Learning Thai

Another regular feature in Thai newspapers is a picture of a criminal apologizing to their victim (or family member of the victim). Thai criminals are not afforded much privacy - they are regularly paraded in front of reporters at news conferences and made to sit behind a table full of drugs or guns (if that's what their offense was). But a more positive aspect of the Thai judicial proceedings is the apology. In Thai culture forgiveness is important and the person who has been wronged seems to be quick to forgive when asked in a humble and contrite way. Here are a few examples...

This was in the news a while ago, and I can't remember all of the details - but the gist of the story is that the man giving the flower bouquet to the police officer was guilty of insulting (and possible striking) the officer in front of a crowd of witnesses.

This lady is a very famous Thai singer (Tata Young). The man on the left tried to extort money from her by threatening to kill her. As soon as he was arrested they arranged this meeting where he apologized and she accepted his apology.

This was in the paper yesterday. These two men were part of a drug dealing gang. They shot and killed a police officer. After they turned themselves into the police (from what I could gather they were on the run for a day or so, but feared for their safety) they were brought before the parents of the man they killed and knelt before them to ask their forgiveness. The mother was quoted in the paper as saying that she didn't initially want to forgive them, but after she thought about sin, goodness, and punishment she forgave in order to compensate for sins that she may have accumulated (my apologies to this lady if I'm mis-translating her sentiments).

I'm sure that those doing both the apologizing and forgiving often have mixed feelings and motives - but it's been impressive to me to see the way in which those involved model humility, repentance and forgiveness.

-Tom