Perhaps the lonely "Yes" voters would like to add a comment below presenting their reasons to persuade a few people to change sides.
Thursday 19 January 2012
The Blue Jeans Poll
The voting on whether wearing blue jeans is Thai culture looks pretty one sided, with the "No" voters in a large majority so far.
Perhaps the lonely "Yes" voters would like to add a comment below presenting their reasons to persuade a few people to change sides.
Perhaps the lonely "Yes" voters would like to add a comment below presenting their reasons to persuade a few people to change sides.
6 comments:
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This expanded, essay version of the poll question is the same type as those on the set of argumentative essay questions I gave out yesterday.
ReplyDeleteOver the past couple of weeks, we have been reading about and discussing culture. Thailand has a Ministry of Culture, which sees its role as promoting and perhaps protecting Thai culture, whatever that might mean. We often read in the newspapers of calls for a return to traditional forms of behaviour. Would this include dress, such as jeans as opposed to the traditional forms of Thai dress? Should the Ministry of Culture mount a campaign to discourage the wearing of jeans because they are not Thai culture?
A little less unbalanced. There are now three people who think that wearing blue jeans is Thai culture. Still, we are definitely in the minority, most people thinking that we are wrong. I wonder why.
ReplyDeleteBut of course, we also think that they are wrong. Why are we sure that such a large majority are wrong?
This question is probably less serious in its consequences than the questions on the set of argumentative essays, some of which are literally life or death issues, but it might be a nice warm up question for you to practise arguing on. Then again, in such despotic countries as Saudi Arabia and Bhutan, the government does make laws dictating exactly what citizens may and may not wear.
I'm kind of hoping that the two people who agree with me will present a strong enough argument to persuade the majority who think we are wrong to change their minds.
ReplyDeleteThis might help us start a fun debate.The majority might think jeans are not a part of Thai culture because they do not originate in Thailand.
ReplyDeleteHowever,Thai language, which many people regard as a valuable culture, similarly comes from other cultures. Thai people borrow a lot of words form other languages, such as Pali, Sanskrit, Malaya, English, and so on. The traditional greeting word like Sawadee has a same root as the word Sothid in Pali.
Therefore, the majority should not worry about where jeans firstly originate in and think about another argument to prove three of us wrong.
Plan,
ReplyDeleteAll but one of your classmates think that you and I are wrong.
I'm hoping they will explain why they think that.
I think your example of the non-Thai culture origins of the Thai language is a good start.
And who is that one other person who agrees with me and Plan that wearing blue jeans is Thai culture? Please come and support us! We are a minority in need of support, although after Plan's initial argument, I think the majority also has some supporting to do.
This morning we discussed the following question:
ReplyDeleteHow many groups of boys are there on the island? What are those groups?
It turned out that this was a surprisingly controversial question (I wasn't expecting so much controversy, but it was very useful), with strong disagreement about the answer, although everyone agreed on the relevant facts. Similarly, I am sure that everyone agrees on the relevant facts to the question here: "is wearing blue jeans Thai culture?"
Most people now think that Plan and I are wrong. (And we are sure that the majority is wrong.)
If you're in the majority who think that wearing blue jeans is not Thai culture, do you have any solid argument to persuade us to change our minds?