The dangers with a Thai moral compass

The dangers with a Thai moral compass

I saw something that made me think about the “me pen rai” altitude in Thailand.

Me Pen Rai

The “me pen rai” attitude is very big in Thailand and you should never really on it. It makes Thai avoid conflicts like complaining of nosy parties, complain when they got cheated, stop a girl beating, do not tell you important things.

The Thai believe that bad things will go away by them self and if shit happens it does and it is nothing they can do about it. They also believe that you should not ask the neighbor to stop beating his girlfriend or child because it is really not their problem.

In the part of the world where I come from our moral compass makes us intervene many times and we really like to help people in need or complain about wrong doings by a merchant. It does not only help you it also help other people in the same time.

The Story

Now to the story, I was swimming at my friend’s pool area on Sunday afternoon and in the pool were some children and their mother. The mother was not in the pool but reading next to the toilets in the shade.

After sometimes two Thai guys teens come in to the pool and walked straight to the toilets after the lit up a cigarette. I think it looks strange that two guys walked in to the semi private toilet but maybe they wanted to change to swimsuits.

The time went by and after 20 min the security guard came and looked at the pool and the door, I pointed to him and at the door but he was high or drunk or something. After another 10 min I had enough of swimming and the boys came out in the same time. So they spent 30 min in the toilet when mother of children outside doing nothing.

Moral compass messed up

In my country the mother would at least looked at them when the light the cigarette and then start banging on the door after 10 min and defiantly told the security guard when he arrived.

The mother could not care less but maybe in a few years when her daughter goes in to the toilet with the boys or when her house get ransacked by the same boys she will wake up. Small changes in the moral compass often leads to more changes when the kid get older if you not correct it on time.

The dangers with the “me pen rai” is that the Thai moral compass is totally messed up right now and gone is the time when Buddhism and good manners ruled the country.

Ok, so why did I not do something? It is not my pool and my friend was not there and since I hardly speak any Thai. I did tell the security guard when I went out about the license plate and that they did not live in the area just using the toilets.