Just a pondering I had while eating a hamburger.

Thailand reminds me of my childhood in the ‘80’s. Hear me out.

Growing up, we didn’t have helmets or kneepads. We were left outside. If a utensil dropped on the ground, we still used it. There were no participation trophies, we climbed trees, we fought, we got hurt, we ate sandwiches that were left out for hours. Our society hadn’t yet fallen into the litigious anarchy it is today. There were far less signs for safety and you learned from your stupidity by getting hurt.

I wouldn’t trade that upbringing for the childhood’s of children today. In fact, sometimes I question how I would do as a parent in todays age of pampering and coddling. I did stupid things as a kid, and my father did even dumber things. He swam in a canal and broke his nose diving into the shallow end of my grandmother’s pool. Things beyond even my threshold of stupid.

That’s not saying anything against my father. I honestly feel that kids need to do some dumb things, especially boys. It’s a part of growing up.

How does that relate to Thailand? That part doesn’t, it was just a tangent.

We were waiting for a chicken sandwich before returning to our room to watch Predator on one of our last nights, when, in the back, a waitress dropped a fork. She promptly returned it to the batch of cutlery.

That would never fly in Canada.

It wasn’t until the next day, eating the aforementioned burger, when I started thinking about it.

In the 80’s, you might’ve seen that. It made me think that in some ways, maybe Thailand is like Canada in the 80’s. in another thirty to forty years, will Thailand be like Canada today?

I remember sliding across the bench seat in my dad’s car with no seat belt on, similar to how people here pack their entire family on a motorbike. I remember piling into the back of a pickup truck, much like the ‘buses’ operate here. I remember there being no signs, no safety for certain things, much like here. I remember petting stray dogs, walking to the store alone, amusing myself with branches and sticks with the other kids in the neighborhood.

Some of the things I see here come as a shock because you would never see them in Canada. There are laws upon laws upon laws upon unsolicited scolding looks if you do something or allow something that doesn’t meet someone or anothers approval. Before, you’d never see these things in Canada. But at some point, you did start seeing them.

“What’s the number one industry here in Thailand?”

“Tourism.”

Western tourism from what I’ve seen. And you can see it a lot. How much longer until it saturates through and envelops? Where’s the line of losing your identity for a buck?