Hailing from the dreary depths of England, I have come to both embrace and resent American pop culture. With the rise of Starbucks in the UK, the concept of ‘going for a coffee’ became second nature to many, but I never bought into it, and came to despise the pointlessness of it all. In Bangkok, much the same is occurring. The obligatory KFC, McDonalds, Burger King and Subway options are ever present. The embracement of these establishments in Thailand is astonishing. Eating in McDonalds in the UK is a dirty and repulsive experience, but in Bangkok it is clean, cute and respectable.

What is concerning is the powerful embrace of all things ‘USA,’ as if Thailand’s youth culture is, in some part, turning its back on its own heritage in favor of the MTV experience. Hip hop music, street fashion, club culture, fast food – there is an almost frantic desire to converge with American ideals. Hearing young Thai people greet each other with ‘what’s up’ is confusing.

My resentment of this apparent invasion is clearly invalidated by my own eating, shopping and living habits. Nonetheless, the resentment exists. Never one to settle in Starbucks for any unnecessary length of time, I find myself in the establishment, curious to see what Thai people get out of this American initiative.

I sat down and ordered the smallest possible mocha, with the intention of spending the longest possible time in the coffee shop on the ground floor of Siam Paragon. This would surely be a good way to rebel against the corporate monster. My intention was to sit and watch people in order to see what they were doing, and then make fickle judgments about what they were thinking and why.

I am sitting. Watching. Waiting. The crowd is mostly Thai, with a few white patches here and there. The air is one of calm, almost sedation. Starbucks is a void where time stands still. A young couple opposite my table sit immersed in a copy of Seventeen magazine. They are well dressed, trendy people. The girl smiles a beaming grin. The boy does not. They share one iced drink that seems to have taken an eternity to finish. He is holding the magazine, apparently in control. After some time, he proves that he can smile. They seem so happy together, as if Starbucks is the one place where their troubles are left outside.

Next to them is an entire Thai family: grandmother, father, mother, two sons and a daughter. This must be a day out. They seem settled and incredibly pleased with the idea of being in Starbucks. The teenage daughter seems uninterested, apparently resenting the fact that she has been dragged out of her world and thrown into this void where nothing seems to happen. The father sits outside the circle of people, spread-eagle, as if in a stance of achievement, drinking a very small cup of coffee.

Next to me is a man with a baby in a push chair. I smile at the baby, and then at the father, only to be met with a look of disgust, as if to say ‘Why are you here?’ The mother of the baby comes and the baby continues to stare. He seems to understand the situation.

Most of the Thai people are reading magazines. Starbucks seems to be a transcendental entity, thrown into Bangkok, and yet retaining everything about America that it has come to stand for. The idea of drinking coffee for no reason is alive and well and fully embraced.

A lady to the side is reading a magazine, except she is not really reading it, more staring blankly at the pages as they turn effortlessly in front of her face. In fact, nobody is actually reading – only looking. There seems to be a little less purpose here than in the Western equivalent.

One man is actually fast asleep underneath a newspaper in one of the arm chairs. Of all of the places to experience quintessential calm in Bangkok, Starbucks would not seem an obvious choice. One man, dressed predominantly in yellow, is sat. Not drinking. He is waiting. Not reading and not even talking to anyone. Alone and waiting. Everybody has been here for a long time. It is like another world where time is frozen. Somehow it feels wrong to be here. The yellow man continues sitting, motionless.

Some older people are bustled in together. They seem bemused as to where they are and why they are here. They do not understand what is happening and are looking around the room with great frowns. The soothing background music is not helping. Clearly there is a generation gap here. Those that have not succumbed to the delights of MTV and Jay-Z clearly see no reason to partake in such coffee drinking shenanigans.

A cliché sits on the couch. A young Thai beauty with two older Farang men. They are neither cool nor trendy, and it is difficult to see which one she is actually with.

The young couple are still reading Seventeen.

The young beauty is with the younger of the two men. Something about him is creepy. He is not a likeable character.

Astonishingly now, the boy who had been reading Seventeen is taking a nap. The girl is sitting, contemplating. The other man is also still asleep, underneath his newspaper. A quick glance around the room reveals that, in fact, most people are sitting, expressionless, or sleeping. The American dream is unfolding itself within the confines of this strange place. It is sucking people in.

I am surprised to see a Farang family walk in and sit down. They look well and truly out of place because this is Thailand’s own American dream. The Farang family is the exact type of family that it is easy to detest – two well-to-do parents with beige clothes and two sons, who look identical to their father in every respect. They are all wearing white socks, pulled up to the knee. Disgusting.

It has become apparent that the man underneath the newspaper has a girlfriend. She wants to leave, but is afraid to wake her boyfriend, and so she sits, on the edge of her seat, with a slightly alarmed look on her face. At this point it becomes clear that a man in front of me is staring my way. I have tried to disguise my observing by having an open magazine on the table in front of him. Perhaps these people are not fooled. This evokes a sudden rush of fear, followed by panic, followed by calm and reassurance – they are fooled.

The Farang – Thai couple seem happy together. She is smiling a lot, perhaps too much. The man is very smug. Perhaps someone should throw coffee over his shirt.

The congregation of older people is growing in size as more and more are ushered in by a young girl. There are so many of them. The girl is trying to organize the seating arrangements and suchlike. This is a strange place to bring a large group of old Thai people.

People seem to come and go, but inside the void nothing changes and the atmosphere is always exactly the same, with people adhering to similar routines. The man in the yellow is still sat pondering his own existence. The young girl is staring at the pages of Seventeen while her boyfriend sleeps. With the exception of one man, the people in Starbucks have been so engrossed in their own monotonous bubbles that not one of them has noticed that they have been stared at from the corner for hours now. With these thoughts, I decide to leave.

Did these people even like coffee? A Western mentality has been imposed on a Thai culture yet again, but what is clear is that those who have been exposed to this Western mentality are openly embracing it. The US, being the great behemoth of a nation that it is, is invading Bangkok and being welcomed with open arms by Thai youth groups.

When, quizzed, one source commented that America is the biggest and most powerful country in the world, and therefore it follows that this country should more or less dictate what is deemed as ‘cool.’ This seems to be the thought process that Thai people adopt when deciding which fashions to choose or which music to listen to. There is misconception that such a powerful nation must surely know what is best, and for these reasons there are unfathomable numbers of curious looking G-Unit clones walking around establishments such as Route 66 every night.

Another curiosity is the number of Thai people with American accents. Some are taught at international schools, some watch a lot of movies and some are educated in America. Increasing numbers of grants and scholarships are available for students to study abroad, and the most popular place to study is the US because of this perception of it being the ‘ideal’ country.

More and more of the Thai youth demographic is experiencing America first hand and returning fluent in (American) English, bringing back with them elements of the culture. America is the most obvious place to go. For some it becomes a reality, and for others it remains a dream, but either way, the fascination with the country is present.

Thai youth groups appear to be adopting Western (predominantly American) values. There is a confused ideology in Thai culture, part of which remains essentially Thai, with a large proportion rejecting Thai values in favor of conforming to the world’s most powerful nation. It is worrying to think that if this continues, Thailand may lose the very essence of what makes it different from the rest of the world. From an outsider’s point of view, individuality is important, and so the appeal of living in Bangkok begins to dwindle if the people are less interested in their own culture than the outsider.

Subway – opening on a street near you – SOON.