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.
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