us have heard people throwing this
cliche phrase around with the hope of
others to embrace their individuality
and discover who they truly are however
I grew up struggling with what it means
to actually be yourself five years ago I
was in a tie school where I was
encouraged to be the same I had to put
up my hair in the same way as everyone
else I had to wear the same white shirt
I had to wear the same dark blue skirt
hats were the same black shoes it wasn’t
allowed to stand out in the crowd of
uniformity hi my name is pancake Hetrick
oh and even though I’m just a 17-year
old I share of experience with the idea
of collectivism living in Thailand so
what does collectivism mean collectivism
is the finance of principle of giving a
group priority over each individual in
it meaning that the individuals would be
embedded in their social context and
prioritized Comino goals over individual
goals this model by Hofstede back in
1980 has shown that countries such as
the United States Great Britain
Australia and Canada demonstrate high
scores on his individualism index while
countries such as China Pakistan
Venezuela Mexico in Thailand score
fairly low this index is measured by the
PDI or power distance index showing to
what extent is each country value
individual thinking Thailand scored a
low 20 in its in its individualism as
compared to America which scored higher
than 70 indicating that Thailand is a
collectivist society a positive aspect
the collectivist societies that people
are more willing to cooperate and work
together this allows the society to
generally be more stable as everyone is
taking care of each other and avoiding
direct conflict to not disrupt the unity
of this
thailand’s collectivism is evident by
its strong promotion of long term
responsibility to the family and
extended family loyalty is valued and
dominant overriding other communion
rules and regulations Thai society
prides itself for promoting strong
relationships such that everyone
respects each other and takes
responsibly for each other
constructing its reality based on social
interests rather than individual
interests however in the collectivist
society cons do exist
the cons include lost a personal self to
group greater emotional dependence of
individuals own group and less
individuals contributes into group
rewards when I think back to my
transition from rights high school to
eyes be Hofstede motto comes to mind it
is clear to me now that some of my
teachers and friends are from those
countries with high score and Hofstede
model when I first moved to eyes B I was
suddenly surrounded by people who value
individualistic traits this value is
completely opposite from the school I
came from and in the beginning I felt so
lost for example in my high school I
can’t even remember speaking or
presenting in front of an audience but
in middle school at ISB I was often
thrust into the spotlight and asked to
share my ideas and opinions in front of
a class of 20 people but Here I am today
standing on stage and speaking to all of
you and this is because individuality is
encouraged is B I am able to openly
express my opinion about a topic that I
am passionate about hence why I’m doing
this TED talk I never could have
imagined doing this five years ago let
me tell you about something that
happened when I was at my high school I
didn’t like the school uniform so I
decided to wear a different type of
socks
they weren’t really different but they
were however I continuously got into
trouble because I was wearing the wrong
type of socks as if socks would make me
not listen to the teacher as if socks
would make me not behave respectfully
and as if socks could define who I am as
a person just because my socks were
different I was seen as being wrong
since that experience questions popped
up in my head as I wonder how kids are
supposed to find their passion when all
they do is follow what has been done
before
Howard kid’s supposed to take risk when
they’re not encouraged to and how are
kids supposed to figure out who they
truly are when all they could be are
clones of each other in Thailand
emotional control ethics is expected as
for some people emotions can override
logical thinking that can lead to
negative response and loss of inner
peace
although emotional control can be a good
thing it means that we are not able to
openly express our feelings or opinions
this might mean that Thai kids can’t
fully be themselves in a rigid society
like Thailand a good child or a good
student is one who abides by the rules
in Thai culture people have been taught
to follow the rules and behaviors of
their ancestors this means that Thai
kids have the tendency to be more of a
follower rather than a leader in
contrast parents and teachers in a loose
society such as America tend to
encourage their children to explore the
world more meaning that there are more
independent and self-assured being
raised in Thailand I was often
encouraged to conform to societal norms
and expectations however as time passes
I realized that acting against the norms
is not always wrong now let’s take a
look at these famous and influential
people Steve Jobs Mark Zuckerberg Bill
Gates and Oprah Winfrey
what do all these successful people have
in common they all dropped out of
college in Thailand others suspect you
if you obtain good grades and graduate
from a good university however we have
seen numerous successful Western people
who dropped out of college and pursued
their true and passionate interests
thus the bias that Thai people have may
not be correct now let’s take a look at
a teapot paella dish upon earth up maybe
you won’t recognize him but maybe you
could recognize him by his famous series
net Tao Kae Noy when he was still 16
years old he was addicted to online
games and even though he was successful
at playing online games and winning
tournament prizes he was often
underestimated by his teachers at school
so he decided to drop out of school and
became US chess that pet alert when he
was 17 years old with the money that he
made from selling his chestnuts he went
on to create the product of Tokyo which
quickly became successful in Thailand
and was exported to Indonesia Malaysia
Japan Taiwan Singapore and the United
States well I’m not encouraging any of
you to drop out of school I am
celebrating the fact that thought was being an individual and