Tokyo meets the world: Thailand

I first arrived in Japan in 1978 – year 53 of the Showa era ­– and studied here for ten years before returning to Thailand. I then came back to work at the Embassy twice during the Heisei era, and now I’m here as ambassador, having assumed my post in the first year of Reiwa. Over those three eras, so many things have of course changed.

One thing that stands out is the increased openness of Japanese society. When I was here for the first time, almost everything, like buying a ticket for a train, was in Japanese only. But now you have more and more English everywhere. When you’re buying a ticket, you can change the language – not only to English but Korean, Chinese, even Thai. Foreign tourism has made a significant difference.

This openness affects not only tourism but work, too. In the past, it wasn’t easy to work in Japan as a foreigner, but many companies now tend to recruit international employees. Take Rakuten, where they even speak English within the company.

Another change concerns the role of women. In the past, the division of labor was that men work outside the home and give their salary to their wife so that she can manage everything in the house, including raising children. Now more and more women have their own [professional] careers, although some say there’s still a long way to go for Japan in this regard.

In any case, you now have many women as executives, including Tokyo Governor Koike, who even used to be defense minister. The former mayor of Yokohama, Fumiko Hayashi, was previously the CEO of BMW in Japan. Rengo, the trade union confederation, now has its first female chairperson, Tomoko Yoshino. Society has become more balanced, including in politics – more and more lawmakers and cabinet ministers are now women.

It really depends on the season. The changing of the seasons is something different from Thailand, which is a tropical country. We don’t have four seasons, more like two – rainy season and dry season. We don’t have the trees changing colour in autumn, nor the cherry blossoms in spring. So every time the sakura start to bloom, we go to see them.

One place close to the embassy that we always visit is the Meguro River, where you can walk along the water in either direction while admiring the blossoms. Another great place for sakura is Chidorigafuchi, with the huge trees and their long branches on the banks of the palace moat.

In autumn, my wife and I like to go to places with beautiful foliage such as Mt Takao, which we visit for the gorgeous leaves but also because of a connection to Thailand. On the way to the peak is the Yakuoin temple, which has a white pagoda enshrining a relic of the Buddha from Thailand.

Another place we like is Mitake Gorge, where the leaves are beautiful along the river. There’s also a relation to Thailand there due to a novel called Behind the Painting, written by a Thai author. Mitake appears in the story, which tells of a noble lady and a regular guy falling in love. I read that novel when I was young, before coming to Japan. I started looked for Mitake once I arrived, and found it very beautiful when I finally visited.

As ambassador I have my own chef from Thailand, so everyone always says that the Thai Residence is the best Thai restaurant in Japan [laughs]. But of course there are many great restaurants to choose for Thai cuisine in Tokyo. When I was a student there were only two or three, and they weren’t that authentic because the import of ingredients from Thailand was still very limited.

Because there are now hundreds of Thai restaurants in Tokyo, it would be very difficult for me to pick one or two. But our commercial office operates a certification system called Thai Select, which now lists almost 170 certified restaurants throughout Japan. [Thai Select] is the best way to find authentic Thai restaurants in Tokyo. 

Ed. note: The Thai Select website lists around 100 certified restaurants in Tokyo, including the likes of Somtum Der Toranomon, Gapao Shokudo, Jasmine Thai and Jim Thompson’s Table Thailand.

We have a very long history of friendship with Japan, having had trading relations for more than 600 years and formal diplomatic relations from the year 1887. The oldest entity promoting friendship and cooperation between our countries is the Japan-Thailand Association, which organises seminars and events for its members and publishes its own journal. The typical members are senior Japanese businessmen who used to work in Thailand, while former ambassadors of Japan to Thailand are advisors of the association. 

There are several academies for those who would like to learn Thai dance, some owned by Japanese and others by Thai teachers. There’s the International Thai Dance Academy as well as the Kayoko Akimoto Thai Dance Troupe, an academy run by a Japanese lady who practiced Thai dance in Thailand and is certified by the Thai Ministry of Culture.

For those interested in cuisine, there’s the Thai Education and Culture Centre or ThaiTEC in Kinshicho, which has a big Thai community. ThaiTEC has Thai cooking classes run by an experienced instructor who graduated from a famous cooking school in Thailand, the Suan Dusit International Culinary School – the Thai equivalent of France’s Le Cordon Bleu.

There’s also Thai boxing, or Muay Thai. There are quite many Muay Thai gyms in Tokyo, not only for professionals but for exercise too. One of these is the Weerasakreck Muay Thai Gym, headquartered in Minowa and run by a former boxer who operates branches across Tokyo and many other prefectures.

In addition, there are groups of likeminded young people who like Thai stars or dramas and keep in touch via social media. Thai dramas have become more and more popular in Japan over these past few years, when people have been staying home due to Covid-19. We held a Thai-drama fan meeting at the embassy last year, connecting stars and their fans via a live stream. Some people even travel to Thailand to visit the places [where the shows were filmed].

Thailand supports the SDGs, but also has a homegrown sustainability philosophy: SEP, or the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy. This philosophy was initiated by our late king, His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej The Great. It does not mean self-sufficiency – closing the country off to the world – but sufficiency in terms of knowing yourself.

For example, if we are farmers, we first need to produce enough to feed ourselves and only then sell any surplus we may have, rather than just growing crops for sale or export, which could lead us to lose everything when demand stops.

Since Thailand has undergone several economic crises, it’s important for us to know what is sufficient. [The SEP states that] we have to exercise moderation, be reasonable and have ‘self-immunity’ – the ability to survive even if our products cannot be sold. And to uphold these three principles, we have to have both knowledge and integrity. 

The SEP emphasises that while Thailand will remain open to the outside world through trade and investment, we have to know ourselves and be modest – to enjoy life within our means. During the economic crisis of 1997, Thai banks and investors held a lot of foreign debt, so when the value of the Thai currency declined, the price of those loans [shot up]. The SEP is in part intended to prevent that from happening again, and might be something that could help the world economy develop in a sustainable way.