Thai Culture Research Articles

The Effects of Culture Shock on The Cultural Adaptation of Overseas Students in Thailand at King Mongkut’s University

This paper aims to examine the phenomenon of culture shock experienced by international students studying in Thailand for their master’s degree and explore their strategies for adapting to Thai culture. This research employed a semi-structured interview with eight international students at King Mongkut’s University of Technology in Bangkok, Thailand. The participants completed the open-ended questionnaires and provided responses via a Google Docs link. The writer will use Kalervo Oberg's four stages of culture shock to better understand culture shock and the adaptation process of overseas students studying in Thailand. The research illustrates the causes behind international students' desire to pursue educational institutions in Thailand and their experiences with culture shock across the four stages, along with their adaptation process. The findings suggest that overseas students suffer from culture shock in relation to their surroundings, language, cultural norms, and academic areas.

Strategy for Inserting Thai Culture into Teaching and Learning Management of Teachers and the Perception on Thai Culture among Korean Students Studying Thai as a Foreign Language in Universities in Republic of Korea

This research utilized the combination between quantitative and qualitative researches. The research sample included Thai language course lecturers both Thai and South Korean persons, including 1st-4th year South Korean undergraduate students. The instruments used included the questionnaire on teaching strategy which also included Thai culture to be used in providing instruction on Thai language for South Korean students. The forms of tests assessing the perception on Thai culture of South Korean students. Two interview forms to interview the teachers and South Korean students on their perception and acquisition of Thai culture. The findings reveal the teacher’s opinion on strategy to integrate Thai culture with the instruction on teaching Thai language to South Korean students studying Thai as a foreign language in aspects of integrating Thai language along Thai culture and instructional strategy integrated with Thai culture. The overall outcome reveals that the sample subjects agree mostly with such statement. Concerning the result of the perception on Thai culture of South Korean students, it was found that 14.29% of students had obtained the score at very good level, 70% at good level, 14.29% at moderate level, and 1.43% at minimal level. The average level was of 73.5 scores.

Promoting Thailand’s Creative Tourism: A Case Study of Thai Classical Dance Lessons

Thai performing arts play a crucial role in Thailand’s tourism industry. This article discusses Thai Dancing Arts’ role in promoting Thailand’s creative tourism, relevant models, and theories. The article also displays a prototypical example of the Thai dancing lesson in conjunction with the use of technology. Additionally, the article delves into the practical aspects of teaching basic Thai dancing to foreign tourists or English-speaking learners. This article could help practitioners, policymakers, and private or public tourism authorities incorporate Thai dancing lessons into their creative tourism programs to disseminate Thai culture, add value to Thai intangible cultural heritage, and promote Thailand’s tourism.

LECTURER'S COMMUNICATION ATTRACTIVENESS AND STUDENT CREATIVITY IN THAI SUMMER COURSE PROGRAM

This study aims to measure and analyze facts about the relationship between the lecturer's communication attractiveness in the Summer Course program in Thailand and student creativity in the study of culture tourism. The method used is quantitative; to measure the correlation, the researcher used the Correlation Analysis Test using IBM SPSS Statistics 23 software. The results of the research show that there is a significant correlation between the lecturer's communication attractiveness, who provides learning materials on the Summer Course program at the International College RMUTK, Thailand, and the creativity of Communication Science students in West Java, Indonesia, in studying Tourism and Thai culture. In general, the conclusion of this study has proven that the communication attractiveness of lecturers consists of six variables: lecturers' communication of attractiveness, namely: taking style attractiveness, communication skill attractiveness, communication techniques attractiveness, communication strategy attractiveness, communication behavior attractiveness, communication intelligence attractiveness has a positive and significant correlation with student creativity which is measured from 9 aspects creativity, namely: setting creativity, building creativity, organizing learning, facilitate creativity, positive creativity, balance and opportunity creativity, courage and imagination creativity, managing creativity, mastery of creativity. The variable with the highest relationship value is between the variable of Lecturer Communication Appeal and variable Y: Arrangement Creativity and Building Creativity. The relationship between variables that have the lowest relationship value is between the relationship of Communication Appeal and the variable of Learning Organization. The variable of Lecturer Communication Attractiveness (X) is closely related to Student Creativity (Y).

