Jatsada and Birte Chuychunu _ hoping to explode racial stereotypes and break down cultural barriers.

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       Siam Heute, a new, bilingual magazine due out in March, aims to educate its readers about the cultural differences between Thailand and Germany, say its publishers, Jatsada and Birte Chuychunu. The periodical, whose title translates as "Siam Today", will be on sale here for 100 baht.
       Birte, formerly an editor at a German newspaper, will head the editorial team while Jatsada, her husband of nearly two years, will be MD. "I believe it'll be the first German-Thai magazine of its kind because we'll be focusing on local folk and culture-based stories," notes the soft-spoken German.
       "We won't face any language barriers either because our staff consists of both Germans and Thais. That'll give us the liberty to cover a wide spectrum of culturally infused stories. For the first year the magazine will be out every three months; after that it'll become a monthly. The content will be 50% Thai stories and 50% German. Instead of direct translations, we'll provide summaries of each story [in the other language]."
       Birte says she experienced life in Thailand up close during the five years she was being courted by her Chumphon-born husband-to-be, while Jatsada, who attended university in Germany, feels he has a thorough knowledge of German culture. He is confident that the concept of Siam Heute will make it attractive to sponsors since they'll benefit from having their products advertised in two countries rather than one.

What will make your magazine different from others with a similar concept?
BIRTE: To begin with, Siam Heute will concentrate on the way of life of Thai and German people in their respective countries. We want to portray what makes them unique - their attitudes towards life, how they cope with difficulties, how they work and enjoy their leisure time. We don't want to just portray Thai-German couples.

What inspired you to start the magazine? JATSADA: The decision to launch Siam Heute was largely due to the immense interest Germans and Thais have shown in each others' culture and way of life. In terms of tourism, the German market is one of the biggest for Thailand, while the number of Thai visitors to Germany has doubled over the years. According to the Thai embassy in Berlin, almost 60,000 Thais are currently living in Germany, which is Thailand's biggest European trade partner. [But] Germans who take holidays in Thailand and Thais who travel in Germany only get very brief impressions of each others' culture.

What is your target audience and how do you intend to distribute the magazine? BIRTE: We don't want to focus on any one group. To reach readers in Germany we'll be distributing our magazine in restaurants and in shops which sell products from around Asia. Most of the potential buyers won't necessarily be married to Thais. This isn't a magazine for Germans married to Thais; we're focusing on setting ourselves apart by concentrating on ordinary people. If, through our stories, people can form a better picture of either culture, that'll be good. When mixed marriages break down it's often because one partner lacks an understanding of the other's culture.

Khun Jatsada, how big an impact do you think your magazine will have on Thai readers, and which topics would you, personally, like to cover? I hope Thai readers will learn more about the German way of life and German culture. I got to know Thai women who really thought that life in Germany would be like paradise; that all Germans were rich and that money would solve every problem. These women got disappointed after spending time in Germany. From personal experience I know that living there can be tough. If you want to have a comfortable life, you have to work hard - which is probably the same anywhere in the world; Germany is definitely no exception. Furthermore, I want to make Thai readers aware of the fact that Germany offers much more than quality machines, cars, beer and sausages. It has many towns and cities with historic buildings that have been preserved through the centuries. I'd also like to cover stories on the cultural differences between the various German regions - where people speak diverse dialects, eat varied types of food and live in homes built in an assortment of styles. Additionally, everybody should know about German history, should learn from their mistakes and consider the enormous progress that they've made since World War Two.

Birte, will you be covering topics related to marriages between German men and Thai women? A lot has already been written on this subject so we believe it'd be more interesting to do a story, say, on a German woman living in Bangkok with a Thai husband - a situation you rarely see covered in magazines. As I'm interested in profiling the lives of ordinary people, we could do articles on everybody from taxi drivers and food vendors to university rectors and seasoned expatriates in Thailand.

Khun Jatsada, is there a single cultural difference between Thais and Germans which you'd like to highlight? That Germans prefer privacy while Thais feel uneasy about being alone. If they [Germans] travel, they do so as a couple or even go on their own. Even travelling in small groups is rare for them. Thais, on the other hand, find it difficult to understand why anyone would prefer to be alone. My wife is no exception. Every time we're in my home province of Chumphon, I have to explain to my family that we don't want to spend our entire vacation with them; that we'd like to have some privacy as well. I've explained to my wife that Thai society isn't used to loneliness. Thus when family members come to see us in Bangkok, they usually come in groups of five to eight people.

Each way of life has its own advantages but it's necessary to be aware of these differences if you want to get along with people from another culture.

To contact the writer, send an email to yvonneb@bangkokpost.co.th.