Westerners Vs. Asians

Call it an “Instant Guide to Thai Culture”. Or “Thai Culture in 60 Seconds”.

Following icons were designed by Liu Young, born in China and educated in Germany.

She calls the series: “East meets West” – “Differences of German & Chinese”.

A multi-appliable, pan-Asian approach.

Blue stands for German, red for Chinese.

Or blue can stand for any Caucasian. And red for Thai:

 

Opinion

 

Way of Life

 

Punctuality

 

Contacts

 

Anger

 

Queueing

 

Me

 

Sundays on the Road

 

Party

 

In the Restaurant

 

Stomach Ache

 

Travelling

 

Handling of Problems

 

Three Meals a Day

 

Transportation

 

Elderly

 

Shower

 

Moods & Weather

 

The Boss

 

What’s Trendy

 

The Child

 

New Things

 

Perception of Others

 

Are cultural difference that simplistic after all?

We think we’re unique.

To me at least the icons look not too unconvincing.

Be it Blacks or Hispanics or Asians or Caucasians: People are the same. Or so they say. At least their genes.

Westerners and Asians couldn’t be more different though.

Remember Lee Kuan Yew’s famous Asian values? They may be a cause for concern, but -

Being at being different: Read Joe Studwell’s book “Asian Godfathers”. Fascinating.

Asians are different. Period.

As they’re conditioned by another environment. Period.

By other people, other values, other heritages, traditions.

What makes us pretty much predictable. Even though we insist on such pusillanimously illusionary concepts as free will or self-determination.

After all the attempts of trying to be oneself, there’s mainly predictability, or so it seems.




Sphere: Related Content

Related posts on absolutelyBangkok.com:

  1. Scientifically Proven: The Good Farang
  2. F-Farang

November 8, 2007 | Filed Under Being Farang, Culture & Arts, Society, The Thai Mind 

Comments

4 Responses to “Westerners Vs. Asians”

  1. Andrew Philcorn on November 9th, 2007 11:48 am

    Absolutely fun & amazing this one!

    Your website is the hammer! Finally some great stuff about BANG-k-OK, serious cross-cultural thoughts etc.

    Keep up this so other, good info-tainment, compared to the other usual rubbish one has to find about Bangkok & Thailand etc.

    Tks – Andrew Philcorn

    Quality comment? Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0

  2. Thaistory on November 11th, 2007 3:56 pm

    An Asian to a Westerner: “… we have not yet caught up with the present … but give us time. We are most ingenious people. Show us the way once, and there is our salvation. We are extremely flexible people. Watch out that we do not catch you and overtake you!” (Eric Van Lustbader, “The Ninja”)

    Quality comment? Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0

  3. BangkokDan on November 11th, 2007 4:42 pm

    Couldn’t agree more with you Thaistory – if there wouldn’t be the persistent flagrant hierarchic abuses in Asian societies.

    Asian societies, unfortunately, hold back themselves. The privileged ones do not gain much by the liberation and education of the masses.

    BangkokDan

    Quality comment? Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0

  4. Anonymous on January 22nd, 2010 1:27 am

    [...]   #17 (permalink) I dag, 19:27 Kom over lenken nedenfor som jeg syntes er en passende kommentar til hvorfor nordmenn og thaier kan ha litt kompatibilitetsproblemer. Westerners Vs. Asians [...]

    Quality comment? Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0

Leave a Reply