Toward less self-service

While the western people loves to do things by themselves, Thais on the other hand depends people to give them services for almost everything. This time I will justify this issue just from the way we eat.

A new dining concept

One of the new dining concept introduced in Thailand is the post-paid coupon card system. Perhaps not very new but different compare to others. Unlike most food centers where you first pay for a coupon before selecting your dish. FoodLoft managed by Central uses a card given on your entry to buy any food from various booths of various kinds, Japanese, Indian, Italian, Thai, Chinese, Koean, etc. After you finish the meal, the card is read for items you purchased and you pay for what you eat. This was the beginning of this concept.

Self service become less self service. The process of ordering food is self-service. You get to walk around and pick a dish from the booth you like. It used to be that you have to collect the food by yourself after order. Now FoodLoft has managed to upgrade their services with waiters that collect your order receipt and serve the order directly to you. Not only that you have to pay for the food first but also you can order as many food you like without having to carry them.

With this, it encourage people to buy more items with the illusion of not loosing money at the moment just like the credit card. More waiter on duty gives the place a more classy place to eat. Thais love services very much and would regard these as "hi-so", a word used by Thai that stands for High Society.

Fast food is adapted

Most famous fast food chain in Thailand ranging from McDonald's, KFC, Burger King, Subway, etc. learned from Thai cultures that people love services very much. Originally, fast foods were designed to be fast and customers have to service themselves. But in Thailand, right from ordering, you get a waitress to deliver your meal. You can enjoy eating as if the place was your home. A tutorial session can even be conducted after a bottle of coke and french fries were ordered. You can observe this at fast food around Siam. You can make any mess you want because there will always be someone to clean up the table and take care the rest for you. You don't even have to trash anything.

Having others doing something for you and take care the stuff you should care instead of you perhaps shaped Thai people into a kind of people who are less confident, having to depend on others. Thais rather do something with friends, afraid of doing things alone. Foreigners sometime regard Thais as being too shy. In education, we can see people copying work of others without feeling guilty because they cannot do it by themselve. They blame teachers of not teaching them everything they needed to know in time where interests happen-- assignments, exams, and everything with score. In society, we depend on government to pour the money in and let us take care of spending.

In order to progress, we need to start doing something for ourselve instead of waiting for someone to come. Start from children, we need to let them help themselves more. God won't help you if you don't help yourself first.