Loud Thai ceremonies and parties get shut down by police and organizers blame foreigners

This is about something that has recently hit the social media complaints about foreigners living in Thailand and on this particular one, I am actually going to side with the foreigners because they are correct.

The story goes that Thai people are saying that foreigners are ruining their "cultural ceremonies" by alerting police and having the events shut down because of noise complaints.

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The social media campaign hasn't really taken hold as of yet but there has been a lot of "us vs. them" going on as far as locals kind of having a problem with the large expat populations are concerned.

This new campaign claims that the Thai events are "targeted" by foreigners to have them shut down but not having foreign events shut down for the same reason.

yeah, I'm gonna call bullshit on that.

Let me tell you a little bit about what the average Thai party is like.

I don't know what compels them to do so but almost any Thai event involves a sound system that would probably be ok at a Metallica concert, but otherwise is much more powerful than an event of that size would ever need. This could be anything, a festival, a birthday party, a wedding, or even a funeral. These sound systems get carted in and the absolutely blast it, normally with something particularly awful like karaoke. This continues until everyone gets too drunk or the police are inundated with complaints, whichever happens first.

The social media posts, which were intentionally (I think) made in English as well, go like this.

“Thais hold events and foreigners come to shut down almost every one of them, calling the police. If this keeps up, there will be no more open-air Thai-style events left, only foreigner parties. It wasn’t even 10pm and it hadn’t reached midnight

This is in relation to a recent open-air event that took place in Koh Pha Ngan, an island with a very high expat population compared to the rest of the country.

I don't believe them when they say that it wasn't that loud because after nearly a decade of living here, I can assure you, it was very very loud and I can say that with certainty even though I was not there personally.

The Thais are claiming that these are cultural experiences that the Thai people have practiced for generations but once again, I have to call BS on that. Generations ago we didn't have massive speakers to blast in all directions at explosive volumes. I also seriously doubt the claim that it wasn't even 10pm.

I was once at a wedding and there were many other foreigners there and we were all complaining to one another that we had to shout to even be able to hear one another at the same table. The Thai people, for some reason, seem to be immune to this excessively loud party that is going on. Since one of the people getting married was a foreigner, we were able to politely ask if they could maybe turn it down a touch so that we didn't have to have our ears bleeding while attempting to hang out and celebrate our friends' wedding.

When it was turned down nobody really even noticed. It's not like the Thai people were insulted. I don't think they wanted it to be that loud either but they are just accustomed to it always having been that loud at any of the events they had attended in the past.

I think that this is one of those things that actually annoys everyone, Thai and foreigner alike, but to some people, it has always been this way. I don't think it is too much to ask for people to be respectful of their neighbors and maybe keep the party at a reasonable volume.

There are noise laws in this country as well as a certain time where the noise has to stop without a permit. This push on the part of the people who are putting this on social media that foreigners are somehow interested in shutting down "all Thai cultural events" is pure nonsense. What the foreigners are doing is quite sensible actually, they just want to have some peace and quiet in their lives. If the people organizing these events were less selfish, there would be no reason for the police to get involved.

I am reminded about the time that I was in college and loud parties would get shut down by the police on a regular basis. There was no "targeting" going on, the residents were just wanting us to be sensible, but we were young and selfish so the police needed to get involved.

I don't like that everything these days seems to spiral into an internet campaign to spread hate towards something and in this case that is exactly what the people making these posts are doing.

While some people are taking the rage-bait, there is also a counter-argument that states that amplification at a level that disturbs the peace is something that people are entitled to complain about regardless of nationality.

I don't believe this is a cultural thing at all. I believe it is just that some people don't take into account that what they are doing might be fun for them but at the same time it is an annoyance to anyone not involved and to me, that transcends nationality. I don't think that culture has anything to do with it.

If it did, you can be assured that the police would definitely side with the Thais if they could. The fact remains that these people having the parties were breaking the law, if they weren't, the police wouldn't be able to do anything.