Thai 101

Logos from Google Thailand

2009-11-02T17:57:00.000+07:00

Google is known for the custom logos it places on its homepage on holidays and other occasions. And with the worldwide spread of Google, their many country sites display logos specific to the local culture.

Google Thailand (google.co.th) is currently showing a logo celebrating Loy Krathong (ลอยกระทง):

Some earlier Google Thailand logos:

Songkran 2008

Songkran 2009

National Artist Day 2009

Old Thai Movie DVD Roundup, Part 3: The Legend Collection from Five Star Productions

2009-10-21T19:12:00.000+07:00

More than a year after I first read about it on Wise Kwai's blog, Five Star Productions has finally begun releasing the promised films from its vault. At the end of August it was announced that Five Star had signed a deal with media distribution company BKP to release more than 100 titles from its film vault on DVD.

The set has been dubbed The Legend Collection, or in Thai ตำนานหนังกลางใจ. This will be a re-release on DVD for some titles, but it will be the first DVD treatment for the vast majority of these films. Some 70 specific titles have been announced, and will be released in "volumes" of seven titles each. Fourteen titles, comprising the first two volumes of The Legend Collection, were released in September. The retail price is set at 199, but they are easily found for 139 baht. Unfortunately, none will have English subtitles.

This weekend I bought Vol. 1 No. 1, อนึ่งคิดถึงพอสังเขป, directed by Bhandit Rittakol. The quality of the transfer appears very good, as far as these things go. I'll write more about that soon.

For now, some more highlights from this impressive collection:

* 12 films by director Piak Poster -- almost every film he made between 1978 and 1996. (Two of his first films, โทน / Tone (1970) and ชู้ / Adulterer (1972) were released on DVD in 2007 by Triple X films.)

* 8 films from the Charuchinda entertainment dynasty -- 4 directed by Sakka Charuchinda (สักกะ จารุจินดา), and 4 directed by his son, Narong Charuchinda (ณรงค์ จารุจินดา).

* 7 films by director Euthana Mukdasanit, more than half of his directorial efforts. (His 1997 film จักรยานสีแดง / Red Bike Story was released by GMM this year as part of its Memory Collection.

* 6 films by Bhandit Rittakol. (A limited edition box set of all 6 films in Bhandit's original Boonchu series was also released last year.)

* 3 of the most well-known films of National Artist Vichit Kounavudhi: Mountain People, Son of the Northeast, and Her Name is Boonrawd.

Many of the films are adapted from well-known Thai books:

* นำพุ้ / The Story of Nam Phu (1984) and เขาชื่อกานต์ His Name is Kan (1988) are both based on books by Suwanni Sukhontha (สุวรรณี สุคนธา).

* คนทรงเจ้า / The Medium (1989) is based on the 1988 book of the same name by S.E.A. Write Award-winning author Wimon Sainimnuam (วิมล ไทรนิ่มนวล)

* ผีเสื้อและดอกไม้ / Butterfly and Flowers (1985), based on the 1978 book of the same name by Makut Oraruedi (under the pen name นิพพานฯ).

* ครูไหวใจร้าย / Mean Ms. Wai (1989), from the 1966 book by Phakawadi Uttamot (ผกาวดี อุตตโมทย์).

* ปริศนา / Enigma (1982), from the novel by HRH Princess Vibhavadi Rangsit (under her pen name ว.ณ ประมวลมารค).

* ข้างหลังภาพ / Behind the Painting (1985), from the 1936 novel by Siburapha (ศรีบูรพา).

* ไผ่แดง / Red Bamboo (1979), from the book by Kukrit Pramoj (คึกฤทธิ์ ปราโมช), a former Prime Minister and founder of Siam Rath newspaper.

* ลูกอีสาน / Son of the Northeast (1982), from the S.E.A. Write Award-winning novel by Kampoon Boonthavee (คำพูน บุญทวี).

* ผู้หญิงคนนั้นชื่อบุญรอด / Her Name is Boorawd (1985), from the pen of the prolific Botan (โบตั๋น).

[Update: Here is the spreadsheet I made of the 70 titles announced so far. Each DVD includes a booklet listing the titles from the first 10 volumes. Since the Thai film industry does so many remakes, sometimes it's ambiguous exactly which version of the film they will be releasing.]

One week until Book Expo Thailand 2009

2009-10-08T19:03:00.000+07:00

Where has the time gone? Thailand's semiannual book fair is upon us again. As regular readers will recall, the October incarnation is known as Book Expo Thailand (งานมหกรรมหนังสือ).

Book Expo Thailand 2009 will run from Thursday, October 15 through Sunday, October 25, 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. As usual, this massive book fair will be held at Queen Sirikit Convention Centre. I recommend traveling by subway -- the Convention Centre has its own stop. The book fair is always packed every single day, so parking is a nightmare.

If you've never been, I absolutely recommend it. There's really something for everyone. In a past year at the book fair I met Win Lyovarin, a Thai author I enjoy, and last time I even ran into the enviably prolific and all-around smart Sarinee Achavanuntakul of Fringer.org.

Further details on Book Expo Thailand here (in Thai).

The dates for the 38th National Book Fair have also been announced as March 26 - April 6, 2010.

[See also: The state of the Thai publishing industry.]

Nigerian scam in Thailand

2009-10-03T17:22:00.000+07:00

Advance-fee fraud is also commonly called a "Nigerian scam", because the African country is home to large numbers of people employing this scam technique.

People get hooked by their own greed, when some kind stranger emails them out of the blue to ask them to serve as the next of kin for some heirless millionaire, or lets them know they've won some valuable prize. Most of these never make it to my inbox, thanks to email spam filters.

This one didn't make it to my inbox either, but I spotted it in my spam directory while looking for spam false positives. It's absolutely 100% classic Nigerian scam, but the story is based on Thai soil this time:

From The Desk Of Barrister Kane Chan,
Kane Chan & Associate Chambers
37 Sathorn Tai Road, Bangkok Thailand.
Tel: [redacted]
Email: [redacted]

PRIVATE AND HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL.

Dear Friend,

Please kindly accept my apology for sending unsolicited mail to you I believe you are a highly respected personality considering the fact that I sourced your profile from a human resource profile database on your country. Though, I do not know to what extent you are familiar with events.

Well, I am Barrister Kane Chan, a Solicitor. I am the Personal Attorney to Mr.Steve Anderson, who used to work with SIAMRAK Company Limited in Bangkok Thailand. On the 21st of April 2004, My late client and his wife with their three children were involved in a car accident along Sukhumvit Express Road. Unfortunately, they all lost their lives in the event of the accident. Since then I have made several inquiries to your Embassy to locate any of my client's relatives, this has also proved unsuccessful.

After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to trace his relatives over the Internet to locate any member of his family but to no avail, hence, I contacted you to assist in repatriating the money left behind by my client in a Finance Company.Particularly, the Finance House where the deceased deposited the US$35 Million (Thirty Five Million United States Dollars only).

Consequently, this Finance House issued me a notice to provide the Next of Kin to claim the US$35 Million (Thirty Five Million United States Dollars only) in their custody within the next ten official working days. Since I have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives for over 5 years now, I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased to claim the fund as the Next of Kin to him so that the fund will be transferred to your account by the Finance House.

Upon receipt of the fund, I will come over to your country to meet with you for the disbursement of the fund and then you and I will share the money in this order: 55% will be for me, 45% will be for you. I have all the necessary legal documents that can back our claim we will make with the Finance House.

All I require is your honest co-operation to enable us seeing this deal through. I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. Once you are interested to work with me,your urgent response is needed please kindly get back to me as soon possible for more info as we cannot afford delays and also send me your full name and your direct telephone number for easy communication.

You are needed as a next of kin to inherit your brother left fund.

Best regards .

Barrister Kane Chan (Esq).
BARRISTER AT LAW (ESQ)

The email address was from a Hong Kong Yahoo account (ending in @yahoo.com.hk), but the phone number provided had a Thai country code, and the right number of digits to be a real cell phone number. I've removed the number because (a) if it's a real scammer's number, I don't want somebody to come along and read this and end up getting scammed because they're gullible, and (b) if it's just a randomly chosen number, I don't want poor Joe to get gullible morons pestering him either.

Anyway, this is the first time I've seen Thailand used a the purported source of funds in a Nigerian scam. There's no reason to assume the scammers are actually Thai, but you never know. One of the variations of the Nigerian scam is to lure the mark to one's own country, at which point the scammer holds his mark for ransom.

I Googled around and found variations on this email reported on scam watchdog sites, using at least four different barrister names and email addresses. Sadly, these scams will continue to work so long as there are still people who live at intersection of greedy and gullible in the Venn diagram of humanity.

Marcel Barang: new blog, new translations

2009-09-19T20:29:00.001+07:00

If you are interested in Thai literature, especially translations of it, then it's a necessity to know the name of Marcel Barang. He is the world's foremost translator of Thai fiction into English and French. Not only is he prolific, but so few do what he does, making his work all the more valuable.

Today I was delighted to learn that he now keeps a blog, alternately writing in French and English, called the written wor(l)d en deux langues. It's managed to escape my attention since he began it in July, but I'm glad it didn't take me until next year to find it.

What is Marcel blogging about?

Most notably, he's ~~completed~~ working on a new English translation of สี่แผ่นดิน (See Phaendin) by คึกฤทธิ์ ปราโมช (Kukrit Pramoj), a former Prime Minister of Thailand. It was translated previously in 1981 under the title Four Reigns by "Tulachandra", the pen name of จันทร์แจ่ม บุนนาค (Janjaem Bunnag), who passed away in 2007, better known for her translations of Western literature into Thai.

In his must-read anthology "The Twenty Best Novels of Thailand" (1994), Marcel wrote somewhat critically of that translation:

[Tulachandra] did a creditable job of condensing the masterpiece, but spoiled it by taking upon herself the role of cultural tour guide, peppering her text with mentions such as “At that time, we Thais thought that...” that are not in the original and leaving behind more than one hundred Thai words and phrases for foreign readers to memorize, I presume – from countless repetitions of the basic mai pen rai (‘never mind’) and sanuk (‘funny’) to convoluted formulas in court language.

At Marcel's primary website, thaifiction.com, you can read a lengthy excerpt from See Phaendin that he did for the same anthology, as well as many other of his translated books and stories in their entirety.

Marcel also notes in the anthology that he submitted this excerpt to Kukrit Pramoj (who passed away in 1995), but received the following reply from Kukrit's personal secretary [English translation by Marcel]:

"Judging from the sample you sent us, we think your translation is much inferior to the standard of the novel, which will destroy the quality of language and depth of Thai culture of a time when the diversity of Western cultures was not as numerous as it is today. Therefore, MR Kukrit Pramoj, the author, does not allow you to translate and publish See Phaendin."

This time around, let's hope he has the family on his side.

