The Power of 'Nong'

My first encounter with the word ‘nong’ was during my first dining experience at a restaurant in Bangkok with my wife. In my experience, Thai wait staff are very friendly and polite yet don’t have as much initiative you would enjoy in the U.S. If I need another drink or a new utensil, the wait staff usually never notice and I have to hail one down. The thing is, the standard hand raise or arm waving with an “excuse me” usually does not work in getting their attention, even as they walk right past you! On this particular day, after my few fruitless attempts to catch a waiter, my wife took over and nearly screamed the word “nong” at a nearby waitress. From my observation the waitress was surprised by being addressed this way and nearly tripped and fell as she tried to locate the source. She saw my wife’s raised hand, realized that it was her who called her, and hurriedly came to our table to attend to us. I was quite amazed at the response.

The response seems to be the same no matter which restaurant we are at or the age or gender of the wait staff. Whenever the word “nong” is said, it seems to send a jolt of attention to the wait staff - similar to a grazing deer that suddenly hears a noise and snaps it head up to locate the source. Some waiters stop abruptly in mid stride, while others nearly spill the tray in their hand. It seems to always get their immediate attention and prompt service. For a while though, I never used the word myself because I didn’t know the meaning and my wife didn‘t know either. It was just one of those things she picked up after living in Thailand for over a year. For all I knew, their reaction could have been because the word was derogatory, though they never seemed to be offended. After a little research, it turns out that the Thai word 'nong' has several meanings and can demonstrate friendliness, politeness and fondness.

Per The Grolier International Dictionary the definition of 'Nong'

1. a younger brother or sister
2. a form of address used by an older person to a younger person as a sign of a certain amount of friendliness or politeness
3. a polite form of address to someone serving you, such as a waiter or shop assistant, or someone in a similar position.

Basically it’s the English equivalent of saying the word ‘sir’ to a younger person(s) of customer service. It is a polite way to get address them and get their attention. I’ve never heard another foreigner use ‘nong’ so it must be a surprise to them when my non-Thai wife addresses them in this manner. This is the secret of ‘nong’. Now, it is quite amusing to witness the numerous foreign diners that get frustrated at their futile attempts to call for service - I was like that once.

It’s all about the power of ‘nong’!

Amber with one of the Thai waitstaff at The Blue Elephant restaurant

*For those interested, the Thai word ‘pee’ is the opposite of ‘nong’. The Thai word ‘pee’ means older brother or sister, and is the equivalent of ‘sir’ when addressing an elder or someone of higher rank or responsibility

Learning the Thai Language

As of this writing I have completed 3 series of Thai language classes and I am currently taking the 4th. Each class consists of twenty 3-hour days with homework and tests. The first and second class emphasize proper phonetics so that basic conversation skills are learned. The higher level classes teach the Thai alphabet, reading, writing, and various subjects of Thai culture. I am still amazed at the complexity of the Thai alphabet and writing system, yet at the simplicity of speaking. Here are some interesting points I have learned about the Thai language so far.
　
Tones
Initially, the most difficult aspect of the Thai language is to learn are the 5 different tones a word can have. The English language is non-tonal, therefore, most words have only one way to be pronounced. However, a Thai word can have 5 different ways of pronunciation, or tones - each with a different meaning. At first, all 5 tones sounded the same to me! However, with good teaching and practice your brain will learn to distinguish the subtle differences. One must be careful when listening and speaking Thai so that the intended meaning of the word is understood.


The five tones are:
Mid - the word has a neutral, flat pitch. All English is mid toned.
Low - pitch of the word goes down. Imagine a word that is trailing off…
Falling - pitch of the word goes up, then down. Think Doppler Effect - the sound of a train horn going up then down as it passes by.
High - pitch of the word goes up. Similar to the upward inflection when asking a question.
Rising - pitch of the word goes down, then up. The word has a dip to it.


For example, the Thai word “na” has 5 different meanings depending on the pitch and inflection used when speaking the word, as shown below.
　


A common Thai tongue-twister sayng the word ‘mai’ 4 times in a row (but with slightly different tones)

IPA - mai mài mâi mái
Thai - ไหมใหม่ไหม้มั้ย
English - “Does new silk burn?”

