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Brawls between young female students became the talk of the Kingdom recently when a video clip of two female high-school students fighting in front of a crowd of cheering onlookers was forwarded and downloaded all over the country.

Is brawling a new malady spreading among Thai female students?

"Females are not as aggressive or as prone to use violence as males," says Jitra Dushdeemaytha, president of the Srinakharinwirot University Counselling Centre on Union Enrichment. "But in this case [the high-school students' fight], they were lured into it, and their natural instincts took over."

The students who witnessed the brawl were able to take advantage of the latest technology, like digital cameras in mobile phones, to record the fight and forward the clip around.

"There's nothing new about female student fights to me," says Jaew (not her real name), a fourth-year student in Bangkok. "It's not strange or new. It's been happening for ages, but it's suddenly become the talk of the town because of the video clips. Students are just having fun by sending and showing the video clips to others," says Jaew, who got in fights with other girls at least once a week when she was in high school, and sometimes every day for a week running. She's had fights on and off during her university years, but they're few and far between now because the friends who encouraged her to fight in high school have gone their separate ways.

"Some people might be able to restrain themselves and don't need to fight. But I can't let things go. If someone hurts me, I have the right to do the same thing back," says Jaew.

The fourth-year student explained the circumstances surrounding her most recent fight, last year. "I just didn't like what a classmate said to me. It felt like an insult. I couldn't tolerate it. I asked her to say sorry, but she refused. So I pulled her hair and slapped her face," says Jaew. The incident happened during lunch hour at a campus cafeteria as Jaew and a group of classmates were having noodles together. One of the classmates brought up the fact that Jaew had refused to pay the school's extracurricular activity fee of Bt600, adding that she should quit the school if she wasn't prepared to pay. One thing led to another and the fight started.

Some other lines that have been known to trigger fights between female students include: "I just don't like your face", "I don't like what you said", or the classic warning "Leave my boyfriend alone".

All-girl fights differ from the male variety in one important regard: whereas males seem happy to brawl on the street, in buses or just about anywhere they happen to meet, female students seem to have certain "fighting" rules. They arrange a time and place to meet. The selected battlefield could be a quiet corner of a park, or a school toilet block after school hours.

"Before beginning the fight we set the rule that it must be one-on-one combat. But normally we take friends along with us in case the opposite side gets other ideas," says Jaew.

Male students are notorious for producing guns, knives and other weapons, but female students are equally well-armed, says Jaew. "Some of my friends carry cutters, and sometimes even swords borrowed from their boyfriends," she says. "But I never carry a weapon. I just make sure that all 10 of my fingernails are always kept long and sharp."

The fine for students who get caught fighting by police is Bt500. In seven years of fighting, this happened to Jaew only once.

Experts blame violence among young Thais on a lack of EQ development (referring to emotional intelligence quotient) and a lack of morality, as well as misguided attitude in Thai society as a whole.

Jitra, the psychologist from Srinakharinwirot University, says many students these days lack patience and cannot control their tempers. Instead, they choose to use violence to solve their problems.

"Such behaviour is not acceptable. Teenagers can say they have the right to do anything but they must not forget their right to do good. That's [dee] the Thai 'D' meaning good - not the 'D' in the English-language grading system. When they can't control their emotions, they can't live or work with others," says Jitra.

Thai youth are taught to admire and praise public figures and to display something good about themselves. But some teenagers don't feel they have the necessary talent to be outstanding, so they choose to be different in a negative way.

"These kids don't feel ashamed when they do something wrong. In fact it makes them feel sophisticated. Their photos and stories are published in newspapers. The incidents they're involved in become big news, splashed on newspapers' front pages. And they're proud of their behaviour because they grab the public's attention. Some are even invited to talk on TV programmes. They think they're cool," says Jitra.

Preecha Gunteeya, director-general of the Religious Affairs Department, says the Thai education system emphasises academic performance and neglects the two most important elements - EQ and morality. "It's best to solve such problems with consciousness and wisdom," he says.

Jitra says: "We teach academic skills and provide our students with information and technological know-how. But they've never been imparted with life or social skills. They don't know that life is not a competition."

Schools and teachers alone are not to blame, says Dr Amornwit Nakhonthap, a director of the Ramjatti Institute and also head of research for the Child Watch project supported by the Thai Health Promotion Foundation.

"Teachers spend most of their time doing routine chores and performing daily responsibilities assigned by the Education Ministry. That gives them less time for other things. It's not right when society blames teachers every time a student has problems. A car needs four wheels to move from one place to another. It's the same with students. To help them move further along the road, students need help from all sides - family, media and society. A teacher is just one wheel," he says.

Suwicha Chanitnun,

Rojana Manowalailao

The Nation