There are many other posts not to be missed on Marcel's blog:

"Lost in translation" -- in which Marcel reveals that his translation of Chart Korbjitti's หมาเน่าลอยน้ำ will soon be published, and that he has also translated a compilation of Chart's best short stories.

Or "The novel that doesn't exist", recounting the accidental rediscovery of a novel that neither Google nor the National Library could find.

A four part series "On literary translation from the Thai" (one, two, three, four).

And last but not least, we can expect a new-and-improved version of thaifiction.com within the month.

A new life for the FSI Thai language course

2009-09-16T11:31:00.001+07:00

Catherine over at Women Learning Thai has written a post about the FSI Thai Wiki Project, a collaborative project that we helped start, with the goal of digitizing the entire U.S. Foreign Service Institute's Thai language course, and adding Thai script in the process. The original course uses only romanized Thai, something we think needs fixing.

We're working on this via wiki, which means that we want and need your help. If you'd like to help type out some of the Thai, proofread some of the English, or format some wiki pages, then please send me an email at rdockum [at] gmail [dot] com.

The two-volume FSI course has a lot of excellent material. Drawing heavily from Richard B. Noss' (also excellent) 1964 Thai Reference Grammar, it remains very useful nearly half a century later. Sure, parts of the FSI course are outdated, but as I've written before, you can't beat the price. Courtesy of the American taxpayer, you get a 40-lesson course complete with accompanying audio for each lesson, and an audio introduction to Thai phonology. (Get them in PDF and MP3 format here.)

Please see Catherine's post for more information, or the Google Group that I started for this (and future) collaborative Thai language projects.

Rock the vote

2009-07-09T17:58:00.001+07:00

The website Lexiophiles is sponsoring a vote for the top language blogs. I've been nominated (along with 99 others.. w00t) in the "language learning" category. The power is now in your hands to determine the order of the top 100.

My goal is to crack the top 90. Won't you please help?

[Edit: Catherine at WLT is a better person than me: she listed the other Thai bloggers also nominated. Congrats all around. :)]

ilovethailand.org ... or else!

2009-07-05T22:20:00.002+07:00

So this is strange... the new website ilovethailand.org aims to ease the country's massive political, socioeconomic, and cultural divisions by bolstering national unity.

But wait until you see the actual terms and conditions that one agrees to when signing up for the site:

สำหรับคนไทยทุกคน
ต้องเป็นข้อความที่แสดงถึงความรัก และปรารถนาดีต่อประเทศไทย
การแสดงออกความคิดเห็นต้องไม่กล่าวล่วงละเมิดหรือหมิ่นประมาทบุคคลที่ 3
แสดงความคิดเห็นด้วยสำนวนและวาจาที่สุภาพ
ต้องเป็นข้อความที่ไม่กระทบต่อชาติ ศาสนา และพระมหากษัตริย์
ต้องเป็นผู้ที่ รักประเทศไทย ยิ่งชีพ
ผู้ใดแสดงความคิดเห็นใดๆก็ตามที่ผิดต่อข้อตกลง/เงื่อนไข ผู้นั้นต้องเป็นรับผิดชอบแก่ข้อความนั้นๆ

And my translation:

[This site is] for all Thai people.
Comments must show your love and respect for Thailand.
Expression of opinions must not violate or slander others.
Express opinions with polite language.
Comments must not disparage the nation, religion, or king.
You must love Thailand more than life.
Whoever expresses an opinion in violation of these terms and conditions must accept the consequences of that opinion.

Looks like this site is a national "stimulus" program of a non-economic variety. A government-sponsored website on which only those who admit that they love the country more than their own lives are allowed to come and express nothing but adulation and praise for the country.

I'm sure this will do wonders for encouraging open and thoughtful dialogue. Especially that veiled threat at the end. Just lovely.

[Hat tip to Bangkok Crimes.]

Thai Movie Titles: May and June 2009

2009-06-20T07:06:00.000+07:00

As I wrote in the previous installment, "Thai titles for western films are sometimes corny, sometimes spoilery, and always entertaining. Especially when you translate them back into English. They have a style of their own."

Here are my (intentionally) over-literal re-translations of a few recent movie offerings:

Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins
ฅนเหล็ก 4 มหาสงครามจักรกลล้างโลก
"Iron Man 4: super machine war cleanses the earth"

Star Trek
สตาร์เทร็ค สงครามพิฆาตจักรวาล
"Star Trek: war to destroy the universe"

Angels and Demons
เทวากับซาตาน
"Angel and Satan"

X-Men Origins: Wolverine
เอ็กซ์ เม็น กำเนิดวูลฟ์เวอรีน
"X-Men: birth of wolverine"

The International
ฝ่าองค์กรนรกข้ามโลก
"Fighting a worldwide organization from hell"

Night at the Museum 2: Escape From the Smithsonian
มหึมาพิพิธภัณฑ์ ดับเบิ้ลมันส์ทะลุโลก
"Gigantic museum: double fun penetrates the world"

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
ทรานส์ฟอร์เมอร์ส : อภิมหาสงครามแค้น
"Transformers: super mega war of revenge"

Abhisit urges the Royal Institute: let's face facts

2009-06-04T17:00:00.003+07:00

An interesting tidbit from The Nation last week (link|cache):

PM urges Royal Institute to accept changes made to Thai language by Internet

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva Monday urged the Royal Institute to face changes caused to the Thai language by usage of the language on Internet and accept the changes.

Abhisit said the Royal Institute must regulate and create standard for the changes in the language while campaigning for the correct usage of the language.

