Kreng Jai

Kreng-jai (lit. ‘fear/awe – heart’) is defined in my Thai-English dictionary as “to not want to take advantage of someone’s kindness; to have regard for others and their feelings; thoughtful consideration to the feeling [sic] of others; to feel free”. This translation, however, does not give a full or accurate sense of kreng-jai. Like many Thai words, it simply has no direct equivalent in English. The word can perhaps be most easily explained through a few examples.

Some time ago, my wife and I were invited to have dinner at an older (than me) friend’s house. My wife had told me that we couldn’t take either of our children with us, so we had to find a baby-sitter. Her sister-in-law offered to look after the children, but we had to drop the children off at her house – an hour’s drive away, and in the opposite direction to where we were having dinner. After slogging through Bangkok traffic for hours, we arrived at my friend’s house for dinner, only to find that another couple with young children had brought their two sons to the house. The host was playing with the children, and when he saw us, he asked why we hadn’t brought ours along. In the car on the way back through traffic, I asked my wife why she had told me that we couldn’t take the children. She answered ‘krengjai khaow’ (I am krengjai him). In the West, such a situation might have been resolved by a telephone call to the host, and asking him/her if he/she minded the children coming as well. My wife, however, was refusing to place our host under any obligation, either in refusing our request, or in having to put up with young children. In doing so, of course, she placed an extra burden on herself and me – that of driving through Bangkok for several hours.

The second example comes from one of the few business dealings I have had with Thais. I recently bought a house in a new housing estate just outside Bangkok. We asked a builder to put in an extension for us, and he promised that it would be finished before the tenth of the following month. We paid the first third of the cost up-front, in order to allow the builder to buy materials, and agreed with him that we would pay the next third after three weeks, so he could purchase the rest of the supplies. We visited the site after the first week, and everything seemed to be progressing smoothly. However, the second time we visited the site, nothing seemed to have changed since our last visit. After much energetic inquiry by my wife the reasons eventually emerged. The first third of the money had been used to buy supplies, but the work had gone ahead much faster than the builder had told us it would. When I asked my wife why he had agreed with my ball-park estimate of how long the work would take, even though he knew it would not take this long, she informed me that he was kreng-jai. In other words, he would not cause me to lose face by directly disagreeing with me. As the work had proceeded faster than we had anticipated, he needed the next third of the money to buy the rest of the supplies. However, he could not phone us to ask for the next installment because of kreng-jai. Even though we wanted the work finished as soon as possible, his kreng-jai would not allow him to place us under any obligation.

Kreng-jai then is being extremely careful with what one says and does in order to in no way offend, upset, or annoy others, or cause them to sia-naa (lose face). Although kreng-jai applies to everyone that a Thai knows, it particularly applies towards people who are higher in rank, social status, or age.

The importance of kreng-jai in Thai social interaction is related to two factors. The first is the desire to ensure smooth social interaction and avoid conflict, and the importance of naa (face) in Thai culture. Many authors have argued that one of the central values in Thai society is that of conflict avoidance and the importance of face. Indeed, Neils Mulder, in his book Inside Thai Society: An Interpretation of Everyday Life, argues that the the Thai person is socially defined, and derives their sense of self from their presentation to others. Causing someone to lose face strikes at his/her sense of self-identity. The second factor is the extremely hierarchical nature of Thai society. (And I will write about how this is manifested in language soon.)

To summarize, Kreng-jai is not just ‘consideration’, as many dictionaries claim. Rather, like jai-yen, it reflects core values of Thai society: conflict avoidance, smooth social interaction, naa and position in the social hierarchy.

Comments

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I think there is a little mistake in the grammar. You put one more extra 'the' in the second paragraph from the buttom.

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