Ed Ponders a New Class: Teaching Contemporary Thailand to Thais [S8.E27]

Greg 00:00:05 On this episode, we discuss some of the topics in Ed's new class contemporary Thai society.

Ed 00:00:12 So if you ever wondered what it's like being a foreigner teaching Thais about Thailand, you'll dig this episode of the Bangkok Podcast.

Greg 00:00:36 So what's up? And welcome to the Bangkok Podcast. My name is Greg Jorgensen, a Canadian who came to Thailand in 2001 because I wanted to form my own distinct society in Bangkok, just like Quebec did in eastern Canada. Vive le TEB!

Ed 00:00:52 And I'm Ed Knuth, an American who came to Thailand on a one year teaching contract. Over 25 years ago, I fell in love with the surprise that Thai people expressed at how long I've lived in Thailand, which I think started around year two, so I never left. If you if you if you're here for more than one year, Thai people would be like, oh my God, you've been here so long.

Greg 00:01:15 Yeah, they can't believe it. Especially as the longer you've been here, you start meeting people younger than the amount of years that you've lived here.

Ed 00:01:22 That's right.

Greg 00:01:22 Which is not just embarrassing.

Ed 00:01:24 I like it. I get off on it, I like it. We want to give it big thanks to all of our patrons who support the show. Patrons get every episode a day early, behind the scenes photos of our interviews, a heads up to send questions to upcoming guests, and access to our discord server to chat with me, Greg, and other listeners around the world. But best of all, patrons also get an unscripted, uncensored bonus episode every week where we riff on current events and Bangkok topics on this week's bonus show. We chatted a little bit about the new class I'm teaching, which will go into in more detail in this episode, a proposed new pedestrian bridge over the river that we hope is completed before we die. And a Thai tweet that mentioned our show that got over 10,000 retweets and 1 million views, that Rogan podcast money should be rolling in any day now to learn how to become a patron and get all this good stuff. Plus full access to over 800 bonus and regular back episodes, click the support button at the top of our website.

Greg 00:02:27 That's right, and as always, we want to hear from you. If you have a comment to show, idea or just want to say hi. Head to Mango podcast.com and click the little microphone button on the bottom right to leave us a voicemail, and we'll play that on the show. All right. On this episode, we are again inspired by Ed's position as an esteemed professor at a Thai university. Now, recently, Ed took on a new class called Contemporary Thai Society, in which he teaches his students all about, well, contemporary Thailand, from economics and demographics to politics and geography. It's a fantastic way both for EDS Thai students to learn about their own country's current events from the perspective of an outsider, and a great opportunity for Ed to learn more about Thailand. However, Ed is still finalizing the curriculum, so we thought it'd be interesting to discuss some of the potential topics if they'd be interesting or useful to his students, and what Ed thinks about teaching Thailand to Thais.

Greg 00:03:19 But to start off, we have a little bonus to gauge how much his students know about contemporary Thailand. Ed gives them a quiz. So for a challenge, I thought it would be fun for me to take the quiz too, to see how well I did. And listeners, if you look at the show notes, you'll see a link to the quiz and we want you to take it as well. So let's start things off. Ed, give me the bad news. What was my grade on the test?

Ed 00:03:44 Well, Mr. Greg, out of 50 questions, you actually did okay. You got 36 questions correct, which. So I'm actually still grading the my students responses, but it seems as if most of my students who are who are all Thai but young, so they're 18, 19 years old, right? They they seem to get around 30. I feel like I feel that I've been doing some going through them. It's around 25 to 35. So 36. You you appear in terms of just trivia, factual knowledge about Thailand.

Ed 00:04:21 you're you're a bit above the curve. You're, you're you seem to know more than a, maybe a 19 year old Thai does.

Greg 00:04:27 Is there a game show called are You Smarter Than a 19 year old? Well, you know, I mean, that's a that's a solid 72%, which is pretty consistent with my entire educational career in school. So you write solid C, solid C plus student.

Ed 00:04:45 Well, you and I talked about this bit on the bonus show. And in between the show, the bottom line is, we, you know, my my, my, my students who some of them might be listening right now. So welcome. Welcome, students. If you happen to be listening, they are 18, 19 years old, and you and I have been living in Thailand as adults for much longer than that. And so if you really think about it, when when you're a kid, you don't even you barely know your name until you're maybe ten years old, you know. And so we so they have maybe a decade of learning stuff about Thailand, whereas we have 20, 25 years.

Ed 00:05:24 And so I often tease my students about how, how few places they've been to in Thailand, you know, can, you know, compared to us because we came here as adults. So we've been everywhere. And my, you know, my students will, you know, maybe they've been to Chiang Mai or they went to Phuket, but you and I would crush them in terms of just the number of provinces we've been to in Thailand.

Greg 00:05:46 Right. It's a little bit unfair because as outsiders, we have we have an innate curiosity about our new home. And I'll bet you there's there's Thai people in Canada who could destroy me on a general knowledge Indian quiz, right? Oh, for sure.

