Language

The first thing I have to say on the topic of language is that I've decided to switch my blog posts to English. For two main reasons. The first being that I rarely speak Dutch anymore, my native tongue. Even though I have daily interactions with one or two fellow Dutchies, living abroad and being surrounded by Thai, English and in my case Japanese all day is confusing enough as it is. It's starting to become a bit hard to organize my thoughts and choose my wording when I have to switch all the time. The second reason is that the experiences I'm documenting here are obviously of value to me and so they might be valuable to others as well. For that reason I've always chosen an English title for my previous posts and currently, they draw hundreds of English readers to my blog every month. I hope writing in English will prove more rewarding for those interested in starting a (or living the) life in Thailand, depending how you look at it. Off course I wouldn't have made this decision were it not that I'm convinced that my friends and family at home will have no trouble reading in English. But regardless, and however ironic it may sound writing this from about as far away as one can get without venturing into outer space: please don't feel distanced. I'll also be transferring this blog to my own system in the future, but that will probably still take a while.

But on the topic of language; I satisfied a long standing desire last Sunday, as I enjoyed my first Thai language class. Since I only have time on weekends and after hours on business days, I was very pleased by the hospitality of my new language school on thanon Thong Lo, close to my home. I'm enrolled in flexible private lessons as my work hours don't allow me to meet the school's regular timetables. Instead I'm booked for Sundays and Tuesday evenings for one-on-one sessions. My tutor has high hopes for me, which surprised me. For the past five months there have been so many occasions where I felt desperately inadequate, failing to order the food I like unless I could point it out somehow, looking at people as they struggled and failed to convey vital information to me (that road is closed, don't eat that, this is the wrong bus) that I'd almost given up hope of ever becoming remotely proficient in speaking the language. It's strange, living in an environment for five months and even after all that time seeing your brain fail to recognize any sort of logic beyond some basic counting and numbers. Remembering a word is one thing, but have you ever tried remembering a sound, precisely? Not only are Thai words essentially noises, an array of 5 different intonations color them with completely different meanings. You can say duck, or spicy or eight but actually mean to say something completely different. The best my intentions to learn could do for me, without professional assistance, was developping some sort of an intuition for pronunciation. It's like humming a song to which you don't know the words. My teacher told me that my pronunciation of the 'words' she made me repeat after her, was very good and with that, I should be on a straight path to daily conversation in Thai with some dedicated effort at her language school every week. And today, suddenly, I'm afraid she may be right.
The first lesson was introductory, as much for her as it was for me. But already some of the basic stuff we covered has lifted a piece of the shroud that has blanketed my existence here for the last few months. All of a sudden, on one or two occasions, I noticed my brain actually did register a form of logic in what otherwise is just the background noise of conversation, public announcements or music produced by my surroundings. I just passed four of my neighbours downstairs, who were as always playing a game of Snooker. "It went straight" deciphered by mind a few seconds after I heard someone say "Thong Leauw". Body language told me that wasn't the outcome he intended when he played the shot, his disgruntled expression positively confirming my brain's computation.

It's funny how this made me pause my stride for a moment, suddenly realizing that however much I look forward to taking this crucial step towards what will be a truly deeper immersion into Thai society, the thought of being able to hear, interpret and talk also announces a departure from a form of private peace and tranquility that I've enjoyed daily without realizing it. Soon the lovely melodies supporting the soft voices I hear playing at restaurants will be revealed as the corny love songs that they are, thirteen to a dozen. My daily trips on the subway system will no longer be "quiet time" as my thoughts are set to be continuously interrupted by third party conversation, narrow-casting advertisements and "next station" announcements. One of Thailand's mysteries is about to be taken away from me, and as I can't undo what I'm about to learn, I suddenly feel a new found appreciation for at least some parts of the encrypted world I've been living in. For now.