A-Speak: Augmentative and alternative communication application for Thai individuals with complex communication needs

Background: Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is the approach that enhances communication competence in individuals with complex communication needs. With the advancement of technology, there are varieties of AAC applications with colored-graphic symbols and speech output, improving communication’s intelligibility compared to low-tech AAC systems. However, those AAC applications had some features that were not entirely suitable for Thai users, such as symbol appearance, speech intonation, etc. Objective: This study aimed to develop the first version of the Thai AAC application, A-Speak, based on Thai culture, lexicon, and intonation and remove other constraints that other AAC applications had, such as variation in voice-output age and gender. The proficiency of A-Speak regarding communication functions was also examined. Materials and methods: The participants comprised 15 individuals with cerebral palsy and complex communication needs. The participants were trained to use the A-Speak application, installed on a tablet, to communicate. The training procedures consisted of 3 phases: Phase 1: Train to select icons; Phase 2: Shift to different categories; and Phase 3: Use A-Speak to communicate. The researchers trained the participants to achieve adequate operational skills (i.e., Phases 1 and 2) before beginning Phase 3. In Phases 1 and 2, switches were employed to facilitate participants with limited mobility to operate A-Speak by finger. The researchers also taught the participants’ caregivers to continue training them at home. The researchers collected the participants’ communication abilities regarding communication functions in the recorded form. The data was reported into code numbers according to communication proficiency. Results: After receiving A-Speak training, all participants showed improvement in their communication abilities across a variety of communication functions. Participants showed significant progress in 10 out of 12 communication functions. The communication function in which participants exhibited the most improvement was explaining skills, whereas the communication function that showed the least development was storytelling skills. Conclusion: A-Speak AAC application reduced the constraints that possibly influenced communication intelligibility in the Thai language. Nevertheless, A-Speak still had a few drawbacks that required to be corrected to increase the productivity of this program. The findings indicated that participants gained communication skills through A-Speak as a means of communication. Keywords: A-Speak, augmentative and alternative communication, application, High-tech AAC

Structural validity of the impact of vision impairment questionnaire among patients with visual impairment in Thailand

BackgroundThe Impact of Vision Impairment (IVI) questionnaire is used to assess vision-related quality of life (VRQOL) among patients with visual impairment. This study aims to evaluate the factor structure of the IVI in the context of Thai culture to assess psychometric properties. MethodsThis cross-sectional study was conducted between February and July 2022. Purposive sampling was used to include 502 patients with visual impairment who received treatment at a tertiary eye center, King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital, Bangkok, Thailand. The data were collected using the interviewer-administered questionnaire. The participants were randomly divided into two groups: one employed for exploratory factor analysis (EFA; n = 251) and the other for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA; n = 251). ResultsEFA yielded 28 items that supported a four-factor structure: behaviors related to mobility and independence (8 items), reading (3 items), self-dependence (7 items), and emotional impact of vision loss (10 items), with a total variance of 64.9 %. The model fit was good: χ2/df = 1.66, CFI = 0.949, TLI = 0.940, RMSEA = 0.052, and SRMR = 0.041. The AIC and BIC for the bifactor four-factor model (17,484.86 and 17,879.41, respectively) were lower than those for the bifactor three-factor model (17,566.44 and 17,961.29, respectively), indicating that the former showed the best fit. ConclusionsGiven its good reliability and validity, the IVI scale has been extensively used to explore the impact of visual impairment on the VRQOL of patients in the clinical setting, thus greatly benefitting researchers, healthcare providers, and ophthalmologists.

