It's Not a Spittoon!
Talking "Kee" in Thailand
1) It isn’t a spittoon, 2) those half-liter bottles of yellow liquid displayed next to the soft drinks outside of Thai “mini-marts” aren’t necessarily soft drinks, (or Molotov cocktails for that matter), and 3) the water hoses found next to the toilets in Thailand aren’t meant for cleaning out your sinuses, (although accidents do happen).
Moreover, the above are fluid ingredients, and therefore interchangeable. For example, cans of Sterno that are shelved a little too close to cans of grass jelly (in the same mini-mart) can be substituted for number-two, which, in case you were still wondering, are not “urine bombs,” any more than they’re Molotov cocktails or Mountain Dew. (Funnel notwithstanding).
The rest of this recipe-for-disaster involves mixing together: 4) close living-quarters, with: 5) being legally blind without your contact lenses (that you can’t seem to find); before then sprinkling in a dash of: 6) your blindly searching for your usual caffeinated soft drink in the morning (to clear out the cobwebs); and 7) a mother-in-law who looks just enough like your wife Rosie that when she bends over in the dimly-lit, (way-too-close-to-the-kitchen), bathroom, an under-caffeinated legally-blind man might confuse the two.
Simmer all of this (and a small goose) over medium coals for approximately one-fifth of a nano-second, and the result is either a light and fluffy snort-laugh soufflé, or a heavy, (hard-to-swallow), spit-take frittata, (depending, of course, on the order of the ingredients and who’s performing the above maneuvers in a (way-too-close-to-the-bathroom) kitchen.
All is forgotten, however, when Rosie starts explaining snort-laughs and spit-takes to you as if you and the rest of the world needs to be informed of such cultural phenomena. She also seems to think that Thai people invented the phrase, blah-blah-blah. She’ll then go on to explain this blah-blah-blah theory of hers with so much blah-blah-blah that you have no choice but to believe her. She might still be explaining it.
And if it was just listening to all my wife’s yada-yada-yada, it wouldn’t be so bad, but I also have to pass the comprehensive comprehension test afterwards. These oral exams can be immediately after her most recent lecture, or they could pop up as a quiz five years in the future. But one thing is certain, I had better pass the exam. If I don’t, I’ll get the silent treatment for what can be as long as a week.
And I know this is a common complaint among spouses worldwide. But in our case the degree of difficulty is increased significantly due to language differences, me knowing only English (and a smidgen of pidgin Thai); while Rosie speaks conversational—although heavily accented—pidgin English, (in addition to her native Thai and Isaan). When she combines the three, and adds pig-blither to what appears to be Klingon, it’s called Rosie. I speak a little Rosie. Enough to translate anyway.
And over the years I’ve even compiled a glossary of “Rosie Speak” (complete with added context).
For instance,
when she says: lady she really means ready, (and vice versa). “Lady or not, here I come; and: dude looks like a ready.”
when she says: habit she means hair braid. “Dude that looks like a ready has a really bad habit.”
when she says: frog she really means fork, (and vice versa). “Here in Thailand you use a special fork frog when eating your barbecued fork.”
when she says: sizzlers she means scissors. “They serve fork at the Sizzler™ restaurants here in Thailand; and: only a rube would cut fork with poultry sizzlers.”
when she says: mayonnaise she really means manners. As in: “mind your mayonnaise when you eat at the Sizzler™. Use your salad-frog.”
when she says: rubber tree she really means liberty. “Ready Rubber Tree is in New York Harbor.”
when she says: Pinocchios she really means binoculars. “From the top of Ready Rubber Tree you can almost see Ubon Ratchathani with your Pinocchios.”
when she says: walk she really means Vogue, (a department store in Thailand that sells, among other things, woks).
when she says: a mirror she really means umbrella. “Let’s walk to the walk and buy a wok—and a mirror. It looks like rain.”
when she says: rift she really means aloe vera, as in, “the English say rift instead of aloe vera.”
