Mud Between The Toes

What can be more fun than a toe squishing expedition into the wilds of a summer mudflat?

It's the low season - fewer tourists - more beached excursion boats - and the hottest months of the year, April and May. The winds have changed, popular beaches experience high waves and the salt air is being blown in from the west, creating more humid conditions than usual. The temperatures stay relatively the same here year 'round, but the comfort level is worse through these two months.

The white speck in the middle of the above picture is A toeing it through a drab lookng seascape to photograph the colorful gems scurrying over the mud, such as the one below.

Is it any wonder that Thais favor bright colors? Vivid hues are everywhere, on land and at sea. Is it any wonder that all equatorial cultures favor bright colors?

Wai & Wai Not

Perhaps the most charming custom the foreign traveler to Thailand encounters is the wai, the prayer-like placing together of the hands, usually accompanied by a slight bowing of the head. It gives one the immediate sense of having landed in an exotic culture. Guide books provide perfunctory explanations of how the wai is used. It is a natural reaction of visitors encountering their first wais to reciprocate and, somewhat self-consciously, return the gesture, but it's not always the proper thing to do. The protocols are complex and they take a bit of getting used to.

The basics are simple enough:

1. Younger people wai elders upon greeting and a wai back from an elder is optional. Often, a smile and a slight bow is the returned gesture. It is considered very bad luck (seven years bad luck) for the younger person, if an elder wais someone younger first and Thais are super superstitious, so don't wai a younger person first (unless he's a monk, or an authority - I'll get to that).

Now, ya gotta love it... I mean... You want to manage a social system of respect through rewards? Easy - attach superstitions. Respect for your elders? Seven years bad luck if you don't. I don't know the prevailing thinking on this now, but there was a time when some Buddhists believed that only men could achieve nirvana, so women were encouraged to treat men very well in order to make merit and increase their chances of being reincarnated as men in their next life. It seems us men will dream up almost anything to maintain a hedonist lifestyle and keep the gender edge.

But I'm off the track. Back to the wai and wai not.

2. You should never wai anyone who you are paying for service, such as waiters, tailors, vendors, shopkeepers or taxi drivers (it makes you look a bit silly), but they will almost always wai you, as a sign of gratitude for your patronage. A returned nod will do. You also wouldn't wai your peers and friends, but when leaving a party, or other such gathering, you should wai everyone, as this is the polite way to excuse yourself.

3. Social status is indicated by the height of your wai and depth of your bow. There are different kinds of wais. The normal wai is with your hands pressed together at about chest level, presenting a slight bow with your body. The wai to a superior is with the tips of your fingers at nose level, still bowing your body. To convey the most respect and gratitude, you will wai with your fingertips at mouth level and present a deeper and longer bow.

Note: It's extremely difficult for a left-of-center westerner to adapt to the social status thing, so we tend to wai willy-nilly when we first get here and probably look ridiculous to the Thai eye. On the other hand, it's a better-than-nice feeling to receive respect simply because one has managed to live a long life (no matter how screwed up it may have been).

4. Always wai monks. Monks wai no one, not even the revered King. If you are receiving a gift from someone, wai before reaching for the gift (age doesn't matter when it comes to gifts). Wai immigration officials and other authorities.

(I was the only expat in our recent visa run group to wai the immigration officer when he stamped my passport. He was obviously pleased that I understood the protocol and he scrambled to return my wai, accompanied by a wide smile.)

The wai is a unique, graceful action practiced throughout Thailand. It plays a very important role in showing respect and is central to Thai etiquette.


The shape formed by the hands in making the wai is like the closed lotus bud, which is often offered to the Lord Buddha as a symbol of purity.

Um... perhaps not all wais have pure motives.

Kup Khun Krup

(Thank you for reading this post.)

Thai Sign Language

Imagine: An email address to the police for complaints about MacDonald's. How civilized.

Translations from language to language are clumsy affairs, even when the translators are adept and sensitive. Translations from a Roman alphabet, non-tonal dependent language, to a Sanskrit, very tonal system can be amusing and we get a few chuckles out of many of the signs written in English.

But don't get me wrong... I'm not poking fun here. I'm sure the laugh would be on me if I attempted to translate a Thai phrase into English. For instance: A common greeting in Thai is, 'Sabai Dee Mai?' It translates, literally, to, 'Feel good, not feel bad?' The correct English translation (keeping the sense of the greeting) would be the common, 'How are you?' If I tried to translate 'How are you' literally into Thai, I would end up with a nonsensical jumble that would certainly bring on smiles and a bit of head scratching.

Communication is crucially important to the tourist/expatriate economy of Phuket and Thais who are involved with foreigners on a daily basis (the vast majority) seem to deal with us in layers.

The first layer is pretty easy to manage. It is comprised of travelers who have a Thai phrasebook in hand - really unnecessary on this island, where most of the Thais tourists encounter speak enough English to provide their needs. (But if you move away from the tourist haunts, you had better keep that dictionary handy.) Most Thais speak a helluva lot better English than you speak Thai, and I think they prefer you spoke English, rather than trying to impress them with your beginner's Thai. They are doing business, after all, and could care less about your clumsy Thai (although they are far, far too polite to say so). Well... not always...

We had some keys made in Phuket Town a few weeks after we arrived. It's a bit off the typical tourist scene. After the fellow made the keys, A nodded to him and said, "Cup Khun Ca," the feminine for 'Thank you.' Well, the fellow looked a bit down his nose at her and said, in good English, "Yes, yes, you speak Thai," obviously tired of hearing non Thai speaking foreigners quoting from phrasebooks.

The second layer of the Thai/foreigner language thing is complex. Thais and foreigners who are living here for the long-term, and who are serious about learning the language, enter into small contracts of trying to help one another learn their respective languages. In the process, a clumsy kind of Thainglish is born. My sense of it is that the entire island, because of the large number of expatriates, is a language school. Thais appreciate and respect those who attempt to learn their language and it's a bit of an honorific when a Thai offers to help you learn their language. Many, if not most, foreigners don't bother learning more than the basics, because, as I said, one can get by easily, albeit clumsily, with only English.

And then there is the top layer: It hosts the foreigners who take the time to learn how to read and write Thai - maybe not expertly, but well enough to really know what is going on in this environment. It's our goal, but we have miles to travel before getting there. In the meantime, we are caught in the limbo of smiles, gestures, dictionaries and Thainglish.