Wow fountainhill, you went and covered multiple aspects of society here in that post.

I know what you mean by the they "know" but "don't know" thing, and I actually quite like that. I'm single and work from home, so it's comforting for me. I know loads of people around here, and probably even more know me. I know their all good people, and they know I'm a good guy, so it creates a comfort zone in life that I wouldn't have in the West. At the same time, as long as I act and dress respectfully, I can basically do whatever the hell I want, and nobody is going to bat an eye-lid. For example, when they see me nicely showered & dressed, and walking by at 10pm with my tablet in hand, I'm sure they know full well I'm heading to the curtain motel, but at the same time they "don't know".

It's a communal society, so inclusion is much more important than division. Here, it's much more of the mindset of "it takes a village to raise a child", which I honestly think is better than the West. For example, here, there's no shortage of women willing to chastize a random kid on the street for misbehaving, and it's completely acceptable. If a random stranger chastized your child in the West, good chance the mom would be fuming and yelling at the stranger, "don't you lecture my child!", whereas here it's more, "god damnit Somchai, quit being a little shit when you're out playing, and quit pissing off the neighbors!".

Point is, in Asia, our similarties matter more than our differences, and thanks mainly to the media, nowadays it seems to be the opposite in the West.

And yeah, agreed, Thailand is actually a very conservative society. I still somewhat cringe when I hear farangs say, "oh, but Thailand is very open sexual society". No, actually it's not. They don't even shake hands, let alone deep throat in public.