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Published on January 21, 2008

Siam Square is more than just a place to shop for Bangkok's younger crowd - it's a stage on which they can show off. And they tend to do this in three distinct groups. Sociologists could have a ball.

There are an estimated 20,000 people at Siam Square on weekdays and 50,000 on weekends, and they not just there for the stores, cinemas and restaurants but for tuition courses as well.

And then there are those who carve out their own zones. Some are looking for trouble, but most are not.

The dek To - the Toyota kids - hang out in front of the Internet cafe Style by Toyota, which the car-marker sponsors. It's at the end of the block between Sois 2 and 3.

Then there are the dek Swensen, usually clustered in the alley next to the ice-cream shop across the street.

The dek Point have staked out a spot near the now-closed Centre Point on Siam Square Soi 7.

Among the dek To is Emmy, an 18-year-old gay lad who attends a top public school in the area. Still wearing his school uniform, he's in Siam Square for a little while every day after classes, getting something to eat and doing some homework. On weekends he hangs out with about 10 buddies to check out the other guys and, often, heckle young passers-by.

"All the bad kids know me," he laughs behind well-curled eyelashes. But he's planning to study mass communications and then try and get into show business.

Adults tend to view all the kids hanging out in Siam Square as raeng - the kids' own word for coolness that's earned through displays of toughness. But, as in everything, there is a hierarchy.

The dek To think they've got coolness sewn up. A lot of them have had their pictures in magazines like a Day and on websites like Dekdee.com.

The dek Swensen are derisive of them, believing they "try too hard".

An outsider would need instructions to see the distinctions among the groups, but the members have no problem.

"We can tell just by looking," says Poy, a 17-year-old student at a private girl's school who's with the dek Swensen. She admits it's hard to explain, though.

For one thing, dek Swensen don't have straight hair. Poy's tresses - long and dyed brunette - are slightly curled.

Others in her group have more colourful and fluffier styles or keep it short.

In Poy's anthropology lesson, a dek To can be "promoted" to dek Swensen status. It just takes some gradual mingling - and presumably a trip to the hair salon.

On the scene from 4 till 11, Poy is always in and out of the nearby True Shop and Starbucks. In the latter, if she wants to sit for a bit, she has to buy something, so she'll ask for a cup filled with whipped cream. It costs next to nothing. Starbucks is good for a nap, so she'll buy a chocolate frappe.

Style by Toyota recently cracked down on kids hanging around out front and removed all the chairs. There'd been some brawling. So the dek To are currently scattered around among nearby cafes and restaurants.

Poy admits she doesn't do well in her studies but she's proud of the reputation she's earned fighting girls from other schools. "The more you fight the more famous you get," she says.

There have been stabbing incidents in the area, and sizeable brawls, as members of one group take an often-arbitrary dislike to the others or challenge their school colours. Violence might erupt every week or two, but weapons aren't common.

"It's always been that way with the kids here," says Pim, 43, who has a teenage daughter of her own now but used to hang out with her gang in Siam Square in her high-school days.

Picking up her daughter at Siam Square every day after her tuition class, Pim says it's hard to stop the youngsters from fighting. "The only thing you can do is tell them how best to survive the situation if they find themselves in one."

Chulaluck Prem-ocha had heard about the gangs and always accompanies her 14-year-old daughter when she goes there to meet friends on weekends

Still, Chulaluck, 44, sees a positive side to the young people who hang out in Siam Square together: "They love their friends and are always there for each other."

Do you have to fight to be raeng? Poy says no.

You have to fight to be "famous", she says, but you can be raeng just by being quietly very cool.

Vipanee Kanchanapinyokul,

Sirinya Wattanasukchai

The Nation