Thailand (Lonely Planet, 13th Edition) - China Williams [32]
LIFESTYLE
Individual lifestyles vary tremendously according to family background, income and geography. In many ways Bangkok is its own phenomenon where middle-class Thais wake up to all the mod cons: SMS, instant messaging, fast-food, J-pop music and fashion addictions. The amount of disposable income in Bangkok is unparalleled elsewhere in the country. Meanwhile Bangkok’s working classes are usually economic migrants from the northeast provinces or increasingly from across the border in Myanmar. While the rice fields lay fallow, Isan farmers saddle up a Bangkok taxis or join a construction crew catered at lunchtime by an enterprising Isan housewives who whips up northeastern specialities that were merely culinary fables in the capital some 20 years ago. The young 20-somethings from such provinces as Roi Et and Si Saket who aren’t college-bound head to service-industry jobs in the guesthouses and form their own urban tribes. The southern resort islands have seen a similar migration pattern: Isan Thais working as housekeeping staff and construction crews, locals working as security guards and educated Bangkokians filling the managerial positions. Regardless of the job, most Thais send a portion of their pay home to struggling parents or to support dependent children.
More traditional family units and professions can be found in the provincial capitals across the country. The civil servants – teachers and government employees who make up the backbone of the Thai middle class – mainly live in nuclear families in terrace housing estates outside the city centre. Some might live in the older neighbourhoods filled with front-yard gardens growing papayas, mangoes and other fruit trees. The business class lives in the city centre, usually in apartments above shopfronts, making for an easy commute but a fairly urban life. In the cool hours of the day, the wage earners and students head to the nearest park to jog, play badminton or join in the civic-run aerobics classes.
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Thais have a special language they use to speak to the monarchy. School children study râht·chá·sàp (the royal language) but Princess Srindhorn has been known to circumvent the convention by speaking English.
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Though fewer people toil in the rice paddies than in the past, the villages still survive on the outskirts of the urban grid. Here life is set to the seasons, the fashions are purchased from the market and if the water buffaloes could talk they’d know all the village gossip. In rural areas, female members of a family typically inherit the land and throughout Thailand women tend to control the family finances.
Across the country, motorcycles are emblematic of modern Thai life. Babies are balanced on the handlebars along with the groceries. Students still in short pants scoot around the back alleys. A Thai expression says that if you’re old enough to laugh, you’re old enough to drive, a social ambivalence that the government has tried to combat with various public-safety campaigns. Cars are still a sign of wealth, and due to favourable taxes pick-up trucks make up the bulk of automobile sales. Mobile phones have infiltrated the daily lives of just about everyone, even humble villagers and lowly market vendors.
In general, Thais are enjoying a higher standard of living than in decades past. The long-distance fan buses that once stopped at every shade tree and collected toothless grannies and young men carrying fighting cocks have been phased out. These days people have their own transport or can afford the air-con bus. From a demographic perspective Thailand is at a crossroads, being transformed from a developing nation to a developed one. Life expectancy has risen to a median age of 70 years for men and 75 years for women; fertility rates have held steady at 1.82. The country’s median age is 33,