It.....What An Insult?

[benalibina]

Will the true thai apologist make ITself heard please !

Civil thread with no bashing, just an eyeopener for many.

Topic well chosen Theblether.

There are people who talk bad about foreigners in any country in the world. The civilized and educated 1s, whether through life experience or working with people from different cultures, know how to stand above insinuating terms referred to others anywhere in the world.

Knowledge of, to some extend ,thai language and culture is the key here.

Edited October 23, 2013 by benalibina

[Zumteufel]

Ah, the joy of learning paa saa Thai. Ugly (naa gliat) is another word to sharpen your ears for. Fat (uan) and stink ("men" with a decending tone) are a couple more. I am American and I once heard a gal refer to 9/11 in a condicending way. I did not let on but I did make sure it was exactly 9:11 pm when my dick slammed into the north side of her face.

Well. We can agree that it's extremely rude to say stuff like that behind people's back, thinking they don't understand. But. If I heard that more than once, I would for sure get the hint, start going to the gym and shower more frequently.

[unanimosity]

How do you say "it" in Thai? Is it "man"?

Is it true that it's used to refer to animals in the way explained to me? I think if I heard that I'd explode. I think most of us would.

What is amusing is your reference to a dictaphone. Was that one or two centuries ago, haha.

[SICHONSTEVE]

How do you say "it" in Thai? Is it "man"?

Is it true that it's used to refer to animals in the way explained to me? I think if I heard that I'd explode. I think most of us would.

I believe it is 'mun'.

To counter this experience I want to tell a short story.

I was on a boat trip to some islands (from Krabi) when the driver of the boat got a bit irate with a German tourist who was standing up.

He ordered one of his crew to tell "it" to sit down!!

My wife heard this and as soon as we got back from the trip rang the boss of the company to tell him how disgusted she was with the boat driver in what he had said. He promised to have a word with him about his behaviour - whether he did or not who knows, but it shows that not all Thai's accept this kind of thing happening. God knows what would have happened if it was me who he had insulted!!

[MobileContent]

I speak Thai but most of the time when I am with farangs its those farangs that speak bad about their wife's.

I think it all comes to the point who they married to end up with what they wanted.

If I heard people speak bad about me or my wife I will change the restaurants etc.

Normally to many times encounter that farang hubby's and wife speaks bad about me and my wife and often it is German's, Swiss or Austrian's as I understand the language. So I will give them a bashing in front of everyone and stick them a middle finger in the face and they are gone in no time.

As I said never had a problem in Thailand. Service at time is bad but not better in Europe as well but prices are cheaper here so I don't expect the same service.

In my village of course are some shops that doesn't treat me much with respect (gossip mak mak), so I shop from the other outlets.

[msealey]

Ah, the joy of learning paa saa Thai. Ugly (naa gliat) is another word to sharpen your ears for. Fat (uan) and stink ("men" with a decending tone) are a couple more. I am American and I once heard a gal refer to 9/11 in a condicending way. I did not let on but I did make sure it was exactly 9:11 pm when my dick slammed into the north side of her face.

Sounds like your an ugly, fat, smelly, American sex tourist... or "it" for short.

[unanimosity]

Same shit Different day! Only a weak person who is not sure about himself can be insulted by a small mind! BTW did nothing else in the wives behaviour alarm you that she is a BIATCH?????

There you go, thanks for stealing thunder, and when one knows sufficient Thai one can interject on the heels of a Thai language slur how demoralizing it must be and what a loser one must be to be in a relationship and sleep with an animal. Thais don't realize it but you can point out to them the extent to which they demean themselves with their xenophobic insecurity of trying to tantasize elevating themselves by wishing there was someone lower.

[Just1Voice]

How do you say "it" in Thai? Is it "man"?

Is it true that it's used to refer to animals in the way explained to me? I think if I heard that I'd explode. I think most of us would.

In the Northern Thai Lanna dialect, "man" means the same as "yes", just as "jao" does. As explained to me by my wife many moons ago when I heard it repeated it about 50 times in a conversation with 3 of her friends.

[NanLaew]

My wife says 'mun keeow' often to me. This means something like I could just eat you up.

I say it to babies too.

