One of the most difficult things to cope with when living as an expatriate is the language barrier. Ordering food, asking for directions, and making a phone call all suddenly become huge problems. I first moved to Thailand three and half years ago. Initially, I found Thai very difficult, but after a while, I found my way over the first hurdle and merrily started learning the language. After a year, I was living with my girlfriend (later to become my wife) and could speak enough Thai to hold a reasonable conversation. I could even make a few (very poor) puns. At this point however, I found myself in the same situation as many other language learners. Although I could identify the words people were saying, I had no idea why they said these particular things.
When I first arrived in Thailand and was being driven to Sukhumwit road from the airport at Don Muang, I was amazed at the almost glacial calm displayed by the driver of the taxi, despite being on the receiving end of driving that, in London, would have brought forth a barrage of abuse and a volley of honking. It takes a great deal to make a Thai show anger, and, when he/she does, it is a serious matter. So much so in fact, that one of the first pieces of advice that people coming to live in Thailand receive is “Never lose your temper”. While essentially good advice, it might perhaps better be phrased as “Never show a loss of temper”. The avoidance of overt displays of anger is one of the most striking features of Thai society. The Thai for maintaining an appearance of calm is jai-yen, which literally translates to ‘cool heart’. The opposite of jai-yen, i.e.; showing anger openly, is, perhaps unsurprisingly, jai-rawn, or ‘hot heart’. Jai-yen can be used as an imperative (jai yen yen – ‘calm down!’), or as a quality that someone possesses (kaow jai yen– ‘he/she is calm’).
Open displays of anger are viewed very differently in Thailand than in the West. In the West (generalizing grossly), when someone loses their temper, the typical response is to wait until they have cooled down; we do not make judgments about their value as a member of society based on people’s temper, or lack of it. Calling someone ‘cool’, not in the sense of ‘fashionable’, but that of ‘uninvolved emotionally’, carries negative connotations- similar to ‘distant’, or at an extreme ‘cold’. Labeling someone ‘calm’ does perhaps have some positive connotations, but even this, in some situations, particularly when not showing anger could be interpreted as fear or a lack of a culturally approved response, evokes a negative judgment. Concealing one’s emotions is seen as somehow underhand. Jai-yen, on the other hand, when used as a quality that someone possesses, makes a definite positive value judgment about the person concerned. For example, various people have told me that I make a good teacher, a good husband, and a good father. The first reason given, in all cases, was that these people perceived me as jai-yen. Open displays of anger, however, are perceived very differently. For example, the biggest arguments I have had with my wife have revolved around, not the typical causes of arguments between couples in the West, but my having been jai-rawn in public. By displaying anger openly, I embarrassed myself and, by extension, her. Both she and I lost face (sia-naa) through my violation of the social norms. Avoiding open expression of anger, or maintaining jai-yen is, then, very important to Thais. Jai-yen is, however, only one facet of a general tendency of the Thais to avoid expression of any extreme of emotion.
The restriction on the expression of strong emotions applies both to “socially acceptable” emotions, such as love, and to “socially unacceptable” emotions such as anger and annoyance. Although the overt expression of socially acceptable emotions is not as discouraged as displays of anger, it is still frowned upon. One website giving general cultural information about Thailand puts it like this “Of course a kiss in the street in front of everybody is not imaginable [sic]. Thai people are shocked.” (thaiworldview.com). Open physical expressions of love, such as kissing, receive the reprimand ‘tuu-led!’ (crude!). Strong expressions of disappointment or annoyance are also frowned upon. The typical Thai comment to a co-worker who has just experienced a computer crash that wiped out an hour’s work would be ‘mai-ben-rai’ (lit. not-exist-anything - never mind, it doesn’t matter). The co-worker in turn would be expected to display jai-yen, shrug his/her shoulders, laugh and start again. Overt expression of strong emotions receives negative social judgement in Thai culture. So, where does this value come from? William Klausner, in his Reflections on Thai Culture, gives two possibilities; first, the need to maintain social harmony in subsistence farming communities, and second, the influence of Buddhism.
Despite the 21st century modernity of Bangkok, Thailand is still mainly an agricultural country. Until fairly recently, most of the population lived within a subsistence economy. While this has been replaced in the central plains, many people in the North-east (Isaan) still live through subsistence farming. Subsistence rice farming in Thailand has traditionally involved co-operative work groups formed from village members. Concomitant with this need for mutual aid and cooperation is a need for smooth social relationships between the villagers. The expression of strong emotions could risk disrupting this necessary harmony. These emotions would, therefore, tend to be suppressed in order to keep the village functioning smoothly. This argument for the origins of jai-yen is given in many introductions to Thai culture. However, as Klausner points out, in addition to jai-yen being found in urban Thai culture, similar subsistence economies have produced different sets of values, and we must therefore look elsewhere for the origin of the values that jai-yen reflects.
In The Golden Peninsula, Charles Keyes argues that, in order to understand the culture and worldview of Southeast Asian villagers, we have to make reference to the influences that form their perception of reality, of which the strongest, he claims, is Theravada Buddhism. Theravada Buddhism emphasizes the virtues of the avoidance of extremes of emotion. One of the cardinal vices of Theravada Buddhism is expressing dosa – ‘anger’. Aung San Suu Kyi introduces her essay Freedom from Fear by talking about the four types of corruption, of which one is dhose-gati – or corruption caused by anger. In addition, one of the cardinal principles of Buddhism is detachment. From this, we could conclude that Buddhism is one of the direct causes of the value placed on jai-yen in Thai society.
In Inside Thai Society: An Interpretation of Everyday Life, Neils Mulder puts forward a different perspective. He argues that the Thai concept of ethics is, “like the Buddhist one, individual-centered: people are responsible for meeting their personal obligations to status and known others, but … are not responsible for the social order…”. Thai people derive their sense of self-validation from their presentation and fulfillment of duties to others, not from their contribution to the improvement or success of the social order. Thus the jai-yen attitude reflects both an acceptance that one must avoid giving offence to others, and a “form of social independence and non-involvement that is immune to criticism”. From this viewpoint, Buddhism, while still an influence, plays a more indirect role.
Both Mulder and Klausner argue that the jai-yen attitude is derived, directly or indirectly, from the influence of Buddhism. Given that Buddhism is central to understanding the culture and worldview of the Thai people, it would not be an exaggeration to say that, although jai-yen has a fairly straightforward translation in English at the surface level, the Thai word, unlike the English, is symbolic of an entire worldview.
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