Ed 00:05:59 Yeah. No. You know, that's the weird thing that a lot of times people are more or more ignorant of their own. You know, where they live. People. People tend not to know that much about it. and also we, you and I have just had the benefit of the podcast, like you and I, you've been doing it longer than I have, but. And we have such a diverse group of guests that it does. It does kind of boost our trivia knowledge. And plus you and I do you and I do the trivial Thai stuff. So we've we haven't we're not typical expats. I think we can agree. You and I are not the typical expat.

Greg 00:06:33 I hope not. No, we're better than that.

Ed 00:06:36 But listeners, we love you. But listeners, you, we love you.

Greg 00:06:39 You're with a great old 80s movie, Remo Williams The Adventure Begins. Best last line of a movie ever after after The Lost Boys, of course, where he says, chew and you're amazing. And he goes, no, I am better than that.

Ed 00:06:51 Which is.

Greg 00:06:52 Pretty funny.

Ed 00:06:53 All right, I don't know. I don't know if we're better than amazing, but I'll take. I'll take whatever I can get.

Greg 00:06:57 No doubt. But I think it's interesting that you, an outsider, are teaching a course on contemporary Thailand. I'm really interested in sort of your mindset. So, like, if, you know, people have asked me to come on their podcast and talk in Thai and I'm like, ooh, I don't know if I'm ready for that. What was your reaction when they asked you to teach a course on Thailand to Thais?

Ed 00:07:20 Well, in this particular case, that's a long story, how they ended up offering the class to me. But in this case, I didn't really hesitate because, number one, this is a course it's a general course for. It's not. It's not for students. Let's say majoring in Thai studies. This is a general course offer to the whole university, and it's just meant to cover what it sounds like me like major issues in Thai society today. And again, I'm not an expert, but I have been here 25 years. I am a lawyer by education. I've been lecturing about like social science and liberal arts, you know, for 17 years. And already in some of my other classes, I do talk about Thai stuff as a point of comparison.

Ed 00:08:06 And then, of course, I've got the podcast and I mentioned this on the bonus. I'm not sure if I if I had never done the podcast, I'm not sure I would have. I certainly wouldn't have agreed straight away, but as soon as I read the course description, I was thinking, well, just from the podcast, because you and I just tend to hit all kinds of issues, whether it's air pollution or crime or like, you and I just it's, you know, because we do know.

Greg 00:08:31 Really broad curiosity.

Ed 00:08:33 Yeah. Yeah, it's really broad. And so I just assumed that through the podcast and then of course, I, I'm doing work. I'm, I'm, I'm prepping for the course that I, you know, I could pull it together and I do like to do different stuff and so But but you know, I've taught one class already. And so I did have to kind of explain to the students, you know, so I kind of my opening joke was, you know, learn about Thailand from a white guy from Ohio.

Ed 00:09:00 You know, I was like, this is, you know, teasing my students like, this is your dream to learn about your own country from from a white guy from Ohio, you know.

Greg 00:09:07 From Ohio. That's right. What is what is their perspective? Like if someone if, like, I was a Canadian university student and someone came in and was like, hey, I've lived here like.

Ed 00:09:18 Some Japanese because some Japanese guy is like, I'm going to teach you about Calgary.

Greg 00:09:21 Yeah, I'd be like, all right. But I mean, maybe like a kid.

Ed 00:09:25 Do you have the accent you like? You asked, you would ask him, do you have the accent? You got the Canadian accent.

Greg 00:09:29 How's it going? Yeah. So what are your students, think about?

Ed 00:09:33 Well, they seem to handle it. Well. I mean, these are as soon as they know me already from last semester. So they're freshmen, but I did. I did kind of make a pitch or make an explanation, which I actually think is is valid.

Ed 00:09:45 yeah. I mean, you you said it yourself in the intro that that, you know, I am an outsider, but that gives a perspective. You know, I don't think you you would want only an outsider's perspective. Like, you know, they can learn about Thailand from other Thai people all the time, you know, watching the news and listening to Thai podcasts. But I think it is worthwhile to hear what foreigners have to say about your country. And I love hearing what my students say about the US, especially if they've traveled there, or students of mine who are exchange students. I love asking them, you know, what they thought of the US and even just being in Bangkok. Obviously, you and I are exposed to all kinds of expats from around the world. I've never get tired of it. Like like I'm fascinated, you know, especially because I teach American studies. So I'm an insider. I'm an American who's outside of the US. But teaching about the US and I'd love I really I it's something I just never tire of.

Ed 00:10:46 What other people think about the US. And so this was kind of my opening pitch to them. You know, I you know, I said to them like my, my, my word is not final really about anything, let alone about Thailand. But I can you know, I also I am a lawyer and I do have years of experience teaching social science and liberal arts. So, you know, I can just I can just give them the facts. I can teach them, like I can give them the like the like the, the the, the household debt to GDP ratio. I can teach them just because it's data, right?

