Thailand is famous for its smiles, and over the years has proudly adopted the name Land of Smiles. But how much do us foreign folk really understand about the Thai smile?
The answer is pretty much nothing at all.
And here’s why…
Thais have a built an admirable reputation for making life fun and easy-going, and the smile is a key ingredient in keeping cool and ironing out life’s creases.
But if you thought the Thai smile is simply used to show a liking of something or someone, you’d be very much mistaken.
Because the Thai smile is far more complicated than it first appears, so much so in fact, that even the seasoned expat and frequent tourist consistently misinterpret the Thai smile.
This can be forgiven, though, because unless you have intensively studied the many variations of the Thai smile, it’s almost impossible to decipher which smile is being used in a given situation.
But it’s important that you do, otherwise, like so many, you’ll be confusing the meanings behind smiles, left, right and centre.
Perhaps the most classic case of smile misinterpretation is the male tourist who assumes that every kind of smile he gets from a Thai female means she’d like to sleep with him, when in fact the majority of these smiles will fall into the “Oh my god the foreign guy is looking at me strangely. I don’t want to be rude, so I’ll just smile politely and somewhat nervously” category.
The second biggest misinterpretation is – after having realised that not all the women fancy him, and neither are all Thais always overly excited by the presence of a foreign person – the assumption that the majority of smiles are disingenuous, or simply “fake”.
You’ll often hear silly remarks from disgruntled barstool hermits like, “Careful, the smiles aint real mate”, or, “You gotta look behind the smile, geezer”.
No. What you have to do is learn the “smile code”, so to speak. And once you do, you’ll understand Thai culture that little bit more, and be better placed to read situations correctly.
The Thai smile is genius in that it allows one to express a range of emotions without physically or verbally taking action. It’s a form of communication capable of tempering confrontation, easing difficult situations and showing one’s appreciation.
If you really want to know what’s behind a Thai smile, there are 13 unofficially documented smiles to decipher: