That must sound like a strange question, that splitting off who are the main targets of unequal treatment might be appropriate, starting out with asking if Thais are racist full stop.
My take is that answer is simple: they are. There is a mainstream, well-accepted prejudice against black people, Indians, and people from the Middle East. It just is what it is.
All of this came up recently in relation to a story by Richard Barrow about being turned away at the most popular tourist-attraction temple in Thailand, Wat Pho. I'll get back to that.
Of course some people are not racist at all, everywhere. Some see people of all races, nationalities, social status / income levels, and gender self-designation and relationship preference as completely equal. Good for them. As I take it the concern relates to the norm, what would be typical. It's just my impression, based on living in Thailand, but I understand that some very limited degree of racial bias is quite normal in Thailand.
None of this bias is expressed as the kind of dislike and preferential treatment that seems to stir up social context concerns in the US now. Some white people there actively dislike black people; this is not a secret. A black person getting murdered by a white policeman isn't as much of a rare exception as it should be, but it really is an exception. The more common forms really are nothing like that, even there. Racial prejudice that should be very uncommon there does occur though, verbal confrontation and violence, resulting differences in hiring practices and prison population, etc. Of course the cause and effect sequences are all quite complicated; economic and other factors come into play.
Here in Thailand racial bias is very mild in comparison, more related to who some people wouldn't be open to being roommates with. That typically wouldn't come up anyway, since all those minorities are not prevalent in Thailand, except there probably is a significant Indian population. Race inspired violence and even public expression of racial slurs don't really come up very often.
To be clear "people from the Middle East" is not equated with Thai Muslims. That group is fairly well accepted, even though there is ongoing violence related to a Muslim separatist movement in the far South of Thailand, because Thais are very open about respecting other religions.
The initial question is odd because Thais generally have a positive image of Western foreigners, of white people. Of many minorities; Thais love Japanese and Korean culture too. They don't necessarily see them as essentially completely the same as Thais, and I never will do justice to that complex cultural perspective here. And all of this will just be based on my own opinions; that goes without saying. Let's start with introducing the perspective from a couple of other angles, from expat perspective (that of local Western foreigners).
Dual pricing at national parks, and so on
It's a running complaint that foreigners aren't treated equally here. Some of the examples could seem trivial, but it's easy to see how the perspective builds up from different causes. An obvious example is that foreigners pay more to enter national parks, or places like zoos, or museums. Visiting a temple associated with tourism is free for a Thai, but Wat Pho just increased the visitor fee from 100 baht to 200 baht (from $3 to $6).
There's really no justification offered for any of that. Someone might claim that Thais pay local taxes, but then foreigners living here do too. The idea seems to be that if someone is wealthy enough to fly from a different part of the world to visit that they can then afford to pay $3 or $6 to visit an old temple, but that this is a burden on many local Thais who earn very little. Without being spelled out it could mean that, or something else instead. Either way it works out to something like an extra tax on tourists.
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dual-pricing was normal in the last place I lived too, in Hawaii (photo credit) |
It doesn't stop at those few places; if anything a disparity of cost widens in local markets, where items are often bargained for versus just sold for one price. How that works out is complicated; most things Thais don't bargain for when buying, they just know what is negotiable per convention. Sometimes menus can be printed in two languages, with two listings of prices, but typically it's not like that; that would be an extreme case.
Of course some expats (local foreigners) see it all as unfair. Some recognize that they earn a completely different scale of income as almost all Thais and take no offense. I can put a scale to that easily enough. It's my understanding that a foreigner working here as an English teacher would tend to start out around 30,000 baht per month ($1000), with some earning up to 70 or 80,000, all still for high school level teaching. Some in very bad placements might earn only 20-25k but that would be an exception.
Per my understanding Thais working in a local school would tend to earn only 15-20,000 per month, without much potential for that to scale up. Some would probably be closer to 10, for exceptions on that lower end. An average Thai college professor might earn around 30,000 per month, equivalent to what a foreign English teacher with limited qualifications could easily earn, someone lacking a degree in education.
Thai general perspective of white foreigners
Telling this story almost has to involve how this general perception seems to have changed. It's my impression that just before I moved here, a dozen years ago now, the impression of foreigners was different. There was an automatic status associated, and an expectation that such a person would be more qualified as a subject specialist or manager, for example. That was shifting even back then.
Today a lot of Thai companies actively avoid hiring any Westerners for any reason, and international companies tend to get by using almost entirely Thai staff, because it works out better. It offsets any need to work around Thai language, higher pay expectations, and cumbersome work permit and visa processing.
It would involve too much summary to explain how white people are seen by Thais, in general. There are a few standard running themes in perspective, both positive and negative biases, but any given foreigner (or Thai) would express that range differently, and how the balance works out.
Sub-themes complicate things. At one point there was an impression that any foreigner working here was either an English teacher or subject specialist in an international company, for example someone working in IT (the field I do work in, just for a Thai company). Retirees would fall into a separate category, with stereotypes mapping to those types of cases.
In general the impression was always mostly positive, it seems, and that is still true today. "Positive but different" can be an unusual range though; it opens a space for perceptions to be partly negative too. And other sub-themes come up, about foreigners marrying bar-girls, or backpackers, or foreigners being more likely to have a bad temper, and ignore the social convention to stay calm in public expression. It's probably best to by-pass all this for now and circle back to a local event that seemed to trigger a lot of "white" resentment about this unequal treatment.
Thais only admitted to a main Bangkok temple, Wat Pho
The main foreigner news blogger, Richard Barrow, recently "broke" a story that he had visited Wat Pho and was turned away for not being Thai. That's actually what happened; only Thais are being admitted now. Later on it turned out that the main hall tourists visit there, the large Reclining Buddha statue, is under construction, and with that and corona social-distancing concerns the temple opened only for locals from around the time period of June 5 to the first week of July. Reasonable enough, but of course all that wasn't part of the initial story. Other outlets ran the story too:
(Coconuts) ‘Thai People Only’: Famed Bangkok temple refuses entry to foreigners
(Bangkok Post) Thais only policy is racism, pure and simple
Signs at the front only said "Thais only." Staff couldn't add detail to that, a justification or explanation. The Wat Pho Facebook page mentioned concerns about social distancing, and gave a limited description implying the limit related to ceasing tourism but not religious observation.
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a June 3rd announcement about re-opening, not mentioned in Richard Barrow's post a week later |
It sounds like just a misunderstanding, right? Not exactly. For one thing it triggered a lot of foreigner resentment, and validated and confirmed a lot of their pre-existing concerns about racism. If there was absolutely no difference in perspective and treatment of foreigners it would be easier to brush all that aside, but it's not like that.
The dual-pricing issue is really just one of many concerns. Current government consistently, repeatedly limits foreigner access to visit or stay in Thailand, even though tourism is a major industry that props up the economy. Many foreigners living here also bring in a lot of revenue, spending retirement money here, or spending a lot on maintaining a second home, or building up a business (which is highly restricted related to foreign ownership). Rules can change month to month; interpretation of regulations can change, even when the laws themselves don't.
The last step, one step too far, seemingly, was requiring foreigners to purchase a relatively expensive, oddly described insurance plan to limit impact from foreigners who can't pay their own medical bills. Normal enough, right? Except that it could also be seen as yet another tax in disguise. Given how US health care support initiatives tend to go it's all familiar ground; the starting point made sense but the end result and final form less so.
So reactions to that latest story of discrimination were what one would expect: displeasure and disappointment. Taken alone it wouldn't mean much, especially with all the details included, which weren't initially available, the part about construction.
To get to how unfair or tone-deaf this is in relation to this background issue it doesn't hurt to go back and consider how reasonable the restriction really is. Are all Thais visiting Wat Pho for religious observance, and couldn't a foreign local be doing the same, even if they were born in a different culture? I'm in an unusual position to consider that, since I was a monk ordained at Wat Pho for two months. That seemingly makes me a counter-example, but then it's also not that simple.
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that was a rough morning; an early start and a lot of formal ritual |
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my son was a novice there too |
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making a bin ta baht offering to her brother |
The "Thais only" restriction considered further
I'll grant that a difference in how people of the two different races and backgrounds are seen is probably the main real issue at play. But does it even work to split off the "religious observation versus tourism visit" themes? Kind of.
There's probably more gap on the Thai side. Thais really are visiting as a tourism practice, along with that having a religious meaning to them. It wouldn't be possible to divide the two though. It would be like when a Catholic visits the Vatican; of course it's both tourism and there is personal religious meaning. I don't think it's anything like a Muslim visiting Mecca; there just isn't that extra level of religious significance to a main Thai temple versus the other hundreds of them in Bangkok. It's "higher," more significant in history and meaning, but nothing like that context found in Islam. I suppose that means it works to bracket (set aside) how this plays out for Thais, and accept that it sort of works.
Most foreigners visiting Wat Pho are just tourists. I don't mean that in some limiting, negative sense; there's nothing wrong with tourism as an activity and interest. Most wouldn't consider themselves Buddhists. Some could, and that's where things get interesting, and relevant. Does Richard Barrow see himself as a religious Buddhist? I have no idea. He had added that he was there to pay respects, and I take that as a genuine interest in religious expression. Others might not; I guess it could be interpreted differently.
Participation and paying respect could be different things, too. If I visit the Vatican I might feel a personal awe and deep respect for the history and shared meaning there, but the formal personal religious meaning could still be all but entirely missing for me. I could greatly respect Catholicism but not see myself as participating in a form of it, even if I was Protestant.
What if a foreigner sees themself as a Buddhist? I don't think Wat Pho was really thinking this through enough to split out that possibility, and consciously reject it through their policy. I talked to a monk friend in the administration there and he just didn't seem to get that as being possible.
Of course he would relate to me potentially being seen as Buddhist, by myself or others, since I'm in a Thai Buddhist family. And I was ordained there, and married there, and visit for some religious holidays (missing most--typical of American religious practice), the usual connections any Thai might have. I studied Buddhism for over a decade prior to living here, and have two degrees in religion and philosophy, focused mainly on the study of Buddhism (and one in industrial engineering; that story makes no sense).
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a Buddhist wedding vows ceremony |
I still kind of don't see myself as a Thai Buddhist. I think that really relates to how I relate to categories and labels though. Obviously I'm white, American, married--I fall into lots of groupings. But I tend to keep the self-labeling to a minimum. And I get the difference between how different people would relate to a subject like Buddhism. I definitely try to live by Buddhist principles, and Buddhism has been a major influence in my life, and I will continue to participate in formal observances as a member of a Thai Buddhist family.
It doesn't map over very directly to the liberal take on Protestant Christianity I was raised with. That was quite loose and open; if you say that you accept Jesus as your personal savior you are 100% in. You can even reject that he is the literal son of God, and see the part about him coming back from being dead as pure fiction, and you're still fine. If you accept the teachings as valid that's good enough. Even going to ceremonies is a bit optional; up to you. You're still not that much less Christian than anyone else, if you see yourself that way. Maybe just as Christian as the Pope, depending on personal mapping out of those themes.
Thai Buddhism is a little different. It's hard to fill in how, to give it a full description. The form is seen as meaningful; the monks chanting actually has an effect. Believing ideas in literal form makes a difference. To some extent even being born into a Thai family would make a lot of difference. Because of racism?
No; because of their literal take on the mechanics of karma.
Karma in Thai Buddhism
This will be a really tough one to explain. A couple of examples will point towards how it works out but 10,000 words on the subject wouldn't make it clear. The monks chanting has karmic effect, kind of like magic. Giving the temple 100 baht for restoration also does, and offering 1000 baht has more effect. So far so good, right; no tie-in with racism or national bias yet.
Being born a Thai relates back to your karma, to your place in human society. Someone born into a European country or the US would have a different karma. Someone being born wealthy here, versus poor, ties to a different karmic background. It's not as if they definitely deserved it (both placements), but to some extent that's how it is taken, it relates directly to what they did in prior lifetimes. You can't simply strip away your karma; it identifies who and what you are. It made you who you became before you even existed, this time around. Even the options that present themselves for change are the effects of karma, along with your inclination to be open to those, to some degree.
It's not even really necessarily seen as a value-determining factor, it's just how things are. It sounds a bit like the Indian caste system, doesn't it? It should; it's probably derived directly from that very framework, from an earlier version of it, adopted along with the Buddhism religion form.
This means that saying "we are all equal" is kind of a nonsensical thing to say or believe, according to a Thai perspective. In some limited sense sure, but Thais tend to focus on individual rights a lot less. That's because the assumed context is completely different. The "self-evident truth that all men are created equal" would be complete nonsense for them. Equal in what sense?
Obviously some people are born into wealthy families and some into poor ones; some people are born into wealthy countries and others into poor ones. Some are born in such poor health that they are destined to die young, or are deformed, and others possess exceptional physical and mental capabilities. It's a silly thing to say, that everyone is created equally.
If the state tries to enforce that, if it's an underlying premise within a society, then sure, to that degree it's true. But in most cultures and countries that would be seen as unnatural, or at least unrealistic. Even in the US it kind of doesn't actually work in practice. That went without saying a month ago, all the more so now.
To be clear as I take core Buddhist teachings people are seen as just as equal as within Christianity (or possibly more so, in relation to varying interpretations within Christianity). It's more the case that putting a flat-level value judgment on everyone isn't how things work. I suppose that folds into culture more in relation to state defined roles, which are much more implicit here.
It's worth remembering that in the US the ideal that "all men are created equal" was written and provisionally accepted at a time when people could own other people, as property; concerns over theory versus practice come up everywhere.
Resolving the contradiction
Another tough one, right? How can people seen as equal--in a general sense--and more positive in some others (the perception of white people here roughly equating to a higher status level), be completely cast aside, forcing local Thais to see everyone as equal?
Foreigners aren't granted the authority to re-write local Thai culture in their own image.
To local expats (foreigners living here) this temple entry issue is a clear sign of racism. Under their expectations and paradigm it would have to be that. Here it kind of is, but it's also a bit silly to set up the expectation that there can be no separate treatment of Thais in relation to foreigners in Thailand. That would be like rejecting that local Hawaiians pay less to enter the Waikiki zoo. You just can't put that on them; you can't shift local expectations and rules. That example ties back to a completely different history and context (the US sort of "stole" their country), but in either case you are trying to swap out local expectations and context framing for your own "improved, higher" version. Local cultures don't work that way.
The only way this could be resolved, from either direction, is for the expats seeing this as racism to understand the Thai perspective, or for the temple administrators (the monks; it is ran by them, not a PR firm or tourism council) to completely "get" a Western perspective. Even for people reading this explanation of the underlying context that wouldn't work. Some part of what I've claimed here would seem wrong, or oversimplified, or it would seem that I've rushed to accept something that just doesn't make sense. Neither perspective and context makes sense from the other perspective; in part that conclusion is absolutely correct.
I'm discussing the underlying context, a level of assumptions, and worldviews, ordinary perspective, and reasoning is what gets built on top of all that.
All of this results in an odd cycle of how foreigners living here see Thailand and Thai culture, played out over and over in individual cases. Some few "integrate;" they actually do see things more as Thais do, and take up a role more or less within their society. They're still farang but the context becomes clear.