Greg 00:11:18 And like you said, you've lived here for 25 years too, and that you built you can't help but build up a certain level of street cred. So I think it's legit. I'm not I'm not questioning that. So I think it's it's it's interesting.

Ed 00:11:28 Yeah. and so I, you know, part of the reason why you and I did the show is because I wanted to get your take on, what you think I should talk about.

Ed 00:11:38 And then even listeners, if you guys have any thoughts, there are certain issues in the course that I feel like I have to cover some gimmes. So I'm going to I'm going to mention those first. But really the kind of whole point is to maybe brainstorm. And so of course I've hit up ChatGPT and Gemini for thoughts. And so I'm going to throw some maybes out to you, but it's a couple gimmes that have to be discussed. the first gimmie is we have to talk about Thai politics because we have an election coming up in approximately one month. And the classic question in Thai politics, like the ultimate question in Thai politics, is just this question of are we free from the cycle of coups and democratic governments? And then it's kind of there's a thing in, in, Thai political science or people who do Thai studies that they call the vicious cycle of Thai politics. And it basically it basically is a repeating cycle, really, since 1932, which is, you know, democracy or semi democracy followed by a crisis, some type of crisis, followed by military intervention, followed by tearing up a constitution and dictatorship, then then democratic reforms and then the cycle repeats.

Greg 00:12:56 So yeah.

Ed 00:12:56 Yeah, the vicious cycle. So the golden question is, are we past that? You know, and you know, you know, so this you know, I have to talk about this question of. As a tie person, should you feel optimistic right now that the the days of coups are past, or is it smarter to to be counting down and going, okay, how long is it going to be right?

Greg 00:13:22 This is something that we mentioned in a previous show to about about the same old stuff in Thailand. Of course, I made a comment like, say what you will about Donald Trump being, you know, blowing shit up and throwing grenades everywhere, but at least he's trying something new. Oh for sure. Yeah.

Ed 00:13:37 Yeah. No, Trump is new. Yeah. That's right.

Greg 00:13:40 Hold off for the best, but at least like you can measure it, you know. Agreed. You know where it's here. It's like. Well, yeah. Okay. We've been doing this.

Greg 00:13:48 Just wash, rinse, repeat for a while. I'd love to see something new.

Ed 00:13:51 Yeah. So especially because we got the election coming up. And of course, we had Cantor on the show, who's in the election. So I got to talk about that tie political issue. And then the, the, the big economic question. So obviously the tie economy is complex. There's a lot of many issues with the Thai economy. But the, the the big question is, is can Thailand break out of what most people just call the middle income trap, which is which is very simple. To put it in simple terms, it just means that Thailand economically developed up to a point and seems to be kind of stuck. In other words, you and I have talked about this before. Thailand is seriously ahead of countries such as Cambodia and Laos and Burma, but it seems stuck beneath countries such as South Korea or Taiwan or Japan.

Greg 00:14:43 At the same time, the countries like Malaysia and Vietnam are rising real quick.

Ed 00:14:47 Yeah. I mean, I think the Vietnamese GDP is just about to surpass Thailand right now. and so so this is this question. Thailand does seem stuck at a certain level of development. And so that is the in terms of economics. That's the key question. You know what is causing this trap and can Thailand break out of it. What does Thailand need to do. So those are the two. Those are the two questions I. That must be covered. but then there's other then I have a lot of options. Like in the whole semester I'm probably going to get. I'll probably have time to talk about, you know, we'll see how it pans out, but maybe as many as ten different topics. So I've only got two. The third one that I feel that I, I also have to talk about is this kind of demographic timebomb, which has to do with the low fertility rate in Thailand. Right. And also many other countries around the world. Certainly not only Thailand, but Thailand is one of the worst.

Ed 00:15:41 It's it's it's talent has extremely low fertility right now. I think it's around 11.0, which is extremely low.

Greg 00:15:51 So that low.

Ed 00:15:51 Yeah. So so you need you need basically 2.1 babies per couple to I think maintain the same popular or the replacement rate is 2.1. Right. And time is like less than half of that. and so this is just a major social issue. I mean, it's also true in Japan and China and a bunch of other countries. So it's not only Thailand, but I think, I think I think I have to talk about that. The low birth rate.

Greg 00:16:18 No. That'll be really interesting to discuss. I don't think a lot of young people think about it. And I remember distinctly that was the very first time that I, that that showed me that, economics and statistics could be interesting because I remember reading this was years and years ago now, but I remember reading that for the first time. more adult diapers were sold than young babies. Diapers. Oh, shit.

Greg 00:16:41 In Japan.

Ed 00:16:42 Oh, that's a weird stat. I've actually never heard that. That's pretty funny. More adult diapers are sold than more baby diapers.

Greg 00:16:48 Yeah, and I heard that I'm like, wow. And it suddenly dawned on me like, well, what does that say? Like, there's so many ripple effects from that, right?