Breastfeeding Discourses Through Thai Narratives from 1932 to 2022

This textual analysis examines mother-related narratives published between 1932 and 2022 from education and entertainment-based media as well as from traditional and modern social media platforms, to study the discontinuity and construction of breastfeeding discourses in the media. The results show that the discourses rupture into five eras: (1) Pre-framework era: Buddhist mythologies infuse the signification of breastmilk as the product of a mother’s love and blood. The spirit of the mother runs in breastmilk, signifying a wet nurse as a mother-status. (2) Breastmilk is the food from nature: The spirit of the mother runs in the biological mother’s breastmilk, no longer from a wet nurse. (3) Breastmilk is inferior to infant formula: The power of advertisements and the knowledge of nutritional science makes infant formula become the dominant choice for middle-class mothers as it symbolizes rich and smart mothers. (4) Breastmilk is best: The knowledge of medical science with the power of authority controlled over all media platforms sees a return to breastfeeding domination, in which significated infant formula is viewed as poison and non-breastfeeding mothers are viewed as impatient and uneducated. (5) Breastmilk is ideal, but negotiable: With the influence of social media that breaks the discourses into several spheres, one group realizes and avoids the use of binary oppositions to depreciate bottle-feeding mothers, while the other objectifies breastmilk as though it is an industrialized product in which every breastmilk has the same property. The researchers found out that the breastfeeding discourses throughout the history of Thai culture represents the interaction between Buddhist mythologies and Western science, the middle-class mothers are influenced by the upper-class in every era, while capitalism and patriarchy find a way to engrave in both infant formula and breastfeeding in the form of advertising and publicity.

Inter-Asia referencing and orientalist consideration of the transnational fandom of Thai boys’ love drama in Japan

ABSTRACT This study focused on the Japanese cyber-fandom of Thai boys’ love (BL) dramas, examining how their perception of Thailand was transformed through viewership and participation in fandom activities and how it affected the fans themselves and the broader Japanese society. In the Japanese cyberfandom of Thai BL dramas, people with diverse gender identities and sexualities intermingle, learn, and become aware of their changing gazes toward Thai and Japanese culture, queerness, and other related issues. Through a qualitative analysis of audience ethnography and interviews with 25 participants, this study shows that Thailand’s culture contrasts with others, particularly the cultures of the West, and an Oriental gaze from the Japanese point of view has emerged in this context. A movement beyond the national Thailand–Japan framework has also emerged, which explores the multifaceted nature of BL dramas within a single-issue context. Thus, Thai BL drama fandom extends beyond an Oriental perspective, practising inter-Asian referencing and reflecting on the national framework by watching BL dramas and participating in fandom. In other words, this study presents new possibilities for BL: (1) overcoming an oriental perspective and reflecting on a national framework for the acceptance and consumption of BL content and (2) cultural experience and real social connection through fandom activities and discourse through inter-Asian referencing in practice.

Buddhist Heritage With(out) Borders: The Mahābodhi Temple in the Thai National Imagination and Cultural Practices

ABSTRACT This article seeks to examine Thailand’s involvement in the revival of Bodh Gayā, the site of the Buddha’s enlightenment during the twentieth century, and shed light on the motives and results stemming from Thai cultural practices. To this end, I will analyse the specific elements of Thai culture at the original site, primarily through the symbolism of Thai Buddhism, art, and the theory of the righteous rulership, and explore the virtual evocations of the Mahābodhi in Thailand. I argue that the re-invention resulted in two things. On the one hand, it provided tools for the legitimation of the Thai monarch through the concept of righteous kingship, as well as for the demonstration of Thailand as the paramount contemporary Buddhist centre of the world. On the other hand, it has revived and popularised the practice of constructing life-size replicas in Thailand, thereby enriching, and changing previous habits of pilgrimage.

O Desenvolvimento do Turismo Sustentável para a Promoção da Cultura na Área Local: Estudo de Caso Distrito de Nong Sung, Província de Mukdahan, Tailândia

Purpose: This research aimed 1) to explore the geographical and cultural aspects of the area; 2) to design and create a sustainable tourism model; and 3) to suggest a development model to generate income, increase well-being in the community, and transfer lessons learned to other areas. Method: This research employed realist ethnographic approach collecting data from observation and focus groups of District Chief, Deputy District Chief, senior villagers, and villagers. The researcher describes and interprets the shared and learned patterns of values, behavior, belief and language to create and design a sustainable tourism model to support Phu Thai cultural tourism. Result and Conclusion: The results showed that the Nong Sung district’s geography consists tiny valleys that surround in all four directions and has a creek through during the rainy season. The valleys have waterfalls flowing all year. Specifically, the ethnic identity of the Phu Thai people becomes the basis of cultural tourism management. As one of the Northeast's best traditional communities in terms of way of life, traditions, religious beliefs, and customs, this community has national recognition as a top tourist destination. Interestingly, the cultural town showed the unique nature of the area by significantly integrating government policies and traditional ways of life. Research Implications: Phu Thai community at Nong Sung is the key actor for this sustainable tourism model. Phu Thai culture, dress, food, lifestyle and language are the key elements for Phu Thai community sustainable and cultural tourism. The creation of signage and resources for tourist attractions should obviously be provided. Finally, the younger generation should inherit the valuable culture, especially the Phu Thai language and cultural traditions. Originality/Value: Phu Thai in Northeastern part of Thailand is sustainable traditional tourism community that delivers traditional way of life, religious beliefs and customs to promote local cultures, especially the Phu Thai language.

