A Good Tradition

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I’m sorry to say that when I returned from South Africa after my Granny’s 100th birthday party and showed my dear children the photos of this momentous occasion, the children shrieked and ran away, and had bad dreams for several nights afterwards.

Apparently Great-Granny is scary. In fact, old people are scary. Old people are defined as people with white hair and lots of wrinkles and not too many teeth. The kids recently watched “Tangled” and the scariest part of the whole movie was... the old lady, not because of anything evil that she did, but what she looked like.

In many ways my children have adopted Thai ways as their own, but clearly not in the area of respecting the elderly.

Thai people respect older folk - to them it doesn’t matter what old people look like, how many wrinkles they have, or whether or not they are losing their marbles (or their teeth). They value old people because they have lived their lives, they are experienced. The elderly are to be learned from - they can teach the younger generation how to live good, happy and meaningful lives... they know more about the meaning of life than the younger generations. Naturally one gives them credit and gives them a place of importance in society. They are listened to. They are not argued with. They are not interrupted. They are valuable.

One of my favourite Thai traditions takes place over the Thai New Year (Songkran) when special honour is shown to the elderly. Family, friends and neighbours will visit the elderly in their homes, bring them small gifts to show respect to them, and then, in turn, the elderly will bless the younger generations. One set of family/friends will come, then move onto the next home ... the next group will arrive. And so it goes, all day. There is plenty of food, and a bit of alcohol, but mostly a feeling of warmth and good-will.

I think of my own grandmother - 100 and going strong - and her complaints that she gets “ignored” at family gatherings. I wonder how she, and my own parents, would enjoy this custom. I was telling some of the people about my Granny - the craziest thing to my Thai friends was not that she’s 100, but that she’s is in an old age home, living in her own room.

I’m not in ANY position to judge decisions that have been made about the care of my Granny, so I’m not doing that. But I do think it would be nice - one day, when old people no longer scare my children - to grow really old in a family home. In our culture we think of that as unfair, and placing a burden on the younger generation, but somehow in Thailand its not seen like that - its a privilege and an honour.

I think we can learn from that.

But perhaps I only think that because I’m fairly confident Great-Granny won’t make a move to Thailand any time soon to move in with us.