Ed 00:16:55 That's stark. Like that. That particular data point is pretty stark.

Greg 00:17:01 well, if Thailand keeps having 2.1 or 1.0 fertility, we're birth rate.

Ed 00:17:05 No, it's going to happen for sure.

Greg 00:17:07 Yeah.

Ed 00:17:08 Well, so Gemini and ChatGPT have given me a bunch of other thoughts. but I don't know. Do you have anything? So here's a question that came up, talking to a friend. Oh, you and I actually mentioned the idea that in Thai schools, we don't think they get to hear any nitty gritty about Thailand so that, you know, the Thai public schools. I don't even know for sure, but but I think they It's fairly full of propaganda.

Ed 00:17:37 I mean, I don't know exactly how bad it is, but I don't think they study, problems in Thai society. You know what I'm saying? So I'm debating about, you know, I don't want the whole semester to be darkness and gloom, but do you think I should talk about gambling or prostitution? Or should I talk about these dark stuff? I mean, these are real issues in Thai society that I'm not sure that they I think the I don't think Thai schools teach teaches that stuff.

Greg 00:18:04 I would know, but, you know, I don't think there's anything wrong with like doing both sides of it, like saying gambling. You know, some people think it's terrible for these reasons. Other people think it's you're an adult and you're free to make your own decisions. Here's where Thailand sits on it right now. What do you think? You know, and I know asking from experience, asking a class of Thai students, what do you think is usually met with crickets, but. Right. You know.

Ed 00:18:28 Well, I just don't know, you know, I, I have a lot of discretion to just, you know. Again, like I said, I don't want to be gloom and doom, like, you know, stuff. You know, I, I, I, I want to I thought like a subtheme of the course could be because because I am a foreigner. I'm an outsider talking about how Thailand is perceived by the rest of the world and like evaluating that, you know, what do people think of when they think of Thailand? And, you know, you and I have talked about this. I think in my opinion, internationally, I think people think of Thai food first. I think that's number one outside of Thailand. I think number two is probably beaches and tropics. Like I just remember before I moved here, when I thought of Thailand, I thought of tropics and beaches and stuff like that.

Greg 00:19:18 I would say number two would probably be prostitution.

Ed 00:19:21 I was going to say number three.

Ed 00:19:22 So I was I was going to say my point was going to be I think Thai food comes first. I personally think beaches come second. But the third thing, like internationally that people think about is red light districts and stuff.

Greg 00:19:33 I think a lot of Thais would be surprised or, and, or shocked and, or pissed off that it rates so high. You should show that old Saturday Night Live commercial they did for Rosetta Stone. You know, the parody commercial. Yeah. That's where all the guys were like, I'm I'm learning German so I can talk to my babushka. I'm learning Greek so I can go to Athens. And then there's the guy, this creepy guy who goes, I'm learning Thai so I can go to Thailand and do things.

Ed 00:20:00 Oh, shit.

Greg 00:20:01 Oh, shit. Like. And it was, it got a huge laugh. It was very popular when it came out ten years ago or so.

Ed 00:20:05 I don't think I've ever seen that, but. But yeah, but this is the guy.

Ed 00:20:08 These are the kind of choices I have. Like, do I want to like do do do I want to get into this or not? I mean, it's something that we, you know, you and I don't do red light stuff on the show, but we do do serious social issues. So, I mean, it's a legitimate actual academic topic. It's not it's not, you know, I'm not just goofing off. It's like it's a legitimate, legitimate topic, and I. It's probably something they haven't studied. I'm. Or I don't think. I don't think they they talk about. You know, I, I could be wrong. But I think in American schools there is a focus on. Holy shit. We have this problem with with the gun violence. You know, we've got this problem.

Greg 00:20:49 It doesn't appear to be. It doesn't appear to be anything anymore. No.

Ed 00:20:53 No, no one's solving it. No one's in schools. It's definitely being talked about, but no one's doing anything about it.

Ed 00:20:59 but anyway, let me let me give you some of the. I'm curious your feedback on some of the topics that I've gotten from Gemini. Okay. so here's a phrase that I didn't know what it meant. So here, here's how Gemini phrased the question is Thailand's dependency on mass tourism and economic lifeline or a Dutch disease.

Greg 00:21:25 A Dutch disease?

Ed 00:21:26 So I had to I had to, you know, ask more questions to figure out what they were talking about. And it's actually a very interesting point. Apparently, the the Netherlands discovered I don't need the details important, but apparently they discovered like natural gas, like in the 80s, which is a resource. So you think it would be something good? Right. It's like, okay, we discovered natural gas, but apparently it caused a whole bunch of problems. Like, I don't even understand the whole story, but it ended up the way I understand it. It ended up being that the Dutch focused on this thing because they thought, oh, we have this special thing, we have natural gas, and they neglected other things.

