The Brotherhood

So what is the latest unseen Thailand thingy going on here in Thailand, hidden fascination of Thailand’s everyday common livelihood unknown and undiscovered by the tourist? Two big schools are killing each other. Remember our schoolboys’ behavior so many of us went through some 20 years ago in Singapore, where when on the playground we encounter a bunch of student from neighboring schools? Full of testerone pumping in our blood streams, questions on each groups “SS” (secret society) status will be thrown and any slightest wrong answer will most likely result in bruised faces, torn shirts and flying punches. Kids (stupid kids)… that was what we were up to, we were there once. If one happened to stare at another for a period longer then some mysterious number of seconds (unintentionally as he was using both fingers to dig both his nostrils at the same time or something), the other would shout back to one a question surrounding the topic of testicles in Hokkien. Same thing may follow… punches driven by pumping testerone in a teenager’s blood. Walking tall in the parks, kids looking for trouble.

See, in Singapore, we had parangs, metal pipes and sticks to bash the stupidity out of each other. But here, students have a lot more fun. They have pastimes like ridding a bike and have the pillion shoot into a group from the other school. They have home made bombs stored in their school lockers in case of World War III and they love to stab each other just because of a different uniform. The whole school is a “SS”. Police had recently raided some schools here and found an assortment of ingenuous home made weapons of mass destruction. Raid was a follow up to the increasing number of never ending I-shoot-you you-shoot-me incidents. The locals had given advice to avoid some popular destinations in town this period just in case one happens to be standing in the path of a flying bottle, bullet or whatever high speed projectiles.

Such brotherhood grows beyond that of school days and is carried in the blood of the Thais way into their career lives. As adults, the testorone level would have dropped, so luckily, we don’t have incidents where the interviewer shoots the interviewee. One common question I always observe during interview sessions which I sat in was the question of schools. And if both are from the same, the interviewee will greet the interviewer as “brother” and it is most likely that he or she will get the job. Political situation in the working environment is also driven by the same reasoning and it will be obvious when one soaks long enough in big companies. Same goes for deal. Research the customer’s background and send someone in your team from the same school if possible. The “brother-brother” thing will show results as “brother” must help “brother”. Thailand is chaotic no doubt, but in chaos there is always an order if one seeks.