Chulalongkorn (Chula) University – Bangkok (pictures to come once I get to an Internet Café in India)

Chula University’s campus area covers 456 acres of land in the heart of downtown Bangkok. We all gathered at the beautiful Center for Peace and Conflict Studies to be welcomed by the university officials. To my surprise, they were both young women, one the chairperson of the Thai Studies Center and the other the deputy chairperson of the political sciences Asian studies program. Later I found out that the president of the university is also a woman (Apparently Thailand prides itself on being the country with the most respect for women and a strong growing influence of women in many sectors).
As we looked around our elegant surroundings set in the midst of an incredibly beautiful campus, we were told that we are visiting one of “the foremost institutions of higher education learning in Asia. It attracts the best and the brightest in Thailand.” The university is considered a “Temple of Studies” and all Thais are very proud of it. When President Clinton was awarded an honorary doctorate there, he called it “The Harvard of Thailand.” The university is considered a great influencer of trends and ways of thinking in this country. One example we were given was of the daily greeting everywhere of “Sawadee” that originated after WWII by a professor here that first popularized it among his students and then it became a cultural trend!
The university has the highest pedigree because it is also considered a royal institution since it was established by King Rama the 5th (the grandfather of the current king) almost 100 years ago. It was one of the ways the king believed his country can avoid colonialization by offering modern education to the brightest in the country.
The university was first established as a school for the royal government officials. King Rama the 6th took the money the Thai citizens collected for a monument when his beloved father died and used it to expand the school into a regular university. In 1917 the university had 340 students and it now has over 30,000!
The university has established many strategic partnerships with highly esteemed schools around the world. For example, its business school partners with that one at Northwestern University. Many programs at the university are conducted in English and attract students from all over the world. The university has programs in all subjects, from and ancient languages philosophy to computer science and nanotechnology.
The university is considered a conservative one. All its students wear uniforms with an emblem representing the headgear worn in the royal palace. Female students wear a short-sleeved while shirt with a special pin (“Phra Kieo”) on their chest while male students wear a blue necktie with the university emblem. Both wear also belts with the emblem on the buckets. Freshmen femals wear while socks and longer skirts.
The university’s official color is pink since that is the color for Tuesday which is the day King Rama the 5th was born (today’s king Rama was born on Monday that is represented by the color yellow. Everywhere around the country there are pictures of the King adorned with yellow decorations and many yellow colored flags fly around the capital). Pink is even the color of the shuttle buses around the campus!
On a side note – we arrived to the university during the time the country of Thailand was mourning the death of the King’s sister. In a country that highly reveres its royal family, this was treated with utmost solemnity. Everyone wore dark cloths (preferably black) and the King’s sister portrait hung in many place (including the university) with shrines built around it to pay your respects by lighting candles or incense.

During my program with the international business students, we visited the university again and had a chance to a) hear a lecture, b) go to the students’ cafeteria, and c) visit the university bookstore. The lecture was delivered by another young female professor, Professor Somchanok Passakonjaras from the faculty of commerce and accountability. She studies for her PhD in the US and spoke excellent English. Her demeanor was very friendly yet she commanded great respect in her proficient delivery. She engaged in a wonderful Q&A with my students and made them feel very comfortable. They all gave her very high marks for her teaching ability!
She gave us a lecture on “Consumer Behavior in Thai Culture” which was just outstanding. We learned that the Thai culture is different from others and thus causes consumer behavior in Thailand to be different as well. The strong Buddhist religion is apparent everywhere with monks even coming in and out of the university to receive food. It is infused with a sense of happiness that is evident in the smiles on so many people’s faces. That sense of warmth and compassion is also described as “namjai” or “water of the heart” and allows families to make anonymous sacrifices for friends and to extend hospitality to strangers (you can so a lot of examples of this in advertising themes).
The belief in fate and Karma leads to “mai pen rai” or “never mind, it does not matter” attitude. Thais believe that when something unfortunate happens one must gracefully submit to the fact that external forces are beyond one’s control (which alleviates the need for extensive customer service departments. Thai Airlines used not to even have an answering machine for their phone line). The professor told us the story of a Thai woman who bought a Honda CRV and had a lot of problems with it. She called the TV station’s news department and had them film her taking a hammer and smashing her car in anger. The Thai people were so shocked by such display of anger over a product’s malfunction that they stopped buying the car!
Group conformity is very strong and is part of the value of “krengjai”. Thais believe that social harmony is best maintained by avoiding any unnecessary friction in their contacts with others. There is an extreme reluctance to impose on anyone and disturb his or her personal equilibrium by direct criticism, challenge, or confrontation. In general, people will do their utmost to avoid personal conflict! This, of course, does not apply to bargaining J
The Thais also put great emphasis on the role of the extended family and respect for elders is taught very early on. Our professor did note, however, that it also results in very little privacy which some of her generation are opposing and is one of the reasons she has moved her family to live away in a condominium building…
Other characteristics of Thai consumers that she had discussed were:
Particularism or relationship-based behavior (the basis for the Thai bargaining style)
Collectivism which supports group’s rights over individual rights (except when it comes to fighting traffic!)
Neutrality of emotions when emotions need to be subdued and expressed indirectly (especially negative ones)
Diffusion when the focus is more on the context of a situation rather than a specific issue (a professor will always be one even when outside the university)
Ascription when status and respect are ascribed by “being” (if you dress nicely, you will be treated differently)
All in all, she told us that shopping, for example, is a social activity in Thailand (one reason why e-commerce has not been successful here) and even going to the movies is done in groups (their theaters, by the way, have VIP sections!). The Thai value long term tradition but make a lot of their buying decisions based on word-of-mouth. And they are highly superstitious so you cannot wear black, for example, unless you are in mourning; 9 is a lucky number while 13 is not and everywhere people hang objects to bring them “good luck”. Last, but not least, do not use sex-related content when promoting anything (kissing or even hugging should not be shown in advertising, for example)!
Our short visit to the school’s outdoors cafeteria was fascinating as well. The students have a choice of many different foods cooked in small stalls similar to what you will find all around the city. Most of the food is typical Thai but you can also find Coca Cola and smoothies. (BTW – Thai’s eat mostly by using a spoon and a fork (no knife). They only use chopsticks when eating certain foods). The food was dirt cheap and seemed highly nutritional. And, therefore, we saw no overweight young people. As a matter of fact, we were told that Thai’s love to eat and eat many times during the day but they eat much smaller portions than we do! The students avoided looking at us as we shamelessly stared at them and took pictures. Some of them giggled a bit but mostly they went about their business eating at long communal tables and chatting with each other.
The book store was a revelation. Unlike Fudan University in Shanghai, where we saw an “official” university store with university branded item that was clearly meant for visitors and a much smaller crammed and falling apart store where students were buying books and supplies, this store was big and full with students offering aside from books in Thai and English, many university branded products (all in pink!), foreign magazines and a full stock of student supplies. Needles to say, we all went a bit crazy getting lots of items carrying the university’s logo even though none of us bought the Pepto Bismo colored t-shirts…