Celebrim, I hadn't forgotten about the honor thy father and mother commandments; but I still think there is a strong difference and that can't just be explained as pre v post industrial.
I'm sure that there are strong differences, but I don't know what they actually are. In the context of this discussion, I'm skeptical of accepting extant differences in respect for parents as authorities or a strongly heirarchial culture as representing a particularly strong difference between the medieval West and the pre-modern East.
On the other hand, maybe that doesn't matter, because presumably our hypothetical Asian Gary Gygax would write a Occidental Adventures supplement which emphasised the Western differences in culture as he percieved them at the time he was writing. And, what he percieved the West as would almost certainly be a sterotype dominated by those ideas which seemed most strikingly unique and different from what he was accustumed to, just as our perception of the East is almost certainly dominated by sterotypes of what we find most strikingly different from what we are accustumed to.
Referring to parents as being like angels is really striking to me; and it is very common among the large number of thai people i have met; it also seems to be a smaller piece of their hierachical world view. It is even in the language and forms of address.
Yes, but it would be strongly in the language and forms of address of pre-modern Europe as well. Granted, that English didn't have 10 graduations of the pronoun 'you' to represent different degrees of respect, it did have at least too - with the more formal 'Thou' having disappeared since that time. And England was most certainly of a strongly egalitarian tradition compared to most of the West. But the overall idea of society arranged in a heirarchial structure with the King at the top and descending all the way down to the peasants at the bottom would be completely familiar to any medieval.
I am not expert in industrialization, or the history of the family; so I don't want to make any sweeping claims here. But I did study history in college, with a focus on the middle east; and I still find the asian relationship with parents to be more intense than in the west; even the pre industrial west.
I'm not an expert in Thailand or pretty much anywhere in Asia (heck I'm not sure I'd claim to be an expert in any field of history), so you are perhaps right. I pardon you if it seems like I'm grilling you on this, but any time someone trots out something I don't understand my curiousity gets the better of me and I start needling them until I think I do understand it.
Also, the ancestor worship you mention, isn't part of Thai culture.
Well, I confess to guessing, but in latter research, perhaps someone ought to edit the 'Buddhism in Thailand' wikipedia page then.
The Thais are very conservative Theravada buddhist culture with strong Indian influences. Refering to parents as angels, really seems to have much more to do with the hierarchical outlook of Thai people and strong devotion to their parents.
I'm not convinced at this point that it isn't a language artifact.
Even when the obedience is there (as in the example of your southern friend...
For the record, the friend was from rural Pennsylvania.
I see what you are saying, and I have little doubt that there is a rather large cultural gulf between modern America and modern Thailand, but I wonder whether the particular gulf you site would stand out as exceptional 200 years ago, or it will still exist in Thailand a century after 80% of the populace is employed in something other than agriculture, women can honorably work outside the home, and young adults generally can enter the workplace reliably doing something other than working with their parents.