Ed 00:22:09 And so the long term, the long term impact was bad. So they they have this, you know, it's kind of like you have something that you think is the golden goose. Sure. Like we've got this golden goose. And so you're like fine, awesome. But you neglect everything else. And then the golden goose ends up not being what you thought it was. So this is. I never thought about this before. Like, this is an interesting question. So what what they're saying is it is is terrorism bad for Thailand in a way that they rely on it too much?

Greg 00:22:41 Okay. First of all, that's the dumbest metaphor I've ever heard a Dutch disease. Why don't they use a double edged sword or just the word liability? So.

Ed 00:22:48 Well, apparently, I don't know. I mean, apparently this is a phrase that the Gemini didn't make it up. This is like some economists coined the phrase.

Greg 00:22:56 Well, good for them anyway. no, I think that's a great question. And especially when we when they talk about things like environmental degradation and overtourism and things like that, it's a huge problem in contemporary Thailand.

Greg 00:23:08 Definitely. You should be asking questions about that.

Ed 00:23:10 Maybe maybe reliance on tourism is bad for Thailand. Like, you know, it's like again, the issue here is overreliance. Right. Well, you know, the issue is it seems to be a strength. Oh, we have this we have these beautiful beaches. This is awesome. But then it comes back to bite you in the ass and some other way.

Greg 00:23:29 Yeah, no, I think then you can use the the thing that they're doing in Maya Bay where they shut and shut it down for several months out of the year to let nature and wildlife recover. And they're actually protecting and investing in the resource rather than exploiting it until it's gone. And no one goes there anymore, which, you know, is a no brainer, but okay.

Ed 00:23:48 okay. So I like okay. So I'm glad that you like that topic.

Greg 00:23:51 I think it's good.

Ed 00:23:52 Okay. Here's one that I think you and I both will like. And again, I did not feed this to Gemini.

Ed 00:23:57 It came up with this on its own. Is soft power a legitimate economic strategy or just a national branding exercise? This is good. I don't I don't know, you know, you and I have joked about how we're sick of hearing about soft power, but I never I never really thought about whether it's actually a good idea, like, does it work or not?

Greg 00:24:20 I think it works, but I think the real question is how long can you make it last? Of course, the champions in this regard are Americans, of course. Their soft power has been going strong. Hollywood and music for for, you know, a hundred years. but I'm trying to think, like, you know, South Korean soft power is massive. What's what's the other soft power that is faded like is the. What about the the the UK invasion. The British invasion? When the 60s. When the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. How long did that go on for? Yeah. I'm trying to think of any examples of where soft power just sort of petered out and everyone was left going, hey, remember us? We were cool, right?

Ed 00:25:01 Right, right, right.

Greg 00:25:02 To be frank, it would probably also let you talk about some topics and people and personalities that that young kids would probably be more familiar with to.

Ed 00:25:11 You know, oh, here's a, here's an issue. I'm not sure I could talk about this. but but it is an interesting question. It has a question about basically the question is about Thai identity. And is Thailand a melting pot or or what he calls a divided house for migrant workers? Because Thailand has a huge amount, I think five something like 5 million migrant workers who, you know. in Thailand there's a guest worker visa category. So there's about there's about 5 million people here legally, but they're not on any kind of path to citizenship. And, I think that, you know, in the US, we spent a lot of time thinking about how we're a nation of immigrants and, you know, like.

Greg 00:26:02 The Canada.

Ed 00:26:03 You know, the melting pot. But that is not a Thai thing. You know, Thai people don't Thai people don't think that way.

Greg 00:26:09 I'd be interested to hear you use me as an example. Like as a foreigner who wants to get Thai citizenship, will I be Thai if I get citizenship? Or will I be a foreigner with a Thai passport?

Ed 00:26:20 I mean, I think we know the answer, but, I mean, it's the. Yeah, I'm not sure I'm the I don't know or maybe I am, you know, because I, I mean, I haven't applied for citizenship, but maybe, maybe a question about Thai identity. Maybe that could be interesting. But I'm curious what they think. I think, you know, my guess. You know, my students are pretty open minded. They're studying liberal arts, I think. I think they would have. I think they would have no problem with us getting passports, but I don't think. I don't think they'd call us Thai, you know.

Greg 00:26:48 Yeah. Like you're like, they would. No one would ever say, oh, this is my Thai friend Greg, right, right.

Ed 00:26:54 And then you'd walk in the room and be like, Holy shit.

Greg 00:26:57 Yeah. What the hell?

Ed 00:27:01 All right, here's another Gemini possible issue. Has seven ization. Killed the traditional Thai community. So this is this issue of how seven elevens have become ubiquitous and shut down like family marts and and and and, family owned businesses. So they're calling it seven is Asian.

Greg 00:27:24 but that's, that's an old thing though. And it's another interesting memory of mine of when I first learned more about economics and found it interesting was when I learned about, I forget the name of the strategy, but it's something that McDonald's and Starbucks use. And they analyze satellite photos of cities and the and the historical growth and where the future things are planned. And they they plan out future locations of their franchises in the locations where population booms are going to go. So, you know, and then, of course, there's the old story about Starbucks moves into a neighborhood and all the independent coffee shops die. So it's calling it 7-Eleven ization or whatever is is just a new name for an old, an old, an old strategy.

