Fit to be “Thaied"

 

Marcia and Kinuko Omori at
the Grand Palace in 1982

As recorded in previous posts, after considering mission work for years, we finally started to apply to the American Baptist Mission in 1981 and it took until November of 1982 to finally land in Bangkok. We had adjustments to make physically, mentally, culturally, practically, get established legally, get oriented to the mission, learn a new language, etc. Thankfully, that was our job assignment and we were allowed the time and space to do it all. Thank-you International Ministries and thank you TBMF!

For our time in Bangkok, it meant we spent a lot of time and energy at the Union Language School (ULS) learning Thai. During breaks, we explored Bangkok, joined in the Baptist mission community in Bangkok, visited much of the Bangkok based work, and during longer breaks ventured north to our future home in Chiang Mai and northwest to the Kwai River Mission area. While there, we got our first taste of the Thai/Burma border.

We found language learning as an adult, even in our relative youth, to be exhausting and demoralizing. Had we been expected to hold down fulltime work duties or if we’d had children and the associated responsibilities during our language learning days, I’m not sure if we’d have had the fortitude to even finish the program. In later years of our mission service we were responsible to help new missionaries get through their language training. Through the 1990s and early 2000s, new missionaries were making their first forays into mission service at increasing ages with children of all ages. We sympathized with their struggles. Much later in our work, when working with newly resettled refugees to the US fresh from the camps along the Thai/Burma border, we’d have little to NO sympathy for English-only Americans rabidly shouting at new immigrants, “Why don’t you just learn English!”. I know I just said it, but let me repeat: learning a new language as an adult is HARD! I’m sure our fellow students at ULS that washed out and gave up during our time there would agree.

But, finish we did! We finished the basic 6 modules (basically one month per module) and could speak, read, and write at an elementary level. Then we each had three elective modules where we could learn vocabulary related to subjects of our choice. Between Marcia and I, we studied terminology related to the Bible, agriculture, social issues, and home and living. We had a base of Thai ability we could use to communicate, conduct business, even preach and teach. Certainly, we had not “arrived” and no one would mistake us for a native speaker but we were at a place that by living and working we could improve, learn more and eventually feel “at home” speaking Thai. Finally, (pun intended) we were “fit to be Thai(ed).

Finishing our language training meant
Marcia had to say goodbye to her English
students at Saeng Sawan Church - 1983 

Did we ever become “fluent” Thai speakers? I’d say we became pretty fluent in some subjects. But there were subjects and situations where I would get lost easily so I would say no, we never became fully fluent. At times, I almost convinced myself I sounded pretty much like a Thai person when speaking. But then, I’d hear myself on tape and I knew I had a definite farang (western person) accent.

In our defense, even after learning Thai in Bangkok our language learning wasn’t done. Once moving to Chiang Mai we enrolled in a roughly 6 week program to get a base in the Northern Thai dialect. Related to the Central Thai we learned in Bangkok, Northern Thai is related but not mutually understandable so, we tried to learn at least some of the most common and consistent differences. Outside the city of Chiang Mai in the villages where we would work, if Thai was spoken at all, it was likely to be Northern Thai or a Central/Northern Thai mix. The Karen and a number of other ethnic groups we’d work with and encounter had no final consonants in their own language but Thai and Northern did have final consonants. So, the “accent” of many people with whom we communicated would mean they would drop final consonants. An English equivalent might be when pronouncing “Cat”, they would say something that sounded like “Cae”. So, “Cae” could be cat, can, or care. They all sound the same if the final consonant is dropped.  Another example might be that “Dog would sound like Daw”. Daw, then could be dog, or dawn. Either sounds the same with no final consonant. Context would generally but not always let us know what the speaker meant but in the midst of a conversation, there isn’t a lot of time to think about it. People in the villages that spoke Thai at all usually listened to radio broad casts and such so they could usually understand our Central Thai so generally, we spoke our version of language school, Central Thai and those we spoke with would use Northern Thai or a hybrid and communication would happen somehow!

Marcia and fellow ULS student taking a break and
munching Thai style donuts in language class in 1983.

We had yet to begin learning the Karen language as well which is not only completely different than either Central or Northern Thai but uses a completely different script or alphabet as well. But we’ll save that for separate posts. For now, suffice it to say we finished our time in Bangkok with a base of Thai to build on and in October of 1983 headed to Chiang Mai to live and start working.