Language in Thailand

People don’t realize how valuable something is until it is taken away from them. I never thought of language as being that prominent in my life because every country I’ve lived in or visited know how to speak either one or both of my preferred languages, Arabic and English. Language is best defined as a symbol system involving the use of sounds, gestures, and /or characters to convey meaning.

This eid Al-adha break my dad decided to take us to Phuket in Thailand, where we could learn about a completely different culture. As soon as we landed the hotel driver, who only knew a few words of English, greeted us. On the way to the resort I saw many shops and landmarks that I was intrigued about but when I tried asking the driver about the English translation of each of the place I could not understand the sounds or gestures he was making. It was then and there I knew language was going to be a large barrier in Thailand.

Another incident related to language, was when we went elephant trekking, the people guiding the elephant barely spoke any English. The man then started humming a Lady Gaga song so I gestured to him with my hand if he knew who sang the song; he screamed out “Lady Gaga” and started making crazy hand gestures to indicate how “different” she is. Even when I’m miles away music pop culture still haunts me, I guess there really is no escaping Lady Gaga.

When we were out shopping in the outdoor markets, the people in the shops would start yelling out "hello mate" in an australian accent because they are aware the largest percentage of tourists in Thailand are Australian so they assume it would attract many people's attention. They do try to put in the effort to learn a different language and identify with tourists, but their language plays a large role in their society and they consider it to be sacred so they choose to communicate in their native language, even the younger children barely spoke any english. I found this to be really interesting because in a lot of arab countries the younger generation speak more in english than their first language.

Another very evident trait I noticed about Thailand is that people either live in extreme wealth, with large villas by the sea and their own speedboats, or they live in absolute poverty, where they can barely afford a roof over their head and own a motorcycle as their source of transportation.

Regardless of their social class and status everyone was very polite and welcoming, I suppose it is the norm in Thailand to be hospitable and helpful with guests. The one language everyone understood was money and food, wherever you are in the world those two necessities’ are always going to be known worldwide. Because Thailand has such a large population of tourists, I assumed its residents would know how to speak more English or at least understand more of it. It was only when language was taken away from me that I fully understood the importance of it and how large its function is in our lives.