Check out this website for audio clips of the different Thai tones.
http://www.learningthai.com/tones/index.html
　

Thai sounds
Another interesting aspect of speaking Thai was learning how to pronounce new sounds. The most difficult new sound for me to learn was “ng”. English words such as ‘wing’, ‘long’, and ‘singer’ all have ‘ng’ sound at the end or middle of the word. No problem there. The hard part is starting a word with ’ng’. Instead of saying “singer”, remove the ‘si’ and try to only pronounce “nger”. Be sure not to pronounce it as “ner” or “ger”, the word must start with the ‘ng’ sound (and no cheating by putting a vowel in front). The trick is to use the back of your tongue to touch the roof of your mouth. Once you’ve mastered that, try out the 5 different tones with it.
A couple of other new sounds were ‘uh’ as in saying “uh-huh” or "about", and ’eu’ which is similar to ’uh’ but with more of a deeper, strained, grunting sound (reminds me of that Master P song, ‘make you say ‘uuhhhh’, nuh-nah na-naah).
　

The Thai alphabet - อักษรไทย
There are 44 consonants representing 21 distinct consonant sounds and 32 vowels. Similar to English, each Thai letter represents a sound. Thus, once you learn the sounds of each consonant and vowel you can begin sounding out words.

Thai Consonants

If you look closely at the consonant table above the you’ll notice that there are multiple Thai consonants having the same English letter equivalent. For example, the letter “T” in English represents one unique sound. However, there are 6 Thai letters that represent the same “T” sound. Even though the 6 Thai letters sound the same, they are uniquely written and fall into one of the 3 different classes of Thai letters. These different classes of letters determine the tone of the following vowel which gives the word it’s specific meaning.

Thai Vowels

As shown above, an interesting aspect of written Thai is that vowel symbols can be written above, below, before, or after a consonant, and some vowels are a combination of 2 or more symbols! Additionally, there are five tone marks that can be written above a letter. Thus, it is no uncommon for a Thai word to have a tone mark written above a vowel which is written above a consonant. Fun stuff! Finally, there are the many exceptions to the already confusing rules and the special cases that aren’t worth mentioning now.

The actual writing of the Thai characters isn’t that bad at all. The characters are fairly simple to draw. The difficult part was memorizing how to sound out and write the ridiculous amount of letters (66 total). It took about 2 weeks of class to memorize how to write the 44 consonants and half the vowels, and another 2 weeks for the remaining vowels.
　

Grammar and Sentence Structure
Now comes the easy part. The Thai grammar and sentence structure is so easy that once you learn a few words you can easily formulate sentences and actually communicate without sounding like an idiot. Here are a few of my observations.


- There is no formal punctuation used in Thai. Brackets, quotation marks and exclamation marks can be used in the same way as in English. Commas and periods are rarely seen.


-Written Thai words are not separated from each other and the letters generally flow uninterrupted until the idea changes. If you look at the newspaper or a book, it just looks like a bunch of long strings of Thai letters.

ผมพูดภาษาไทยได้นิดหน่อย - "I can speak a little Thai"



- The verb “to be” is not spoken. English words such as ‘the‘, ‘am‘, ‘are‘, and ‘is’ are implied.

English
The man is at the bathroom
Thai
man at bathroom

English
Where are your shoes?
Thai
your shoe where?
　

- Verbs are not conjugated. They do not change with person, tense, voice, mood, or number

English
I eat rice
Thai
I eat rice

English
They drank beer
Thai
They drink beer already

English
He stumbles to the bar
Thai
He stumble to bar (now)


-Adjectives follow the word they modify

English
The glass of red wine
Thai
Glass wine red

English
The red glass of white wine
Thai
glass red with wine white

English
The woman with long hair
Thai
Woman have hair long

English
The food was delicious
Thai
Food delicious already


-Although there is a Thai word for “very”, emphasis can be created by simply repeating the adjective

English
A fat dog
Thai
Dog fat

English
This dog is very fat
Thai
This dog fat fat
This dog fat very
　

As in most countries, most Thai people appreciate and enjoy it when foreigners are able to speak a little bit of their language. On more than one occasion I have shocked and impressed a Thai person when I try to speak to them. One time I was getting my hair cut and the barber asked if I could speak Thai. I busted out with my 2 months worth of Thai learning and he was so blown away at how I could pronounce certain words that he said the hairs on his arms were raised! (he showed me too). I am a long way from speaking fluently, but I can get the gist of most conversations. I probably have the equivalent vocabulary and reading skills of a 3rd grader. All in all, learning the Thai language has been challenging and enjoyable. The speaking aspect is fun and not too difficult to get a hang of. The reading and writing is a bit more challenging and it seems to exercise a part of my brain that is rarely used. Now that I know most of the basic writing rules, the pieces are slowly falling into place. It has become less of a chore to read and write and more of a challenging game or puzzle. I would highly recommend a class in basic Thai conversation skills for anybody planning on living in Thailand for an extended period of time.