A Brief Analysis of the Influence of Foreign Culture on the Development of Thai Culture

Thailand is a member and founding member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, as well as a member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Asia-Europe Meeting and the World Trade Organization. As one of the ancient countries in Southeast Asia with a history of more than 700 years, the development of its culture runs through the development of Thailand from ancient times to the present, and has a far-reaching impact on the development of Thai society that cannot be ignored. As for the development process of Thai culture, especially the formation and roots of culture, it is inevitable to involve the penetration and influence of foreign culture, and the so-called foreign culture can be divided into Eastern culture and Western culture. Western culture is generally synonymous with European and American culture; Oriental culture is more representative of traditional Chinese culture and ancient Indian culture. Geographically, Thailand is located in Southeast Asia, that is, in the middle of China and India. At the same time, from the perspective of cultural regional distribution, Thai culture is also located between the two eastern cultural regions of Chinese culture and Indian culture. To sum up, the influence of foreign cultures on the development of Thai culture cannot be underestimated or ignored. That's what we're talking about today: the influence of foreign cultures on the development of Thai culture.

Connectedness to nature and psychological well-being among Thai Buddhists

ABSTRACT Connectedness to nature is significantly correlated with psychological well-being.‏ Although relevant published literature has been heavily skewed towards Western, Caucasian, and Christian samples.‏ Traditional Buddhist teachings in Thai culture guide Thais towards deep connection to nature.‏ The objective of this study is to investigate associations among connectedness to nature, psychological well-being, mindfulness and engagement with natural beauty among Thai Buddhists.‏ Four questionnaires were completed by 359 Thai Buddhists and path analysis was used to analyze the data.‏ Results show that connectedness to nature directly affects mindfulness, engagement with natural beauty, and psychological well-being, with significant standard coefficients of .20, .‏25, and .‏21, respectively.‏ Moreover, 24 percent of psychological well-being was explained by connectedness to nature, mindfulness, and engagement with natural beauty.‏ These findings help fill a gap in the published literature and provide essential cross-cultural validation of these constructs by exploring a non-western sample.‏

The Impact of The Participatory Program on Preschool Children’s Executive Function Skills in Thailand

Introduction: This research aimed to explore the impact of the participatory program on the executive function skills of preschool children in Thailand. A set of eight module activities was developed for the integration of health promotion and prevention of COVID-19 into the preschool's curriculum in Thailand to promote basic EF skills. Methods: A quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest design was used to test the effectiveness of the educational intervention for promoting EF skills. A purposive sample of 60 preschool children was divided into two groups, including 30 for the experimental group and 30 for the control group. Over 8 weeks, the experimental group participated in the intervention modules, and the control group participated in the standard curriculum. EF skills were assessed using the MU-EF 101 instrument, and scores were compared within and between groups using t-testing. Results: After participating in the program, there was a statistically significant difference (p < 0.001) in the mean scores of the post-test for all basic EF skills among the experimental group compared to their pretest scores. Moreover, the independent t-test analysis showed that this group had significantly higher mean scores on all basic EF skills than the control group (p<0.001). The core concepts of the participatory program included age-appropriate developmental tasks, play, and learning activities with integrated health care by themselves. The core concept and participatory program support the key elements of EF and relate to the local Thai culture and context. Conclusion: Participatory programs may enhance preschool children’s EF abilities. Nurses play a crucial role as responsible individuals in promoting health, actively engaging in the integration of discipline-building activities for health care within the educational framework

Creating Service with Thai Hospitality: What Does Service Providers Highlight for Hotel Service in Thailand?

