BOOK INTRODUCTION

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Western countries were just as garbage-strewn at one time, and their poorer neighborhoods still are. In the US, Iron Eyes Cody helped change that. A Native American actor who performed in a commercial which first appeared on Earth Day in 1971, he was shown crossing a landscape befouled by trash, finally shedding a single eloquent tear. It had a profound effect on America. Certainly everyone from my generation remembers it, for Native Americans serve as the US’s ecological conscience. Who would serve a similar role in Thailand, I wondered. An aged rice farmer? A Karen hilltribesman? A member of the royal family?
But the woman on the bus didn’t buy my explanation. “Surely they must see the garbage, so why do they continue to throw it,” she kept asking. It was a typical example of environmental culture clash, and I wouldn’t have thought much more about it, except for what happened that evening.

I had returned to the newsroom to write up a story, and was joking around with some of my Thai colleagues. Thais love to tease, and they can be mercilessly personal about it. So, noting my haggard appearance at the end of a long day, one of them questioned when was the last time I had had a shower. “Farang sokaprok jang loy,” she needled, “Farang are so dirty.”

Of course, she only meant to rib me, but many Thais secretly do question the personal hygiene habits of foreigners. And they may have a point. Having grown up in the tropics, Thais realize you have to shower at least twice a day in such a hot and moist climate. Embarrassing as it may seem, it often takes visitors from temperate countries a while to learn that key lesson, simply because people living in colder climates generally shower less (especially if they don’t have access to hot water). Also, while foreigners generally begin to drip with sweat the minute they step out into Bangkok’s humid air, Thais seem able to spend the entire day on the grimy streets, or marching through primeval forest for that matter, with nary a stain blotting their perfectly creased clothes. It’s really quite an amazing achievement.

The contrasting attitudes towards cleanliness expressed by the European visitor and my Thai colleague are a beautiful (or perhaps ugly) illustration of how Western and Asian societies can fail to understand each other in regard to environmental issues. Each person discretely looked on the other as being “dirty”: the farang reproach Thais because of how they treat their public spaces, the Thais disapprove of how farang look after their personal space. And in each case there are reasonable explanations that make it possible to understand the behavior in question, even if you don’t excuse it.

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