A lovely Thai girl we met, shame about the blonde in the front!
Aurelie, the couchsurfer who stayed with Ana and I three weeks ago, who we went to Teotihuacan with, returned on Wednesday briefly before going to the airport for her flight back to France.
She was talking about her experiences in S.E. Asia and the usual stereotype of Thailand being the ‘Land of Smiles’ came up. She told of being on a bus and strangers insisting on sharing their fruit and of how friendly, and, well, smiley everyone was. But is Thailand really the land of smiles?
This contrasted sharply with my experience of Thailand. I mean I love the place, it is an amazing country and we met some great people and had some of our most memorable adventures there. However, I didn’t find it any more ’smiley’ than any other country I have been to. I found that the only time when the ear to ear grins appeared, that are so heavily featured in Thai tourism adverts that the term ‘Thailand – Land of Smiles’ has become part of a traveler’s day to day vocabulary, was when someone wanted to sell me something or were trying to rip me off, when they realized wasn’t buying, or playing ball, the smiles soon faded. Not that they became unfriendly, they just weren’t the stereotype that the Thai tourism would have you believe.
I am not sure if I am being fair, this may be a case of the chicken or the egg. Who came up with the analogy first? I don’t know for sure, I haven’t researched it. Was it the genuine observations of travelers’ that the tourism board picked up on, or are travelers repeating the slogan they see in all the tourism boards’ adverts? Is it similar to the case in the UK, where the vacuum cleaner brand Hoover, so dominated the market that vacuum cleaners are commonly referred to as hoovers, no matter what the actual brand of the device they are using. My mother will always say she is going to hoover, I have never once heard her say she is going to vacuum, this applies to a hell of a lot of other people I know. Ok, so that is my observation and a quick social insight to the world of hoovering, sorry, vacuum cleaning, in the UK.
Anyway, this is my blog, back to my observations. I can’t really include the Muslim countries I went to where smiling is not really socially acceptable, for women at least. But I found Bali to be a very happy and smiley place, a lot was from hawkers and over eager shop keepers, but in general, the Balinese are very friendly hospitable people.
If I were to choose one country that was my ‘Land of Smiles’ it would have to be Mexico. I’ve never received any pressure from anyone trying to sell me something; in fact shopkeepers will wish you a good day, rather than the feigned offence and protestations that you have been wasting their time if you choose not to buy anything.
Mexicans are in actual fact, probably the friendliest, most helpful people I have met in the nearly twenty countries I have been to.
Take the other day for example. Katie and I were at a bus stop waiting to go to Chapultepec Park and she was practicing her numbers in Spanish. I noticed a group of four ladies smiling at her and when neither of us could remember the Spanish word for 14 I smiled and asked the lady closest to us. With lots of smiles and laughter all the women counted with Katie up to 30, with a few jokes thrown in when one of them forget to say 19.
A particularly funny story, for me anyway, was last week when the visiting Uruguayan couchsurfers had asked me to pick up their washing from the cleaners for them. They gave me a printed out slip of paper with an advert from the cleaners so I would know where to go, but when I went there was no record of any clothes in the name of the Uruguayans. In my terrible understanding of Spanish I thought the clothes weren’t ready so I returned later in the day but there was still confusion. I was able to ascertain that I was definitely in the right shop but couldn’t understand why the clothes weren’t there and I had to collect them that day because the Uruguayans were leaving on an early morning flight the following day and needed their clothes! I tried so hard to understand what they were saying and they tried so hard to understand me.
A lovely man, who was himself only there to pick up his clothes got involved and was trying his utmost to help and then the lady from the shop next door joined in after understanding my concern about the urgency of collecting the clothes that day.
In the end they phoned my landlady and she tried to solve the mystery of the missing clothes. After much passing back and forth of the phone we realized that though I was at the right address according to the address the Uruguayans gave me, I actually needed a different entrance which was round the corner on a different street!
This is the condensed version of what actually happened but the opinion I am trying to voice is that there was a whole group of strangers who just happened to be in the same place at the same time as me saw me needing help and all broke off what they were otherwise doing to lend a hand.
After being here nearly a month now I am constantly surprised at how friendly and willing to help Mexicans are towards tourists, with no ulterior motive, they are not trying to sell you something or to get anything out of the interaction.
So for me, Mexico is my ‘Land of Smiles’.
Just a quick “hello” and thanks for the comments on Twitter. As I said, you’re the first person I’ve reciprocally followed in a long time. Thank you for not trying to increase my potential earnings…
Oh, as for “land of smiles” – if the government want to promote this image then why do they hire such miserable immigration officials at Bangkok airport? I can’t remember ever having seen one smile. Except the guy who was on his mobile the entire time he was working when I came in a few weeks ago.
Smiling varies quite a bit around the world. In some Asian cultures smiling too much is seen as a sign of a lack of intelligence and in others it signifies friendliness.
In Turkish culture the straight face is almost the default for everyone – that is, until the opportunity for a grin and loud laughter present themselves.
I read a great anthropology study on it years back, wish I could recall the name…will let you know if I come up with it.
Me again… your post got me thinking as I’d had the same opinion for some time as regards the smile being reserved for a potential customer.
However, back in Bangkok I can tell you this simply isn’t the case. Meet some Thais in a purely non-consumer environment and just see how they behave towards farang. That is, towards people they see as visitors to their country.
With very rare exception, a smile and a wai (raised hands and bow) is the result. Seats are given up in clubs, bars or on trains. Foreigners are often given right of way on the street. They’ll wave you across when you’re trying to cross the road in front of their car. Lost in the street? I’ve seen more than a handful of tourists poring over maps in the street the last couple of days with a random Thai doing their best to help them get to their destination.
The only thing right now stopping this being the land of smiles for me is the current trend of wearing face masks to ward off plage and swine flu. I just know behind each one a smile is lurking!
Hey Anil, that would be really great if you could remember the name, I am really into anthropology and it would be an interesting read for me.
Hi Iain, thank you so much for the feedback, it is really interesting to hear your experience. Travelling on my own with a child I don’t ever go into bars or clubs, nor did we look at a map on the street in Bangkok, heeding the advice to do what we could to not look like a tourist we only ever checked the map in a shop or if we were sitting down eating. I don’t know if it was me, maybe it was something I was projecting, but I sensed a wariness of independent travellers/backpackers, though you have made me remember something, I feel another post about Thailand smiles coming up!
[...] with the theme of Thailand which I have certainly been thinking a lot about the past few days if not writing about it here is [...]