The Land of Smiles

Thai people have the most beautiful and endearing smiles in the whole world. I'm not exaggerating. It is as if they have some deep reserve of joy they tap into every time they smile, smiles that light up like fireworks exploding in the darkest night of the year.

It is disarming. I first noticed the Thai smile with the guy who picked us up from the airport — a strong, dark man with a smile that surprised me — and then later with the receptionists, with the cleaners, at the buffet breakfast, on the streets, everywhere you can find a Thai person.

Where do they learn how to smile like that?

So I imitated them. "Sawatdee Kaa," I would reply, hands together, imitating their tone and smile. And they would smile back and ask if I was from Korea or China? "Neither," I would say, "I'm from Singapore." And then they would be surprised and say that I look exactly like I was from Korea and my friend from India, which isn't all too off the mark after all.

Mannerisms make or break a culture. We were at a seafood place for dinner and I was appalled at the Singaporean (or Malaysian) couple seated diagonal to us. They weren't downright rude or mean or anything, just that their tone was brusque. In a restaurant where the waitresses smiled as they explained to you the bill, their tone jarred like a fingernail against a blackboard. "Two rice!" they ordered. Fifteen minutes later, when the rice hadn't come, the lady lifted her hand high up, and said "We ordered two rice!" Oh dear me. When the bill came, she promptly whipped out her handphone to calculate the cost in their local currency, and intoned to her companion, "Cheap cheap." Aiyoh, it makes me want to crawl into a hole and hide.

I love my country and our people very much but at times like that, I'm secretly pleased that I look Korean.