Now that I work in an office, I can understand why they made a TV show parodying such a situation. We deserve to be laughed at, I think to myself, as we shuffle around in our suits and ties, making copies and chattering over our cubicles. At face value, it all seems very western, each person at their desk working scrupulously on the task at hand. A closer look, however, reveals that things are not always as they seem…
While I cannot presume to speak for all Thai offices, I can vouch for the majority of those in my building, which is an administration building for the medical school. As I stroll down the halls running errands and stretching my legs, I notice so many computer screens tuned into youtube, booking airline tickets, perusing photographs of family and friends and reading recipes online that I begin to wonder how much work is actually done in a day. One man told me with some disdain in his voice that he has to come in to work every day. Spending time in the office with him however, I noticed much of the same that I noticed elsewhere. Picture viewing, playing online, having long, relaxed conversations with the secretary. I began to wonder whether he couldn’t shave his work week down to five days if he just focused a little. Much of the office life around me is like this, feeling more like a living room at times, with frequent offerings of food from the office ladies and soft radio a la Celine Dion. Guests often pop in and spend great amounts of time chatting and enjoying the fruit. The mood is anything but urgent, and everyone seems to prefer it that way. It doesn’t matter if you have enough to do, just be there from 9 to 5 and enjoy the view.
Sometimes Gaibi will visit the office with Isaiah, and this will slowly, magnetically draw all of the staff on my floor out of their offices to spend significant amounts of time either playing with him or adoring him from the sidelines. Eventually, all offices have emptied out and are enjoying the foreign baby show, while the unhurried workload waits in the wings. This is the gist of the Thai culture it seems, and in it one feels almost a sense of pride.
Geographically, Thailand is surrounded by areas that have all been colonized. Vietnam, Burma, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore. I have heard that in the Phillipines, all things western are fundamentally valued more than the native culture. It is as though they have been inseminated with the culture and it is flowering from underneath. Meanwhile, in Thailand, the original impulse still remains, unbroken, untamed. While modernity comes smashing it an a hundred miles-an-hour, the people carry on in their own time. It is a rare and beautiful thing that such a culture can remain in touch with its origins in this world, and I am called to remember this fact when I am sitting behind a car that has parked in the middle of the road, blocking the entire lane, to go buy some fried chicken.