The prime minister said his government would also make it a national agenda to campaign for Thai youths to love reading.

The Nation

I have no idea what prompted this urging. And I can't seem to find any mention of this in the Thai press.

The Royal Institute is in charge of creating and promoting language standards, which in most cases includes trying to hold back the tide of change in the modern language.

There is a general attitude of disapproval among the older generation about how young folks speak (and especially write) Thai these days.

There's nothing uniquely Thai about this, of course. The same discussions are going on in the U.S. about "proper (American) English" those darn whippersnappers and their text messages and cellular telephones and all the LOL on the series of tubes that make up the interwebs. Heh.

The difference, of course, is that there is no organization in Englishdom that has a mandate to "protect" the language. In Thailand, that's where the Royal Institute comes in (and many other countries have similar organizations to set standards for their own national languages).

But since virtually all Royal Institute Fellows (ราชบัณฑิต) are retirement age, and some are nearing the century mark, they basically embody the (multi-)generation gap.

In addition to the many books it publishes, the public relations outreach of the Royal Institute involves annual awards for excellence in the use of the Thai language, regular radio spots with language tidbits, and most recently, a short cartoon segment teaching proper language that is to air each evening. They have also begun the process of producing a language quiz show program for NBT. In other words, it's all very 20th century.

So basically what Abhisit is asking, I think, is for them to stop ignoring the fact that the internet is perhaps the single greatest cause of language change. But it's also interesting that he is reported to have urged them to "accept the changes".

Somehow I don't really see that happening. However, I agree that somebody should at least be paying attention to new language trends instead of dismissing them as "incorrect" internet Thai.

One of the reasons given for the Royal Institute's Dictionary of New Words project (volume 1 was released October 2007, and volume 2 is in the pipeline) was to record the modern language (without legitimizing it, however), so that at least those who look back on the language of this day will be able to make sense of it.

That seems like a decent reason, but of course the approach is extremely narrow. A group of perhaps a dozen committee members sit around a table and try to come up with "new" words they've heard. Just as with their main dictionary, there is no systematic attempt to comb things like the internet or comic books to assure adequate coverage of the words in use in the real world. Not to mention variant spellings, and new senses constantly being given to existing words.

Keeping up with the language is a daunting task. For an organization with as much expertise as it has, the Royal Institute remains largely irrelevant in the modern Thai world.

Perhaps Abhisit realizes that, and that prompted his statement. But it stands to be seen whether the Royal Institute itself will realize it. If not, they'll continue trying to instruct people who simply aren't listening.

Long time no see...

2009-06-04T16:23:00.000+07:00

Greetings, readers! (Both of you.) My triumphant return has finally arrived. Okay, maybe not triumphant, but I'm going to stop being so lazy about writing posts.

Please check back soon (i.e. later today) for my first real post in a month.
Thanks for sticking around.

Thanks,
The Management

คนพวกนั้น (Those Kind of People)

2009-05-08T19:32:00.001+07:00

For those who expressed interest in the Thai-language version Siburapha's story "Those Kind of People" (which I blogged about last week), I have now posted the original story: คนพวกนั้น.

I digitized the text by scanning it and running the scans through ABBYY FineReader 9.0 OCR software. They added Thai support last year and it's by far the best of the meager Thai OCR options. No offense to NECTEC, but their ArnThai is truly terrible in comparison. But it's still not perfect, so I read through it quickly to fix obvious errors. If you spot any more drop me a line and I'll fix them.

Enjoy!

Thai Movie DVD Roundup, Part 2: Memory Collection from GMM

2009-05-08T18:08:00.001+07:00

It's been a year since my first DVD roundup, when I summarized the classic Thai films on offer from Triple X. I planned to follow up with the Happy Time catalog. While I still have my half-finished notes for that, it'll have to wait its turn. Today I'm gonna take on a bite-sized DVD roundup: GMM's new Memory Collection.

It's only in the last few weeks that I've begun to notice these films on the shelf. And so far there are only three titles in the series. But doing a little research, I find that the first in the Memory Collection series was released in January 2009, followed by released in February and March.

Title: February (กุมภาพันธ์)
Director: Yuthlert Sippapak
Starring: Sopitnapa Dabbaransi, Shahkrit Yamnarm
Run-time: 108 minutes
Original theatrical release: 14 February 2003
Memory Collection release: 29 January 2009

Title: O-Negative (รักออกแบบไม่ได้)
Director: Pinyo Rutharm
Starring: Tata Young, Shahkrit Yamnarm, Ray MacDonald
Run-time: 108 minutes
Original theatrical release: 30 October 1998
Memory Collection release: 26 February 2009

Title: Red Bike Story (จักรยานสีแดง)
Director: Euthana Mukdasanit
Starring: Tata Young, Patipan Pataweekarn
Run-time: 111 minutes
Original theatrical release: 4 March 1997
Memory Collection release: 24 March 2009

Larger covers from Red Bike Story (click for even bigger):

The suggested retail prices for titles in the Memory Collection is 199 baht. Today I saw 189, and online sites Boomerang and Amorn Movie are offering them for 159 and 150 baht, respectively. The bad news: no subtitles of any kind, Thai or English.

The word on the street is that the picture quality is poor, so today I went out and bought Red Bike Story, which I'm not sure has ever been released on DVD before.

On my computer screen the image looks pixelated, which is unfortunate. On a TV (or analog monitor) that computes to a fuzzy picture. But the colors are decent, in comparison to the downright awful quality of most older Thai movies (due to poor preservation and transfers). I'd call the quality very watchable, but certainly not what you'd typically expect from a DVD. If you have any doubt that the image is not crisp, just skip to the end credits, which are washed out and difficult to read.

Here are a couple of screen shots. Click for the full native resolution.

My feelings on this series overall is that it's typical Thai cheap-as-possible production, where they don't appear to either realize or consider that many people do care about things like image and sound quality (just read the comments on that thread I linked to). So it smarts a little when they do cheap transfers and charge 199 baht for it.

But at the same time, I've never had the chance to see Red Bike Story before, so I do hope they continue to release interesting older films. The typical shelf life for DVDs here is so short, it's refreshing to see titles like these back on the shelves.

On the death of roi-et ร้อยเอ็ด

2009-05-06T15:49:00.000+07:00

No, the province isn't in trouble. I'm talking about the Thai phrase meaning "one hundred and one".

I've noticed that, in Bangkok at least, I never really hear the number 101 written or spoken as ร้อยเอ็ด or หนึ่งร้อยเอ็ด. Rather, หนึ่งร้อยหนึ่ง seems to be the norm these days. The same goes for 201, 501, 1001, etc. I only hear เอ็ด in the tens places -- from 11 to 91.

The most common situation to hear these in is when someone reads you the total from a purchase, whether it's a 7-Eleven stop or a restaurant bill.

One thing to keep in mind is that while you can say หนึ่งร้อยเอ็ด, and abbreviate that ร้อยเอ็ด, you can't really do the same with หนึ่งร้อยหนึ่ง. That's because ร้อยหนึ่ง is understood to mean 100, because หนึ่ง in this case acts like English "a". Asking a friend ขอยืมตังค์ร้อยหนึ่ง means "can I borrow a hundred (baht)"? The same goes for higher decimal places. พันหนึ่ง = 1000, หมื่นหนึ่ง = 10000, and so forth. (But also note that in this type of usage, the tone of หนึ่ง typically becomes a mid tone, and as a result is informally written นึง to reflect that.)

Using เอ็ด for "one" in the ones place of multi-digit numbers is still technically correct, according to the Royal Institute. And it usually helps to avoid confusion. For example, saying 1001 as หนึ่งพันหนึ่ง could be misunderstood as 1100, or หนึ่งพันหนึ่งร้อย, since the decimal unit of the next figure is often omitted in casual speech. พันห้า = 1500, หมื่นสอง = 12000, ล้านสี่ = 1.4 million. The only exception here seems to be the tens place, where สิบ is rarely ever omitted. สองร้อยห้า = 205, not 250, though one may run into occasional exceptions to this exception.

So why would เอ็ด would begin to disappear from usages like 101, 201, or 1001?

And if it really is disappearing, then I wonder whether this bug report for Open Office is really a bug or a feature. Is it simply reflecting common modern usage?

Can anyone else corroborate my experience? What is usage like outside Bangkok?

Siburapha: Thai literature as social activism

2009-04-30T01:37:00.006+07:00

[Update: I've now posted the original Thai-language version of "Those Kind of People": คนพวกนั้น. I also blogged briefly about it here.]

Not too many years ago, it wasn't uncommon for Thais critical of the social order to find themselves faced with the choice between exile and a life in prison. Writers were a particular target for many years. Many Thai authors beloved today spent years in jail or died in exile, or both.

So Sethaputra (สอ เสถบุตร), the renowned lexicographer, wrote his first dictionary while a political prisoner on Tarutao Island. Progressive thinker Chit Phumisak (จิตร ภูมิศักดิ์) spent six years in prison only to be acquitted, and eventually shot to death in the Northeastern jungles at the age of 36.

Kulap Saipradit (กุหลาบ สายประดิษฐ์) is perhaps the most prominent example. Best known by his pen name Siburapha (ศรีบูรพา), also spelled Sriburapha, he was a writer and journalist by profession, composing his first novel before the age of 20. He would go on to write more than fifteen novels in all, as well as several non-fiction books, a number of Thai translations of foreign literary works, and dozens of original short stories.

All of his major works were republished with funding from UNESCO in celebration of the centenary anniversary of his birth in 2005. He is also the namesake of the Sriburapha Award, which recognizes excellence in journalism, writing, and the arts.

The writing style of Siburapha evolved over the course of his career as he became more involved in human rights activism, and the fight against social injustice in Thailand. In 1951, he set up the Peace Foundation of Thailand. The next year, during a trip to the Northeast of Thailand to distribute goods to the needy, he was one of many "agitators" arrested by the dictatorial government of Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram. Convicted of treason, he spent four years behind bars before being released in 1957.

In 1958, while Siburapha was in China attending a writers' conference, General Sarit overthrew the Thai government in one of the country's many military coups. Those in Siburapha's group who returned to Thailand were all arrested, so he elected to remain in China. He spent the last 16 years of his life there in exile.

For those who prefer his earlier, safer romantic works, it is perhaps easy to dismiss Siburapha's later works as heavy-handed, or lacking literary merit. But to do so is to miss the point. His later works are part of the first generation of the "Literature for Life" movement, which had a second wind in the social unrest of the late 60s and 70s.

And so I present the English translation of "Those Kind of People" ("คนพวกนั้น"), a short story by Siburapha, first published in 1950 in the magazine สยามสมัย (Siam Samai). It became popular again among student activists a quarter of a century later.

Today I can't help but read it with my eyes open to how much it continues to reflect Thai society. Though things have improved considerably, in particular with the introduction of affordable health care for the poor, the quality-of-life gap between the higher and lower strata of Thai society remains gaping wide.

"Those Kind of People" tells the story of a girl from an aristocratic family who disagrees with her parents' attitude towards the lives of the lower-class masses, and towards their own privilege. A piece of advice from the girl's father encapsulates the attitude well:

'You shouldn't go worrying too much about those kind of people,' he said, referring to the people who lived outside Bangkok, the poor, and all those people who were not of the same class as Chao Khun himself. 'They've always lived like that. They're used to it, and they don't really need more than what they already have.'

I do hope that you will read the complete short story. It's almost hard to believe it was written six decades ago. It is published here, however, without permission.

Sources:
Muthiah Alagappa (1995). Political legitimacy in Southeast Asia. Stanford University Press.
David Smyth and Manas Chitakasem (1998). The Sergeant's Garland and other stories. Oxford University Press.
Wikipedia. Siburapha. Retrieved April 30, 2009.

Word of the Day: ค่อนข้าง /khɔ̂n 'khâaŋ/

2009-04-23T11:27:00.001+07:00

Word of the Day for Thursday, April 23, 2009:

ค่อนข้าง /khɔ̂n 'khâaŋ/ rather, relatively, fairly

This phrase can be used both positively and negatively, e.g. ค่อนข้างดี "rather good" vs. ค่อนข้างแย่ "rather terrible." It lightens the weight of your statement in either direction.

In some cases it's comparable to the suffix -ish, as in ค่อนข้างเปรี้ยว "sourish". However, keep in mind that in English, -ish is often used to damn with faint praise, which doesn't really match the Thai meaning of ค่อนข้าง. So in English I might say "yeah, the movie was funny-ish," which is an idiomatic way of saying it wasn't very funny at all. On the flipside, ค่อนข้างตลก would be understood as funny but not hysterical, which closer matches the sentiment of English "pretty funny" or "fairly funny."

You can use it with pretty much anything that acts like an adjective. ค่อนข้างสูง "rather tall", ค่อนข้างอ้วน "rather fat", ค่อนข้างหิว "rather hungry". Even ค่อนข้างแดง "rather red", if, say, you went to the beach and asked a friend to describe how your back after a nap on your stomach.

Thai 101 Giveaway: The Judgment / คำพิพากษา

2009-04-17T20:30:00.006+07:00

The April giveaway is an equal opportunity giveaway: two copies of The Judgment/คำพิพากษา, by Chart Korbjitti/ชาติ กอบจิตติ, one in English, and one in Thai. As with two previous giveaways, The Judgment is a S.E.A. Write Award winner, receiving the honor in 1982. The English is translated by Phongdeit Jiangphatthana-kit and Marcel Barang.

The book was made into a film in 2004 with the title Ai-Fak/ไอ้ฟัก.

To enter the drawing, send an email to rdockum [at] gmail [dot] com. Include "Thai 101 Giveaway" in the subject (but you won't be disqualified if you don't). Please tell me your language preference, Thai or English. If you are okay with either one, then let me know that, too.

You have until the end of the month, April 30, to enter. I'll announce the winners at the beginning of May.

If you're selected, I'll email you to request your mailing address. If you've won something in the past, you're still eligible. The giveaway is open to anyone in the world. Postage is on me.

As I announced, these are books I bought at this year's book fair. The Thai is a brand new copy of the 42nd printing, published 2008; the English was printed 2001, and while new, it has minor shelf wear and yellowing around the page edges.

Word of the Day: สถานการณ์ฉุกเฉิน /sa'tʰǎa.ná'kaan chùk 'chə̌ən/

2009-04-13T11:52:00.001+07:00

Word of the Day for Saturday, April 11, 2009:

สถานการณ์ฉุกเฉิน /sa'tʰǎa.ná'kaan chùk 'chə̌ən/ n. state of emergency (by formal declaration)

Yesterday marked a record for Thailand: the first time in Thai history that a etate of emergency was declared on two consecutive days. Through a little research, though, I learned that Thailand has been in a formal state of emergency in at least one province since 1958.

The recent culprit is the South Thailand insurgency, where the situation was downgraded in 2005 from martial law to state of emergency in 2005, and the SOE has been extended without faily every three months since then. We're up for another extension of the Southern SOE next week.

The important elements here are สถานการณ์ "situation" and ฉุกเฉิน "emergency". Alternately, ภาวะฉุกเฉิน is used with the same meaning, but is not the official term. Occasionally สภาวะฉุกเฉิน will turn up, too. Both of these literally mean "state of emergency".

Bonus vocab:

เหตุฉุกเฉิน "emergency" (literally, "emergent event")
ประตูฉุกเฉิน "emergency exit" (lit. "emergency door")
สัญญาณฉุกเฉิน "emergency alarm"
ห้องฉุกเฉิน "emergency room; ER"
เบรกฉุกเฉิน "emergency brake; e-brake" (more commonly, เบรกมือ "hand brake")
ในกรณีฉุกเฉิน "in case of emergency..."

A yellow perspective on red shirts

2009-04-10T06:31:00.003+07:00

Politics are crazy in Thailand, as usual. I avoid getting into it all, at least in the public forum. In my day-to-day life, I work near Victory Monument, which has recently become a site for demonstrations.

Today the Bangkok locals on Twitter were abuzz with news and comments after taxis blockaded all roads into the roundabout at Victory Monument. The so-called "Red Shirts" (UDD) gathered en masse. I tweeted what I could see from my balcony. Breaking Tweets featured the story.

It was interesting to see opinions from both sides in real time. One twitterer, clearly not a Red Shirt sympathizer, linked to a phony Red Shirt membership application. It's intentionally offensive to the Thaksin loyal, but it gives a clear picture of how some view the protesters: as uneducated rabblerousers.

Amused, I hastily translated it into English and tweeted it.

Here is the original letter, linked variously on the web, but I read it on this blog on the Manager website (click to embiggen):

Toranong Srichua on Thai film censorship

2009-04-07T23:57:00.000+07:00

Here's a quote that really struck me, from veteran Thai filmmaker Toranong Srichua, director of the forthcoming controversial disaster epic Tsunami 2022:

ในวงการหนังบ้านเราต้องห้ามตัวละครมีเซ็กซ์ ห้ามตัวละครพูดเรื่องการเมือง ห้ามตัวละครพูดเรื่องศาสนา ห้ามตัวละครพูดเรื่องสถาบัน ห้ามตัวละครค้ายาเสพติด คุณห้ามๆ อย่างนี้ไง ตัวละครถึงเป็นผี เป็นตัวตลก ซึ่งมันเป็นตัวละครที่ไม่มีอยู่ในโลก แต่มันวิ่งอยู่ในวงการหนังไทยได้

"In the Thai film industry, characters are forbidden to have sex, forbidden to discuss politics, forbidden to discuss religion, forbidden to discuss the monarchy, forbidden to sell drugs. Because you forbid all these things, all the characters are ghosts and clowns. Neither exist in the real world, and yet they run wild in Thai films."

The translation is mine. Quoted from an interview in the April 2009 issue of Bioscope; previously posted on Poakpong.com.

Word of the Day: เลิกจ้าง /'lə̂ək 'jâaŋ/

2009-04-07T10:21:00.001+07:00

Word of the Day for Tuesday, April 7, 2009:

เลิกจ้าง /'lə̂ək 'jâaŋ/ v. to lay off, dismiss (from one's employ)

This is a phrase that is becoming more and more prominent these days. If someone (or some group, as is sadly common) was laid off, you would say they ถูกเลิกจ้าง -- ถูก makes the phrase passive.

You can find numerous examples of เลิกจ้าง in an article from today's Matichon, for example. It reports that unemployed workers will begin demonstrating at Victory Monument today from 9:00am, in protest of recent mass layoffs. According to the report, 23,712 Thai factory workers have lost their jobs in the first quarter of 2009, and a further 2 million are expected to be laid off before the year is out.

The phrase เลิกจ้าง is used in contrast with ไล่ออก(จากงาน) "to fire, terminate" or ถูกไล่ออก(จากงาน) "to be fired, get fired", literally to be "chased out", which similarly to English typically means that the worker has done something to cause themselves to be fired, whether through misconduct, laziness, or otherwise. And both are different from ลาออก(จากงาน) "to quit, to resign", which means of course that the employee leaves of his own volition.

Note that without ออก, however, ลา also means to take temporary work leave: ลาป่วย "take sick leave", ลาคลอด "take maternity leave", ลาหยุด "take time off, take a leave of absence", and even ลาบวช "take ordination leave". Thai employers typically allow workers time off if they ordain to the priesthood.

Word of the Day: ถ่วง /'thùaŋ/

2009-04-03T19:03:00.000+07:00

Word of the Day for Friday, April 3, 2009:

ถ่วง /'thùaŋ/ v. to weigh down, to be weighted down; to cause to sink; to slow down

From today's Matichon comes this example of ถ่วง:

การเมืองถ่วงไทยฟื้นช้า
(word-by-word breakdown)

Taken literally, this means:
"Politics weigh Thailand down, (causing it to) recover slowly"

An idiomatic English headline (with a bit more context) might read:
"Political turmoil slows Thailand's economic recovery"

Bonus vocab:
ถ่วงเวลา "stall for time".
ถ่วงเรื่อง "to stall a matter, put a matter on hold".
ความโน้มถ่วง "gravity" (also แรงโน้มถ่วง "gravitational force").
ศูนย์ถ่วง "center of gravity".

Royal Institute announces simplifications to Thai alphabet

2009-04-01T13:11:00.001+07:00

Thailand's Royal Institute (ราชบัณฑิตยสถาน), the government agency charged with promoting the proper use of Standard Thai, announced this morning the first major changes to the basic Thai writing system since the aborted spelling reforms of the Phibunsongkhram administration during World War II.

In a move that mirrors those changes, starting today, ten consonants will become officially obsolete, in addition to the two already no longer used, ฃ ขวด and ฅ คน. The newly retired letters are: ฆ ระฆัง, ฌ เฌอ, ญ หญิง, ฎ ชฎา, ฏ ปฏัก, ฐ ฐาน, ฑ มณโฑ, ฒ ผู้เฒ่า, ณ เณร, and ฬ จุฬา. This brings the total number of defunct consonants to twelve, paring the Thai alphabet down from 44 to 32, which is considered an auspicious number in Thai culture.

The choices, they explained in a press conference this morning, are based on a careful study of letter and word frequency in Thai. Only the least commonly used consonants are being retired, in an effort to boost literacy, without sacrificing the breadth of expression that makes Thai the elegant and diverse language it is.

The consonants ฆ ฌ ญ ฎ ฏ ฐ ฑ ฒ ณ and ฬ are to be replaced with their sound-alike counterparts ค ช ย ด ต ถ ท น and ล. For example, under the reform the word ญาติ will now be spelled ยาติ, ปฏิรูป will become ปติรูป, and so forth.

This announcement was made jointly with the Ministry of Education and the Tourism Authority of Thailand, as part of a new push to reinvigorate the flagging tourism industry. It is believed that the simplifications to the writing system will boost foreign interest in Thailand and the Thai language, which is frequently cited as one of the most difficult languages to learn, in large part due to the complicated script.

All Ministry of Education textbooks are required to be updated within the end of calendar year 2010, and the government is expected to offer tax concessions and other incentives to publishers to help defray the large costs of updating their publications over the next several years. The public sector deadline is longer, set at the end of calendar year 2015.

Whether this initiative will be successful remains to be seen, but clearly this is a huge step for Thailand.

[Source: Complete transcript of the Royal Institute press conference]

Word of the Day: ประมาณ /pra'maan/

2009-03-31T20:31:00.000+07:00

Word of the Day for Tuesday, March 31, 2009:

ประมาณ /pra'maan/ quant. approximately, about; v. to approximate, to estimate

I get asked regularly by Thais how long I've been learning Thai. The answer at the moment is ประมาณเจ็ดปี "about seven years". Place ประมาณ before the number. ประมาณห้าสิบคน "about 50 people", ประมาณสองพันบาท "approximately 2000 baht", etc.

Another form is โดยประมาณ, which comes after the number phrase, sort of as a way of hedging what you just said. It's also used to modify noun phrases that don't actually specify a number. For example, ราคาโดยประมาณ "approximate price".

ประมาณ is also used as a verb. If we swap the words in the previous example, we have ประมาณราคา "give an approximate price (for goods or services)".

Bonus vocab: ประมาณ has some phonetically similar cousins that can be easy to confuse. Their pronunciations differ only in the vowel of the second syllable [ประม*น]. They are:

ประเมิน /pra'məən/ v. to evaluate, assess, appraise. Ex: ประเมินผล "evaluate results (e.g. of an exercise); ประเมินราคา "appraise, give a valuation" (note the distinction from ประมาณราคา mentioned above); ประเมินสถานการณ์ "assess the situation".

ประมูล /pra'muun/ v. to bid (e.g. at an auction). Ex: เปิดประมูลราคา "open the bidding"; ผู้ดำเนินการประมูล "auctioneer".

ประมวล /pra'muan/ v. to compile, combine, collect; n. compilation Ex: ประมวลกฏหมาย "code of laws" (literally "law compilation"); ประมวลผล "gather the results (e.g. of an experiment)" (note the distinction from ประเมินผล mentioned above).

Spoils from the National Book Fair, part 1: Anake Nawigamune

2009-03-30T12:52:00.002+07:00

This would be a very long post if I told you about all the books I bought last Thursday, but I'd be remiss if I didn't share a few. (The ones I plan to give away in April will remain top secret for now.)

I can't resist the books of Anake Nawigamune (เอนก นาวิกมูล). I first discovered him in 2005 through the book แกะรอย ก ไก่ ("in search of k. kai"), a fantastic book that traces the history of the words associated with the letters of the Thai alphabet (ไก่ ไข่ ควาย, etc.) It's out of print and very difficult to find. I still don't own my own copy.

The man is very prolific, with more than 50 titles to his name. He uses the same English author's blurb on most of his books:

Anake Nawigamune was born on March 14, 1953 in Ranot District, Songkhla and graduated in Political Science from Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, in 1977.

He does research on and writes about art, culture, and history. He is particularly interested in Thai traditional folk songs, early photography in Thailand, in dating the introduction into Thailand of various western inventions, in collecting antiquities and in historical anecdotes, since the age of 15 gathering pictures taken by himself and others recording changes in the appearance of towns and buildings as well as in daily life.

He began serious study of the art and culture of his country in 1972 and enjoys writing on subjects in this field.

He is also the founder of the House of Museums (บ้านพิพิธภัณฑ์). His recent works are published by the small publishers สายธาร and แสงดาว.

Many of his earlier titles were published by แสงแดด. มติชน and พิมพ์คำ have also published books of his. And while several of those are technically out of print, they are also not difficult to locate, especially at the National Book Fair. Just ask around at the used book shops, or go to the booths of the publishers I've mentioned.

At the book fair last Thursday, I picked up three more Anake titles:

ชวนหัวยุคคุณหลวง, a collection of jokes and other humor from the reigns of Rama V (r.1868-1910) and Rama VI (r.1910-1925). In it he even cites the 1865 joke I wrote about from the Bangkok Recorder as the first published joke in Thai!
Published by สำนักพิมพ์แสงแดด (1998). 124 pages. ISBN 974-7162-72-5

แรกมีในสยาม ๔, the fourth volume in a series of books focusing on the introduction of western things to Thailand. This volume includes articles on the sapodilla (ละมุดฝรั่ง), legal marriage (การจดทะเบียนสมรส), and the first Thai woman to travel abroad. Back in the states I used to borrow the earlier volumes through inter-library loan from Cornell. I have yet to find them for purchase.
Published by สำนักพิมพ์แสงแดด (1998). 166 pages. ISBN974-7162-70-9

ปกิณกะ ร.๕, an assortment of articles about Rama V. It includes articles on his childhood, his photography, artistic depictions of him, his work on behalf of agriculture, and other topics.
Published by สำนักพิมพ์แสงแดด (1998). 153 pages. ISBN 974-7162-74-1

I could probably write 1,000 posts based on all the fascinating stuff in Anake's books. Highly recommended.