About Communication; Mai Thong, Mai Sabai

Sometimes you notice that culture can cause quite some (funny) miscommunication.

The past week I didn't feel good, I coughed a lot and felt like I had the flu. In Thailand feeling like this can mean you have some kind of tropical disease. So after a few days we decided to go to see a docter.
Since housedocters don't excist in Thailand we went to a hospital in Hat Yai. This hospital reminded me of the Apollo hospital in Bangladesh: clean, calm and English-speaking docters and nurses.

The hospital has a standard procedure to check your bloodpressure and mine was ok. They took my temperature with a small plastic throw-away strip that I had to put under my tongue. Very high-tech:) One of the docters looked in my troat and saw I had a severe troat inflamation. So I got 3 pills: one to reduce the coughing, one for getting te slyme out and an anti-biotic to kill the bacteria. I felt better in a few days, but unfortunately side-effects of the anti-biotic are causing stomage- and bowel problems. So you cure one thing and get another in return:( Now that I've finished the anti-biotics I feel much better.

Because of my throat inflamation, I couldn't teach at school the past week. Chris tried to explain by rubbing over his tummy that I felt sick. But rubbing over your tummy and saying a woman is not feeling good means that the woman is pregnant. So the whole school thought I was having morning-sickness or something like that. Lucky me!
From a Thai woman in Greenway, we learned to say "mai thong" which means "not pregnant", and explain them "mai sabai" which means "not well" as in having a cold or flu. So now I'm not pregnant anymore :)
Funny how sign-language can be misinterpreted in another culture.


Besides this, it's always a challenge to communicate in Thai. The Thai language has 5 tones. For example the word "mai" has 5 different meanings. If you say: "mai mai mai mai mai" in the right way you say: "New wood doesn't burn, does it?" This shows Thai language can be quite difficult for people (for instance Europeans) who are not used to having tones in their own language. Besides that there is diffence in "I" an the politeness-form for men and women in Thai. So the Thai language is not easy to learn.

Chris and I can speak a few words in Thai now, like "hello", "how are you" and "what's you name?" And ofcourse typical teaching words, such as "Listen", "Sit Down", "Repeat" and "Do you understand?" Really good to know, those words makes teaching in Thailand a lot easier ;)