All you can eat?

The use of English in Thailand is quite interesting.  Places are sometimes named in English, even though they are marketing to the Thai.  Perhaps this is supposed to be cool or make the place seem more upscale, I don't know.  But sometimes one sees some intriguing signs.

Take the store I saw in Chiang Mai recently:

ladybuffet

The name of the store was only written in English, there was no Thai name nor even a Thai phonetic spelling of the English.

So what kind of place is ladybuffet?

The English suggests one of two things:

A place where women can taste from all kinds of food.
A place where one can taste from all kinds of women.

(Interesting, that in the strange grammar that is English, it could be said of either of these that "they serve ladies", depending on whether "ladies" is the direct object or the indirect object.)

However, I've been in Thailand long enough to figure that this establishment was not either of the scenarios that I listed above.

There is a chain of beauty supply stores in Thailand called "Beauty Buffet".  My guess is that the owner of this place was playing off of that name and called it something similar, not realizing the strange nuances of the English language.

As I read the Thai, my suspicions were confirmed:

จำหน่ายเครื่องสำอาง อาหารเสริม  ปลีก-ส่ง

which translates:

Sell cosmetics, nutritional supplements, retail-delivery

Language is interesting.

It's not just words and meanings of words. It's how we use the words.  We often don't use words in a grammatically correct fashion but communication happens nonetheless.  Context is extremely important.

By naming his establishment ladybuffet, the owner is trying to make a statement.  I, as an outsider, may not get it.  The Thai people who visit will likely not understand the English meaning, but will probably understand the owner's meaning better than I.  For even though ladybuffet looks and spells like English, it is probably more of a Thai word than an English one.

So as we continue to try to improve our Thai language skills, we move beyond the words, to the context:

What did they say before and after?
What was their body language saying?
What was the venue in which it was spoken?
Are they, for cultural reasons, not actually saying what they mean?
What is the status of the speaker relative to the listener?
How do the speaker and the listener perceive each other?

Sometimes it can be rather simple to try to say what I mean.  At other times it can be quite complicated.

As I move into a new role here, where I am often in a leadership position in meetings, I have to think about these things a lot more.  What might have worked well for me in North America, may not work so well here.

I tend to speak short and to the point.  Why say something in 10 words if you can say it in 5?  Why do we need a 30 minute sermon if we can say the same thing in 10 minutes?

The Khmu people are storytellers.  They go on for several minutes giving background and context before they get to the main subject.  Sometimes I get lost before they get there and I'm wondering what they are talking about.

I, on the other hand, probably come across as if I don't care about them because I speak so directly.

As one leading a meeting, do I need to put the brakes on and redirect a speaker or do I let them continue?  (I usually tend to let them speak more so I can speak less.)

This past week I went to visit one of our church leaders known as Uncle John.  I didn't really have a lot to say.  John had lots to say.  Several days later he was still overflowing with gratitude, not because I went to say something to him, but because I spent time with him.  "Worth more than gold," he said.

Sometimes in communication one just needs context, words aren't so important.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: 
    ... a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;  (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 7b)

A Drop in the Bucket

Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.  James 1:4 (NIV)

These days, the skies at the Changing Life Center are not only filled with the smoke from all of the fields being burned at this time of year, there is also a lot of dust.

The dust is associated with the lining of the banks of the Mekong River with rocks on the outside of the bends in the river.  This is to keep the riverbanks from washing into the river, which was eating into the banks up to several feet a year.

It is easy to understand why.  The Mekong River is the largest river in southeast Asia.  It originates in the mountains of the Tibetan region of China.  By the time it gets to the Changing Life Center, it already has a couple of thousand kilometers behind it!  The banks at the Changing Life Center are more than 50 feet above the water level.

It is a gargantuan task.  These large trucks come down the road, laden with huge boulders.  It looks like a lot of rock.

But then they dump the rock in a huge stock pile, and the pile of rock is so large, one hardly notices the difference that it makes that this load of rock has made.

Eventually the rocks in the stock pile make it down to the river, were they are dumped and then scooped into the river with an excavator.  The rocks seem to disappear without making any difference at all.  And then you look at all that has been done and all that remains to be done and one wonders how the task will ever be completed and at the expense of how many mountains that have to be removed in order to get enough rock to complete the task.

Yet steadily, day after day, the work goes on until the task is done.  One only need to look at the parts that are completed to know that it is possible.

This process reminds me of the task of learning the Thai language.  We keep studying Thai, yet it seems like we are hardly getting anywhere.  When we listen to someone speak, sometimes we catch so little we wonder what difference all of that studying has made.  After three years it seems like we have made so little progress.  (I think if I had made as much effort studying the Haitian language when we lived in Haiti, I would have spoken it better than the natives.)

