Thailand Transformed: 1950-2012

The outcome of the report I wrote was that Thais were capable of buying automobiles and were interested in Classes A,B,C, and even in Class D. the extended family is the “key” to buying important items in Thai cultural thinking reasonable loans can be arranged within the “family.” With information of that sort, General Motors began to move swiftly, and it was in early 1974, that I was invited to the opening ceremony for BangChan Automotive Corporation’s new factory. We were shown a splendid new assembly plant: General Motors had entered into its first “triple;” Alpha Romero, Volkswagen, and General Motors Chevrolet Division from Australia with cars and pick-up trucks. That initial success has multiplied again and again, now in 2006, the pick-up truck is the largest vehicle output from General Motors operation in Thailand and with exports as its focus in Southeast Asia.

Monsoon Drainage Systems: In the years I had been back in the State, 1967-1970, my colleague Linne Tholin had been busy, and his engineering contribution was recognized by leading Thais and he was asked to act as an advisor to the Lord Mayor of Bangkok. In the Monsoon Season in Bangkok the heavy rains actually flooded the city; main streets could bee on and a half to two feet under water. Minor klongs along the streets, Sukhumvit, Wireless Road, and Rama IV Road had been put into underground drainage pipes and now interconnected to a large eight-foot diameter pipe from Klong Toey to Rama IV Toad. This massive pipe had been built by Welch miners tunneling up from Klong Toey to Rama IV Road. At Klong Toey was a cylindrical chamber from surface to 75 feet below ground, where four massive pumps were located to drain that entire city and pump it out into the Chao Phraya River.

Fresh Water for a Growing City: So successful was this venture that Bangkok entered into World Bank proposals for a new underground fresh water system for the city. When I returned in 1971, Linne was in the midst of this design, drawing upon that vast experience in Chicago, he was doing the sort of creative work that he truly loved. When I called upon him in his office he showed me his drawings and explained how the water lines would feed the communities of the city of Bangkok. Along some of those lines he had drawn his proposed subway lines. One must live in Bangkok and drive in Bangkok to understand the cultural complexities which affect traffic: and Linne knew them and understood that a subway might well be the only way to surmount cultural difficulties. In July 2004 that Subway opened its first stages across Bangkok’s difficulties.

I am citing these two vitally important proposals because they clash so directly with Thai cultural values. Hindu-Buddhist philosophy teaches three levels of existence: the Lords in the Heavens; Human existence on earth; and the world of the Devil below ground. These two proposals and then as projects: Drainage Systems, and a Subway, are directly contradictory to the dominant philosophy. There is also a history of cultural rejection: hen I left Thailand in September 1975, I had to wade in flood water in Bangkok over my knees. As long as Linne Tholin was in Thailand, the pumps worked; however he retired to Hawaii in late 1974; and I understand the flooding continued until 1978 when the King intervened and ordered”…turn those pumps on!” Similarly, a near thirty year battle raged over the subway, which was authorized in 1976, but met constant rejection for cultural reasons; the magnificent subway opened in July 2004.

This has been a look at a fifty year transition for the Thai people, as we educated their bureaucracy and their university faculties; and as these leaders accepted new ideas and then implements them in their own ways. It is a direct contract to the nation adjacent to the west, Burma, has rejected change and is struggling with internal conflicts of ethnic groups that should have been rallied to be more Burmese. The Thais have been willing to make changes and Burmese have lacked that ability for a complex of reasons.

A Look at the Need for Steel. In 1973, I undertook a study of the need for steel casting for Mitsui Corporation of Japan, and that took me into industrial sites across lower Thailand. Fire hydrants, brake shoes, railroad junction boxes, and pipe fittings and important statistics all were where I ventured. I importantly talked to the engineers planning the water system now financed by the World bank, and found, “No the pipes were not steel.” “Pipes will be concrete, because Thailand makes the worlds’ best concrete.” However, the valves would be steel castings.

In my drives in Thailand south of Bangkok and along the Gulf of Siam I was struck by a row of six or eight massive steel tanks, and inquires what they contained “Corn Syrup, was the answer to my great surprise.” A super-tanker would periodically anchor at an outlet in the Gulf and pump dry these tanks and transport the corn syrup to canneries in Hong Kong, Japan or Taiwan for fruit packaging, and beverage bottling. Not many castings here, but this realization opened up a whole industry in corn processing I had not understood was developing in Thailand. We Americans had introduced Guatemala Corn to Thailand and educated Thai and Chinese chemists were transforming that agricultural product into and industrial product undergirding the Thai economy. Glucose production has achieved such a level of proficiency that medical grade glucose is being produced for hospital usage. Automotive plants, textile weaving plants, bottling plants and breweries all use some castings, and yet the import statistics were the best data for the steel castings study.