Eavesdrop

Like most blonde pre-teens from the suburbs my sister, Claire and I couldn't wait to get cornrows during our 2003 Spring Break trip  Mexico. Claire and I were too shy to practice our mediocre Spanish with the less-than-friendly ladies braiding our hair, so we just listened in silence as they talked shit about us. Arguably their lowest blow was to Claire. My sister's stringy adolescent hair reminded one of the women of a cat's, "tiene pelo como un gatito" "she has hair like a kitten."

Eavesdropping can hurt! At the end of the braiding session, I indicated that I had probably understood most of the ladies' banter, by asking, in decent Spanish, what the total would be. At the time I was sure the ladies were mortified. They probably weren't.

Som Tam, or papaya salad. Let's talk about it.

Eavesdropping can be fun! Listening-in on people speaking another language yields the juiciest gossip; I make a point to listen in on everyone speaking Spanish in public places. It was exciting when I finally knew enough Thai to spy. I was sure I would gather licentious tidbits of people's personal lives. Not the case.

Recently on a long bus ride, I was picking up on a loud conversation from behind me. "...mai chop! mai chop leui!" "...I don't like it! I don't like it at all!" This kind of yelling conversation was what I'd been waiting to eavesdrop on since I got to Thailand. What doesn't he like? What inspired this kind of passion?. Is his lover cheating on him? Is this women next to him the mother of his unborn bastard child?

I didn't have to wait long to get my answer. The yeller's female companion fervently agreed that the papaya salad they had for lunch at the bus stop was not very good.

And this is as good as Thai-language gossip gets. Listening-in on to the locals, you will mostly hear snippets about things you eat with rice, because that is what people talk about. Spicy shrimp soup, green papaya salad,  fried pork, sweet green curry, this is what the people talk about. It's like Eleanor Roosevelt says and, "Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people; and Thai minds discuss food."

So if you're hoping to pick up some juicy foreign language gossip the next time you're out and about, I suggest you learn Spanish.

Soom-Saam

I'm clumsy, like this elephant that fell in a hole.

In terms of frequency, Soom-Saam, is in my top ten Thai words. It means clumsy and I say it at meals when I spill my water, at work when people comment on my latest bruises, and when I'm veer my bike off the rode while trying to read a Thai sign.

The clumsy friend who taught me this word said it will be the most useful thing my Thai vocabulary, he was right. It actually captures my essence. I've always been clumsy, but lately I've really stepped up my game. I haven't gone a whole meal without spilling in weeks. From all of my bruises you would think I either had an abusive boyfriend or didn't eat enough bananas. Neither is true.

My theory is this: just living my life in Thailand takes so much concentration that I don't have any left for simple things like not falling. By the time I go to work, come home, and feed myself, my concentration reserves all used up and I'm doomed to jam my knee in an excerisize machine.

Bad at Thai Day

On a Good at Thai Day you can’t stop me. My meh might make something aloi for breakfast. I ask her about it and we have a nice little exchange. I get on my bike and wave to everyone in my community on my way to work. I may have useful conversation about Thai Welfare and the problems facing youth in Sukhothai. I tell a joke to my coworkers and we all crack up. My ego swells, there’s nothing I can’t understand. But…if I don’t understand the old “smile and nod” fools everybody.

On a Bad at Thai Day the “smile and nod” isn’t fooling anybody. A lousy conversation in the morning sets the tone for the days when I can barely speak at all. On these days I worry I may not even be able to order my ice coffee- which is such a frightening prospect I’m stricken by paralysis. 

I assumed the learning curve for language acquisition was mostly linear. I didn’t expect a curve that yielded days when I feel almost fluent and days when I can’t get my own coffee order. It's a whole new kind of tedious.

Last Monday- when I wrote most of this post- was a Bad at Thai Day. Last Tuesday was a Good at Thai Day. The week overall was a mixed bag. With no way to predict what kind of day I'll have, I just  hope the Bad Days become fewer and the Good Days become frequent.

A Sanitary Rubber Bag

As someone who used to sleep with a linguist I'm very interested in the co-development of language and culture. It's fascinating how a culture meets it's lexical needs and in turn how the vocabulary that is created further shapes the culture.


 Some may have heard my favorite example of this idea (because I talk about it all the time). Us gringo-farangs, generally think that your future lies ahead and your past is behind. For me this cultural bias wasn't challenged until I studied Quechua. In Quechua, the word  for future shares a root work with the word for behind and conversely the word for past shares a root word with forward. I don't pretend to understand all of the cultural implications of this paradigm but I'm guessing Back to the Future is not an intriguing film.

After a month in Thailand I don't feel ready to make sweeping judgement about the Thai language either, but I'll share an interesting observations. Thai is a mono-syllabic language, meaning that most simple ideas have one syllable words. More complex thoughts are made into words by stringing together several simple words. Here are some of my favorite Thai compound words (so far) broken down for you. Note that it may be impossible to over-emphasize the cultural importance of the first term on this list.



Meal- กินข้าว
gin-khaao- eat rice


Condom- ถุงยางอนามัย
thoong-yaang-a-naa-mai- sanitary rubber bag


Ice- น้ำแข็ง
nam-khaeng- hard water 


Economics- การแจกจ่าย
gaan-jaaek-jaai- the activity of exchanging money


Telephone- โทรศัพท์
toh-ra-sap- remote vocabulary

Nap- นอนเล่น
naawn len- play sleep


Development- เจริญก้าวหน้า
ja-reern-gaao-naa- to take a step towards progress