Control the young men!
While Thailand is justly known as the Land of Smiles, there is also a darker side to the Thai character that is less publicized. Being here for a while, it is impossible not to note the high prevalence of violent behaviour. A lot of this has to do with Thai young men not being well internally restrained. The most (possible indirect) result of this is the atrocious behaviour of motorcycle and car drivers. Primitive testosterone inspired driving is almost ubiquitous, and thousands of people are killed or maimed on the streets every year. Still every motorcycle driver seems to think of himself as a motorcycle racer (and preferably withour a helmet) and every car driver thinks he drives on a race track. Thanks God for the traffic jams in Bangkok, otherwise we would have even more traffic accidents.
We also witnessed a few times, violent unrestrained behaviour plainly on the streets and around entertaiment areas. Now, other cities in the world may not be that safe either, but generally speaking one does not encounter open brawls in the middle of civilized areas of town. Fighting, when it occurs, is also rather atrocious, and without rules. People keep on kicking a person who is already unconscious on the head etc. clearly with the purpose to kill or maim for life.
The acceptance of this kind of violence is clearly an important issue for society. While law enforcement is very important, the way to go about this is clearly educationional. Parents and schools should try to teach young boys and males to restrain themselves. The time of great wars where this behaviour could be beneficial in physical fights is over, and society has no use for these primitive emotional outbursts.
We witnessed one day a rather peculiar sight. A 3-year old boy was kicking a somewhat older girl repeatedly on the shins until she cried, while the two mothers stood about not intervening and finding it all rather funny. Instead of reprimanding the young boy, they clearly were somehow encouraging this kind of behaviour of 'boys will be boys'. This is how it all starts, and how you get people using violence to exert power throughout their adult life.
More wishes for Bangkok and Thailand :
Look after pedestrians
Clean up Sukhumvit Road
Keep the elephants out of Bangkok
Control the young men
Do something about the bananas
Get some new Regulations for property developers
Advice for Mobile Phone Companies
Improve Education
Overhaul Thai Politics
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