Etiquette Breakdown
I turn forty years-old soon, yet here I am, about to write a piece that will probably be interpreted as one of those rambling multi-tangent, Grandpa Simpson stories from “back in the day” when “kids had more respect!”
Nevertheless, the (literally) faceless humans I describe in this piece refer to all creeds, colours, shapes, sizes, and ages.
Chivalry seems dead.
Whereas my Father always taught me to hold doors open for ladies - a practice I continue to date - now I observe a “me first” attitude in all walks of life. The doors open to the public transport network trains in Bangkok - the underground mass rapid transit (MRT) and the over-ground sky-train (BTS) - Cue people charging past me from the back of the line to the front of the queue, selfishly rushing aboard the train. Backpackers, with huge rug-sacks over their shoulders, on their backs and on their fronts, either obliviously or knowingly and unabashedly; swing around, clotheslining other passengers. Knocking little old ladies and children alike, who bounce off them, recoiling in pain and shock.
No one cares. No one cares.
Empty vessels that were once human beings with their own personality traits, sense of uniqueness and identity, stand around hunched over their blue screens, processing their infinite scroll-anti-social-media-feeds.
Husks.
They are simply not there.
Occasionally, they look up. In order to “look after number one”.
When I am running towards elevator doors which are about to close, shouting “please wait”, they look me right in the eye, and they close the doors, so that I cannot get in. I find myself in the 0.0001 percentile of humans, in 2024, who hold those lift doors open, when seeing others approaching - be it in a shopping mall, my condominium, or wherever.
Since 2020, I have noticed a marked decline in the personal hygiene of people all over. Thailand has a hot climate. Thais joke that there are two seasons - “hot and hotter” - the monsoon ‘rainy’ season (now), and the dry hot season. I typically shower 3 - 4 times a day, especially when I exercise, which is most days.
I encounter more people with the most egregious body odour - akin to a dead animal. I move train carriages to avoid the urge to vomit. The perpetual face-maskers, rebreathing their CO2, exhale the stalest, most extreme halitosis I have ever known in living memory. So much so, that the ever-expanding new-normal industrial complex, is a giant, burgeoning industry - now with “fragrant mask droplet” products sold all over Bangkok - to ‘freshen up’ NPC’s disgusting, bacteria-laden rags.
Is all this a symptom of societal breakdown?
Is it reflective of personal grooming standards and hygiene standards being an after-thought, when one goes outside in the world? Since the ‘work from home’ epidemic, perhaps?
Check out these adverts on the big screen of Sukhumvit MRT station in Bangkok - notice a certain theme?!
So - next time you overhear someone telling you that people no longer wear facemasks in Bangkok - print this out and make them eat it.
In the cinema, my wife jokes that I am the ‘cinema police’. People around me, either recording snippets of the film on their phones to post to their stupid IG stories, or compulsively checking their messaging apps every few minutes, will not be tolerated on my watch!
I used to lean in quietly, politely asking them to switch their phones off. Now I just shout “TURN YOUR PHONE OFF” - making them ‘lose face’ is more effective.
Narcissistic phone addicts.
Whenever I can glimpse my fellow motorists - those without insanely, dark-tinted windows, for which they probably cannot see a thing out of - they are often alone, wearing a mask, playing on their phones. They swerve and straddle my lane. Narrow misses. A guy in a pickup truck ploughed into the back of me on the expressway a few months ago, when traffic ground to a halt. I saw him in the rear view mirror, beeped my horn, and luckily he slowed down and hit me at around 15 kmph - I was uninjured, but could have easily been “wiped out of the game”. I asked him if he was playing on his phone. He hesitated. His facial expression told me all I needed to know.
The traffic chaos and total disregard for all traffic laws in Bangkok has reached the pinnacle of normalisation - I shall reserve this topic for it’s own worthy separate article, for another day.
I could go on. Rant over. Short, but not too sweet I am afraid.
Hopefully, this at least got a smirk out of you.
Happy Sunday! Mind those manners, and keep etiquette at the forefront of your minds - it is a dying concept. Truly.
Nicholas Creed is a Bangkok based writer. All content is free for all readers, with nothing locked in archive that requires a paid subscription. Any support is greatly appreciated. If you are in a position to donate a virtual coffee or crypto, it would mean the world of difference.
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It is one thing to see adults walking around like glassy-eyed zombies, but the epidemic of parents giving smartphones to their children at early ages will be the real apocalypse (in the original Greek sense of the word, at least).
I was at a 'tam-bun' last week, what would you call it, a 'blessing' ceremony, and there were all sorts of interesting things going on, but there was one boy of about 9 years old who spent the entire 3 hours glued to his phone, scrolling like a maniac, oblivious to anything else, irritable if spoken to, and making multiple significant bad neural connections in his brain. The boy is just a passive receptacle for confected rubbish.
No interaction, no curiosity, no urge to explore, no intelligence, no wonder, no creativity, no humanity.
"rebreathing their CO2" and I laughed again. Really a funny post. Yes a smirk happened.