The Annual Visa Nightmare

This week saw my annual bureaucratic nightmare as I renewed my visa and work permit which I have to do every 12 months.  I go to both Immigration and the Ministry of Labour loaded with the usual round of documents and my usual high level of dread.   I approach both offices with trepidation.  What is it about this experience that inspires such high levels of anxiety?  Why, after eight years, have I never got used to doing this annual chore? 

It is that I face head on that other multi-faceted side of the lovely and dignified Thai.  The aspect of that other side that I am facing is the bureaucratic Thai.  I go along loaded with my documents and ready to follow the guidelines which I think I know but then I am told yet again I am wrong and what follows is a lecture on where I belong in Thailand or a demand to go back to "Go" and start all over again.  Then there is the waiting; there is the not knowing what next or where I may have made a mistake.  It is all out of my hands and I have to just give myself over to the demands, procedures and rulings of a bureaucrat over whom I have no right of appeal.  It can be frightening as I need those stamps to stay here, the place in which I have invested so much and the place which has become my home.  This annual event reminds me how little control I have over my destiny here. 

I ask yourself yet again - how much longer can I keep doing this?  But then there are bigger concerns at play and I keep going.  And in the midst of all, Thai advice and philosophy rules the day.  Namely, keep a cool heart and don't get angry in the face of whatever you are dealt.  And you know what?  It works as I then get through it much easier and with a friendly smile and a warm word from the Thai bureaucrat. 

What have we got here?

What are we looking at here?  It is the front of Holy Redeemer Catholic church in central Bangkok.  I was there last Saturday morning and saw that the church was ready for that day's major wedding.  It looked incredible, being more like an exhibition site with floral elephants and flower arrangements galore.  All was done gloriously with great dignity and order, presenting a very beautiful picture indeed. 

There is that word "order".  Order is very important for the Thais.  They go around the streets in their little, quiet world from which they do want to be disturbed.  As they live in their apartments and urban settings, what presents as essential is that they not be disturbed.  What they seem to desire most is to know quiet and order. 

As I say this, I also experience the reality of chaos in everyday life here.  People walk along the streets as if no one else is there.  Cars are driven as if theirs is the only car on the road.  You try to get off the bus and people are waiting right in front of the door to get in and you wonder how to get out except just to get out as best you can.  No one seems to pay any attention to anyone, it seems.  What is going on one asks?  They live in their own quiet worlds which don't necessarily or easily meet other people's worlds, while they live in a wider world that is quite chaotic with ones not readily acknowledging others in their domain. 

They need and want order but it is as if it can only be delivered at the communal level through direction from above, from a higher authority.  This is so whether in the home, the street, the workplace or the nation.  This has huge consequences.  Everyone acts to present so well, to show off beauty and dignity, to exhibit and know order but what is really needed to achieve this is discipline and control from recognised higher authorities. 

As a close friend, who has been here many years, commented - the Thais are ungovernable.  They need the higher authority to tell them what to do, even to gain their desired quiet and order.  So maybe has their world created them. 

No, they are not in the army

One day this week, my friend, Om, went proudly off to work in his uniform.  His task for the day was to join his work colleagues in the Thai government to welcome a member of the royal family back home.  This is part of the local protocol for every returning royal - welcome them home with a party of Thai civil servants in their uniform waiting at the airport to greet them. 

They do this task happily and proudly.  They look very smart in their uniform.  No, they are not in the army.  They are Thai civil servants and this is their uniform. 

Their great king of over 100 years ago, Rama V, instituted a miltary style uniform for ones working for the government.  In part, this was to help create an identity, to build up an "esprit de corps".  A smart uniform helps give them pride in what they do.  This is all very commendable.  It also clearly says who they are and where they stand in Thai society.  Even if they don't get paid much, their uniform gives them a status.  And that is important in a status driven society. 

I didn't get angry.

In a food court on Tuesday, I am waiting and waiting to order my pad thai for dinner.  Then up comes someone to the counter, speaks out and is given immediate attention.  Having waited patiently for sometime for service, I automatically start saying in Thai what I want as I am not going to let someone else just push in like this.  The woman serving ignores me.  So I make my statement to her that this is not good.  After all, one of my central motifs in life is that life must be fair and just, even if it mostly isn't.  So why wouldn't I speak out? 

Having made my stance, I go to move away when my friend, Om, comes over appearing angry.  He is asking me - Why did you just get angry? 
I respond - I didn't get angry.  I just spoke strongly because she ignored me and wouldn't serve me.  Where I come from that is rude. 

In Thailand, no one is ever supposed to get angry.  It is to be all smiles and politeness all the time but life is much more.  For me, this approach doesn't work as it doesn't deal with life when it is not fair and just.  This means nothing uncomfortable or unfair is ever dealt with and so nothing changes, or at least that is how it appears.  This may be the dominant cultural approach to life here but people are people and issues not dealt with remain, causing pressures to build up. 

What happens in the land where you don't get angry is that when you speak out, you are identified as being angry and this is not good.  As a result, nothing deemed as possibly conflictual or confrontational is ever faced in a good and healthy way due to a lack of direct talking.  This just doesn't work as it leaves too much messiness, too much hurt behind in the failure to resolve life's bumpy moments.

Om later talks with the woman.  He tells me she is from Laos and doesn't understand my Thai.  Hearing this, I feel bad and go to apologize but she won't accept my apology for by now she is too angry.  Funny thing is that before when I was expressing my opinion earlier, she said nothing and just smiled.

In the land where people don't talk directly, they just don't deal with life's sticky patches.  In the process, any anger arising is repressed but only for so long and it can all end up going very badly.  And, of course, there is only one way to do it - the Thai way.  If you do it any other way, you are wrong.  It feels like a bind but, in the midst of it all, I didn't get angry.