What Bangkok tells us about Thainess 

The anniversary of Bangkok’sdedication as the new capital of Siam, observed once again this past April 21, is in coincidental but revealing near-juxtaposition with Songkran. The latter observation never fails to illuminate the nature of the city.
By the time we commemorate the day that King Phutthayotfa Chulalok, first of the Chakri monarchs, declared his burgeoning settlement on Rattanakosin Island to be the new capital for a resurgent Siamese kingdom, the city has returned to its usual boisterous hive activity. But in the week prior, year after year, it’s relatively much quieter, with so many of its inhabitants having dispersed to the upcountry provinces of their origins and ancestry for the long Songkran holiday. 
The perennial abandonment of Bangkok during this time explains how important the city is to Thai society. The annual Songkran mass exodus and the heaving return one week later are like an exhalation and inhalation, the vast community breathing in unity. All those people going out and coming back have homes and families and childhood memories somewhere other than Bangkok, but it’s Bangkok they’ve made their new home. They’ve moved to the capital for career opportunities and to sample and savour its pleasures and rewards.
The emptying of Bangkok each Songkran illustrates a deep-rooted, unbreakable national bond that some politicians choose to overlook in the interest of their own career advancement, which relies on parochial divisions, on the spurious claim that urbanites are irrevocably different from rural people, that one region is superior to another. Everyone who makes Bangkok his home knows this to be false, though, whether his roots lie in the capital itself or in the remotest village in Kalasin.
Everyone working in Bangkok need only glance around to see colleagues who have close relatives upcountry. The janitor’s parents live in Chiang Mai. The boss is heading back to Surin for a Songkran visit with his extended family. The man at the next desk declines an invitation to join in the water-soaked revelry downtown because he misses his mother in Prachuap Khiri Khan. This is the reality of Bangkok. The stories of a big-city elite ignoring or taking advantage of upcountry people, that’s just politics. And we trust what politicians tell us at our peril.
Your colleagues from elsewhere in Thailand who are doing well and getting promoted are doubtless the pride of their hometowns. They didn’t come to Bangkok worried their dreams might be cut short, but rather with well-placed confidence those dreams would be fulfilled. Bangkok, and not even its elite, are going to stand in the way of any Thai with talent and ambition.
Bangkok certainly has its flaws. Since being designated the capital in 1782, and chiefly in modern times, it has become Exhibit A in the case against poor urban planning. The remaining canals are mostly eyesores. Greenery vanishes far faster than it can be replaced. Pollution is worsening. Traffic remains horrendous.
But politicians whose agendas rest elsewhere have demonised Bangkok as the hub of government. They gloss over its refusal to impose unfair rural taxes and won’t acknowledge that inequities in budget allocation are rooted elsewhere. They refuse to see that Bangkok enjoys no greater privileges than any other country’s capital.
Like other big cities around the world, Bangkok is a melting pot economically, socially and culturally, but it uniquely upholds family bonds that tie the nation together.