#30daysofwriting Challenge: — Places you want to visit — Your Parents (5/30)
By: S. Nattharin
Tags: Greeting, Wai, Thailand

Places you want to visit

No names I feel in particular. Since I feel.. numb? But Bangkok is one of a city I hope to visit someday. Somehow I feel this city looks like Bali in Indonesia; where the culture and traditional merits still living in harmony with the people. Especially, I love the ‘Wai’; it’s a unique Thai kind of greeting by putting both of your palms together in front of your chest or face when you meet someone older, respectful people such as a monk and teacher, or any stranger you want to meet and talk. I love this manner. When the student gives Wai to their parent or teacher in the series, or even to someone they meet across the street, I found it was a heart-warming scene.

Thai’s Wai. This image is taken from freepik.com

Your Parents

My parents are way older than me. My mom had me when she’s in the 40s. I got 8 years gap with my older brother. Such a strange feeling when I was a kid, my friends would recognize my parents as my grandfather/mother. I love my parents, the way Asian kid does. My dad is kind of freaky old man, but he’s lovely. His language of love is not words or warm touch, he just a care-a lot, and would spoil me as much as he could afford of. I love my dad more than my mom for some reason, ha-ha.

Well, my mom loves nagging, as what normal moms would do. She’s the religious one in my family who’s never tired to remind us of having a very punctual time for having the-five-times-a-day of shalat. You may imagine how my dad, bro, and me able to survive until this time hahaha. I’m sorry mom, I love you. She got less ability in cooking, but she’s good at using a high level of Javanese language.

I mean, we’re Javanese got these three levels of language; Ngoko, Madya, and Krama. Ngoko is the rude one, commonly used for people of the same age, younger, within kids, or the closed one. Then Madya — sorry I can’t even describe it properly, but as far as I remember, it’s structure mixed with the Krama/the high level. It’s like we’re in the middle of using both words from the Ngoko and Krama level. So, Yes! We’re Javanese have different words for a different level of language. Amazing, isn’t it? For example, if we would tell, “to eat”; we’ll use mangan or madhang in Ngoko, nedha in Madya, and dhahar in Krama. On an important note, to address someone, we won’t refer them simply as “you”; we’ll say kowe for the rude one, sampeyan for the neutral, and panjenengan for the respectful one.

Yup, now you might grasp that Krama os the high level of using the Javanese language, it’s used to speak with older people or someone you’re paying respect to. While writing this I’m, myself, even questioning is it Krama and Krama Inggil (re Inggil means high) are on the same term to use, wk-wk. Saying Hi to my 12 years of Javanese Language classes hahaha. Just imagine guys, you have to address people properly, with a lot of different words to pay respect and to be respected. Here, I’m not mentioning yet that this Javanese language itself has been taught pretty differently in different regions. You might know ‘Javanese’ are living in the Center and East of Java island; but, well, in fact, there’s still a lot of varieties of words used in various regions for almost the same terms.

Well-well-well, what I want to tell you, is this; my mom has the ability to write kind of letters using Krama (or maybe the Krama Inggil one?) which use a lot of rare words in Krama, even with my super-basic-knowledge in Krama, I still confused how would she write those letters — and what does that mean actually. It is probably connected with the culture, but I don’t have the knowledge to tell. Well, she used to write letters back in days when people are infrequently having a mobile phone. She wrote the letter to her older sister who’s been staying in Madura island for years.