Thai language day: We don't do sex

On the eve of Thai language day, when the cultural finger-waggers come out to tell fellow Thais how to use their own language, distressing news has come to hand that a textbook being used by Thai language schools in Japan is teaching vulgar Thai slang to unsuspecting foreigners.

They are teaching them sex words, and even - shock – referring to the third gender (toot, or ตุ๊ด, for 'young ladyboy').

The Culture Ministry's 'cultural monitoring centre' says sex-oriented slang sends the wrong message to foreigners.

They cannot tell overseas language school bosses what to do, as they own the language like any other Thai.

However, they can tell people what to avoid - and they would like to know who wrote such offensive material.

The centre's head Ladda Tangsupachai is a former dancer who has suppressed the sale of 'objectionable' books and films alike in her three years in the job.

She says students should be taught not sex words, but language in everyday use, such as what tourists would say in Thailand if they are asking for directions.

Two teen slang words causing all the fuss are jim (จิ๋ม) and pert sing (เปิดซิง) . While some vocabulary words in the book have a variety of respectable meanings, she says the textbook ignores them, focusing exclusively on their meaning in a sexual context.

Pert sing, for example, means to do something for the first time. In a sexual context, it means losing one's virginity.

The book gives an example of how to use it, even tips on correct pronunciation:

-คืนนี้จะพามันไปเปิดซิงที่ไหน (Tonight, where shall we take him to lose his virginity?)

The book also tells students how young ones use the crude word jim, with a rising tone, for vagina.

-ทำไมหนังสือไทยถึงไม่ยอมให้ดูจิ๋มของผู้หญิงเลย (Why don’t Thai books let you see a woman’s pussy?)

And the dreaded toot (ตุ๊ด) word:

-ตอนเด็กๆ โคตรซ่าส์เลย ทำไมโตขึ้นมาเจออีกทีเป็นตุ๊ดได้ (When he was a kid he was a real rabble rouser. Now that he's grown up, how come he’s turned into a ladyboy!)

Ladda says every language has its own slang, but few people get to know the meaning unless they are native speakers – until someone goes to the trouble of teaching them.

The implied message? Don’t teach the foreigners, because sex words create a bad image of Thailand, as something less than a land of traditional values and innocent pleasures.

A language scholar from Silapakorn University said that at first glance, the book looks like a typical handbook used by tourists.

It is only when the reader gets into the thing that he realises it is not a guide to tourist spots, at least not those frequented during the day…but instructs on how to use the bawdy language of the night.

These are words more often used in gaudy nightspots and sleazy hotels, than on the tour of a temple.

For many tourists, of course, places of the night are just as much part of the Thai experience as visiting a temple or palace. But the Culture Ministry doesn't want us to know about those.

'I want the positive culture to outshine the negative,' as Ladda says.

If a foreigner resident used those words with a native speaker, he might get a box on the ear for his troubles.

On the other hand, a tourist's stumbling attempts to get raunchy or familiar might just give everyone a good laugh – everyone except the stern censors, of course.

Given the rant above, I should resist the temptation to point readers to a mini-dictionary [link harvested - it died] of ribald gay slang posted on Pantip the other day – but my willpower, alas, is weak.

I own a small pocketbook of teen slang which contains much worse language than the examples quoted in the newspaper story – and I do not recall the cultural watchdogs raising a hue and cry when that was published about a year ago.

But then, that book's market was young Thais, not tourists.

Thais know what this place is really like - a heady mix of good and bad, just like anywhere else. It’s only the tourists who need to be hoodwinked.