Shhhh

Early last semester, I attended a ceremony celebrating the opening of a new building at one of the schools in the area.  It went about as follows:

1.     Arrive a bit after the ceremony was officially supposed to begin

2.     Wait for another half hour

3.     Watch some traditional Thai dance

4.     Sit with hands together while monks say prayers

5.     Listen as various dignitaries give speeches

6.     Watch pictures being taken of aforementioned dignitaries

7.     Wait some more until at some seemingly random moment, the people with whom you are there turn to you and say “let’s go”

With relatively slight alterations, these points could describe any number of different kinds of public events: funerals, monk ordinations, meetings, etc.  What I continue to find puzzling about Thai culture is that during points #4 and 5, usually around a third of the people in attendance are either talking to one another, or on their cellphones.  It is such a widespread phenomenon that at first I assumed there were simply different standards for what is considered polite, or rude as the case may be, but when I asked my host mom about it, she said that such behavior is in fact impolite here as well and signifies a lack of interest in the proceedings.

Why, then, do these people come at all?  To enjoy the company of other rude people? Because being absent would (presumably) be even more rude?  I’m not sure.  And the reason that I find this particularly puzzling is that it flies in the face of other aspects of Thai culture, such as an emphasis on social harmony, on social hierarchy, and the priority of collective over the individual.  In a culture such as this, it would seem that instances of what at least on the surface appears to be the desire of the individual (to talk on his or her cellphone or to his or her neighbor) taking precedence over the collective would be fewer than in a culture like the United States, which in most things privileges the individual (although I know that cell phone use in public fora has increased there as well).  But in point of fact I’ve found the opposite to be the case. 

Another example of this occurred last week in a staff meeting at school.  While the director was talking, several of the teachers around me were covertly eating snacks and passing them under the table to their neighbors.  When I asked my co-teacher why they were doing this so secretively, she said it was because it was out of respect for the director as it was rude to eat or drink during a meeting.  I asked whether talking on a cellphone or to one’s neighbor, which seemed to be done quite overtly and on a regular basis, were not considered signs of disrespect, to which her reply was, yes, they were and as such were also bad. 

How to reconcile these seemingly contradictory phenomena?  One possibility is that the kind of people who are inclined to talk on their phones are those least likely to care about social conventions of politeness, respect, and hierarchy.  Another is that the Thai laissez-faire attitude trumps the pressures and priority of the collective.  Or, a third is that this is just one among many of the contradictions that one finds in any culture.  It’s no secret that American has its own fair share, but, shhhhh, let’s just keep those between us.