Appearance is everything in Thailand. There is a special emphasis on how you look and what you wear. Thai people have no problem with pointing out to you if you are looking fat lately or if there is a pimple on your face. Comments letting you know they don’t really like your curly, wavy hair and that they think you should wear it up more often are normal. Perhaps this is the reason why Thai people take so many pictures of themselves. Even beyond that, how you dress is also particularly important.
Culturally, Thailand is pretty conservative and that extends to appropriate dress. For women, shoulders are covered and necklines are high. Skirts and shorts are knee length. Collared shirts are the norm and considered professional. There are also colors that are associated with each day, which sometime inform what’s worn each day of the week as well.
The colors break down like this:
Sunday – red
Monday – yellow
Tuesday – pink
Wednesday – orange
Thursday – green
Friday – sky blue
Saturday – purple
I’ve heard, but haven’t confirmed, that Tiger Woods, whose mother is Thai, follows this color scheme when he is golfing.
There are also some special days that are outside of the normal color scheme. The Queen’s Birthday (Mother’s Day) is always a sky blue day because the Queen was born on a Friday. The King’s Birthday (Father’s Day) is always a yellow day because the king was born on a Monday. (The days also have a sort of horoscope attached to them and a special Buddha pose that represents them.) The Buddhist holidays are days to wear all white. Government workers wear their tan uniforms on Mondays.
Wearing Black in Thailand
However, if you were to go to a government building today, you would see most people wearing all black or black and white. This is highly unusual in Thailand, to see people wearing all black. It usually means that someone died. In fact, someone did die: the Supreme Patriarch of Thailand, Somdet Phra Nyanasamvara Suvaddhana Mahathera. He was 100 years old. Tradition says that the normal mourning period is 15 days, however the government issued an order extending it to 30 days, so you will be seeing government workers in black or black and white until about the end of November.
You are probably wondering what the Supreme Patriarch is. The position is basically the head monk for all of the monks in Thailand. It is a position that is formally appointed by the King of Thailand and approved by the Supreme Sangha Council, a council of monks. The position holds legal authority over the monks of all the sects of Buddhism in Thailand. Because of tradition and societal pressures, nearly every Thai male becomes a monk at some point in his life, so this position is one that potentially has an influence on all of society.
Something for you to think about next time you get dressed in the morning.