in thailand, as well as elsewhere ethnocentric practices can be seen. for instance, some european expatriates may apply communicative distance to their thai colleagues by,for example, calling them names; intimidating their thai colleagues or employees with unfamiliar expressions or language oversimplification while talking to them; or paying exaggerated attention while listening to them, etc. another example is the practice of ethnocentric speech by the high-class people of the bangkok society to socially distance someone in the lower levels, depicted all the time on televition in prime-time soap operas, namely, บ้านทรายทอง