[Cob] Thailand & a caution

[Barbara Roemer & Glenn Miller]

Stephen,


You wrote:

"The personality factor of Thai's are really
amazing in some ways. To provide some contrast for
people who have never been to Thailand, let me illustrate...,"  and then
contrasted your experience of Thai people in a supermarket with your
experience of Czech workers in a supermarket there.

I respectfully argue that what you are describing is not personality, which
varies enormously in any one culture, just as it does across cultures, but
behavior that REFLECTS a cultural practice.  It seems to me that
characterizing a behavioral norm as personality gets awfully close to the
idea of a "national personality" and that such generalizing often results in
racial or ethnic stereotyping.  I don't think that's what you meant to do at
all, but I'm offering a caution.  As an example, in my town, a locally-owned
supermarket with only two stores has a reputation for rude clerks and crummy
service, while the big chains go out of their way to court customers with
service.  I wouldn't want to generalize about the personalities of the
checkers and baggers at the local store: they are as varied as those
personalities among my friends, I'm sure.  Rather the surly behavior of
employees reflects an institutionalized attitude, part of the store's
culture, that management has not addressed.  I DO prefer to shop at the
locally owned store, just ideologically, and now the owners have mounted a
campaign to turn around their image and practice, so I'd be in trouble if I
HAD resorted to stereotyping their employees.  It's also not to say there
are no national characteristics, such as those Murricans are noted for:
inventiveness, brashness, and the ol' rugged individualism.  Whether those
cultural characteristics continue to serve us in all situations, and whether
they obtain over time, long historic periods, that is, remains to be seen.

Barbara in the Sierra Nevada Foothills