Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, this is us here at the firm, me, myself included obviously, wishing Thailand a very Merry Christmas. I thought, I was going to just make kind of a short video and not really talk about anything but I thought just one observation closing out the year here just from me the sort of, adopted Thai, came over here some years ago and I have just kind managed to kind of hang out for long enough that the Thais took me in.

I think it is worth noting, especially my American background when I look at sort of the pros and cons, pros and cons is the wrong word but sort of the good and the bad, the everything, to look at for example the United States and Thailand in sort of a holistic way, are there any observations that I have noticed that are worth pointing out? 

While I have noticed many things about Thailand, there is one thing that I have noticed that, especially since COVID, seems to be creeping in a little bit more here, that I think Thailand would be wise to maybe not let creep in so much going into the next year. What are we talking well, actually a friend of mine and I were talking about this in an American context and as time went on I kind of thought this is something that Thailand should take heed of as well which is the notion of the Narcissism of Small Differences. 

Here in Thailand, one of the things I love about Thailand is when I think of Thailand, I'm kind of one of these people that it's the people that come in and have an issue with Thailand. Foreigners that say "oh well why do the Thais do this? Why do the Thais do that?" or "They should change this or change that!" Well maybe first we should know why they do it, and maybe they are smarter, maybe they know better. Quite honestly Thais are going to know better how to do things in Thailand arguably than I would think of anyone would. But more just an observation to the Thai people, Thais have more in common with each other, in my opinion, than they do not in common with one another and I think there's a lot of outside pressure outside the country to sort of maybe exaggerate or point out the small differences between Thais so as to perhaps gain an advantage over all the Thais. This is just an observation that I look at as a foreigner who became a Thai, I see and there is no one country I am pointing to or anything on this, it's just foreign influence generally in my opinion attempts to or the results that they are going for is to again sort of exaggerate the small differences between Thais so as to gain some sort of advantage. 

The only point I am trying to make this Christmas Season is Thailand let's hang together. Whatever differences we may have between one another here in Thailand, believe me when I say they are nothing in comparison to the differences especially in terms of paradigm between Thais and outsiders. And again I am not saying we can't have differences and reasonable people can't disagree with each other, that's certainly the case; a free society, that should always exist. But the thing I would just urge people, especially Thai people to keep in mind going into this Christmas Season is maybe try to mitigate or guard against this Narcissism of Small Differences.