This study aims to explore service components in Thai hospitality which are prepared and provided by the service providers in order to creating impressive service in the hotel sector in Thailand and are presented to tourists as the core value of Thai hospitality. The mixed methods were employed using interview and questionnaire survey. Samples were the frontline hotel service providers to obtain valuable opinions and various perspectives regarding service and its practice in hotel. Data were collected from 11 interviews and 320 questionnaires. The interview thematic analysis and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) were the main analysis of the research. Results showed seven service components which could be the core value in Thai hospitality included professional traits, the senses of service (intangibility), workplace culture and skills, service tangibility, Thai service providers, Thai nurture and practices and hotel ambience. The service components founded in Thailand can support the strong bond between Thai culture, service offerings and service providers. These also can help the hotels to gain more advantage in their businesses and lift up the competitiveness of Thai hospitality in hotel service.

Problems and Expectations of Students Regarding the Management of Learning in the Subjects of Thai Music Theory and History within the Thai Undergraduate Music Education Curriculum

This research aimed to investigate the problems and expectations of students regarding the management of learning in the subjects of Thai music theory and history within the Thai undergraduate music education curriculum. The exploratory and descriptive research methodology was employed. The data was collected from 103 students who enrolled in the Thai Music Education curriculum at the undergraduate level. Instruments include a documentary analysis form, and an online questionnaire (Google Form). The results showed that: (1) teaching method was lecture-based, resulting in disengaged learning and limited knowledge acquisition; (2) content was the lack of clear delineation between the content of the two subjects; in many cases, instructors mixed Thai music theory with Thai music history which made students confused and mis-concept; (3) instructional media failed to captivate students and did not facilitate comprehensive learning; (4) instructional materials, each university had different approaches to managing its teaching resources, which were both uninteresting and overly academic; and (5) context consists of the diversity of students, assignments, classroom conditions, and instructor’s preparedness. From the results, this research proposes the guideline for the management of learning in Thai music theory and history through Outcome-based education (OBE) and a blended learning approach that can apply to traditional music teaching which is familiar with the Thai culture.

Thai culture image classification with transfer learning

Classifying images of Thai culture is important for a variety of applications, such as tourism, education, and cultural preservation. However, building a Machine learning model from scratch to classify Thai cultural images can be challenging due to the limited availability of annotated data. In this study, we investigate the use of transfer learning for the task of image classification on a dataset of Thai cultural images. We utilize three popular convolutional neural network models, namely MobileNet, EfficientNet, and residual network (ResNet) as baseline pre-trained models. Their performances were evaluated when they were trained from random initialization, used as a feature extractor, and fully fine-tuned. The results showed that all three models performed better in terms of accuracy and training time when they were used as a feature extractor, with EfficientNet achieving the highest accuracy of 95.87% while maintaining the training time of 24 ms/iteration. To better understand the reasoning behind the predictions made by the models, we deployed the gradient-weighted class activation mapping (Grad-CAM) visualization technique to generate heatmaps that the models attend to when making predictions. Both our quantitative and qualitative experiments demonstrated that transfer learning is an effective approach to image classification on Thai cultural images.

Thai dance diplomacy: Thai government communication strategies for building soft power through staging Thai performances abroad

ABSTRACT Thailand has employed dance diplomacy in its international relations activities for more than 150 years, but there is a dearth of research on Thai dance. This study empirically explores untapped data on Thai dances used by Thai royal courts and governments. The research objectives are to elucidate communication strategies and strategic designs behind the ‘Thai dance diplomacy’ sponsored by Thai governments from 1998 to 2022 and to study the effectiveness of the diplomacy’s evaluation. Documentary research and in-depth interviews with five experts behind official Thai performances at home and abroad were conducted. The results indicate that directors designed performances based on budget constraint, creativity, cultural familiarity, and similarity between Thailand and other countries, exploiting the meanings of occasions upon which shows were performed. Show tactics were derived in alignment with the modified SMCR model of Thai dance communications by Virulrak ([2004]. หลักการแสดงนาฏยศิลป์ปริทรรศน์ [Principles of dramatic arts]. Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Press) to portray beautiful, skilful, moral, and contemporary elements of Thai culture. A pitfall of Thai dance diplomacy is the evaluation system, which employs only the subjective judgement of diplomats and dance crews.

