"same same but different"

I tweeted earlier that we did the debate practice in English class. The topic was "Should Thailand legalize marijuana?" and we exchanged many interesting comments about it.

It wasn't really only about the pot though. I wasn't sure how we started talking, but it was Wang (my friend's nickname. what do you think I'm talking about?) who started giving comments about the whole Thai society thing.

She started by saying that she's sick of most of Thai kids at university who are still immature and that we've been raised to be dependent for all of our lives. She studied in New Zealand during junior high school for 2 years and said they're so grown up if compared to Thai kids.

Then our teacher came to listen and we started talking about marijuana. He said if you've never taken pot in Europe, you're considered a nerd or geek. He was also trying to act like he knew that we all do too and that it's really normal. He even started telling his story about his first visit to Thailand in 1985 and how easy it was to merely call and have the grass delivered by the messenger boy.

Seriously, we were all shocked. We started telling him that even though his story is true, it's really different for all of us here. A drug addict wouldn't be acceptable in our world.

He said "Oh yeah, I know. You Chula students are up in the cloud in academia. I mean, this is Oxford of Thailand (Honestly, I squirm uncomfortably every time people start comparing us in that sense. My friends and I get the same feeling when Japanese sensei said here is like Todai of Japan because I just feel that we don't live up to that kind of measurement. Thank you very much). You're upper-middle class people, well-educated people. But don't you realize that the majority of people in your country are not like you?"

Oh, so we are the minority of our country? It sounds weird thinking that way. I guess I knew but I'm not totally aware of it. I've been surrounded with people from similar background who share the same kind of values all my life that I don't think of people outside of our "group" I've always thought we have potential and never thought Thai people are stupid. I often get pissed if someone looks down on Thais because I know we're not like that.

After yesterday's discussion ended, now it seems the word "we" has become narrower that I had thought. Come to think of it, I've never knew the real life of other Thais outside of my world before. Let's say a life of North-eastern girl who lives on their farm and her parents forces her to be a prostitute to earn money in their house. I don't have a clue about their life. I don't have a single friend who's like that. I don't want to sound prejudiced or discriminated, but I doubt if we could really be friends because we don't have anything in common at all. They have their own ways of thinking and hold much different values from mine. We see things differently in almost every facet of our lives. I would probably think they're absurd, and to them, I could be too.

To be frank, I've never given much thought about this until yesterday.

It's a different world in the same country.

Strange, but true.