A True Compliment

I walked up to the ticket counter to enter Doi Inthanon National Park, home of Thailand’s tallest mountain, Doi Inthanon.  The following brief conversation took place (in Thai):

     Me: Two adults and one car.
     Ticket agent: That will be 110 baht.

I walked away with my 3 tickets (one for each of us and one for the car) with a smile, having received one of the best compliments I’ve ever received for Thai speaking abilities.



You see, in Thailand, attractions such as parks and museums often have two prices—one for Thai people and one for visitors.  The visitors don’t often know this because there will be two signs-one in Thai and one in English—with the Thai one using Thai numbers (0-9=๐ ๑ ๒ ๓ ๔ ๕ ๖ ๗ ๘ ๙) to help conceal this fact (most of the time they use Arabic numbers).

Sometimes, they will let foreigners with a long-term visa pay the Thai price.  Usually to get this price, one has to request the price and then show their visa or a Thai driver’s license (which I had to do the following day at another park).  However in this case, I was offered the Thai price just on my speaking ability.

To me this was a better compliment of my language skills than a direct one.  In Thai culture, being nice is a higher value than being truthful.  So people might sometimes give a false compliment because they don’t want you to feel bad.  There are occasions when I have been given compliments about my Thai speaking abilities when I KNOW I just butchered their language.  (And I’m sure there are many more times when I’ve been given a compliment when I UNKNOWINGLY butchered their language.)

Learning this cultural aspect of language use is just as difficult as grammar and pronunciation.  We are much more used to direct and even confrontational speech.  Here the emphasis is on making the other person feel good and especially to NOT offend.  And we can offend not just with our choice of words but also with they way we say the words.

The apostle Paul wrote: Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer everyone. (Colossians 4:6 (NET))

I pray, then, the God would help me not only know the correct words to use when I speak Thai, but that I would also use the correct words correctly.