Ohhhhh noooooo.... the genie is well and truly out of the bottle now.

Apart from husbands and wives and women and babies, over the years, probably thousands of Thai slappers have said 'mun keeow' to millions of punters as a term of endearment.

Now we will have the 'farang is a racist term' advocates frothing at the mouth that mun keeow is some other vicious, racist Thai term and how utterly deplorable it is to be called a 'green thing'.

[maximillian]

Guesthouse Do you mean pejorative or are you happy with perogative ?...kinda changes the meaning of your point.

Just asking.

Guesthouse, did you mean pejorative or prerogative or derogative ?

[FiftyTwo]

How do you say "it" in Thai? Is it "man"?

Is it true that it's used to refer to animals in the way explained to me? I think if I heard that I'd explode. I think most of us would.

In the Northern Thai Lanna dialect, "man" means the same as "yes", just as "jao" does. As explained to me by my wife many moons ago when I heard it repeated it about 50 times in a conversation with 3 of her friends.

555, and you believed her!

[SICHONSTEVE]

Guesthouse Do you mean pejorative or are you happy with perogative ?...kinda changes the meaning of your point.

Just asking.

Guesthouse, did you mean pejorative or prerogative or derogative ?

It's his perogative to be derogative as long as he say's it in a pejorative way (I made the last bit up actually).

[zaZa9]

Foreigners get confused by 'man' and 'mung', combine the two and get 'mun'.

I disagree.

Language books write 'man' for 'it' , when it is pronounced 'mun'.

I think you are getting it confused with 'mueng' which I learnt was old ( and now considered vulgar) Thai for 'you'.

[Kudel]

Will the true thai apologist make ITself heard please !

Civil thread with no bashing, just an eyeopener for many.

Topic well chosen Theblether.

There are people who talk bad about foreigners in any country in the world. The civilized and educated 1s, whether through life experience or working with people from different cultures, know how to stand above insinuating terms referred to others anywhere in the world.

Knowledge of, to some extend ,thai language and culture is the key here.

Most of the biggest moguls of industry in my home country who own 60% of the wealth in my country are highly educated and are some of the biggest sponsors of right wing party's and would love to see the back of certain kinds of immigrants but love the neo liberal European union so they would have acces to cheap labour from former eastern blok country's ,and as i understand it it's no different in youre good old Holland.

[surfinglife]

Blether mate, this is something that has nearly driven me to homicide in the past.

I've heard it countless times in tourist areas in restaurants and bars and not always with bar girls.

I have been referred to as 'mun' many times.

But be careful it can be used 'politely'- it is often used affectionately with younger family members and used between friends implying a good friendship.

Here's what Thai people say - they refer to the third person as mun (มัน) when they are a lower status. Of course as foreigners we have no status. It usually implies that that they don't like the person.

Students call teachers mun because they don't like them.

However, it is still used in a very disrespectful/offensive/cowardly way too. It is understandable in some cases as there are lots of bloody stupid and sad cases of "farang" here.

Differentiation, attitude, and acceptance are the keys to happiness regarding this word, and indeed the "faarang" word for myself.

I'd say that all Thais refer to 'farang' as mun when talking about farang in general. Example "farang mun chawp poo ying peu dam" (like dark skinned girls.)

Got ya, so it's "mun", I won't forget that. I understand what you mean though about proper usage of the word.

I bet your glad you went to mediation too and that stopped you from carrying out your homicidal thoughts

Actually, I've heard it a couple of times by monks - not sure what to make of that.

Some monks use'rude' pronouns to refer to themselves. It's something to do with getting rid of the 'self'.

Hi Neeranam. If they use pronouns such as that they are probably speaking with other monks or playing around. Anything they use to refer to themselves still keeps the concept of 'self', so it would hardly help them extinguish the concept of self. It would take alot more effort for them to do as such, and if they told you that, they are probably just pulling your leg.

Ajarn Buddhadassa Bhikku uses "goo" for 'I' in some of his books.

Goo is an old way of addressing oneself. Nowadays it's considered very impolite.

[benalibina]

Will the true thai apologist make ITself heard please !

Civil thread with no bashing, just an eyeopener for many.

Topic well chosen Theblether.

