I traveled in Thailand a lot in the early 90's, and when I went back this year I noticed there were hardly any smiles, yet the people were much more prosperous. In Chiang Mai, there are lots of motorcycles, but fifteen years ago there were very few. There are lots of cars. There are nice shopping malls for the local people. And most of the tourists are Thai.

Most statements by Thais are the equivalent of "let's do lunch" in the US. No one really believes that you are going to have lunch some day. Everyone understands it's just a sort of polite gesture. Or real estate ads where 'cozy' means very, very, very tiny. Thais understand when another Thai is saying 'yes' and means 'no'. It is rude to say 'no', so Thais never ask yes/no questions.

Thais know that the smile means nothing. But we interpret it in a western way, and that causes problems. The smile is not intended to be sincere, any more than the smile we give a hated boss at work is intended to be sincere. It's a common thing all over Asia. In Japan, 'Hai!' means not 'yes' but "I acknowledge that you are making noises with your mouth", sort of like the "yeah.....yeah.....yeah" we say when listening to a long tale from someone. But Americans go in and interpret it as agreement, and can't understand what went wrong when things don't go the way they expected.

Thailand has a horrible level of corruption that everyone accepts as a fact of life. People have drivers licenses, but they paid a bribe to get them and never took the driving test. Everyone in Chiang Mai who rides a motorcycle carries a hundred baht note with them at all times, in case they get stopped for a traffic violation. I've read it's the second most corrupt country in SE Asia, after the Philippines.

It's not the place to be if you can't accept all of this and let it slide by you. I don't think I can, so I left. The difference is that I was just visiting, and wasn't invested in the place.