Earlier this week I took a thought I had one step further. Ten years ago rushing in Thailand was seen as vulgar and so people walked slowly. I always complained about it to my girlfriend and she explained that it wasn't proper to be seen rushing. Cultured people knew the value of time and so finely developed people took things slowly and this rubbed off on the peasant classes too.
These days Bangkok is much like any other big city in many places but I realised the single largest catalyst towards this was not business but the Skytrain which was launched I think in year 2000. At first the locals shunned it ( I have photography of empty rush hour carriages) but when it connected up with the underground in 2005 (I think) that really shoved people into rush mode and now I find myself regretting that I never appreciated the not so old days when people moved with elegance and grace.