There are people who talk bad about foreigners in any country in the world. The civilized and educated 1s, whether through life experience or working with people from different cultures, know how to stand above insinuating terms referred to others anywhere in the world.

Knowledge of, to some extend ,thai language and culture is the key here.

Most of the biggest moguls of industry in my home country who own 60% of the wealth in my country are highly educated and are some of the biggest sponsors of right wing party's and would love to see the back of certain kinds of immigrants but love the neo liberal European union so they would have acces to cheap labour from former eastern blok country's ,and as i understand it it's no different in youre good old Holland.

Fail to see where the "wealth part" comes in. 1 is either polite and respectful to others, foreigners, or not. Regardless of race and country.

[chuenyongman]

My wife says 'mun keeow' often to me. This means something like I could just eat you up.

I say it to babies too.

My Thai wife told me that Mun Keeow ( proper name, Jicama) is a fruit. about 100 m.m. in diameter. White flesh inside. Plenty of them in November.

[MILT]

I dunno. I feel pretty good about myself and so who gives a shit what people are saying about me in a different language than english. I have been called worse than " it " you can call me anything but don't forget to call me for dinner

[phantomfiddler]

There was a delightfully true paragraph on the real nature of the thai personality, made during and by one of the people involved in the making of the movie "The king and I", I believe.

"Outwardly overly polite, graceful, friendly, smiling, but behind your back totally the opposite", something like that but much more, more perceptive, and all to my mind correct. It,s not just the "mun" word, incredibly rude by the way, and usually used when they think no-one understands, but any other insult they think they can throw in without being caught out. How many times have you heard some girl calling her farang customer "dak ling" ? ie the terminus of a monkeys intestinal tract ! I saw a large guy walk into a bar and politely order a gin, causing the barmaid to shout to the cashier in thai "The pig wants a gin" !

I do think though that such behaviour is almost always from extremely lowclass thais, but I could be mistaken

But MILT is completely correct. When someone who doesn,t even know you insults you, it,s not your problem, it,s theirs, so why give a hoot

Edited October 23, 2013 by phantomfiddler

[HerbalEd]

I'd say this is not that different that men ... or women ... who talk disrespectfully about their spouse or significant other when he/she is not present. Like when the man is having a drink with his mates.

[MaksimMislavsky]

I never react when hear being referred to / addressed by an impolite pronoun in Thai ("you" included). They just will have very slim chance, if any, to talk to me ever again, That's easy and automatically improves my social environment in Thailand.

[bobthomas]

If a Thai person close to you resorts to saying absolutely NASTY things about you/too you, (especially in public), it probably means you have confounded and annoyed them to their breaking point. Granted, this comes naturally for us Farangs, and you should celebrate this small victory. You wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place if you weren’t such a nice guy that was at the same time, “too rude for your own good”. Confused yet? You should be. So let me clarify. THAI women respect strength, but not the kind Farangs have!!

You need to be ruthless but sweet, cunning but patient. You can’t fight these people face to face by direct confrontation. If some Thai dingbat broad said some disrespectful crap to me in public I would smile like a schoolboy, turn to her and say, “oh honey, I forgot, I have this business meeting. I need to go right now. But I will buy you something nice before I come home”. Then I would go have sex with her sister or anyone else I could find. I would then buy myself a new phone and show it off to her when I got home and make a “nice retarded excuse” of why I forgot to buy her something.

[mayday49]

I am thinking eloquence is The Question with some Thais ...When my Thai Son called me the name of a popular Beer , mind you in front of some relatives , Dressed him down specifically to avoid copycat behavior from his audience ...

[LawrenceN]

I have heard it used, I even heard it used by a wife of a friend, and he actually thought that it was a term of endearment.

In the case described by the OP (and your friend), it probably was a term of endearment, That is, an intimate relationship, or familiarity. That's not the only example of otherwise impolite pronouns being used in familiar relationships. Good to see folks saying they learned from this discussion, but don't overreact to the use of these "low status" pronouns, especially in the context of a familiar relationship (like marriage). It's a way of the wife (in this case) bonding with her friend, to use the low status pronoun to bring the friend inside a bit more, a way for the women to speak intimately with their friends. It's more complicated than มัน=it.