Muay Thai Boxing

Muay Thai, also known as Thai Boxing, is the National Sport of Thailand. It is a type of martial art that utilizes punching, kicking, elbowing, kneeing, and grappling techniques within close quarters. Muay Thai has been an interwoven part of Thai history for hundreds of years that originally developed as a type of self-defense against foreign invaders. Over time it became a rite of passage for Thai men to take up training in this martial art and it even became required as part of military training. Muay Thai, along with soccer, is by far the most passionately followed sports in the country. There are numerous training centers and schools throughout the country where fighters start training as young as 7 years old with the ultimate dream to fight in one of the two famous boxing stadiums in Bangkok, Lumpini or Ratchadamnoen.

To see what the hype was all about, I decided it was time to experience my first Muay Thai match. We arrived at Lumpinee stadium about 30 minutes before the night fights began. The ticket window was closed but there were plenty of ticket agents walking around ready to make a sale. The agent informed us of the price, 2000 baht for ringside seats and 1500 baht for regular seats. She showed us inside the stadium so we could look for ourselves. My first impression was that this is the type of place I would expect to see secret, underground cockfighting to take place. The stadium was covered with low walls. Naturally, there was a boxing ring in the middle. The ringside seats were nothing more than 3 rows of plastic chairs along the 4 sides of the ring. Shortly beyond the ringside seats was a chain-linked fence where behind it was the regular seating consisting of wooden benches that makes a general bowl shape up the farther they are from the ring. There seemed to be much less lighting in this area as well. We quickly decided to pay the extra 500 baht for the ringside seats.

One note on ticket pricing – the price of Muay Thai tickets are different for Thai people than for non-Thai people. Non-Thai people must pay 4 times more per ticket than a Thai person! It is blatant discrimination, and of course it is very legal. This is Thailand we’re talking about, where it is not uncommon to see job ads in the newspaper specifically seeking workers that are young, female, and beautiful. I think the assumption is that most non-Thai people that will watch Muay Thay are tourists with money to spend. Also, the better fights are scheduled during the week rather than the weekends so that they cater to their Thai audiences.

We ended up getting front row ringside seats because of our early arrival. Here is one noticeable sign we saw in English. I suppose it’s not honorable for a woman to be in the ring?

Before the fights begin, they play the national song and we all stand to pay our respect to the King. Next, the first pair of boxers enters the stadium and get in the ring. Before each fight, both boxers perform their own unique dance to pay respect to their trainers.

Both fighters are performing their pre-fight ritual, called “Wai khru ram muay”.

So the first fight began, and the one thing that stood out was that these fighters were just kids! They looked to be about 12 to 14 years old weighing around 100 pounds each but carrying six-pack abs on them! While they didn’t show as much grace and power as the adult fighters, they were throwing around some vicious looking kicks and knees that left no question that these kids could kick my butt!

We were sitting near one of the ring corners and could see the fighters getting prepped for the next round and coached by their trainers. A Muay Thai match consists of 5 rounds that are 3 minutes each. Points are scored through execution of strikes and other techniques as observed by 3 judges. A match is decided by a knockout or by points.

During the fighting, there is a band that plays some sort of traditional music. This serves the same purpose as the soundtrack of a movie or television show in that it cues the audience about the emotional intensity of the events. As the fighting becomes more active or violent, the music increases its tempo and the audience gets louder. The whole thing creates an atmosphere that is unique in a sporting event - it is why fans pay money to see sports live rather than watch in on television.

The video above shows two fighters dancing in the ring as time was running out in the last round. I suppose the exhausted fighters were killing time until the final bell rang.

As we progressed through the 9 scheduled matches, the age and skill level of the fighters also increased. Knockdowns were more common and blood was even drawn on a couple of occasions.

