never make it to the outside world. Coconut milk pancakes. Rice crepes with peanuts. Khao soi (which I’m more familiar with as a Burmese dish served in India with lots of creamy coconut goodness and crispy crunchy noodles on top…I’m making my own mouth water). Thai instant noodles are also phenomenal. Thai tea and coffee can be mellow and incredibly fun. Mango sticky rice is far better when you can get real mangoes.

Thai Muslims were originally carved out of Thailand and given to Malaysia as part of the redrawing of borders. So now in Singapore you can get a variant of Thai food in many Mamak stalls - Thai Muslim Seafood is incredibly common. It’s a bit different from the cuisine traditionally associated with Thailand, but recognizable.

Thai little eggplants and fish mint are probably the most interesting ingredients I’ve encountered in Thailand. I don’t think I see fish mint in Indian cuisine, though Wikipedia says that it is used in the Northeast. The little eggplants though are seen in South Indian cuisine and can be quite interesting.

The similarities between Thai and Indian food, especially south Indian food often strikes me. There isn’t an easy way to lay it all out there, but there is a certain gestalt that feels very familiar. When eating a whole Thai meal put together, I feel full and satisfied mentally in a way that I usually only feel with an Indian thali. The dessert, the coffee, appetizers which combine sour, spicy and crunchy, main courses that incorporate a healthy amount of savory coconut flavor with turmeric. Again, I am making myself hungry. Of course the differences are also fascinating - Indian food rarely makes use of any form of basil - Tulsi, Italian or Thai basil. While Tulsi has a lot of applications, I can’t think of a food I eat that incorporates it - perhaps if I had grown up more in South India I will have known about this.

Riding on a scooter through Ko Samui and its natural beauty, buying gasoline as necessary and setting off to the next beach was incredibly fun.

Asia’s best restaurant, and Asia’s best Indian restaurant is in Bangkok. Gaggan is incredibly fun take on Indian cuisine and borrows heavily from Thai influences.