Greg 00:28:07 But it's still a very good question.

Ed 00:28:10 I can't imagine it's funny that I, you know, I feel like when we got here, there already were a lot of seven's. So. So I can't imagine. I for me. For me, Thailand and 7-Eleven are kind of they're kind of almost like the same thing. You know what I mean?

Greg 00:28:24 Yeah. Dude, they've got a 7-Eleven on my Soi. And then across the street, they've got another one, and they just closed it down for a few months and reopened it. And it's like, triple the size it used to be.

Ed 00:28:33 Dude, I have five within. I would say ten, to be fair. Probably about ten minutes. I have five within ten minutes of me.

Greg 00:28:39 Oh my God. You can share the old onion headline with them too, about how a Starbucks opened up a Starbucks in a Starbucks.

Ed 00:28:47 That's great. Dude, we have to come up. Come on. This is this is the we got to come up with some.

Ed 00:28:52 So these ideas are good, but I want to come up with some just kind of new angle like new something happening in Thailand. Like some brand new question, you know, we got we got to come up with something or listeners out there. You got it. You got to help me out here. I want to I want to surprise my students with some cool issue.

Greg 00:29:11 I would really be interested if, for the good of the country, if you sort of worked in a geography angle to some of this and maybe made it more, you know, you could use the Cambodia thing or you could use a migrant issue or something like that. But undergirding it all could be introducing them to geography and getting more familiar with geography, because of course, the old joke is that ties are just not very good at reading maps, so.

Ed 00:29:38 Well, I mean, they to be honest, they did not do great, on the quiz, on on geography. So but, you know, the course is supposed to be contemporary Thai society.

Ed 00:29:50 But you know.

Greg 00:29:51 How that works into that. Like, what about, you know, China damming the Mekong River upstream, which which affects Thailand downstream? What does that say for the economy of Isan? you know, and all the people that rely on the water and the rivers and things like that. What about, you know, Thai sovereignty and the sultanate that used to belong to Malaysia, that now belongs to southern Thailand? And the ongoing thing there. You know, what does that say about about sovereignty of a country, about, you know, cultural membership? Like, what if the people who live in southern Thailand but think they belong to northern Malaysia, is that a legitimate thing that should be recognized? You know.

Ed 00:30:29 I like that stuff.

Greg 00:30:30 These are all just interesting questions that I would like to ask.

Ed 00:30:32 Yeah, I mean, I, I, I'm just sensitive about talking about Thai identity issues because, I mean, all of, all of these issues, obviously, in the end, it's it's for Thai people to decide, but especially questions of identity.

Ed 00:30:44 Right. It's like, that's a that's the last thing you want to hear a foreigner talk about is what does it mean to be Thai? Let's let's talk about it. You know what I mean? anyway, let me throw out some other ideas here. So this, I like this topic, but I don't I don't know what to say about it. I've always been fascinated about the difference between just Bangkok and the rest of Thailand. And I remember when a close friend of mine said to me once, We don't live in Thailand, we live in Bangkok. And you know. But it's very true that just Bangkok and the rest of the country are so different from each other. And that's a fact. But I don't know what the you know, what the what what's the issue? What's the thing that I could turn into something to study. Like there is an urban rural divide. It's just a matter of fact. Right. But what's the like. What's the issue? Like what's the, you know, sorry.

Ed 00:31:44 Like, I think it's it's a, it's a, it's a reality of Thailand.

Greg 00:31:47 Well, like we say, Cal San is not Bangkok and Bangkok is not Thailand.

Ed 00:31:51 right, right.

Greg 00:31:51 I'm a big fan of, of of of asking questions and trying to get responses to drive debate, but I'm not sure how successful that is in the in your university's classrooms. But but I would say, you know, like, who is Bangkok deserving of the protection that it gets at the expense of surrounding communities, like when the flood waters come in. They. They flood the rice fields around Ayutthaya to protect the capital. Like, do we deserve that? I don't know. I think so because I live here.

Ed 00:32:20 Yeah. I'm guessing I'm guessing right. I'm guessing if I did more research, I could come up with more specific cases, I. The irony of of this topic is it was actually something that like, I think toxin was the first prime minister who basically said, we need to give more power to the provinces.

Ed 00:32:40 Like, this is a big this is one of his big things because, you know, he's he's from Chiang Mai himself. He's from the North. So and of course, he's a champion of the farmers who are mostly in the northeast. But he I think he was the first time prime minister that said, Bangkok gets too much money. You know, the provinces don't have enough say, you know, so he was for devolving power to the provinces. But then, you know, you know, he ran into 1 million other problems.

