Thai culture favors avoidance of direct conflict and confrontation. I saw an example of this in our village just a couple of weeks ago.
A Bangkok lady I know came to Banrai, fell in love with the scenery, and bought a lovely piece of land with full grown trees. A few days after she paid for the land, she went back and was horrified to see some of the nicest trees cut down and the wood hauled away.
To find out who the culprit is in a village our size takes less than ten minutes. In this case, the fellow who just sold the land decided he needed some wood to build a house and readily admits to chopping down the trees.
The lady was understandably quite upset. She said to me, "If he needed money, all he had to do was say so. Now the beautiful trees are gone."
She could have filed a police report but knew better than to do that. Who knows how many more trees would be cut down if she started playing confrontational hard ball, and being an outsider made her feel vulnerable.
It's time for diplomacy.
The lady went to the village chief and asked him to talk to the man. A few days later I asked the village chief what was said, and his answer was, "I told him very nicely and in a gentle voice that what he did was not a good thing". ("Pen sing tee mai dee.")
Case closed.
Photo location: Baan Hintoom, Uthaitani province
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