Khon Diaow

The Thai phrase khon diaow means “one person” or, alternately ‘by yourself’ or ‘alone’. 

Khon diaow applies to me in almost every way, and this befuddles Thai people.

Thais, with very few exceptions, don’t do things alone. 

The first thing that I learned about Thai culture is the deep dependence on family that exceeds anything I’ve been exposed to in my life before.  Children are deeply devoted to their parents and grandparents, and offer respect to older siblings.  Young people will subjugate their own desires and feelings to follow the advice of parents and older brothers and sisters.  I’ve met dozens of Thai people who have a college degree that has nothing to do with their career.  When I ask why they studied one thing, then chose a different career, they invariably tell me that an older family member suggested the choice of major (or faculty) but once they started studying they found they didn’t like it.

So, if they didn’t like accounting or law or physics — whatever — why didn’t they change?  Becuase it would have been disrespectful of the family member who made the recommendation.  Instead, they simply continued studying a subject that didn’t interest them for four years.

My earliest exposure to this power of family in Thailand was back when I was teaching English.  In my first week or two, we were having a discussion about relationships in class.  I was asking each student whether they were married, had a boyfriend/girlfriend, or not, along with follow up questions.  I asked one university student if she had a boyfriend.  “No” she replied a bit ruefully. 

I asked a followup, “Have you ever had a boyfriend?” (switching from present simple to  the present-perfect).  She answered that she had.  When I asked what happened, she explained that she had a boyfriend, but her mother talked to her and told her that education is the most important thing and that she needed to concentrate on her studies.  Mom said that she should break up with her boyfriend; that she could get a boyfriend again after she finished college.

Having been in Thailand only a matter of days, I was stunned.  “So, you broke up with your boyfriend because your mother wanted you to focus on your studies?!”

“Yes” she replied, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.  And of course, for Thai people, it is.  Family is the most important thing in their lives, and they are taught deep respect for parents and authority all their lives.  Submission to parents and all authority, from the King to teachers, is part of what makes things work the way they do here.

And I can’t let the moment pass without a quick comment on the idea in Thailand that education is the most important thing.  This is so commonly accepted that it almost goes without saying here.  Thais believe in the power of universities (as do people in many countries).  But this contrasts greatly with the value that Australians, Americans, Germans, British and other westerners place on experience.

How many Thai backpackers have you ever seen?  Most Thai people never really do anything.  I often meet Thais in their late 40s or 50s… ask them about the interesting things they’ve done or seen in their lives and as likely as not I’ll get the equivalent of a blank stare. 

My father wasn’t an entertaining man and God knows he never had much money, but if you were patient enough to listen, he could tell you stories about his golden gloves boxing when he was young, seeing the fjords of Iceland from the deck of a battleship in the 1950s,  or the time he accidentally took a girl (picked up in a bar) back to his hotel room where he had forgotten he already left one girl sleeping in his bed. 

I mean the man had lived.

Thais study, work and have fun, but too often they never really live.

But I’m getting sidetracked… I don’t mean to write an essay on Thai’s lack of experience to supplement education or their submission to authority.  My intent is to explain how close families are in Thailand. 

Perhaps when I talk about Thai families I make it sound more like a prison.   Hardly. 

Thais will live together with an extended family of three generations, and perhaps cousins or uncles in the mix.  If circumstances cause them to live apart from the family — for example, moving to Bangkok to work — they will call the family daily… probably several times per day.  They truly enjoy living with their family, and miss them greatly if they are apart.

Even when Thais make the big move to Bangkok for work, they tend to live with a family member if at all possible.  If it isn’t possible, they will live with a friend — probably someone from their hometown that they have known since childhood.  It’s very rare for a Thai to live alone.

By contrast, I live by myself.  My family — such as it is — consists of two older sisters on the other side of the world.  One of the sisters (the one I am close to) is in touch with me by email once or twice a month, and we talk on the phone about four times per year.  The other sister calls me once or twice every year — typically on my birthday or a major holiday.  My total family contact per annum is probably something less than five hours.

Thai people can’t understand it.  If I see them as stifled by the family, they see me as disconnected and adrift.  How can I possibly live without the constant support of family?!

I tend to bring a lot of girls to my apartment for sex.  Invariably when they come in my room, they look around and ask, “You stay alone?”

When I say that I do, every one of them asks the same question, “Why?!”

I’m never sure exactly how to take the question… it often sounds like an accusation. 

I’m not really sure if they’re asking why I don’t have a wife or girlfriend, or just why I don’t ’stay with a friend’.  But they are definitely a bit disoriented about my obviously voluntary decision to stay by myself.

Often, when I meet new people, they will ask about my living arrangements, and when I say that I don’t have a wife or girlfriend, and that I stay khon diaow, they reply in a way that always bothers me.  They say, “I don’t believe you!”

Now, if it’s a bar girl we’re talking about, I understand this reaction.   She thinks I’m lying because I don’t want to admit the truth.  What’s amazing is how often ‘regular’ people tell me that they don’t believe me.  I’m talking about people whom I meet in both business and social situations. 

What amazes me about the answer is that they consider it rude to push the door closed with my foot, but think nothing of — effectively — calling me a liar when they first meet me.  I’ve gotten used to it, though.

Thais just can’t imagine how you can be in your late 40’s and gainfully employed, and not have a wife (or two), and more amazingly, why you’d be forced to live alone.  I say ‘forced’ because I think most Thais can’t imagine living alone voluntarily.

I think that Thais feel sorry for me – no wife or children, parents dead, cut off from my siblings and home country — my life sounds like a torture to them.  For me, it’s perfect!  No responsibilities, complete freedom to do as I please, no cheating on the wife or guilty sneaky sex.  Life is easy and fun.

There’s really no way to convincingly explain that to most Thai people.  It simply rubs too hard against the grain of their culture.  For Thais, if you’re not with other people there is no sanuk.  Ruseuk ngaow is a Thai phrase that means you feel lonely.  To a Thai, a life spent alone is a life of misery.

This is why Thais so seldom move to another country.  There are multiple hurdles like language, food and cold weather, but the most difficult aspect is being away from family and friends.  Ruseuk ngaow is what sends them back home.

Are there some Thais who can and do live alone?  Absolutely.  And I find that these are the Thais that I am most comfortable with.  They are often somewhat ‘westernized’ already.  They’ve adopted a bit of love for independence that my parents instilled in me.

My father left home at age 17 and joined the navy.  He spent his adult life sailing around the world on battleships and aircraft carriers.  My mother left home as a young girl and lived with her older sister.  She was a teenager at the start of World War II, and got a job renting pillows to passengers on Greyhound busses — an early form of flight attendant.  The job allowed her to travel all over America for free.

These are two people who were fiercely independent.  They were both connected to their own families by the slimmest of threads.  My father was from New York, my mother from a farm in North Carolina.  With two families from two very different places our little family-of-five was never connected to the cousins, aunts and grandparents.  I was a surprise package, born to my mother near her 40th birthday, so my sisters both moved away about the time I started school.  I grew up almost as an only child, with a working mother and a father who was away at sea half of every year.

Is it a surprise that I enjoy being alone?

One of the places I go often to drink and relax is The Pent Club.  Every time I go in, the girls will come say hello to me and ask, “Maa khon diaow mai?  Puen teenai?“  (You come alone?  Where’s your friend?)

Every time.

Thai culture is a group culture, a family culture. A culture that is based on sanuk (fun), and sanuk requires other people. 

Thais are sure I can’t be having any fun because I am khon diaow.