It’s hard not to watch people in Thailand, I’ve been here 14 years and I can’t say there hasn’t been a day gone buy where I haven’t studied them, scrutinized them, complained about them. The speed they walk, how loud they talk, picking noses plus a multitude of other habits that makes the Thai race just what it is, unique!
Last Friday was one of the best opportunities I had to sit down and make notes about what I saw. In the school holidays, February to May, I work at the language centres, which are in shopping malls and in one of the malls, ‘the Central Plaza’ they usually have sales in a roundish area by the entrance on the basement floor right outside Macdonald’s, but on Friday the whole area was clear for the first time in months, so I grabbed myself a Mac-fish set and sat at a table right at the open entrance of the fast food restaurant so I could see people coming and going.
From where I was sat I could see people going up escalators, people going down them, people meeting their friends but mostly people dawdling about in slow-motion staring at their mobile phones, they were probably very active in their online social world but to the bystander, me, the scene that was coming together in the empty floor space reminded me of AMC’s Walking Dead.
I made quite a few notes about my findings, as you can see below however in my notes I stated that Thais have less types of walks than westerners. To be truthful they probably have more. All the gaits that you’d find in the UK plus a good few of their own as I mentioned below, You just don’t see many people walking fast in Thailand.
Although it it could be fare to say that technology is making people walk slower all over the world as they spend more time looking at the screen while they’re walking down the street.
I also mentioned in my notes that the locals actions and mannerisms make them seem more immature than those in the west but then again, how do I know, I’ve been in Thailand 14 years, I look on Facebook and see photos were the subjects can’t pose without making hand gestures, and I’m not sure whether it’s insecurity or immaturity brought on by technology. I know it makes me act younger.
One thing I do find here in Thailand is that there is a unique class of people who I have named the ‘drama queens’ a group of young woman who dress, act, walk and talk like the characters on Thai soap operas, over-the-top-characters that have had a massive influence on teenagers and young women, not just in the way they act but in everything else.
My Drawing Course 