Implementation of an Additional Course on Creative Thai Dramatic Art Skills and Appreciation of the Values of Thai Culture for Grade 7 Student Under the Secondary Educational Service Area Office Kalasin

Thailand has many cultural heritages that have been inherited from the ancestors, including language, traditions, architecture, art and culture, music, as well as dramatic arts that have been evident since the Sukhothai period and have been handed down to the present. This study aimed to investigate the implementation outcomes of an additional course on creative Thai dramatic art skills and appreciation of the values of Thai culture for grade 7 students under the Secondary Educational Service Area Office Kalasin. The sample was forty-two grade 7 students of Anukoolnaree School in the first semester of the academic year 2022, selected by cluster random sampling (classroom). The research instruments were a Thai dramatic art knowledge test, an evaluation form on basic Thai dramatic art ability, an evaluation form on a creative Thai dramatic art designing ability, and an appreciation of the values of Thai culture questionnaire. The data were analyzed by mean, standard deviation, and t-test (Dependent Samples). The results showed that the post-test mean score of Thai dramatic art knowledge was higher than the pre-test mean score, the basic Thai dramatic art ability and the creative Thai dramatic art designing ability were at the highest levels, and appreciation of the values of Thai culture was significantly higher at the .05 level. Furthermore, students’ overall satisfaction with the course was at the highest level.

Thai Conversation Learning and Teaching for Foreigners Based on Thai Culture Context in the CTLF Program at Kasetsart University: Evolution and Inno-Creative Approach

The objectives of this research article were to survey the evolution of Thai conversation learning based on Thai culture studies for foreign students in the International B.A. Program in Communicative Thai Language for Foreigners (CTLF) at Kasetsart University from the Program’s beginning up until the present day, and to explore the inno-creative approaches to be added in the digital era. The findings revealed that Thai conversation for foreigners was first offered as one of the core subjects in the International B.A. Program in the CTLF at Kasetsart University, which was founded in 2008. It has evolved and grown from the first program to the current program. Its course outlines have been revised based on content relevant to Thai culture studies. This has helped to achieve success in learning. To help Thai conversation learning become more successful in the digital era, the following 10 inno-creative approaches should be focused on, namely, 1. Digital and Innovative Learning and Teaching 2. Touch screen materials and inno-creative textbooks 3. Intellectual Networking and Joint Thai Learning and Teaching 4. Cross-cultural Communication through Inter-culture Diffusions 5. Learning and teaching based on multiculturalism 6. International Student Exchange Programs 7. Knowledge-career-life Skills 8. Continuing and Thai Language Learning and teaching Networking 9. High Technology-based Learning and teaching in the Digital Era and 10. Buddhist Moral knowledge and balanced development in the digital era. Furthermore, digital technologies and inno-creative learning such as devices and innovative textbooks as keys to success should be taken into account in order to drive Thai conversation learning.

Species Diversity of Fish and consumption in Nan River in Bang Krathum district, Phitsanulok province, Thailand

The fishery is an essential part of Thai culture and provides the rural population with a significant amount of animal protein. This research targeted the examination of fish species, the status of fish capture and consumption along the Nan River in the Bang Krathum district, Phitsanulok province, Thailand. Between November 2019 and April 2020, three sites were sampled along the river, and four sites were sampled in the local markets. A total of 35 individuals including fishermen, fish traders, and governmental officers involved in the region's fish resource management were subjected to purposive sampling. The data analysis was undertaken utilizing methods such as mean, frequency and percentage. The findings revealed 28 fish species across 11 families and six orders. The family Cyprinidae in the order Cypriniformes had the highest number of species (10 species). The number of fish species found in the local markets (19 species) was higher than those found in the river (17 species). In terms of consumption, the majority of fishermen and fish traders were female (65.71% and 84.62%, respectively). However, 95.00% of them lacked certification for fishing in public areas. The preferred method of fishing was floating netting, with predominant catch of carp species recorded at least twice a week. Compared to previous figures, productivity has decreased indicating a need for adequate training and knowledge about natural resource management and stocking enhancement.