Snake Snake Fish Fish: Sticky Rice Staff ‘26

Sep 30

Snake Snake Fish Fish (งูงู ปลาปลา) is an ongoing series based around Thai idioms, phrases, and colloquialisms. This column title stems from the Thai idiom “Snake Snake Fish Fish” which means to have only a very basic, superficial, or broken knowledge of a subject, particularly a foreign language. This month, our writing staff writes about their favorite Thai phrase or an idiom they’ve recently discovered!

𓆙𓆙𓆙𓆝 𓆟 𓆞

Hannah Fairweather, 137 TESS

In Thai, loei/luey (เลย) is a pretty common filler word. The first time I really noticed it, or maybe actually started paying attention to it, was in the car with my host mom. We were talking about eating and food, which, of course, is one of the top conversation topics in Thailand.

I had said gin thang wan (กินทั้งวัน), meaning “I ate all day,” and my host sister, P’Ja, responded, gin thang wan loei (กินทั้งวันเลย). I remember thinking, What is loei? She explained that เลย (loei) adds emphasis, kind of like saying “really” or “all day long.” Basically, you can say gin tháng wan loei (I ate all day long) as a way of getting out of an unwanted kanom or meal. BUT remember เลย doesn't always translate directly to one English word.

It’s one of those little phrases that I started noticing everywhere once I knew what it meant and now I can use it for so many different things!

ใช่เลย chai loei = Exactly!
ดีเลย di loei = Very Good!
สวยมากเลย sǔai mâak loei = So beautiful!
น่ารักมากเลย nâa-rák mâak loei = So cute!
อิ่มมากเลย = ìm mâak loei = I’m really full!

Chloe Hudgins, 136 YinD

Chin suthai faen lor (ชิ้นสุดท้ายแฟนหล่อ)

On the surface, ‘chin suthai faen lor’ is a silly, flirty way to encourage someone to take the last piece of food on the plate. It means ‘whoever takes the last piece will have a handsome boyfriend’. On a deeper level, this phrase stands out to me as a bridge between the Thai food-sharing culture and the concept of ‘graeng jai’.

Most Thai people practice graeng jai when interacting with others, and this extreme consideration or deference can get in the way of food sharing. Everyone wants to leave the last piece on the plate for someone else, but what happens when everyone feels graeng jai? The piece will never get eaten.

So, born out of the desire for someone—anyone— to take the last piece came chin suthai faen lor. It’s appropriate enough for the office, even though it seems better suited for around the table at girls’ night. It’s guaranteed to make everyone laugh when the farang quotes it, and to ease the burden of someone who might reallllly want the last piece but realllllly doesn’t want to just go out there and claim it.

Nodding to August’s group article on the various Thai kanoms – don’t feel too graeng jai about taking the last piece of a delicious snack. After all, chin suthai faen lor. Worth it.

Jess Smith, 136 YinD

Selling Dreams

Khai Fan (ขายฝัน) literally translates to “sell dreams.”

I recently learned this phrase while talking with one of my co-teachers about going on a multi-day hike with her in Loei Province. She described the hike as having waterfalls, lush green surroundings, and elephants. The elephants are truly what made it so enticing for me, I’ve never seen a wild elephant. But then she started to tell me how treacherous the hike was…bugs, 1000-meter incline, mud, etc. After telling me all about it she looked at me and said, “ขายฝัน” (Khai Fan). I knew that ขาย meant “to sell” and ฝัน meant “dream,” so I understood the literal translation. Though I couldn’t figure out why she was telling me she was, “selling dreams.” She explained that she meant she was trying to persuade me by painting a beautiful, exciting picture of the hike, to sell me the dream of the experience while conveniently making me forget about how many miles uphill it was going to be. It reminded me of the idea of “type 2 fun”, something that isn't necessarily fun while you're doing it, but becomes a great story afterward. Something like hiking halfway up a mountain and wondering why you agreed to do it in the first place, but then a week later looking back and wishing you could do it again.

Personally, I'm very susceptible to type 2 fun. If you tell me something will be uncomfortable and mildly miserable, but that the views will be amazing and the company is good, I'm probably going. So I responded “ซื้อฝันแล้ว” (Sue Fan Laeo), “I already bought the dream.” She and my other co-teachers immediately started laughing. Being funny in Thai has been one of my biggest goals, so being able to understand a Thai idiom and make people laugh was already worth it. But now the dream has officially been sold and I’m going hiking!

Anne Marie Frazier, 137 YinD

Khao Jai (เข้าใจ)

Well-known to every Peace Corps Volunteer and a favorite to many fresh off the boat trainees. It is thrown around so casually, mostly because, for us language learners, understanding is one of the biggest obstacles and goals of our service. But to understand someone – what does that even mean?

In Thai, it literally means “to enter the heart.”

And just like that, your understanding of understanding shifts. The Western notion of understanding being rooted in an idea of common logic falls short here, because understanding in Thai culture has nothing to do with what’s in your head. It is not a hard, concrete truth worth debating. Understanding, like many things in Thai culture, is relational.

I don’t understand you because your logic is sound, nor because your line of reasoning makes sense. When I respond in a conversation with khao jai, I am telling you that I know what you are saying because I know you. The subject isn’t the content of your words; it's yourself. I have knocked at your door, and you have let me in. It’s like an intimate secret handshake. And because of it, while maybe I am not out here looking for broad universal truths, I know all the secrets of your universe.

And I think that way of looking at things, of understanding everything and everyone around you, is pretty sick.

Tucker Strauch, 136 YinD

“Wan bpen lom, kom bpen yaa”

Thai cuisine is built around the balance of flavors. Sweet, salty, spicy, and sour all play prominent roles, but bitterness is the forgotten flavor. Yet in Isaan, particularly among village elders, bitter plants and vegetables are eaten regularly and even enjoyed. In a community that can’t get enough of their nauseatingly sweet kanoms and beverages, why is bitterness so valued?

“Wan bpen lom, kom bpen yaa” –roughly, “sweet causes faintness, bitter is medicine.” I hear this phrase most often when somebody is sick. Throughout my service, whenever I have felt under the weather, my family has encouraged me to eat bitter vegetables, usually raw, and drink warm soup. Sweet foods and fruits, meanwhile, are off the menu. To them, bitterness is not simply an unpleasant taste, but what is necessary to chase the sickness away.

But the saying extends beyond sickness. “Kom bpen yaa” —bitter is medicine—is a reminder that something does not have to be enjoyable to be good for you. Waking up at 4:30 A.M to start the daily chores is not particularly enjoyable, nor is kneeling for hours on the tile floor of the temple. People in my community do these things because they see the importance in doing them. The sweet things in life are often the easiest to choose, but sometimes it is the bitter things (the uncomfortable, inconvenient, and difficult ones) that provide the most value.

Gretchen Evans, 136 YinD

Mary Poppins was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. I particularly loved the song “Let’s go fly a kite” and can probably thank this song and its sentiment for a huge chunk of my childhood memories flying kites with my dad. My dad was deployed for half of my life, so the moments we got to share were meaningful. One time, after a watch of Mary Poppins, I am almost positive I bugged my dad to get me a kite. This initial purchase turned into years of family tradition and hours of flight. My dad, sister, and I would fly kites in an open Texas field and would stop and take breaks only to have watermelon seed-spitting contests.

When I arrived in my community and saw the same interest in this breezy pastime, it took me back. I was met with tons of exclamations of the same interjection: Wow!

It took me a second, but I finally realized my students were not using an English loan word. In Thai, kite (ว่าว) is pronounced wâo or wow. Isn’t that wonderful? I, too, can look at a human’s fun invention in awe and think the same thing…