Traditional Culture
By traditional culture we mean customs concerning agriculture and human relations, and the art of making daily necessities such as utensils, clothing and basketry. The basis of the Thai customs and traditions lies in the family, whose structure is of bilateral descent. Like the Chinese and some other Asian peoples, the young are taught to pay respect to and follow the admonitions of parents, elders, teachers and Buddhist monks who, in the old days, formed a highly educated class. When speaking about traditional Thai culture, what cannot be left unmentioned is the wat or Buddhist temple and monastery combined. After Buddhism had been spread throughout Thailand for hundreds of years, the primitive animist belief of the Thai people was assimilated by the Buddhist one. The wat became the centre of the village. It was the place where people received education, attended rites and ceremonies, and observed feasts and festivals all the year round. Nowadays, due to the rapid advancement of technology, the traditional Thai way of living, especially in the big cities, has inevitably changed. However, it is still preserved to a large extent in the faraway rural areas where modern civilization has failed to penetrate.