Gregor Rasp   3 months ago
The "สนุก" (sanook) element is a strong motivator for Thais, along with socializing and maintaining or gaining a certain status within the group. To achieve widespread participation in GFF, making it a fun group activity is essential. Generate a level of excitement that captures everyone's attention. For it to gain popularity, everyone, including non-participants, should be aware of what GFF is. When someone tells their sedentary coworkers about participating in a GFF event, the couch potatoes have no choice but to blurt out an impressed "Wow!"
How do you do that? I don't know! Perhaps a local marketing professional could help out.

S. Sean Suvanadesa   4 months ago
@John F. Groom The sense of สนุก or fun doesn't have to mean it's applied 24/7 to everything that's done here. People in Thailand can still be industrious, and be in vocations that would probably be the opposite of what you might consider fun, but that's exactly the point. A lot of the of the things that people here have been doing to help build Bangkok into a world-class city were done with the purpose of building better lives for themselves. Much of it is done for self-preservation; these are things that Thais need to do to survive in Bangkok, it's either that or go back to their home province where there's less opportunity. While they may not choose their current vocation if they had the option, performing a Global Fast Fit routine is most certainly a choice. When not dealing with the drudgery of work, they'd like to have something fun to do hence the staff's comment of having people eat, shop, or vacation for a mass adopted contest.

Hence why I believe we're still in a fairly raw developmental stage for Thailand. What's a way to make Global Fast Fit fun and non-threatening that the average Thai wants to do it in the gym, after a football match, at home, etc. Some of the sports you mentioned like Muay Thai may not be fun for some people, but also not a huge chunk of the population are competing in it. People that are competing in it are most likely doing it as a vocation (some train and live at the Muay Thai gym starting at the age of 5), others may do it just to keep fit because maybe it's something they enjoy; it doesn't mean they'll go through all the rigors of an actual competing fighter though. As for the trail run, that also happens to be very specialized. Those involved in the trail run that might be doing it for pure enjoyment and not for competition won't go the full length and might just try a 15km track where the elements of nature aren't as harsh.

The retention of masks are something else in itself and I could write another blog post about it. To keep things short, mask retention is likely due to the social organization of Thai society. There are constant value judgments among Thais where they are evaluated by each other at all times on whether or not they are upstanding members of society. There are multiple criteria that constitute this such as เกรงใจ (kreang-jai) เอื้อเฟื้อ (Uea Phua) กตัญญู (katanyu) so on and so forth, the same way Ancient Romans had virtus, honoria, industria, etc. to evaluate a good Roman. Somehow, mask wearing has come to represent conformity to some of these values (you can argue for all of them), hence why they're still retained in some capacity.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is the idea of mass adoption of GFF in some capacity by the general populace which seem to value some form of สนุก in their lives. Physical activity, especially physical activity that falls under the HIIT category may not be the most สนุก thing that people try here after a hard day's work or on a day off. How does Global Fast Fit become สนุก enough so that people aren't intimidated by it? It doesn't have to go down the same route that skateboarding or hula-hooping once did here, but how do we get to where if people do try it, that it isn't just a one-off? Some of the fitness organizations that we've been dealing with have been providing some solutions on how they've been handling this very same issue, so I'm very keen on implementing some of their strategies.

John F. Groom   4 months ago
Interesting. I wonder if this is true, or just the common mainstream perception. I've spent a fair amount of time in Thailand, and to me the evidence has been very mixed. Yes, they have a sense of fun, in terms of the widespread use of nicknames, even naming their kids after brands of beer they like. And they celebrate every sort of holiday. Yet Bangkok has emerged from a third world back water when I first visited in 1985 to a world class city now; with first class hospitals, shopping malls, hotels, etc. That doens't happen from a bunch of happy go lucky fun seekers. And Muay Thai, the sport for which Thais are best known internationally, is no fun loving joke. In promoting GFF what we've found are some very intense middle aged women who do things like 48km trail runs in the mountains. Not my idea of "fun". And Thais have held on to face masks long after everyone else in the world has given them up. Again, not my idea of sanook.