This book gets its name from tracking down that elusive very Thainess. For over a decade, while editing guidebooks on Thailand and Bangkok Metro magazine I've repeatedly been asked to unravel curiosities. The pictures shot by John Goss also begged questions. So I sought to research the first overview of Thai popular culture, Naturally, there's much more to say and many phenomena confound generalisation, especially given the regional diversity. This is a partial view drawn from an expatriate's experiences. Later books might reach other conclusions. Thais will have their own insights. Information in Thailand continues to be guarded by seniors and issued bit-by-bit to initiates. Getting it is like a video game treasure hunt; you reach the next levels by sifting clues and acquiring keys to overcome barriers. Never subject to colonial standardisation, Thailand keeps its ancient ways, imbued with Buddhism, hierarchy, spirit beliefs. Indirectness avoids confrontation, leaving much unfathomable to Western reasoning, so asking questions is very un-Thai. Thais disarmingly respond "mai pen rai the answer is "never mind" The biggest booby-trap is face. It relates more to self-image than to what others actually perceive and losing face either yours or some one else's means game over.
Anthropologists call this situation bricolage the way that an animist society arranges the objects life into a self-contained logic that bewilders outsiders. The science of bricolage reads' objects as signs. So in looking at lots of cultural objects, this book hopes to signpost the domestic, ritual and social lifestyle of the average Thai That average Thai is increasingly urban or suburban Bangkok may be as untypical of Thailand as any capital is of its country. But being the focus of almost every national activity and over half its wealth, Bangkok imposes its ways and tastes on the remotest provincial outpost. In return, rural migrants bring the village to town where traditional etiquette infuses corporate PR. In that unplanned collision of values, delicate classical Thainess has taken on a harder commodified edge. Many