Long term orientation
This dimension describes how every society has to maintain some links with its own past while dealing with the challenges of the present and future, and societies prioritise these two existential goals differently. Normative societies. which score low on this dimension, for example, prefer to maintain time-honoured traditions and norms while viewing societal change with suspicion. Those with a culture which scores high, on the other hand, take a more pragmatic approach: they encourage thrift and efforts in modern education as a way to prepare for the future.
Thailand's low score of 32 indicates that Thai culture is more normative than pragmatic. People in such societies have a strong concern with establishing the absolute Truth; they are normative in their thinking. They exhibit great respect for traditions, a relatively small propensity to save for the future, and a focus on achieving quick results.
The Thai are a proud nation of people with a long history and complex hierarchal structure of status. Starting with the Royal family and percolating down, everyone in Thailand knows and respects their place in society. A polite Thai (which is most of them) will usually immediately identify whether another is of higher status than them (usually deemed by age or wealth) and initiate the wai - a submissive and graceful bringing together of the hands to the chest or beneath the nose (to show respect). Even on a social level, they will refer to their elders as pii (older sibling). In fact social grace is paramount and the formal suffix kha (female) and khrap (male) is added to the end of all sentences when addressing strangers, employers/employees or elders.
Taiwan scores 93, making it a pragmatic, long-term orientation culture. Societies with this orientation show an ability to adapt traditions to a modern context i.e. pragmatism, a strong propensity to save and invest, thriftiness, perseverance in achieving results and an overriding concern for