Thailand and Japan: A Connection Most Travelers Never Know About

Most travelers arriving in Bangkok have a practical understanding of the relationship between the two countries: Thai food is popular in Japan, the yen goes far in Thailand, and the two countries have been trading partners for decades.

What very few know is that the connection runs much deeper than commerce — and that understanding it changes how you experience Thailand as a traveler from Japan.

The only country in Southeast Asia that was never colonized

Thailand and Japan share something no other pair of Asian nations does quite the same way: both were the only countries in their respective regions to successfully resist European colonization.

By the end of the 19th century, virtually every nation in Southeast Asia had been colonized by a European power — the British in Burma, Malaya, and much of the subcontinent; the French in Indochina; the Dutch in the East Indies; the Spanish and Americans in the Philippines. Thailand — then called Siam — stood as the sole exception. Through careful diplomacy, strategic concessions, and the political genius of its Chakri-dynasty kings, Siam remained independent.

Japan, watching from across the Pacific, was undergoing its own transformation. After two centuries of deliberate isolation under the Tokugawa shogunate, Japan had been forced open by Commodore Perry's American fleet in 1853 and responded with the Meiji Restoration — the most rapid and comprehensive modernization in modern history. Japan transformed itself into an industrial and military power within a single generation.

Both countries understood themselves as having maintained their sovereignty in the face of Western pressure. Both looked at each other with a recognition that differed from how they looked at any other country.

The royal connection

The relationship between the Thai and Japanese royal families has been warm and long-standing, and it is visible in Bangkok if you know where to look.

King Chulalongkorn — Rama V, who ruled Siam from 1868 to 1910 and is widely regarded as the king who modernized the country and preserved its independence — visited Japan in 1897 as part of a grand tour that also took him to Britain, France, Germany, and Russia. The visit was not incidental. King Chulalongkorn was particularly interested in how Japan had managed its modernization while preserving its identity and sovereignty. The two countries shared a strategic interest in understanding each other.

That royal warmth has continued. Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko visited Thailand multiple times. The late King Bhumibol Adulyadej — Rama IX, who reigned for seventy years — was held in similar reverence in Japan as the imperial family. Thai children learn in school about the Japanese emperor. Travelers from Japan encounter a Royal Family whose prestige they intuitively understand.

Why this matters for travelers from Japan on the ground

The warmth Thai people extend to Japanese visitors is not merely a tourism service. It is rooted in a genuine historical affinity that exists below the commercial level.

I have noticed this over many years of bringing guests from Japan to Bangkok. The interactions between Japanese visitors and Thai people who know them — hotel staff, restaurant owners, market vendors — carry a quality of mutual recognition that goes beyond the standard hospitality-industry warmth.

Travelers from Japan, in turn, often feel more comfortable in Thailand than in destinations where the cultural distance is greater. The Buddhist tradition — shared by both countries, though expressed differently — provides a common reference point. The emphasis on hospitality, on saving face, and on the quality of an interaction rather than just its outcome — these values are recognizable on both sides.

A living example at the Grand Hyatt

Before we arrive at the Grand Hyatt Erawan, I tell guests that the hotel's staff are already familiar with Japanese guests. This is no accident. Bangkok's luxury hotel industry has a long history of training specifically for Japanese visitors. Executive Chef David Senna worked in Osaka for thirteen years and speaks Japanese — and I have often conversed with him in Japanese while surprised guests looked on.

The result is that, as a guest arriving at the Grand Hyatt, the experience feels different from a hotel in a city where Japanese visitors are unusual. You are not exotic. You are familiar. The staff know what you expect, and they know how to provide it.

The history is not separate from the travel

I do not lecture guests about Thai-Japanese history on the bus from the airport. But I do talk about it — in the context of the places we visit, the people we meet, and the food we eat. A cooking class at the Blue Elephant is richer when you understand Thai culinary heritage. The Royal Palace is more vivid when you know that the king who built its current form was in correspondence with the Meiji Emperor.

The history is not separate from the travel. It is the travel, if you know where to look.

Questions about Thailand, Japan, or the journey — reach us any time.
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