Sunday, September 3, 2006
ยินดีที่ได้พบคุณ 
Having been woken up by an sms from The Peter to Skype at 1 in the morning, I shall blame him for how wide awake I am now.
And I hadn't realized how complacent I had become and how badly my Thai had detoriorated until he asked me how to say "good night" in Thai and the first phrase that came to mind was こんばんは (konbanwa which means good evening in Japanese).
Me siento triste y estúpido. This is the result of trying to conquer too many languages at the same time.
Let me document my Thai immersion night on Friday to compensate.
Apparently P'Bee who works in Global Data and has just relocated to Singapore is rallying the Thai people in the office to form a community and they met for their first dinner on Friday. I was invited by P'May to join them, and I hesitated for a long time because well, I'm not Thai.
But being the wannabe that I am and desperately seeking some form of Thai culture, I decided to go.
I was transported to Thailand while firmly seated in อร่อยไทย restaurant in Funan mall... and I loved it!
Everyone seemed to know everyone else, with the warm สวัดดี (sawatdii) greetings and I don't think I have ไหว้-ed ("wai" is a form of paying respect by putting your palms together and bowing) so much in all my trips to Thailand even. Later I found out it was just a typical display of Thai hospitality and I started making mental notes of people to bring the next time.
The food was authentic and delicious and P'Bee ordered enough to feed an army... which also means it burnt a hole in my pocket, but I was more than happy to fork out the money for the company and experience.
I, the only non-native, sat at a round table with ten Thais speaking in rapid-fire Thai and managed to understand half of what they were saying. I didn't speak much out of shyness, but they were easily wowed when I explained in Thai that I had picked up the language in university.
The lady owner dressed in a curious outfit of a bright blue tee-shirt, ankle-length black skirt, black Ninja-turtle Nikes, pony tails and ice blue eyeshadow sat herself next to us and started entertaining us with scandalous stories of regular customers. She talked for what must have been more than an hour.
PT whipped out his mobile, keyed in "She is full of crap" and showed it to me, and we both sat there in fits of giggles like silly schoolkids.
After dinner, we stood outside the restaurant making small talk and it took forever to say goodbye, but we eventually made our way to the train station.
In the lift, P'Tim, a finance lecturer in a local university turned to me and smiled twice before finally asking "Are you 100% Singapore? Really? You look so Japanese!"
I laughed and told him I got it a lot, which is true and very weird because it's always the non-Singaporean Asians who can't seem to figure out my ethnicity.
Along the way, I turned to P'May and asked how she was coping with her training. I could tell she needed to talk to someone and offered to spend more time with her. Starbucks was full, so we ended up at hi-so Menotti for coffee (my fourth for the day) and we had a great time sharing heart-to-heart.
She spoke of her life in Bangkok, Texas, Chiangmai and Singapore. She was visibly moved when I told her about my love for Thai people and said that she was really glad to have known me. Despite having known each other for only two weeks, I felt that we connected on a much deeper level.
ขอบคุณP'May ยินดีที่ได้พบคุณ
And I hadn't realized how complacent I had become and how badly my Thai had detoriorated until he asked me how to say "good night" in Thai and the first phrase that came to mind was こんばんは (konbanwa which means good evening in Japanese).
Me siento triste y estúpido. This is the result of trying to conquer too many languages at the same time.
Let me document my Thai immersion night on Friday to compensate.
Apparently P'Bee who works in Global Data and has just relocated to Singapore is rallying the Thai people in the office to form a community and they met for their first dinner on Friday. I was invited by P'May to join them, and I hesitated for a long time because well, I'm not Thai.
But being the wannabe that I am and desperately seeking some form of Thai culture, I decided to go.
I was transported to Thailand while firmly seated in อร่อยไทย restaurant in Funan mall... and I loved it!
Everyone seemed to know everyone else, with the warm สวัดดี (sawatdii) greetings and I don't think I have ไหว้-ed ("wai" is a form of paying respect by putting your palms together and bowing) so much in all my trips to Thailand even. Later I found out it was just a typical display of Thai hospitality and I started making mental notes of people to bring the next time.
The food was authentic and delicious and P'Bee ordered enough to feed an army... which also means it burnt a hole in my pocket, but I was more than happy to fork out the money for the company and experience.
I, the only non-native, sat at a round table with ten Thais speaking in rapid-fire Thai and managed to understand half of what they were saying. I didn't speak much out of shyness, but they were easily wowed when I explained in Thai that I had picked up the language in university.
The lady owner dressed in a curious outfit of a bright blue tee-shirt, ankle-length black skirt, black Ninja-turtle Nikes, pony tails and ice blue eyeshadow sat herself next to us and started entertaining us with scandalous stories of regular customers. She talked for what must have been more than an hour.
PT whipped out his mobile, keyed in "She is full of crap" and showed it to me, and we both sat there in fits of giggles like silly schoolkids.
After dinner, we stood outside the restaurant making small talk and it took forever to say goodbye, but we eventually made our way to the train station.
In the lift, P'Tim, a finance lecturer in a local university turned to me and smiled twice before finally asking "Are you 100% Singapore? Really? You look so Japanese!"
I laughed and told him I got it a lot, which is true and very weird because it's always the non-Singaporean Asians who can't seem to figure out my ethnicity.
Along the way, I turned to P'May and asked how she was coping with her training. I could tell she needed to talk to someone and offered to spend more time with her. Starbucks was full, so we ended up at hi-so Menotti for coffee (my fourth for the day) and we had a great time sharing heart-to-heart.
She spoke of her life in Bangkok, Texas, Chiangmai and Singapore. She was visibly moved when I told her about my love for Thai people and said that she was really glad to have known me. Despite having known each other for only two weeks, I felt that we connected on a much deeper level.
ขอบคุณP'May ยินดีที่ได้พบคุณ
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