Greg 00:33:06 Yeah. No kidding. That's an interesting one too. I think that's, that's that's really good. But that also plays into the issue of sort of this, this, this, this class divide the economic divide in Thailand. And, and you know, some people there's probably conspiracy theories who are saying it's, you know, it's in the people at the top. It's obviously in their best interest to keep things like this. So. Right. Empowering the provinces more would work against them.

Greg 00:33:32 So of course that's something they would fight against. Right, right. but yeah, I think I think that's a really interesting question. Does Bangkok deserve. Does any capital city deserve the majority of the funding for. Right. You know, for.

Ed 00:33:44 Well, I think I have to bring up I want to find a way to bring up just the Thai educational system. The the irony is that I mentioned this in class one with my students. The irony is that in I think it was around 2005, I went to, a it was it was basically an educational and educational conference where they brought in a bunch of international education experts and the Thai government was there presenting their plan. So this was Thai government's like vision for the future of Thai education. And so this is 20 years ago and it was great. It was it basically it's like all the all these people who worked for the Thai Ministry of Education were great. They had like, independent experts and outsiders. And they're like, we're going to teach critical thinking.

Ed 00:34:34 We're going to teach like digital knowledge work. And I you know, this was 2005. I had already been in Thailand for five years, and I was I, you know, I hadn't learned some key lessons. And so I was like, holy shit like that. They're on the ball. I was like the, the in in in three years it's going to be totally different country like this is I was like I was surprised at how professional it was and how it was up to date. It was modern. They have experts from Harvard and it was like, Holy shit. Like, this is exactly what you know. This is what I would have said they need to do. Yeah. And then nothing happened.

Greg 00:35:10 Yeah. Yeah.

Ed 00:35:11 For. For five years. Then five years later. Then five years. So here we are. I feel like nothing. Whatever. Whatever they said they were going to do in 2005. None of that has happened.

Greg 00:35:22 The first experience for me, because when, you know, when I started teaching two back in the day, I had I was really excited and I was a new young teacher, and I was like, okay, we're gonna do debates and we're gonna do.

Ed 00:35:32 Right.

Greg 00:35:32 Questions and answers. And I want you to be a guest teacher for a class and stuff like that. And some of my students like the cleaners, the ones who are really good in English and stuff. They were like, this is fantastic, really exciting, you know? And then a few weeks later, I was called in to the head of the school, very friendly old lady, but she basically just said, just stand there and read the book, you know?

Ed 00:35:52 Right, right.

Greg 00:35:52 Right, right. Don't try too hard. Just shut up.

Ed 00:35:54 And.

Greg 00:35:55 You know. And I was like, oh, okay. Yeah.

Ed 00:35:57 But this is like the this is the government. These are the bosses. Allegedly. This is like, this is the Ministry of Education.

Greg 00:36:03 Remember what Quinto said about the third. The most powerful political party in Thailand is the bureaucrats who have been there for 20 years.

Ed 00:36:11 Well, there's something in the way. You know what I you know, this is you know, it took me long to learn this lesson is that there's actually not a shortage of good ideas in the Thai government.

Ed 00:36:22 There's not. It's not it's not an idea problem. There's something else. There's something else in the system. Some systemic barriers. It's not ideas.

Greg 00:36:30 I recently had a sit down with a government agency to some fairly high level people at a government agency, and it was it was inspiring. They were great, they were smart, and they were asking good questions. And they were they seemed to be really interested in our answers. And yeah, you see you see, all this is not the I've seen it many, many times over the years where you.

Ed 00:36:50 But then but then nothing changes and nothing happens. Nothing. Yeah. So I gotta somehow again I'm gonna have to do more research. And you know, my, you know, my students are a product of this system. And the thing about, again, this gets back, actually to the Bangkok rural divide. Bangkok schools, I would say on average they're not great, but they're actually not horrible. But once you get outside of Bangkok, I think the quality drops way off on average.

Ed 00:37:16 You know, obviously there's a couple good schools in Chiang Mai, a couple good schools and whatever. But you know, they got some international schools. But I think on average, like that's why if you look at a, you know, if you look at, the English language scores of Thai students, they are the worst in Asean, except Cambodia. It's like they're the second worst. Yeah. And that that's not Bangkok. Thais that are pulling pulling it down. It's the rest of the country.

Greg 00:37:44 Yeah. I'd be really interested to hear what they think about being in the middle between America and China and.

Ed 00:37:52 Oh, interesting.

Greg 00:37:53 Their, their role in, in what they play like both countries or superpowers. Both want to establish a footprint in Southeast Asia. you know, traditionally Thailand has a long history with America, but also with China. although they've only reached superpower status much later. So I just saw a headline the other day about how Thailand is tilting towards China.

Ed 00:38:13 Well, I mean, the you know, you know, obviously Trump is tough to figure out, but the but the the the most common explanation for Trump is that he's going to focus on the Western Hemisphere, and he's going to kind of abandon the rest of the world, which and that would leave Thailand to be a client of China.

Greg 00:38:32 So huge opportunity for China.

