Saturday, July 31, 2010

Cultural adjustments

It's hard NOT to notice that Thai people don't seem to be the slightest bit bashful about primping in public. Frequent adjustments of their make-up, hair or clothing in front of mirrors or any object that might reflect, is standard. They are also very comfortable telling OTHERS what they think about your appearance. A good morning greeting could be followed by, "You look very BEAUTIFUL today" or they could just as easily tell you, "You look much FATTER today"

How is it that the topic of a person's appearance has become the favorite conversational pass time for these people? In my home culture these types of spoken comments would be considered quite rude. Why are the Thai so preoccupied with aesthetics?

Then I came to my senses!

Thai people aren't any more preoccupied with appearances than Westerners, they're just more HONEST about it! My Western culture (especially in the US) rates people according to their beauty, wealth, age.... even their education. Sometimes we might be more subtle about these unspoken standards and other times we are very obvious!


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