I live in the United States, I just saw Hangover 2. I have also been in Thailand many times since 2004 and love the country.
What foreigners think usually is what they hear or see. I am guilty of that. Till one actually visits a country, even though I had seen a few programs about Thailand. It becomes 2 dimensional picture in the mind in the sense the person ONLY has a picture of what it is like. There's no sense of smells or the experience of the heat.
So all people or foreigners can think or remember is what they see, movies or history or travel programs. Cause that's what was in my mind till I first arrived in Thailand. My pictures were bicycles everywhere, now it's motorcycles everywhere. haha Short tanned asians walking around. Well, they are not all short, many are not tanned.
Unfortunately, also first impressions to many here in the United States is what we saw from the Vietnam Era of the 1970's. And Hangover 2 does not help.
Once I walked around Bangkok and the first day I was there, I walked about an hour. I realized it is like many cities, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Los Angeles, in that they have regular businesses. And in different parts of the city and sometimes outwardly showing they have borderline businesses, like strip joints, massage parlors, etc.
It takes an actual dose of reality for people to realize the truth. Because what they end up hearing, mainly news or what they want to hear justifies their thinking. There is not much you can do but, dare people to actually visit Thailand see the truth.
To me Thailand is great, a bit third world but, it does not bother me.