As the night continued with better fights and more alcohol, the atmosphere became more lively and charged. The crowd would cheer and yell each time a fighter landed a hit. Looking at the stands between rounds, I noticed it was packed of people - mostly men that were drinking and smoking. I saw a lot of gambling going on with people madly waving their hands signaling their bets and discreetly passing money. Even the people with ringside seats were thoroughly enjoying the matches. There is nothing quite like a sports arena in a developing country filled with enthusiastic fans. The madness of it all is that we are all watching the spectacle of two people trying to hurt one another. Good stuff.

Excited fans during a particularly good match.





This fighter got knocked down with a couple of knees to the chest. Ouch!





Presentation of the main event fighters.





Top level fighting from the main event.

After the main event was finished, they formally presented the two fighters with their checks. There was one more mediocre fight afterwards but half the crowd had left already. The overall experience was very interesting. I didn’t expect to be entertained very much because watching live fighting really isn’t my thing. But I was pleasantly surprised at how captivating and thrilling it is to watch people fight each other amongst a crowd of people cheering and yelling. Though I admit that I feel a bit guilty about it as well. Muay Thai is a unique style of fighting that is brutal yet carries traditional aspects with the live music and pre-fight dancing. Having gone through the experience, I recommend that all visitors of Thailand, even those that don’t regularly watch fighting, attend a live Muay Thai match. It is an interesting aspect of the Thai culture that is best experienced in person.

Happy Thai New Year - Songkran Festival

The Thai New Year is celebrated by the 3 day Songkran Festival from April 13th to April 15th (although some cities hold the festivities a week before or after the official date). Traditionally, the festivities are supposed to be a low key affair. Friends and family pour small amounts of water and dab the face with a flower-water mixture as a token gesture to bring good luck, comradeship, and cleansing for the new year. It is a time to pay respect to elders and monks with food and gifts, as well as cleansing of one’s home with a “spring cleaning”.

While these traditions are still maintained, the modern festivities of Songkran have transformed into 3 chaotic days of brutal water fighting, partying, and mayhem. The traditional practice of pouring SMALL amounts of water and DABBING the face with a flower-water mixture has been taken way out of context. Every man, woman, and child in the country is armed with a water gun and/or a bucket of clay-like mix ready to douse the nearest person with water and smear their face or body. Anything that moves is an open target – people, cars, motorcycles, and animals alike get victimized.

Here, in the Silom district of Bangkok, masses of people are aimlessly meandering the streets dousing each other. There is music playing in the background to jam to and plenty of food stalls to stop by for a snack or drink. The street vendors sell all sorts of water guns ranging from Winnie the Pooh toy shooters to the more serious super soakers, as well as plenty of bottled water to replenish the spent ammunition.

More chaos in the Silom district.

A popular Songkran activity to do is to pack a bunch of friends with lots of water guns and buckets in the back of a pick-up truck and cruise the streets throwing water at everybody. These are the hard-core Songkran nut jobs to be wary of. They typically have a 55 gallon drum of water to share between them and have no shame slowing down or stopping in order to repeatedly throw buckets of water (sometimes with ice!) at unsuspecting targets.

I wouldn’t dare drive a motorcycle during this chaos. This poor KFC motorcycle delivery guy couldn’t escape getting sprayed.

More people on motorcycles getting sprayed. Unfortunately, this is where the dark side of the festivities comes into play. According to the Bangkok Post, the 2009 festivities produced 2,468 auto accidents resulting in 2,658 injuries and 220 deaths. Most were alcohol related, but some were directly caused by impairment due to water and/or clay mix thrown onto the vehicle or driver. I personally witnessed people throwing buckets of water at cars and motorcycles that were going at least 40 mph.

The white, clay-like mixture is covering this guy and his motorcycle. Man, I’d be pissed!

The popular motorized 3-wheel open air taxis known, as “tuk-tuks”, are a favorite target.

I decided to observe the festivities first hand, but of course I ended up getting soaked by passer-bys on the street along with this gang of revelers.

Getting my face painted by a random Thai person. The shirts we are wearing are the traditional festive Songkran shirts marked by their bright colors and flowery design.

All in all, the Songkran festival is not so unlike some of the Western Holidays in that the original meaning has been somewhat lost so that the holiday is used more as an excuse for commercialism and partying. The generally atmosphere is very festive. A lot of fun is to be had, and getting soaked during these scorching hot days isn’t too bad. So it’s goodbye to the year 2552, and hello to 2553 (based on Thai solar calendar, you can google it). Happy Songkran to Thailand, or as they say, “sa-wat-dee pee mai” (Happy New Year).