Life in a fishing village
About this recording
Kristin Post
- Creator
- Kristin Post
- Date created
- September 23, 2000
- Duration
- 4:37
- Location
- Koh Sukorn, Thailand
- File
- MP3
- License
- This recording copyright ©2001. Terms of use
Related media
Learn more
- Search LEARN NC for coasts, crab, dialects, fishermen, fishing, Koh Sukorn, language, natural life, oceans, sea, Thai, Thailand, and villages.
In the classroom
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This was recorded on an island called Koh Sukorn, off the southeastern coast of Thailand.
At first you hear the sound of me walking and the ocean. The fisherman here operate individually with their own motorboats and nets. You can hear one fisherman calling to others. Then you hear an older woman speaking in formal Thai. She asks me if I am alone. I do not know how to answer, since I don’t understand.
Then I join a larger crowd surrounding a man with a net. The man is using a wooden hammer to separate his catch from the net. You can also hear the local people, including children, adolescents, and older women who are watching him. Much of their chatter is wondering who in the group can speak English. Someone is identified, but does not want to speak it in front of me. Everyone is much more amused by hearing me speak Thai.
The fisherman explains what he is taking from his net, including a “man am”- seahorse, and “bu kai” or crab. The “bu kai” is a female crab with eggs. This crab would be more expensive because people will pay more to also eat the crab eggs. “Bu keow” may be a common crab without eggs. When I leave, the fisherman gives me a crab for free to take back for my dinner.
The people on this island speak a southern dialect of Thai that is influenced by the Muslims in nearby Malaysia and Indonesia. The Southern Thai language is written with the same alphabet, but different from the standard Thai language. (This is similar to Cantonese and Mandarain in China.) Like Chinese, Thai is a tonal language, which means that the same word may have different meanings depending on what tone is used.
In school, students will learn the standard Thai language along with English. However, depending on where you live in Thailand, you may learn a different language at home. Even Thai people who travel around their own country may have a difficult time understanding each other, depending on what dialect they speak.
From my journal:
The area is much like what I saw yesterday with various families outside separating the net from the catch. Finally, I had enough guts to go record and photograph some people. We’ll see how the photos turn out. And the recording for that matter. Learned some words for different fish in Thai, then I was given three crabs.
