A few days ago, I was a panelist at a seminar aimed at helping Thai businesses to expand internationally. That’s what I do when I’m not traveling and writing. One of the questions got us talking about how you determine whether or not to do business with a particular person. It’s a natural question, but the Thai moderator had a hard time believing that there wasn’t a specific set of questions you could ask to help you figure this out.

His point of view was understandable. Thais have a highly formalized system for interacting with each other based on the age and class differences between any given two people. It’s a fundamental part of their language. To get along in Thai society, and to do business, you need to know your ‘place’ in the social hierarchy, which, while it isn’t ‘documented’ like the old Indian caste system, is nonetheless just as rigid and important to the culture. While some of the information needed to know your position relative to another person can be gleaned visually, to really be sure, you need to ask some key questions. You won’t find these questions written down anywhere, but every Thai child learns them from their parents, and knows them almost instinctively.

While Thai culture is not the only one where this condition exists, it is somewhat in the minority. While America is not a truly classless society, the differences between the classes are much more subtle and fluid, as well as subjective. In addition, class plays a only a very minor role, if any, in business dealings. As a result, Americans, along with most westerners, develop a more instinctive method of getting to know people and deciding whether or not to deal with them. It’s a rather haphazard system, and some people get better at it than others. I suspect that a common trait among successful people is that they’re better than average at judging people, even if they don’t realize it.

While Thais know, at least at an intellectual level, that westerners are different, they still have a hard time accepting that there are few, if any, rules governing interactions with people from other countries. At a loss to know who to trust, and with a high aversion to risk, few Thais have been successful in international business, and in fact very few even try.