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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing whether or not Thailand has in fact too many holidays. This is kind of one of those topics where I don't know, the fervour of the converted, becoming a Thai and like listening to this complaint from foreigners is kind of one of those where I don't know I find it a little bit annoying. 

In any event, the complaint goes that Thailand sort of, I think Thailand presently has 18 national holidays and foreigners kind of say "well every time you turn around there's a holiday in Thailand. It's very inefficient, you can't get any..", well you know what, deal with it. I just don't care on this topic. I like Thai holidays quite frankly. Thais work, your average Thai works six days a week, minimum actually, sometimes more and these Thai holidays they are a real break for people especially working class people here in Thailand and folks that work in kind of, I'm not even going to go into the Government; the Government, they are always going to take holidays. I mean if you want to get into who is taking too many holidays, not to point out the Embassies or anything but everybody's Embassy gets their National holidays on top of usually they don't take all of the Thai ones, there are a few that they may or may not take but they also get a big chunk of the Thai holidays. So that would be the first place to start which is if you are a foreigner and you have such a problem, if you are working in an Embassy it's like well you get even more. I never do hear that from foreigners very much though, that work sort of in those functions; most of the time I hear it from people who are in business, and I do get it. 

One thing when they create connector holidays, I totally get where people that are in business and say look I get there is a holiday on a Thursday or a Monday and then they just sort of call the other day as a holiday. Again, as a Thai I enjoy this. It gives us time to close the office; get off, sort of clear our heads a little bit. Believe me, the holidays help and we really notice it going and I say this going into the first quarter here in Thailand, going into 2024, getting ready to go into 2024 in the first quarter, the first quarter virtually has no holidays. There's one Buddhist holiday in there. Yes I know people always say "well there's Chinese New Year". Well that's not a national holiday in Thailand. Yes we do see an influx of certain tourists and things and there are some Thais who choose to take some time off over that depending on their family background but yeah the first quarter of the year is pretty much running and gunning. I mean it's the toughest part of the year for us here in the office, I'll be honest because there's a lot to do. Then starting in April, as I have said in another video, Songkran kind of reminds me of Mardi Gras over here but April yeah it's kind of chock full of a few holidays and then you get May, it's got quite a few holidays, then you go through another lull into the summer, but the summer has a few holidays here and there. Then you get into the final sort of the back end of the year, the fourth quarter and I do get it December, not a lot is getting done in December; there's a lot of holidays with Western and Thai.

But hey long story short, yeah I get it with regard to the holidays but I honestly like it. I think most Thais rather like it and I don't think it's going to be something that's going to change anytime soon, so just sort of act accordingly.