when she says: aloe vera she really means rift. “Let’s take the aloe vera to the fifth floor of the Walk and buy some dicky rye.”
when she says: dicky rye she really means sticky rice, (a Thailand staple).
when she says: stapple she really means staple. “Good Thai cooks roast mango-dicky rye wrapped in a banana leaf. But sometimes they use stapples instead of toothpicks to hold it all together. Be careful not to accidentally eat the stapples.”
when she says: terrorist she really means tourist, (and vice versa). “I’m begging you Rosie, please don’t say the word tourist at the Statue of Liberty again.”
when she says: sih sen she means sixth sense. “You need to use sih sen to understand me Papa.” (She calls me Papa).
when she says: ugly she really means agree, (and vice versa).
and when she says why were she really means vice versa, (and verse visa).
Which brings me to her severe dyslexia! And when you combine all of that with Thai people’s tendency to shorten everything—even abbreviating four and five-letter words (without adding the needed context, mind you)—it can prove to be a recipe for divorce.
Our divorce papers were, in fact, being drawn up one afternoon after an exchange in Rosie’s mom’s kitchen that included the shortened word, nigh (short for knife); my understanding of the Thai word nigh, (which I understood to mean over there somewhere; the English word moat (a body of water surrounding a castle); the Thai word for ant which is mote; and finally the method for keeping ants (or motes) from getting into the mango “dicky rye.” This method is to place the bowl of “dicky rye” directly into a larger-diameter bowl that is filled with water. This creates a kind of “moat” and prevents the ants (who aren’t big fans of water) from getting into said “dicky rye.” It’s known (by Rosie and me) as a mote moat, (or “mo mo” in Rosie Speak).
So when Rosie ran out of water while constructing a particularly complex multi-level “mo mo,” I panicked, because I knew that she was about to ask me for help—in this case, to help her find “mo” water. Me finding anything for Rosie, even something as simple as a bottle of water, has a ninety-percent chance of ending very badly for me. But Rosie was panicking too, as the “motes” were marching ten-by-ten ever closer to the “dicky rye.”
“Nigh, nigh,” she said, pointing to a very non-specific area of the kitchen.
Assuming her to be using the Thai word nigh, (meaning over there somewhere), I looked for the water not just over there somewhere—but everywhere. And all I could find was a half-liter bottle of yellow liquid (motorbike fuel, as it turns out), which I quickly gave to her. This just made her mad.
“Nigh nigh, nigh!” She exclaimed (sans any context whatsoever). “Don’t you know nigh, Papa?”
“I guess I don’t,” I said.
Rosie then got up from her seated position by the “mo mo” that she was building; grabbed the knife from the nearby table; cut the seal on the eight-gallon bottle of water (that she’d already located); and added the water to the lower-level “mo”—just in time to prevent the “mo” from getting to the “dicky rye.”
“Oh, that nigh,” I said somewhat sheepishly—(all the while resisting the urge to ask her why the bleep she didn’t just put the sticky rice in the refrigerator).
“You slow Papa,” she countered. “Slow maaak! I think I want a deewor.”
And I was “lady” to give her one too. But as usual, a week later, when she finally started talking to me again, (and cooler heads prevailed), we filed the “deewor” papers in the trash bin.
The above scenario is, of course, exaggerated. These little stories of mine are a cheap and easy way for me to vent my petty frustrations. It’s not fair to Rosie, who really isn’t the unreasonable tyrant this “agree American” makes her out to be. Far from it. She’s really quite charming—especially considering the verbal challenges she faces. Just spend five minutes with her face-to-face, (or maybe watch the following five-minute video clip of her) and see if you don’t “ugly.”
Kee, by the way, is the Thai word for poop. (But I’m sure you would have guessed that eventually).
Guess what? We wrote (and photographed) a book together. It should be out sometime in 2025! Click on or tap the book cover to get your copy:
