Why Does Thailand Keep Tripping Itself Up?

Before I get started on this little rant, let me assure you – as I have before – that I dearly love living in Thailand and revel in absorbing the vivacious mix of wonderful and awful, inspiring and depressing, beauty and ugliness that it offers. The people are great, the landscape is beautiful, the quality of life is superb, the history is dense and the food kicks ass. But I read something recently that got me thinking that it will be a long, hard slog if Thailand ever wants to reach its full potential. No matter how hard it strains to be the great force it could be, there’s one thing that the effort always trips on – greed.

The article that I read was in Time Magazine, titled “Seoul: World’s Most Wired Megacity Gets More So“. It was detailing how the South Korean capital is just humming with digital connectivity and government initiatives that vastly improve the quality of life for its residents as part of a plan called U-City. Some of the details:

• RFID cards that can be used across bus, taxi, subways and train networks
• Insurance breaks if you leave the car at home (saving congestion on the roads and pollution in the air)
• Nearly-free wifi access citywide
• Government contracts and their winning bidding conditions posted online for all to see
• Fingerprint scanners at locations citywide where you can pick up high security documents like driving licenses or medical records
• The ability to use your cell phone to check things like air quality and traffic congestion, and you can even use it to buy stuff from stores or vending machines

Privacy issues aside, that’s pretty freakin’ cool. An ambitious plan like that is the forerunner of the wired future predicted by William Gibson, Philip K. Dick and, okay, a bit of George Orwell too. But anyway, at least it’s an example of what can be done if a government is working toward improving the city, not just the quality of life of its members. A project like that would neeeeever get off the ground in Thailand because everyone would want it skewed in favor of their own interests.

Now, I’m not going to get into specifics or names or anything like that; I don’t have a degree in socio-politics or political science, and I’m certainly not saying that Thailand is the only country with problems. But it seems that nothing gets done here without first asking the question: “Who will this benefit, and how can I get on that list?” That makes me sad, because Thailand – as awesome as it is – could be awesome. A financial powerhouse; a tech leader; a tourism monster. But before all that – how can I make a bit of money on the side?

Most corrupt countries, with green being most corrupt and dark red the least corrupt. Wait…

Most corrupt countries, with green being most corrupt and dark red the least corrupt. Wait…This mindset and the extent at which is permeates all classes and economic levels was summed up pretty nicely for me on a recent weekend when some friends and I went for a bike ride. Before our ride, we met at a tourist-heavy area by the Chao Phraya River and I went to buy some water. I asked – in Thai – for three bottles @ 10 baht each. The guy gave them to me and said: “Forty baht. Ten baht tip!” and put the coin in his pocket. I could have said a lot of things, most of them very un-Canadian of me, but I simply just held out my hand until he gave it back to me. It’s not the money, it’s the principle, blah, blah. I wasn’t really sure whether to be pissed by the guy’s arrogance or impressed by his balls.

Name your project and it’s likely to have been tainted by allegations of corruption, most of the time conveniently forgotten about: the multi-year delay on the BTS extension across the river; the awful Suvarnabhumi Airport and the whole ‘runway cracks‘ fiasco or the inflated prices of the luggage carts; fire trucks; bank loans; political reshuffles; police on the take; tourist scams; or the fact that Thailand is the only country in SE Asia without a 3G phone network. All of these start with good intentions but get bogged down in a me-first-you-later mentality that just sucks the whole thing into a morass of laughable progress and questionable morality.

“Man, it’s hot in here! Are you hot? I’m hot. Let me just pull out my fan here…”

 When I was teaching here back in the day, I once asked my students if they’d ever go to work in the government, and was met with a surprisingly loud “No way!” When asked why, the whole class yelled the same word: “Corruption!” Dude… that’s bad.

But hey, this is Thailand, and this is the way things work and I know it ain’t going to change any time soon. I’m complaining, yes, but it’s not as an outsider saying ‘Look at how stupid this is’; rather, it’s as a guest who sees so much potential being wasted.

Rant over.