Differences Between Thailand and America Culture

Many Thais live abroad and many have lived in both Thailand and America to tell the differences between Thailand and American culture. For the purpose of analyzing the differences between Thailand and American culture, we will concentrate on Thailand culture in Bangkok, the most civilized city in Thailand.

The credit system and ease of borrowing

First of all, America is the land of possibilities whereas Thailand is still a developing country. In the United States of America, anyone can borrow money to do business, to buy homes, or for whatever reasons. This results in America having credit and subprime crisis. In Thailand, you cannot borrow money unless you have a good job and have means to pay back other than the collateral that you are borrowing for. For example, if you want to buy a house, no matter how good the house is, you cannot borrow money unless you have a good job and have plenty of money in the bank account long term. You could say that in Thailand, all borrowers have to have spotless (grade A) credit whereas in America, you can have bad credit and still borrow money.

Because of the idea that anyone can borrow money and if you cannot pay it back, just file bankruptcy or go to foreclosure, the mindset of people in America and therefore their culture is different from the culture in Thailand which dictates people to get a good job to prove themselves first before banks trust them.

Thai people are humble

While most people in America are expressive and speak their mind, people in Thailand are humble and tend to keep things in their mind rather than discuss things openly. Thai people get embarrassed easily and generally have low self esteem because Thai people are brought up knowing that there are others in the world that are superior. For example, how many Thais have won noble prizes? How many Thais have made it to Hollywood? Thai people are geared to think that they cannot achieve what others they see on TV can. However, that mindset is slowly changing because many people now travel abroad and are now teaching other Thai people to have high self esteem and think for themselves.

There are many more differences between the culture in Thailand and in America and we shall discuss more differences and similarities in another section.