Ed 00:38:33 Yeah, yeah. I mean, that could be a topic I could ask my students what they think about that. I mean, they're they're actually studying American studies. So if any, if any Thais would not like that, it would be my students. But, yeah. Anyway, I appreciate your feedback and, listeners out there, if you just, if you have some cool, interesting topic and Thai society, like there's certain like I said, I've got maybe ten things I probably have. I, I will cover and I feel like 3 or 4. I have to talk about, you know. But but but but that but that leaves some room. That if I can come up with cool, unique angles or new issues, I would like to do that. So I need I need ideas.

Greg 00:39:17 Yeah. Bingo. Podcast gmail.com. If you're a patron, get on to discord and chat with us there. Send us some ideas. And again, if you look at the show notes, there's a link in there.

Greg 00:39:26 Click on that. Take the quiz that Ed made. It's really, really good. It's very varied and very broad. and see if you can beat my score 36 out of 50. I'm throwing down the gauntlet.

Ed 00:39:36 There you go.

Greg 00:39:37 There you go. Take it. All right, let's get into some love, loathe or live with where one of us picks a particular aspect of living in Bangkok, which we discuss to decide if it's something we love about living here, loathe about living here, or have come to accept as something that we just have to learn to live with no matter how we feel about it this week. Ed, what do you got for me?

Ed 00:39:54 All right, I got a classic one for you. It's. I know this is not perfectly suited for you, but I think it would still apply okay to to me. I get this most often in taxis, and I know that you take taxis a lot less than I do because you drive. But of course you still sometimes are in a taxi, right? Sure.

Ed 00:40:12 Yeah. And I'm just curious. What, what how do you react to just the classic repetitive conversation where the taxi driver wants to know your story and they start asking you, like, where are you from? How long have you been in Thailand? So the conversation you've had a million times, you're I think you're just a warmer person than I am. You're friendlier. Like, are you like, just cheerful and happy to tell them, you know, say the same thing. Oh, you're no, you're not, because it's the same. Because, you know, we've heard the question so many times that. That what? Like what is your reaction?

Greg 00:40:50 I usually just unless I'm, unless I'm feeling particularly saucy that day and want to have a conversation. I think 95% of the time I just have my headphones in and if they do say something, I make it a point to take my headphone out and go, I don't know, sorry. And then I politely answer the question and then I put my phone, my headphone back.

Ed 00:41:09 Dude, you're okay. You're left. I take back what I said. I thought you were friendlier than I was.

Greg 00:41:12 You know, I'm a jerk.

Ed 00:41:14 I thought I thought, I thought you were, like, good. Just a gregarious dude. Gregarious. Greg.

Greg 00:41:19 I'm Greg, I'm not Arias. I just like sitting in the back of a taxi and chilling out with my podcasts and my video games. Is it?

Ed 00:41:26 That's almost. You might be worse than me.

Greg 00:41:29 My, my. I also have a kid, so getting any time alone by yourself without any noise is the little vacation anyways.

Ed 00:41:35 All right, that's true. Well, my thing with it is, It. Well, I'm, you know, I, I try to be friendly and optimistic about it, and then I think of this as an opportunity to use my tie. So I'm, I'm, I'm kind of I kind of go into it with a good attitude, but it ends up crashing and burning because my, you know, it doesn't take it doesn't take very far before, like we just hit a wall.

Ed 00:42:01 It's the wall of their English in my tie. So I think I'm a, I'm a live with like, it's like I, it's like I want to love these interactions. And it should be a way for me to work on my Thai. And by now, I should be, I should, I should have 15 minutes of game.

Greg 00:42:15 100%.

Ed 00:42:16 But I don't, I don't I've got a I've got about two minutes.

Greg 00:42:19 And let me be clear, this is totally I should not be doing what I do. I should be saying, hey, I've got 15 minutes of a Thai lesson for free.

Ed 00:42:28 That's right, that's right, that's exactly right. Yeah, but I don't. Yeah. So to me it ends up being it does end up usually being depressing. But I'm going to go I'm going to go live with,

Greg 00:42:40 Yeah. I there's no way I could loathe it. I mean, they're just trying to have a little bit of conversation, but I live with because I like to live inside my podcasts.

Ed 00:42:50 Alrighty, a final thanks to our patrons who support the show. Patrons get a ton of cool perks and the warm fuzzy feeling knowing that they're helping and are never ending. Quest for cool content. Find out more by clicking support on our website and connect with us online or Bangkok podcast on social media Bangkok podcast. Com on the web or simply Bangkok Podcast at gmail.com. We love hearing from our listeners and always reply to our messages. Unless of course, you're an Asian who sends endless pitch emails on behalf of a client.

Greg 00:43:20 Hey, you know who you are. All right. You can also listen to each episode on YouTube. Send us a voicemail through our website. We'll feature that on the show. Hit me up on blue Sky where I am BK Greg, thank you for listening, everyone, and we'll see you back here next week.

Ed 00:43:32 No doubt.