I'm not just being generous and open-minded here. I'm speaking from the perspective of 36 years of working at this language, and a 26 year marriage.

[bobthomas]

There was a delightfully true paragraph on the real nature of the thai personality, made during and by one of the people involved in the making of the movie "The king and I", I believe.

"Outwardly overly polite, graceful, friendly, smiling, but behind your back totally the opposite", something like that but much more, more perceptive, and all to my mind correct. It,s not just the "mun" word, incredibly rude by the way, and usually used when they think no-one understands, but any other insult they think they can throw in without being caught out. How many times have you heard some girl calling her farang customer "dak ling" ? ie the terminus of a monkeys intestinal tract ! I saw a large guy walk into a bar and politely order a gin, causing the barmaid to shout to the cashier in thai "The pig wants a gin" !

I do think though that such behaviour is almost always from extremely lowclass thais, but I could be mistaken

But MILT is completely correct. When someone who doesn,t even know you insults you, it,s not your problem, it,s theirs, so why give a hoot

Comments like the ones you describe usually come from the mouths of completely powerless people. They have been dominated and bested for their whole life and they want to in some way show they have some power and status. I have yet to hear such talk from educated middle class Thais.

[stickylies]

plenty of ways to be rude in thai and ANY other languague in the world. subtilities of language can never fully be understood unless it's your mother tongue

[bobthomas]

There was a delightfully true paragraph on the real nature of the thai personality, made during and by one of the people involved in the making of the movie "The king and I", I believe.

"Outwardly overly polite, graceful, friendly, smiling, but behind your back totally the opposite", something like that but much more, more perceptive, and all to my mind correct. It,s not just the "mun" word, incredibly rude by the way, and usually used when they think no-one understands, but any other insult they think they can throw in without being caught out. How many times have you heard some girl calling her farang customer "dak ling" ? ie the terminus of a monkeys intestinal tract ! I saw a large guy walk into a bar and politely order a gin, causing the barmaid to shout to the cashier in thai "The pig wants a gin" !

I do think though that such behaviour is almost always from extremely lowclass thais, but I could be mistaken

But MILT is completely correct. When someone who doesn,t even know you insults you, it,s not your problem, it,s theirs, so why give a hoot

Comments like the ones you describe usually come from the mouths of completely powerless people. They have been dominated and bested for their whole life and they want to in some way show they have some power and status. I have yet to hear such talk from educated middle class Thais.

I hear Thai people (and dopey Farangs with no money and no self esteem) saying stupid shit about me fairly regularly. I usually ignore it. Consider the source! These clowns will still be losers tomorrow. Hell, they're loosers tonight!

Edited October 23, 2013 by bobthomas

[yingyo]

Quite funny.

Foreigners getting worked up about a language they don't understand fully.

Some probably freak out in the vegetable ailse in Tesco and a Thai near them points out the potatoes.

[Beetlejuice]

Down my way, when my wife visits the local hairdressing lady, she hears all the gossip and in there all the dirt is dug up about the locals in our area.

That`s always been the ways in small communities of all the countries i have lived in as far back as I can remember and I have no doubts that the locals also speak about us when we are out of ear shot from them. I say to my wife, so what? If they`re talking about us than they are not talking about someone else.

In all my many years here, I have experienced Thais being insulting and making condescending comments, on occasions directly at me without even trying to be descrete or behind my back. Fortunately these incidents have been very few and far between. What I have noticed is that the most prejudiced against farangs seem to be middle aged Thai women.

But of course i am a foreigner living in Thailand and as with most foreigners living in any country they are going to meet with prejudice from time to time and simply those who dislike us for what we are, rather than because of who we are.

It`s no big deal and really does not bother me in the least, providing of course insults and hatred towards foreigners does not reach epidemic proportions in Thailand, which it certainly has not and in most cases are rare occurances.

For reasons I mentioned previous, some farangs will bring more unwanted attentions to themselves, either by thier appearences or the way they behave, but otherwise as foreigners living in a foreign land, we must take all this in our stride if we want to be happy and enjoy a stressfree lifestyle here and if a limited few of low intellect have any greivences against me for what I am, than I couldn`t give a toss.

[yingyo]

Don't forget that they all consider you to be stupid.