But like the putting the riprap along the Mekong River, there are signs that progress is being made.  We just have to look back at the part that is completed now and then, and not just at what remains to be done, to see that this is the case.  And then we need to persevere at the task of learning the language. And perhaps we will live here long enough to see the task completed.

A partially loaded truck (they don't fill them when moving them from the stockpile to the river)

One of the many stockpiles

The backhoe taking the rock from the truck

The not so large excavator

Lost in Translation

Satar Lite sign 2
Originally uploaded by SierraSunrise

In Thailand, it is not unusual for intersections to have names. It is only recently that I noticed the sign at a particular 3 way intersection we frequently pass--usually I am too occupied with watching out for traffic (if I am moving) or the sign is blocked by big trucks (if I am stopped).

I first noticed the Latin script text of the sign. I quickly assumed it must be a name of foreign origin because there were two sounds represented that the Thai language doesn't have--a final "r" sound, and a long "i" sound followed by a final t.

So I looked at the Thai to try to figure it out:

สตาร์ ไลท์

Sounding out the Thai letters, I came up with (using letters that represent approximate American English sounds):

sahtah lie (as in the English word "lie")

figuring in the unpronounced Thai letters (which are used frequently in words borrowed from other languages and often represented with a ์ symbol), I came up with:

satar lite (as the sign reads)

Then, I applied a little bit of mental processing, I came up with:

starlight

Which I later learned was the name of a factory located near the intersection.

It is quite common in Thailand to see signs representing English words written in Thai script. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort to figure them out. Sometimes I never do get it--at least not in the limited time I have while driving past a road sign.

I remember one of my language instructors joking to me: "you're the only American in this class and you have the hardest time reading English."

Isn't it so much easier when things are presented to us in a way we can understand? It is why we work so hard at learning the Thai language--in order that we can communicate with the Thai people--through words as well as actions--how much God loves them.

It is why God sent Jesus to earth--in order that God could communicate though the life and teachings of Jesus the things He wants us to know about Him and what our response to God should be.

As Jesus said:
Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father." --John 10:37-38 (NIV)

And as Paul later adds:
For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand.--2 Corinthians 1:13 (NIV)

How thankful I am that we have a God that wants to communicate with us and who went to great lengths to do so.  I'm thankful that so many who went before us went to great effort to preserve the actions of God in world and the record of the words of God's prophets and especially Jesus.

Significant

Recently a friend of mine posted on his blog about how, for most of us, our names will be forgotten within a few generations.  Perhaps for those of us without children it might be even less.

I know there are days when I wonder about what I am doing. I want to be doing something significant, and plugging away at learning to communicate with the Thai people in their heart language just doesn't seem to qualify as one of those things--especially on those days when I mess up so bad.  (Well, at least on those occasions I may have given someone something to laugh about.)


But the fact that our name does not live on does not mean that our lives do not have an impact.  And the reality is we never know completely, at least in this life, what the eternal significance of the impact of our lives is, for good or bad.

This got me thinking about windmills like the ones pictured above near Tehachapi, California.  Windmills are seemingly a fairly benign source of renewable energy.  We do know what some of the impacts of the windmills are, positive and negative.  But we certainly don’t know all of them.

Windmills take energy from the wind.  After the wind passes through the windmills, it has less energy than before.  That energy used to be dissipated somewhere else, but we don’t know exactly where and we don’t know what the effects of the loss of that energy downwind will be.  It could be good.  It could be bad.  While mathematically it could theoretically be calculated what the impacts are, the number of variables is almost unfathomable.

The truth is we don’t live in a vacuum.  Everything we do affects our environment or the people around us in some way.  There are also impacts in the spiritual realm that we cannot see.

What that does mean is that we have to be careful about the decisions and choices that we make.  True, no one person may be watching—though these days it is hard to escape the views of security cameras, webcams and phone cameras—and even if God were somehow not aware, it does not mean our choices do not have consequences.
So we need to choose carefully and decide wisely.

One of my favorite passages from the Bible is Hebrews 12:1-4.  The writer here talks about a “great cloud of witnesses”—referring to the great heroes of the faith that have gone before us—as if they are watching us as we go through the race of life.  The picture I get in my mind is of a stadium full people cheering at an athletic event or the people lining the road of a marathon course who cheer on and encourage the runners.  We are being watched.  People do care, even if we do not see them.  And these aren’t just any people.  These are people who encountered great trials and tribulations in this life but somehow managed to persevere to the end.  And it was worth it.  These are the people who cheer us on.

So let us, as the writer says in these verses, “lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.” (Hebrews 12:1-3 ESV)

Our lives DO matter. We are significant.

One day we can be part of that great cloud of witnesses cheering others on in their races.