More commonly people go through a familiar shift: they see Thailand as a paradise where everyone is friendly and things are simple, then they recognize pros and cons, and then they hate parts of the local culture for being unfair, for aspects of local systems to be "rigged against them." And that last part isn't necessarily completely wrong; go into a court system opposed to a Thai and your chances of a favorable ruling aren't good, never mind the actual circumstances. Go through a divorce, as many do, and you will have exactly that experience.
Those foreigners are all just either at the middle or towards the end of that cycle. It's not paying $8 to go into a zoo or park, when Thais pay $2, that's getting to them, it's everything. That's just a symbol. Based on the expectation that the state and related institutions should see everyone as equal, which is carried over from where they are from (unless they just moved from Hawaii), they are being slighted and cheated.
Next one might wonder: do the pros and cons of being treated separately not add up to a more even balance for white foreigners, given that Thais aren't actually racist against them?
Maybe; sort of. The advantages are hard to place though, and if you would end up valuing most just being seen as normal, as equal, then your main desire and goal is to not accumulate that set of positive biases over other Thai residents.
It's tempting to go into what I mean, how being white automatically maps over to an equivalent social status as a wealthy Thai. That part is what I mean in relation to how 10,000 words won't cover the context well. A white person would get more respect, which would lead towards some exceptions being made in unusual cases.
White people also act the part of sources of revenue, to some extent, as the people who pay more in markets, who pay the higher tier in dual pricing, the ones who get more traffic tickets, and play a role in an unusual taxation for needing special medical insurance, and a visa and work permit. Getting better service in a restaurant--or whatever that extra benefit is--comes along with being charged more across a broad spectrum.
There is no resolving all this. It is what it is. At least by understanding it a foreigner could live at peace with the exceptions and additional demands, and a Thai could understand their own worldview that much better. Bitter, through-the-whole-cycle expats never get there. They simply accept that Thais are biased against foreigners instead. It's not really that simple. They are just seen as different, slightly higher in status in one sense, and not a participant in local group-inclusion benefits in another.
The end of the Wat Pho racial discrimination story
Wat Pho finally posted this on their Facebook page:
Due to restoration in progress on the Reclining Budhha and paintings inside the building it is not allowing access to non Thai nationals, it was decided that for the safety of tourists it would restrict access. It has been discussed and the temple should reopen to all from 1st july 2020. It was decided that it was a good opprtunity to use the situation with covid 19 to do the work that was needed, and we are very sorry for the inconvenience and disapointment people may feel.
Not bad; still not a complete explanation or resolution, but close enough.
Richard's Facebook post has 1700 comments and over 1000 shares; the PR damage was done.
That temple is ran as a religious institution, not mainly as a tourist attraction, so the negative PR would be seen as a bad thing, but it's not the same case as if that would happen to Disney. They do generate profit to use to support other temples, to pay for maintenance and utility expenses, and to support school systems. But they just aren't as marketing and profit oriented as a commercial tourism destination would be, which is why this came up in the first place.
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not a PR cover story hoax, it would seem |
Post-script: while editing the final version of this I ran across this related Richard Barrow post:
Ancient Siam in Samut Prakan (https://facebook.com/muangborantheancientcity) is doing a special welcome back promotion of only 465 Baht for an annual pass. I inquired about this as I live nearby but was told only for Thais. Foreign tourists must pay the usual inflated price.
❗️WARNING: This tourist attraction has a #2pricethailand policy.
Dual-pricing discrimination is definitely a real thing in Thailand, not just limited to national parks, zoos, museums, and main temples. If you show them a local ID (as a foreigner) they will give you the day-pass rate that Thais pay, which isn't so bad, you just aren't eligible to buy the annual pass.
Maybe as in the US it will take a round of protests to draw awareness to this injustice to get that resolved. It is an odd contrast, considering a drive to get a privileged and higher income foreign minority group on-par lower pricing with a broad and much lower average income local population.
