Thai attitude towards Vietnam as shown in contemporary travel writing

Abstract

Historically the relationships between Thailand and Vietnam have often been difficult. The Vietnam War was only one among several periods of time in which those relations were extremely bad. In 1986, however, with the implementation of “Đoi Moi”, the renovation policy of the Vietnamese government, official relations improved and laid one of the foundations, which years later made it possible for many Thai tourists to visit Vietnam. Thai travel writing on Vietnam has consequently developped and now there is a large amount of such publications available. This thesis analyses a representative number of them in order to find out about the Thai attitude towards Vietnam. This thesis has two objectives, namely firstly to analyze Thai travel writings on Vietnam and to investigate Thai people's attitude towards Vietnam and the Vietnamese and secondly to examine to what extent tourism can contribute to the improvement of Thai-Vietnamese relations and the view of Thai people towards Vietnam. It appears that most writers' attitudes towards Vietnam or towards the Vietnamese people do not change much during their journeys. Depictions of negative experiences with the Vietnamese even indicate that some authors' attitudes worsen. Coining for the Thai attitude towards Vietnam is an awareness of Vietnam's long history, the Vietnam War and the difficulties in the relationships between Thailand and Vietnam. Regarding the Vietnamese people, some writers distance themselves from negative attitudes against the Vietnamese, which they have come across in Thailand. Despite the fact that some experiences have a negative impact on the attitude towards the Vietnamese, also positive remarks on them are made, most prominently by saying that they work very hard. In general, however, given the lack of in-depth contacts between the Vietnamese and many writers, it can be said that many authors do not have much interest in getting to know the Vietnamese. This thesis therefore argues that though tourism now provides an unprecedented chance to improve the Thai attitude towards Vietnam, there are also certain problems and risks in Thai tourism to Vietnam and consequently suggests that tourism on its own is very unlikely to improve those attitudes significantly.