Monthly Archives: September 2008

Kayo (Kaew) – Glass
Kik – Special friend / Secret Lover
Koy – Little finger (Pinkie)
Kop (Kob) – Frog
Kai – Chicken
Kook Kai – Chick
Kung – Prawn / Shrimp
Kwang – Deer

Khai – Egg
Khing – Ginger
Khanoon – Jackfruit
Khwan – Spirit / Soul / Merit
Khao….. – Rice…..
Khit – Think
Kratai / Tai – Rabbit

Jackajan – Cicada (type of insect)
Jan – Moon
Jampa / Jampee – Champac (type of flower)
Jik – Fussy / Pinch / Steal
Jew – Small
Jingreet – Cricket (as in insect)
Jim – Small / Girl’s private parts (as in English: Fanny)
Jip – Tweet (as in sound of a bird)
Joom – Small
Jaew – Clear / Excellent
Jiap – Chick

Deuan – Month
Dao – Star
Daeng – Red
Dum – Black

Tao – Turtle
Toi – Small / Tiny
Taengmo – Watermelon
Taengkwa – Cucumber
Tik – Sound of clock (as in tick-tock)
Toom – Water jar
Tukata – Doll / Cuddly Toy
Tukataen – Grasshopper
Ta – Eye
Ton – Tree Trunk
Teuan – Warn / Remind (verb)
Tem – Full
Tia – Short
Taen – Wasp / Hornet

Nok – Bird
Nee – Woman
Noo – Rat / Mouse
Nui – Cute
Nit – Small / Little
Noi – Small / Little
Noina – Custard Apple (a Thai fruit)
Nam – Water
Nang – Mrs
Nangfa – Angel
Nim – Soft
Nook – Soft
Nery – Butter
Noon – Kapok (type of tropical tree)
Nong – Younger (as in younger sister)
Baitong – Banana Leaf
Baitery – Leaf (type of tropical leaf)
Boong – Caterpillar (type of)

P la – Fish
Preeow – Sour
Pook – Piggy Bank (type of)
Pui – Fertilizer
Poo – Crab
Pet – Duck
Piak – Tiny
Pia – Piggy-tails
Pao – Target

Pheung – Bee / Honey
Phak – Vegetable
Phing – Warm up (verb)
Phat Thai – Thai-style fried noodles
Phin – Traditional musical instrument (resembles a guitar/banjo)
Phloy – Gem
Phim – Type / Print (verb)
Phrik – Pepper / Chilli
Phrae – A type of traditional Thai cloth
Phorn – Blessing
Phat – Fan (verb)

Fai – Cotton
Fon – Rain
Fukthong – Pumpkin
Fan – Dream
Fah – Sky

Moo – Pig
Mot – Ant
Maew – Cat
Meow – Meow (verb, as in cat cry)
Mon – Magic
Manao – Lemon
Ma-fueng – Star fruit
Ma-prang – Type of plum
Mayom – Star gooseberry
Mali – Jasmine
Manee – Gemstones
Mook – Pearl
Maeng-por – Dragonfly

Yoke – Jade
Yui – Chubby cute
Yim – Smile
Ying – Female
Yai – Big
Yao – Young

Rin – Pour (verb)
Rot – Flavour
Rawt – Straw

I will try to not get political. But in the context of this lesson, I have to go there a little bit. Please understand that I’m not trying to propagate anything. Just showing you what happened and the lesson we learned.

A few weeks ago, I gave my dad a call. Of course, I caught him watching his nightly news and he filled me in on Thailand’s current political climate. strategies to gain control of the country by their influence on PAD.

My dad is among those who speculated that the rich, old elites are funneling money into PAD so they could be in power again after all these years of the “self made millionaire” threatening to take over.

“The PAD seems to want the Democrats to be government and Abhisit as PM,” dad suggested.

“But *I* want Khun Mark [Abhisit] to be the PM…” I whined. I’m biased on the subject of Khun Mark. I had been cheering for his youth, new attitude, and, of course, his charisma (come on, the man’s hot!) since he came onto the scene years ago. Very objective. Yep. That’s me.

“I know, honey. It would be nice. Jus not like this,” dad replied. And I agreed with him.

That was a part of my post where the rest of it was just my droning on about my day. However, it seemed to hit the nerves of one particular PAD supporter, a real life friend of mine.

