A Possibly Revealing Anecdote

Life in Phana sometimes seems like an empty bucket; but interesting, all the same. I mentioned in my previous post that Pensri’s friend and childhood carer, Yai Air, was waiting for her step-son to come home with a bucketful of … cashew nuts. He didn’t.

When asked why not, he replied that when he got to the field he saw a neighbour harvesting some of the cashew nuts. (That’s STEALING, by the way.)

Yai Air asked whether he confronted her, or chased her away.

No, he didn’t. He didn’t want to embarrass her.

I think this tells us a lot about village attitudes to property, but even more about the importance of maintaining friendly, neighbourly relations.

(Having said that, our stay in Phana this time has also revealed some fairly unfriendly neighbourly behaviour. But given the importance I mentioned above, I will say no more about that, for the time being, anyway. But it seems only fair to acknowledge that not everything in the garden is lovely.)

(It has also occurred to me that he did not want to call out, "Get your hands off my step-mother's ... cashew nuts!" -- see my previous post, if you have not yet read it. NB there is no distinction between singular and plural noun forms in Thai or Lao.)

Comments

[Mike]

Lawrence, yes Thai neighbours! Given that the thief was female I can understand his reluctance ;-)

I've had my fair share of "neighbours" recently too solving such things seems a lot more straight forward back home.

Here I suppose its "greng jai?"

Trouble is when that runs out its usually the shotgun with no sort of middle ground.

[Lawrence]

So what with "egotisitical bloggers" and neighbours, it's been a long, hot summer, has it? Not sure about the solutions back home, really. Ever see the "Neighbours from hell" series?
Jai yen yen, that's probably the answer to most things.