Common culture of Thailand and Malaysia: thread of brotherhood

Abstract

People and communities in border areas between countries were once without boundary lines, like brothers and sisters of the same womb and vintage, sharing food and vicissitudes of life, and enjoying a closeness like a pair of strands woven together. Then came the system of area and national demarkations to place people in units of government with set territorial perimeters. The brothers and sisters once having shared the same life one and all came to be married off, and were bound to conduct themselves, as good members of a family should, with tolerance toward in-laws and their cultures, which were accepted into the original culture with some cementing, adapting, and varying. Each new family developed its own unique characteristic from the initial common base which, profound and linking, subsequently became diversified through generations of descendants. Such is descriptive of the Malaysians and the Thais.