We got into a virtual row over this.

Angry. Frustrated. Confused. Fed up. Overwhelmed. Despaired. Saddened.

Thai people have become any and all of those these days. Even the littlest thing could send passionate folks into a rampage. One comment could cause a mayhem.

My motherland is thoroughly divided that friends are made enemies and family members stop talking to each other over politics.

My friend the Commenter and I had our heated moment of exchange off the blog over our stances. Since we know each other, the first few exchanges were emotional. It was firmly requested that politics should not be discussed on my personal blog. I felt personally attacked. The friend felt idealogically offended.

The easy way out is for me to shut the hell up…which I didn’t quite do. How could you ignore this giant elephant in the room, threaten to rampage over our friendship?

And so the exchange continued and, amazingly, we found out that we were not standing on the polar opposite after all. The more we unknot each of our ideas, We found that we agreed on every fundamental thing, up to this one fine point. Our intentions are the same. Our ideals are the same. What we want for our country is the same. But we diverge on the HOW part. And it’s not all that difference on how our country could get where we would want it to either.

A very fine line of how our views differ, but enough to let us stand with one tippy toe on the opposite side.

Out of this dialogue, I realized a few things.

First, a civil discussion REALLY can bring parties to a solution. Gosh knows that between two U.S. educated Thais, one a business owner and a parent in Thailand and the other a non-profit employee and childless by choice in California, we might just come up with a solution to solve our country’s problem!

I mean, both of us started off almost at each other’s throat, and now we might just have an answer.

How cool is that?!

And secondly, it hit me.

We were talking politics. We were discussing the state of our nation. We were taking our stands for each of our beliefs. Quite passionately so too.

For the first time since I’ve known the Commenter/Friend, a SERIOUS political discussion slowly grew out of what started out almost like an adolescent spat.

Holy crap.

We have become adults.

His Royal Highness Prince Mahidol of Songkhla

In 1881, there occurred a widespread cholera epidemic that killed many people in Bangkok. His Majesty King Chulalongkorn therefore set up temporary hospitals in 48 locations around the capital. Once the epidemic subsided, they were closed down. Realizing the importance of health care for the sick, King Chulalongkorn decided to establish a Royal Hospital to provide health care to the general population. In 1886, a committee was appointed to establish the hospital, with His Majesty donating his own money and land in the abandoned Wang Lang Palace for this purpose.

In 1887, H.R.H. Prince Siriraj Kakudhabhandha, the fifth son of King Chulalongkorn died of dysentery at the age of one year and six months. Later, two more of their young children also passed away in the same year which caused great sorrow to Their Majesties. For this reason, King Chulalongkorn wanted to see a hospital established as soon as possible. After the cremation of the three royal children and also of the Royal Consort, the King ordered the wood used in making the cremation pyre to be used in the construction of the hospital. He also named the new hospital Siriraj Hospital after his son.

In 1889, Prince Damrong Rajanubhab was given the royal permission to establish a Medical School inside Siriraj Hospital with Doctor T. Hayward Hayes as the first medical teacher, conducting a three-year diploma course in medicine beginning on 5th September 1890. The teaching included both Thai and modern medicine. The first group of nine students graduated in March, 1892. The second teacher of medicine was Doctor George B. McFarland who was born in Thailand and was highly proficient in the Thai language. He was devoted to his job and dedicated his life to Siriraj Hospital for 35 years. He is buried in the Protestant Graveyard in Silom. I went there to visit his grave last year.

During King Rama VI’s Reign, medical education was improved through the assistance of the Rockefeller Foundation. The person who played an important role in the negotiations for the fund was H.R.H. Prince Mahidol. The Prince had gone to America in 1917 to study medicine at Harvard. On his return to Thailand, he devoted himself to the development of Thai modern medicine for the wellbeing and happiness of all Thais. Recognizing the importance of modern medicine and public health to the country, he decided to give assistance to the Nursing School and the Medical School at Siriraj Hospital. For this reason, the Thai people regard him as the “Father of Thai Modern Medicine”. He was also the father to two future Kings including our present day King. Prince Mahidol died tragically young on 24th September 1929.

