> unfortunately rich people get away with injustice. If a rich person has done something wrong to poor person, the family feels like they have no choice but to accept monetary compensation instead of seeking justice by law.

This cuts both ways. There’s now an expectation from a lot of predominantly poor Thai’s that if they are involved in a traffic incident with a larger vehicle, the driver of the other vehicle owes them compensation, regardless of fault or circumstance.

This is not an urban legend, or rare occurrence. I’ve experienced it personally. When you add in the corrupt police, who upon learning the car is insured, try to pressure the driver to just admit fault because they want a cut of the compensation money, you end up in a weird scenario where you have more trust in the fucking insurance rep than the police.

I still don’t know what’s more shocking: the outright lies from the police, or the sister of the guy on the motorcycle complaining - in a hospital hallway - that they “won’t get any money till he dies”.

I’m sure rich assholes get away with plenty here, but poor assholes try to milk the system and Thai culture just as much.

Edit: brain fart, reference was to his sister not her brother.

thanks, I am horrified by what happened especially in the Vorayuth Yoovidhaya case. But I wasn't shocked, because as your fiance might know is just the tip of the iceberg. If we look at what shameful things our people in power get away with in the West, it's not hard to imagine what the situation looks like in a developing systems/states. If you look at what happened in some of the elections around the world and the dismantling of institutions for profit by kleptocrats and rent-seeking billionaires, it seems these days Western nations are often on par with some developing countries.

Also I don't want to paint the past better than the present by insinuating our Western way of punishing crime is "correct" while their traditional way was in any form more "pure" and better fitting for them. Foucault does a good job on how we came to our system in the West https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline_and_Punish

But also I'm not a missionary who wants to go to visit the Jawari to "bring them god".

Unfortunately I don't have an answer because if you drill down to the roots of power then it's all violent no matter how well dressed up it is with language. And "justice" is an incredibly slippery and ambiguous word meaning 5 different things to 2 people.

For Thailand what I see as a bigger problem than the monarchy is the military. It doesn't matter what case people "legally" have against an army general (and by extension any professional soldier in Thailand). They're normally off-limit to law enforcement and cases usually don't become public. They're also the gatekeepers to big business. Both things are problematic. I think trying to navigate and make sense of power there is not difficult as long as people keep in mind the history of its stakeholders.

I'm optimistic seeing how younger generations understand and question these power structures (better informed because of the Internet). I'm worried about violence and revolution since anyone can do a coup but the question is what will they do the next day. In the end any type of system will never just pack up and agree that it's time to make room for a replacement. (or it takes generations not years) New ideas on top of the toxic base we know well enough from Tech, but replacing a base is a trade off so hard it's ofc always a crime within the existing structure.

I'm a westerner currently in SE Asia, and what I recognise from your comment is that what causes these kinds of conflicts is the culture of face-saving. Saving face is deeply embedded in Asian culture. Most of the locals down here where I am are very careful to avoid confrontation or criticism of anything or anybody because in a culture like this it can lead to losing face and then the next step is generational conflict, banishment, and sometimes even murder. People often want to avoid going to the police to settle disputes because the cops are just as corrupt as the local government, and graft and bribery are endemic.