No Humor Please, We’re Thai

One of the great wonders in the kingdom of Thailand is when you meet a local who understands satire, irony, sarcasm, cynicism – common ways of expression in the West. Thai humor is quite different to the one you come from. But who’s to blame. Look at the state the country is in, when nothing real is really real anymore and nothing wrong really wrong.

In politics we’re governed by an undemocratically enthroned government claiming to have a democratic mandate. The runaway opposition leader claims to be the democratically elected leader while when in power he had abused that mandate by every trick in the book. What can be more satirical than these real life events.

Is it that most Thais have hardly any understanding of satire because their own world has become an own kind of satire? A world where fiction feels so real? You see a soap opera and must think “Hey, that’s like us!” Still, many honest dedicated Thai people keep on trying to build a better, transparent society where white is white and black is black. But:

Failure is never far away when a nation aspires in its quest to transform from a more harmonious, environmentally sensitive and nirvana-like sufficient life forward into rampant consumerism, materialism and greed. What if that new life fails? What’s left to believe in?!

But then again, Thais are famous for their smiles, laughing and having fun. Especially loved are slapstick humor followed by some sort of sound effect. Not too long ago making humiliating, degrading fun of mentally and physically handicapped people was quite common in TV shows.

That’s luckily a thing of the past – while Thai TV still uses Isaan bumpkins in a racist manner and gays and ladyboys serve for “really funny” penis and sex jokes …

Still, Thai humor has kind of matured. And Thailand is by no means alone with her twisted reality. Less and less people around the world seem to take real for real. Take Americans:

As a reader wrote me: “A survey was done in the U.S. recently which showed that something like 80 percent of all people 25 and under get 100 percent of their daily news from the Jon Stewart The Daily Show.”

The Daily Show is a satire on regular news shows. The surveyed people do not watch those regular news shows at all.

But now get this: “Then a follow-up survey was done on which group was better informed about current events. The group watching the satire fake news show by Jon Stewart or those people watching the regular news shows on CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, etc.”

Take a wild guess: “It turned out the people watching the fake news show by Jon Stewart were significantly better informed.”

Which gives us hope for a Thailand where reality has become such an entangled jumble that anyone can claim anything and no one can prove it right or wrong. With the difference being, Stewart’s Daily Show informs viewers

The show you are about to watch is a news parody. Its stories are not fact checked. Its reporters are not journalists. And its opinions are not fully thought through.

And its viewers are better informed?!…

The other side of the coin: Not understanding satire keeps us Not The Nation on the air, the Thai news site so much more accurate than most of the rest.




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March 29, 2009 | Filed Under News & Media, Politics, Seriously, Not ... 

Comments

7 Responses to “No Humor Please, We’re Thai”

  1. ThaiCrisis on March 29th, 2009 1.44 pm

    “Nothing real is really real anymore”. Many of us feel the same thing… Something is seriously twisted.

    I use the “Rabbit Hole” expression. To smile. And “Orwellian Doublespeak.” For politics.

    But it’s basically the same idea.

    You’re right with Abhisit and Thaksin. Both are reversing logic. Both are shaking our neurons.

    “Nothing real is really real anymore.”

    As an anti-dote, the Thai society will probably change a little bit … And it won’t be nice.

    No one can play like this with people’s minds and basic common sense, without serious consequences …

    And last point: We can notice exactly the same phenomena … well … worldwide.

    Obama is against the bonuses for bankers … but give them bailout.

    Obama is against the war in Iraq, but send more troops to Afghanistan. And increase the army budget.

    Etc. Same scary and totally twisted Orwellian doublespeak with Sarkozy, Brown, Bernanke …

    Difficult to keep the sense of humor in those conditions …

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak

  2. Posts about Jon Stewart as of March 29, 2009 » The Daily Parr on March 29th, 2009 3.43 pm

    [...] to Jon Stewart to handle investigative reporting. Few people exit a coffee shop with an empty mug No Humor Please, We’re Thai – absolutelybangkok.com 03/29/2009 One of the great wonders in the kingdom of Thailand is when you [...]

  3. laura on March 29th, 2009 10.55 pm

    Gosh you can be so mean Dan … wouldn’t a little tactfulness be in order? I mean you’re spot-on but … hmm … well … maybe I’m too polite.

  4. Mark Lamerton on March 30th, 2009 8.57 am

    Interesting post. The difference between Jon Stewart and Thai TV news reportage is that the U.S. audience understands that it is satire – there is even a disclaimer at the start of the show for less informed minds.

    One of the main issues regarding the reporting of all news events in Thailand, particularly by the well-established TV news “stars” is the common practice of mixing fact and opinion. Depending on which news program you watch, a pro-government or anti-government stance will emerge, complete with widespread rumor and gossip being presented as news. (For background search for this article on the Bangkok Post website: “The anarchy of our television reportage”).

    What people think is often determined by what some prominent person has said, or if any money has been paid. Last week, for example, hundreds of thousands of people queued for hours on Thursday to pick up their 2,000 baht handout from the so-called democratic government – then on Friday tens of thousands from the same group collected another (smaller) cash handout to put on a red shirt, march to government house and demonstrate. Now that’s irony.

  5. BangkokDan on March 30th, 2009 11.02 am

    laura, I adore Thai humor, this piece is more about the subconscious variety.

    TC & Mark: True, once you open your eyes there’s irony and satire everywhere.

    With the difference being that this time around Thailand takes exceptionally long to find again her balance.

    BangkokDan

  6. ThaiDude on April 4th, 2009 9.23 am

    As a Thai, I wonder how well you foreign observers have delved into Thai conversations. Maybe it’s because most of the time we’d rather not talk about it, but trust me, satire, mocking, ridicule and cynicism exists pretty plainly amongst the puns and penis jokes.

  7. Mark Lamerton on April 8th, 2009 11.43 am

    ThaiDude: Totally agree. Sometimes, when I listen to a group of Thais talking, for example, at a restaurant, satire, mocking, ridicule and cynicism is all there seems to be. There are very few serious conversations about anything. When there are, views tend to be polarised into the atypical red/yellow boxes according to the social group they belong to.

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