In recognition of his work to the development of medicine in Thailand, the Thai government designated 24th September as Mahidol Day. Special ceremonies are performed at Siriraj hospital and the medical college which had its named changed to Mahidol University in his honour. The hospital has an interesting display near the statue of Prince Mahidol. The information is bilingual and most of the information fo this blog came from these panels. On the grounds of the hospital are a number of museums which are also worth visiting. One of them is the infamous forensics museum that has preserved bodies of executed criminals. You can easily reach the hospital by boat from the pier near the Grand Palace.

The equinox is the time of the year when the sun is directly above the equator. It means that the sun goes straight up and straight down at the time of sunrise and sunset. It also results in the length of day and night being roughly the same. It happens twice a year, usually around March 20th and September 22nd. In Thailand, it happened during the early hours of this morning. My house is on the East-West axis with the front door facing south. From now until March, the sun leans more towards the south and so this means that the small garden at the back of my house won’t receive any direct sunlight. The point where it does an about turn and heads back towards the north is called the Solstice and this usually occurs around December 21st. This is our shortest day of the year. March 20th is the second equinox, when the sun is again above the equator, and the sun then starts moving towards the north. From this point on, the back of my house starts to receive the sun again. Our longest day of the year is around the second solstice on June 20th. This is when the sun stops its northward march and starts returning to be straight above the equator again in September.

Really, as we are quite close to the equator, our length of day doesn’t vary that much throughout the year. In mid-December, we have 11 hours and 18 minutes of daylight. In mid-June, the length of our day is 12 hours and 56 minutes. So, the difference is only about 90 minutes. During December, I always do a project with my Thai students. They have to find the times of the sunrise and sunset in three different locations. London, England in the Northern Hemisphere. Bangkok, Thailand near the equator. And Sydney, Australia in the Southern Hemisphere. From this they need to calculate the length of day. They then repeat this for June for the same locations. The students are not expecting anything dramatic. In December, the sun rises at 6.37 a.m. and in June it goes up at 5.51 a.m. That isn’t a lot of difference. It probably means that they will still go to school during the daylight. In December in Thailand, the sun sets at 5.55 p.m. In June the sun goes down at 6.48 p.m. So, again, this difference doesn’t really affect the students. They are already back home. Probably inside the house, watching TV or playing video games. So, they probably wouldn’t notice the difference.

I think all of this will only affect people like the monks, who will be going out on their alms round when it is still dark during December. If I am going to take pictures of an alms round, then the best time of the year to do this is obviously around June. At this time of year, it is usually light enough to take pictures by 6.30 a.m. I remember sitting at a temple once at 6 a.m. waiting for the monks to leave. This was about late July. It was still dark and I could only see twenty metres or so. By the time they left at 6.10 a.m. it was just light enough to take pictures. However, any movement resulted in a blur. Then, suddenly at 6.20 a.m., it was light enough to take action pictures as normal. Which was just as well as the monks were keeping a good pace. I guess this is the advantage of living near the equator as it is almost like a light being turned on. In December I wouldn’t be able to get pictures until the end of their alms round.

The students do their research on the Internet. Before they start, I always ask them to guess the time of sunrise and sunset for these different locations. During the project, I teach them that in December, the UK, in the Northern hemisphere is having winter and hence their days are short and nights long. Places like Australia, in the Southern hemisphere, are the opposite and are enjoying the summer with long days and short nights. Even though this is a big clue, there are still completely bowled over when they discover the real times. They find it difficult to comprehend that although they enjoy an average of 12 hours of daylight throughout the year, that people in the UK don’t get much more than seven hours of daylight in December. I told them that when I went to school in the winter, it was dark when I left home and dark again when I got home. Their jaws just dropped when they saw that sunset was at 3.54 p.m. I guess they felt sorry for us, but then they saw that in June, we could play outside in the garden until quite late in the evening without lights.

Two good websites for calculating times of sunsent and sunrise are www.sunrisesunset.com and www.timeanddate.com. If you are planning a holiday to Thailand, then you don’t really need to know more than that it is usually light by 6.30 a.m. and dark by 7 p.m. throughout the whole year. It may be boring compared to some countries in Northern Europe, but at least we are more predictable. I guess the biggest advantage is that we don’t need to worry about daylight saving and having to move our clocks twice a year. I tried to explain this concept to my Primary 6 students last month and I don’t think they really understood. After all, I haven’t done this “length of day” project with them yet. At the moment, they still think that sunrise and sunset around the world happens at exactly the same time.

Related blog: Understanding… The Thai Lunar Calendar