The local group in Japan, the hamlet, has a clear cut social unity with special
ceremonies for entry and exit and a whole series of rights and obligations
for its members. Each man must sooner or later assume the responsibility of
being the representative of the local group, each must assist on occasions of
hamlet cooperation such as road building or funeral preparations. In Thailand
the hamlet also has its own identity and the members also have rights and
duties, but they are less clearly defined and less strictly enforced. Exchange
systems are less clear cut. Thus in Thailand, with its mobility of population
and lack of emphasis on long term obligations, we do not find the financial
credit associations (KO) which extend over twenty years or so in a Japanese
farm community. But they are found in China and Vietnam, areas in which we
find societies similar to Japan in the sense here used.21
The difference in closeness and looseness of cultural pattern as between
Thailand and such a culture as the Japanese may also be seen in games of
poem exchange. In Japan a well known “socia1”game involves knowing by
heart a hundred classical poems, so that when two lines are recited by one
contestant the other can complete the poem with the remaining lines. In rural
Japan the folk poetry is less likely to take a contest form and there is some
improvisation, but by and large the texts are remarkably standard in any
given region.22 In Thailand also there are poetic contests, but here, while there
is a general plot to which any given series of rhymes must conform, there is
much room for improvisation and direction of the story to suit the occasion.2s
Both societies have poem contests, but one is bound by tight formal rules